The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1911-05-24
WENT TOO FAR
The Standard Oil Company Decisiau
Seems to Please No 0ae.
AMENDS THE TRUST law

Much Criticism Of Supreme Court
for Drawing Distinction Between
Reasonable" and Unreasonable,
Virtually Amending the Law,
Which Congress Refused to Do.
A Washington dispatch says the
greater part Of Tuesday was given
over by government officials Of all
kinds to a discussion of the supreme
courts disposition of the Standard
Oil c2se.
While there was much gratifica-
ton in administration circlen
over the order for the dissolution Of
the giant corporation, which had been
declared can unreasonable" combina-
ton and monopoly in restraint Of
trade; there unquestionably was also
some misgiving as to the interpreta-
ton Of the antitrust law giving to
courts the right to determine wheth-
er OF not a monopoly was reason
able and declaring a reasonable"
monopoly not to be in contravention
of the statute.
President Taft, who a little more
than a year ago in special message
to congress declared that under SUI
preme court precedents there could
be no such things as reasonable"
and Unreasonable" retraints on
trade, or in other: words, good
trusts and "bad trusts" was said
to have been rather keenly disay-
pointed that the court sould have
seen fit to have reversed itself in this
important matter.
President Taft's message was free
lily quoted about the capital, and the
seeming similarity Of his views as to
the scope or the antitrust lcw to the
view expressed by Associate Justice
Harlan in his dissenting opinion at
tracted renewed attention Of Justice
Harlan's position as outlined in :,!s
statement to the courts.
President Taft, in his special mes
sage to congress of January Z, 1910,
urging a federal Incorporation act,
declared that to put the word "rea-
sonable" into the antitrust statute
- = 4h,,r 1oara - For n, a nourfe t.n CAV
what was a reasonable restraint Of
trade, would be to put into the
hands of the courts "a,power i'm
possible to exercise on any consistent
principle which would insure the un-..
iformity of decision essential to good
Judgment"
"It is to throw open the courts,
he added, "a burden that they hare
no precedents TO enable them to
carry and to give them power ap-.
preaching the arbitrary, the abuse
Of which might involve our judicial
system in disaster"
AS to the doctrine of good trusts
and "bad trusts" which the major
ity opinion Of the court as expressed
by Chief Justice White, seems to have
laid down, President Taft in his mes
sage written more than year ago
said:
sThe public, and especially the
business public, ought to rid itself OF
the idea that such a distinction IS
practicable or can be introduced into
the statute. Certainly under the
preent antitrust law no such dis
tinction exists.
Generally speaking, Democratic
senators and representatives frank
ly expressed their disappointment as
to the ..rule Of reason" feature of
the decision. Mr. Adamson, chair
man of the house committee on in-
terstate and foreign commerce, de-
clared the supreme court had no con-
stitutional power to write the words
reasonable or unreasonable" into
the Sherman antitrust daw.
Representative Mann, Republican
leader of the house, gave the decis-
ion his hearty endorsement. He de-
Tended the courts action in the use
| of the word unreasonable" and de-
cIared that if some such distinction
had not been made in the opinion,
the business world would have been
thrown into chaos.
Senator La Toilette, the insurgent
leader. read ip tie senate Attorney
General Wickersham's statement Of
Monday night expressing qualification
over the supreme courts action and
followed it with extracts from the
presidents special message Of Jan
uary 7, 1910, already referred to.
Senator La Toilette said that evident
ly there had been remarkable
change in the views of the admhis-
tration if the attorney generals
statement reflected the present state
Of mind of the executive.
The Tuesdays decision occupied
the cabinet almost exclusively at its
session, and the president, having
read it over twice, also discussed its
purport with some of his callers. The
attitude of the president himself.
that he should defer to the supreme
court and accept their law as his law,
was reflected by the cabinet.
Socialism in England.
Although Great Britain is known