Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1911-07-20
Attorney General Favors
Government Commission
TO Rule Trusts as Rail
Commission Rules Roads.
LAW OF SUPPLY
AND DEMAND DEAD
For Years, He Tells Laws
yers, Combinations q
Producers Have Fixed
Prices Without Aid.

Duluth, MinE.. July 19.-Attorney
General Wickersham before the Mime
sofa State Bar association today. took
an advanced stand on the further fsd.
eral regulation Of corporations and de-
Ic.ared that a government commission
to regulate great Industrial organiza-
tions, IN the same way that the inter
state commerce commission regulates
railways, was certainly most desirable
and, 1t might be absolutely necessary.
| Mr.. Wickersham's speech was little
short of sensational in many OF t.w
features
The law Of supply and demand, Mr..
Wickersham said, no longer controls
prices in the United States For years.
he declared, the prices in all the great
staple industries have been fixed by an
agreement between the principal pro-
ducers and not by normal play OF
free competition. An interstate COM
mission would prevent violations Of
the antitrust act and aid business men
to maintain continued status Of har-
mony within the reQuirments OF the
law.
Regulation Of Prices Reasonable.
Mr.. Wickersham said: Il.
whether, or not federal industrial
4 commission should have power TO r66-
|uiate prices. is OF course, matter OF
serious consideration s
"The interstate commerce law pre-
scribes as legislative rule that prices
for transportation by rail or wire, or
pipe line shall be reasonable, and thGt I
no unjust discrimination shall be made
between individuals or localities sirn-
1ilarly situated. A similar rule might
be declared by congress with respect
to the prices OF commodities, the sub
ject OF interstate commerce.
Eve have become accustomed to
the regulation of rate OF transporta-
tion, but the suggestion that prices OF
commodities be regulated by congress
seems novel and radical.
Yet the principle on which the regu-
is simply that when property II used
sequence and affects the community
at large It becomes clothed with .
public use and may be controlled by
the public for the common good.
4 "The conduct Of great commerce on
staple articles among the states 10 be-
coming matter OF public consequence
and the courts have upheld legisla-
tion regulating 1t and prescribing
some OF the conditions under which
| 1t may be carried on. To require a.
one Of these conditions that prices for
commodities dealt In interstate com
merce must be reasonable only In
wolves new application OF the same
principle.
THE antitrust legislation Of the
United States and most OF the s0par-
ate states Is based on the theory that
the natural price OF an article IL that
fixed by the operation OF the natural
law OF supply and demand, working
without artificial restraint.
| Supply and Demand Law Dead.
"But the fact is that the law OF the
supply and demand does not and Has
not for years worked in this country
in natural, unrestrained and unfetter.
ed manner. The government in the
first instance interposes an artificial
restraint In the protective tarin on
| imports. True, the theory Of this
tariff is to equalize conditions Of COM
petion; to place, as It were. . handi-
cap on the foreign competitor who has
| produced his commodities under con.
Editions less burdensome than those nm.
Ger WHICH Inc AMERICAN ulAHuI0CIUE0F
produces his. But, in fact, the I'M
euualities resulting from the methods
OF tariff legislation are often impos-
sible to justify on the theory Of sum
cient protection. only. and the result
ing price IS that fixed by limited
competition between dealers In the
market from which foreign competi-
tors are to certain extent excluded.
Nor is this all. It is probably safe
to say that in almost every one of the
great staple industries, prices have
been for years fixed by agreement be-
tween the principal producers and not
from free play Of competition among
the domestic producers, nor by the
unfettered operation OF the law OF sup
ply and demand.
"The fact seems to be that the prices
OF standard articles OF consumption
sold in the United States for num-
ber Of years have not been fixed at
all by the operation Of the law OF sup
ply and demand, or OF unrestrained
competition, but by the associations
OF the producers, without the partfci.