The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-30

porations, the existence whereof was due to a combination between such companies and other companies was violation of the act, the question would remain whether such of the companies as did not owe their existence and power to combinations but whose power alone arose from the exercise of the right to acquire and own porperty, would be amenabe to the prohibitions of the act.
 Yet further: Even if this proposition was held in the affirmative the question would remain whether the principal de- fendant, the American Tobacco company. when stripped of its stock ownership, would be in and of itself within the pro- hibitions of the act. although that com pany was organized and took being be- fore the antitrust act was passed.
 "Still further, the question would yet remain whether particular corporations which, when bereft of the power which they possessed as resulting from stock ownership. although they were not inher- ently possessed of sufficient residum of power to cause them to be in and of themselves either in restraint of trade or a monopolization or an attempt to monop- olize, should nevertheless be restrained because of their ultimate connection and association with other corporations found to be within the prohibitions of the act"
 Law MlSCOncelNeQ
 The necessity of relief for so many as- poets, the chief justice said, evidently had led the government to resort to methods of construction which were in compatible, and at the same time the defendants had not been able to do much better with the situation. The difficult ties which arose. according to the chief justice, grew out of a plain misconcep- tion of both the letter and spirit of the antitrust act. He added that the ob- scurity and resulting uncertainty which had enshrouded the Sherman antitrust act had been removed by the considera- ton the court had given the law in the Standard Oil case recently decided. The chief justice then launched forth into a defense of the "rule of reason law" as laid down by the court in the Standa I'd oil case. He said:
 Tn that case it was held, without de- parting from any previous decision of the court, that as the statute has not defined the words restraint of trade" it became necessary to construe those words, a duty which would only be discharged by re- sort to reason We say the doctrine thus stated was in accord with all the pre- vious decisions of this court despite the fact that the contrary view was some- times enormously attributedto some of the expressions used in two prior decisions,
 
 and joint traffic cases" That such view was mistaken one was fully pointed out in the Standard oil case, and is addi- tionally shown by passage in the opin- ion in the joint traffic case. as follows:
 ''The act of Congress must have a req sonable construction or else there would scarcely be an agreement or contract among business men that could not be said to have, indirectly or remotely, some bearing on interstate commerce and pos sibly to restrain it.
 Applying the rule of reason to the con struction of the statute 1t was held In the Standard Oil case that as the words, restraint of trade at common law and in the laws of this country at the time of the adoption of the antitrust act only embraced acts of prejudice of the pub lie interests by unduly restricting com petition or unduly obstructing the one course of trade or which. either because of the acts, etc., injuriously restrained trade. that the words as used in the statute were designed to have and did have a like significance. It was then pointed out that the statute did not for bid nor restrain the power to make nor nal and usual contracts to further trade by resorting to all normal methods. where, by agreement or otherwise, to accomplish such purpose. In other words, 1t was held not that acts which the statute prohibited could be removed from the control of its prohibitions by a find ing that they were unreasonable, but that the duty to interpret, which inevit- ably arose from the general character of the term restraint of trade required