The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-10
CORNERS VIOLATE THE SHERMAN LAW Supreme Court Asked for
 This Ruling PATTEN IS ON TRIAL Point Comes up in Trial of Indict- ments of Men Who Cornered
 Cotton in 1910-COurt
 Inquisitive

Washington, November 9.-For the first time the government today asked the supreme court of the United States to proclaim as the law of the land that running a corner" on a stock ex- change is a violation of the sherman antitrust act.
 The point came up in the oral argu- ment of Solicitor General Lehman in support of the indictment of James A. Patton, Eugene G. Scales, Frank B. Hayne and William P. Brown on charges of conspiracy on January l, 1910. to run corner on cotton or the New York cotton exchange. Es- sential counts on the indictment had been declared erroneous by the United States circuit court for southern New York and the government was arguing for a reversal.
 Ex-Senator John c. Spooner argued for an affirmance. once or twice In the argument Chief Justice White asked if the government considered that a combination to force down ths price of commodity would be v1o' lation of law as a combination to put the prices up, as charged in the pres ert indictment.
 Lehman Attacks Ruling
 Mir. Lehman saiu he was not familiar enough with the market to reply. The chief justice also failed to get a con else answer to his query about the legality of planters combining for higf- CT prices.
 MT. Lehman in attacking the holding of the circuit court referred to 1t as saving it placed no restraint on com- petition in interstate commerce lie urged that the sherman antitrust law was not directed against restraint or competition as alleged in the inelct- n.ent but against restraint of actua! trade. He added that even if 1t had been aimed at restraint of competition physically the competition created by an increased price of cotton would be temporary and abnormal, thing which the law aimed to prevent.
 The solicitor general admitted the right of a man farsighted enough to see that a commodity was likely to rise in price to go into the market to buy to the extent of his ability. In this case, he added the defendants had sought to raise the price arbitrarily by linking their purses together to buy all the cotton for future delivery that would be offered
 Chief Justice White asked the so- licitor general if he was not talking about "futures,' such as are populariy regarded as unenforcible contracts be- cause no delivery was ever intended
 Mir. Lehman replied that he was arguing that the contracts which the defendants were charged with conspring to make were enforcible under the rules of the exchange and the law, and were to be distinguished from the 'bucketshop' con tracts which were unenforcible.
 MT Spooner in reply declared that the counts had been found bad because they charged no restraint of trade in defects. The solicitor, he said, had devoted him self almost exclusively to showing that the defendants had monopoly.
 Not a word about monopoly. he averred, was to be found in the indictment. He de- clared the defendants were not charged with ever having a bale of cotton, and they could not copsequently have a monopoly of cotton.
 By contracting to buy future deliveries he said the defendants, might have made 1t possible for the men who did have the cotton to increase the price. but cer- tainly the defendants, however. were not to be charged with this increase.
 .The defendants" he X said, were charged with conspiring to buy cotton futures, nothing else. These purchases were to compel a demand by the sellers of the contracts for cotton for future oe- livery This demand was to cause rise in prices of cotton on the New York Cot ton exchange. That rise in other mar kets was to cause. the spinners and man. ufacturers to.pay excessive prices. Those excessive prices may have stopped some trading in cotton. Some of that trading may have been interstate traffic The re- moteness of the connection between what the defendants are alleged to have done and the results is too far. The sequence of causation is reminiscent of the nursery jingle about the house that Jack built ["
 Arguments will be concluded tomorrow morning.