The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1911-09-18

manifested a due regard for the well
fare OF the innocent business men
and the community at large, who, IN
cataclysm caused by the confisca-
ton of such enormous capital as are
involved in these combinations and
a suspension of the legitimate part OF
their business, would be buried with
them in a common ruin.
The court has exhibited a cour-
age in facing the necessary results in
enforcing the statute that, instead Oh
prompting an attack on it, ought to
make every American proud that we
have such a tribunal. 1t is now en-
1rcing its decree against the Stand
ard Oil Co. and against the Tobacco
Co., and it is making those great
combinations divide themselves into
actually competing parts under such
provisions in the decree that an in
alive to prevent by contempt pro-
ceedings any assumption of the old
relations of monopoly. This was
an easier matter in reference to the
Standard Oil Co., because it was
easy TO divide up the various COM
panies that were united by the own
ership of stock of all the companies
in single holding company. In the
Tobacco Co., the decree could not
be worked out so easily, and 1t will
be necessary to separate the proper
ties owned by single companies AMI
to distribute these plants into differ
ent and differing ownership in or
der to create competition between
them and maintain that competition
by the power of continuing injunc-
ton against any future union or any
agreement to avoid future competi-
ton 1t needed these two great de-
cisions to teach the business public
| that at least not in the supreme tri-
bunal of this country would the
claim be listened to, that in this day
and generation we have passed be-
yond the possibility of free competi-
ton as consistent with proper bust
ness growth, or that we have reach
leu d llllt WHICH ouly ihoh
opoly and the fixing of prices by
governmental authority are consist
ent with future progress. We did get
along with competition we can get
along with 1t. We did get along
without monopoly; we can get along
without it; and the business men OF
this country must square themselves
to that necessity. Either that, or we
must proceed to state socialism and
vest the government with power to
run every business. The decision o.
the supreme court is in the highest
interest of the public, and | am glad
to think that business men who have
been violating the trust law are now
being made to see the necessity for
putting their houses in order, chang
ing their original organizations, Civ
ing up the idea that it is necessary
to control markets in order to make
profits, and reverting to the princi-
pie of free competition in which all
limit upon it to prevent its being eX-
cessfve must be self-imposed by the
good sense of each competitor and
not by any arrangement or contract
between competitors or secret stipu-
lation or wink nod
The decision of the supreme court
as il grows to be understood in the
near future win be a signal for the
voluntary breaking up of all combl-
nations in restraint of trade within
the inhibition of the statute. anG,
will, | hope, lead to a complete re-
vulsion of feeling on the part of the
business men of this country and to
clear understanding by them of
the limitations that must be imposed
by them upon any business combina-
lions made by them in the future,
The operation of the statute has IL
Illustrated the slowness of judicial
procedure, and of this | have often
made complaints but in the settle
ment of issues of this Importance
two decades are no great length OF
time, and If in that period we shall
have stamped out an evil Whlch
would certainly have carried us to
socialism as a reaction from the VI
cious control of the few, the time
spent, the effort, and the litigation
are worth the cost. There have been
| times when among others have
| thought that the enforcement OF the
| law might have been facilitated nad
| the courts visited it's breach with Sc
verer punishment but Though the
mills of the gods grind slowly, vet
they grind exceedingly small, and
without the severity that some of us
urged and would have been glad to
see used, a revolution in business
methods where they have heretofore
been volative of the statute will be