The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-12-05

AcpoSNO NoAAPohS, HI W uICA they WILL hold 45 per cent. The twenty nine in dividual defendants are enjoined for three years from buying any stock ex- cept from each other, and the group is thus prevented from extending it's con trol during that period. All parties to the suit and the new companies who are made parties are enjoined perpet- ually from in any way effecting any combination between any of the com panies in violation of the statute by way of resumption of the old trust. Each of the fourteen companies is en- joined from acquiring stock in any of the others. All these companies are enjoined from having common direc- tors or officers. or common buying or selling agents, or common offices, or lending money to each other.
 Size of New Companies.
 Objection was made by certain in- dependent tobacco companies that this settlement was unjust because it left companies with very large capital in active business and that the settle ment that would be effective to put all on an equality would be a division of the capital and plant of the trust into small fractions in amount more near ly. equal> to that of each of the inde- pendent companies This contention results from misunderstanding of the antitrust law and its purpose. It is not intended thereby to prevent the accumulation of large capital in busi- ness enterprises in which such a com binatiOn can secure reduced cost of production. sale and distribution. It is directed against such an aggrega- tion of capital only when it's purpose is that of stifing competition, enhanc- ing or controlling prices and establish ing monopoly. If we shall have by the decree defeated these purposes and restored competition between the large units into which the capital and plant have been divided we shall have accomplished the useful purpose of the statute.
 confiseation. Not the Purpose of the
 Statute.
 It is not the purpose of the statute to confiscate the property and capital of the offending trusts. Methods of punishment by fine or Imprisonment of the individual offenders, by fine of the corporation. or by forfeiture of its goods in transportation are provided, but the proceeding in equity is spe- cific remedy to stop the operation of the trust by injunction and prevent the future use; of the plant and capital in violation of the statute.
 A s -
 Effectiveness of Decree.
 venture to say. that not in the his- tory of American law has a decree more effective for such purpose been entered by court than that against the tobacco trust. AS Circuit Judge Moves said in his judgment approving the decree:
 'The extent to which it has been necessary to tear apart this combina- tion and force it into new forms with the attendant burdens ought to demon strate that the federal antitrust statute is a drastic statute which accomplishes effective results, ,swhich so long as it stands on the statute books must be obeyed and which cannot be disobey- ed without incurring farreaching pen alties. And, on the other hand, the successful reconstruction of this or ganization should teach that the effect of enforcing this statute is not to de- stroy, but to reconstruct; not to de- mOlish, but to recreate ih accordance with the conditions which the congress has declared shall exist among the people of the United States"
 Common Stock Ownership.
 It has been assumed that the pres ent pro rata and common ownership in all these companies by former stock holders of the trust would insure a continuance of the same old single con- trol of all the companies into which the trust has by decree been disinte- grated. This is erroneous and is based upon the assumed inefficacy and innoc- uousness of judicial injunctions. The companies are enjoined from co-opera- ton or combination; they have differ ent managers, directors, purchasing and sales agents. If all or many of the numerous stockholders, reaching into the thousands, attempt to secure concerted action of the companies with
 
 their number is so large that such an attempt could not well be concealed, and it's prime movers and all its partic- ipants would be at once subject to con- tempt proceedings and imprisonment of summary character. The immedi- ate result of the present situation will necessarily be activity by all the com panies under different managers, and then competition must follow or there will be activity by one company and stagnation by another. Only short time will inevitably lead to a change m ownership of the stock, as all op- portunity for. continued cooperation must disappear. Those critics who speak of this disintegration in the trust as mere change of garments have not given consideration to the inevitable working of the decree and understand little the personal danger of attempt ing to evade or set at naught the sol emn injunction of a court whose object is made plain by the decree and whose inhibitions are set forth with a detail and comprehensiyeness unexampled in the history of equity jurisprudence. Voluntary Congratulations of Other
 Trusts at Hand. The effect of these two decisions has led to decrees dissolving the combina rion of manufacturers of electric