Las Vegas optic. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1908-1921, 1911-06-14
SORT OF POLITICAL WEAPON
BEFORE MAY, THIS YEAR, STA.
TUTE WAS USED AS CLUB
BY ADMINISTRATION
FAVORS NEW NATIONALISM
THEN CORPORATIONS WOULD BE
UNDER GOVERNMENT
SUPERVISION

Iowa City, Ia, June 14.-Declarlni
the Sherman act ''even as now in
terpreted an ineffective remedy il
the just complaint of the ordinar.
man against monopolies," Judge Pete
S. Grosscup of the United States Cir
cult Court of Appeals, proposed il
the commencement address before ,tht
University Of Iowa today new meth
cd of dealing with trusts.
"To recognize combination and
monopoly as something necessarily
here-square the law to the fact
and then, as a condition to granting
corporate power at all, reserve the
right TO regulate dividends" is. the
remedy Judge Grosscup advances.
Judge Grosscup's discussion of the
remedy proposed by him was pre-
faced by a review of the Sherman
act in which he said:
"As interpreted prior to May of this
year the Sherman antitrust act was
believed to be a weapon, in the hands
of the men who happened to consti-
tute the administration at Washing
ton, to destroy such specific monop-
olies and combinations as the admin
istration chose to consider hurtful to
competition in enterprise Instead
the Sherman act became a sunken
mine over which nearly every form of
enterprise had to sail-the fuse that
would set it off or keep it harmless,
running direct to the office of the at
torney general at Washington.
But will big business" continued
Judge Grosscup, with no restraint
hanging over it other than the Sher-
man act as now interpreted, desist
from being brutal? Will one of these
big busines senterprises, caught now
and then employing the prohibited ac-
cessory methods and ordered to re-
habilitate, as the Standard Oil and
Tobacco combinations have been or
dered to rehabilitate, prevent others
from taking their chances along the
same lines, or from taking chances
along other lines? Reverting to his
remedy the judge continued:
"But to which government, the ma
tional or the state, shall be given the
power to apply the remedy My an
swer is, that, in the case of the big
so-called trusts, such, for instance, as
the packers or the Standard Oil COM
pany. the bulk of whose raw mater
ial is drawn from states other than
the company's domicile, or the bulk
of whose finished product is sold in
states other than the company's domi-
cile, thereby bringing their business
into interstate commerce, the princi-
pie l am urging should be applied
by the national government, through
such processes as will make it prac-
tically compelling that enterprises Of
this kind organize as corporations url-
der tbs United States laws.
ITO that extent, at least, ] am for
the new nationalism. By the hand Of
single sovereignty. and that the SUI
preme sovereignty, can the principle,
it seems to me, be effectively applied
to the big so-called trusts. But this
does not mean that the smaller manu-
featuring and trading corporations in
any given field of enterprise should
be nationally incorporated. From
these arises no monopoly. And where,
among these smaller concerns, COM
binations arise in unreasonable re-
traint of trade. the Sherman act as
now interpreted would probably be
sufficient
But where should be run the line
Of separation, you ask, between those
to be nationally incorporated and
those left to the states; and how
separate those to whom a restriction
as to dividends is to be applied,
from those to whom it is not applied
though nationally incorporated. MY