Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-08-03

such reports mandatory upon the colH :
| missioner of corporations.
"The enormous earnings of the Steel
| Corporation are due not to a degree
of indignation of efficiency not pas
sessed by its competitors. lsit to the
ownerships of ore reserves out of all
proportion TO its output or require
ments and to the control and opera
tin of common carriers. divisions OF
rates, and the liberal allowances oh
tanned from other concerns through i'll
equitable and inordinate terminal al
, l0wances. The business of prodnc.
! ton and transportation should be abs
solutely separate and distinct, and no
Industrial concern should be permit
ted TO own or operate an Interstate
carrier
THE attorney general of the United
States and his subordinates should
not be permitted to exercise an abso-
lutte discretion as to the institution Of
proceedings under the act of July I.
1890, known as the Sherman anti
trust act, or other acts prohibiting
combinations in restraint of trade. The
parties injuriously affected by such
combinations should have access to
the courts and the benefit of adequate
and sufficient remedies for wrongs in
fiicted by such combinations"
The legislation recommended by the
majority consists of three bills. One
of them, commonly known as the
Brandeis bill is designed 10 give an
injured party the right to institute
suit to prevent the organization of n
combination in restraint of trade. This
bin also transfers the burden of proof
to the defendant corporation to show
that il is a combination within 'rea-
sonahle restraint of trade" The bill
recommended by the committee has
long heenA pending before Congress,
having been introduced by> Senator La
Toilette and Rep. Lenroot.
Another bill would provide that mo
person who is engaged as an individ-
ual ar as member of a partnership,
or as director or other officer. or an
employee of n corporation, in the bus
mess in whole or in part of manufac-
turing or selling railroad cars or loco
motives or railroad rails or structural
steel. or mining and selling coal shall
act as n director or other officer or en-
psoyee of any railroad company which
conducts an interstate commerce bus
iness.''
The third bin is intended to hit at the
system of interlocking directorates and
would separate industrial from rail-
read business.
The Steel Trust investigating com
mittee was authorized to begin its
work, May 4 1911. Since that date it
has heard many witnesses and made
many trips of inspection and investi-
!, II
have beer most of the great American
financiers of the present age with the
exception of j. Pierpont Morgan. An
drew Carnegie, f. H. Gary. George w.
Perkins, James J. Hill. the late John
w. Gates and others prominent in the
railway and steel world We're heard at
length. The committee took thousands
of pages of testimony and spent many
thousands of dollars.
During the progress of the hearings
difference of opinion between the
chairman, A. O. Stanley, of kentucky,
and Representative Gardner of Mas
sachasetts, caused near fist fight and
at one stage of the proceedings George
w. Perkins of New York was threat
ened with jail sentence for declining
to answer question as to his contri-
buttons to the Republican campaign in
l90S Later the chairman of the com
mittee, Mr.. Stanley, withdrew the
question.
The effort of the committee to mas
ter the moves of the financers who
conceived and organized the steel cor
porafion resulted in a maze of figures
which showed enormous profits TO those
Who were interested. In speaking OF
watcred stocks the majority comment
is:
I'm some instances stocks We're not
.watered' in the ordinary acceptance
of that term; they were literally del
used. The cost of constructing or re-
producing the several plants consti-
tuting the combine was inconsential as
compared with the value of this new
device for enjoying with immunity an
old and hitherto forbidden privilege
an absolute monopoly in a valuable and
and necessary article of commerce"
From Julian Kennedy, an engineer
the committee traced the development
of the National Tube Co., a subsidiary
of United States Steel, by J. p. Nor
gan. He told the committee that he
investigated the condition of the tube
trade and found that the Actual val
ua of these plants did not exceed &c.,
100000 and that the owners We're de-
moralized and disheartened." The
committee comments on this situation
as follows;
"Undismayed by this dismal pros
pect. J p Morgan & Co.. with an
amazing audacity. launched this new
| $4,000. coo monopoly on its course with
total capitalization of $S00a0, 900. and
received as compensation securities of
this concern aggregating $20.000,000."
Representative Beall of Texas made
a study of the Gary dinners infiu-
enees on the steel trade. He wrote
| that portion of the report which deals
with them. His comment on them fol-
| lows:
| Accepting the dinner of January
1911, as fairly typical of the rest and
| the things said and done there as
| fairly representative of the things
| said and done at the others, we think
| the conclusion is irresistible that the
Gary dinners were instituted as a
| means of conveying to the entire steel
and iron industry information as to
what the attitude of the United States