Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1912-08-02
TRUSTS WILL DESTROY THIS
GOVERNMENT.

In the United States Senate the othe
day during running debate upon amend
ing the antitrust law. Senator j. W. Baily
one Of the ablest of the members OF tina
body and stanch Democrat. made tn,
following strong. practical suggestions upor
the subject of making the law more effec
tive:
Mr.. President, | have heard much abou
the necessity Of amendments to the anti
trust law. am one of the men who be.
lieve that il needs thorough enforcement
rather than amendment II the men who
are engaged in violating it were properly
admonished-and there is but one admo-
milton that is sufficient to them, and that
is to put every one Of them in the peniten-
tiary as fast as you can get to them-il
they are properly admonished that it Is
just as dangerous to the liberty of man tC
organize and operate trust in this coun.
try as it is to steal horse. think they
will desist. | believe it is worse, morally and
legally, because the theft of a horse infiicts
an injury only upon the man whose horse
is stolen, while violation of the antitrust
law in this country assuming that that
law is founded upon just and wise policy
not only infiicts an injury upon the thous-
ands and millions Of men and children from
whom 1t exacts unlawful tribute, but il
works an injury to the Government itself
in hundred ways.
THE one amendment to the antitrust
law that would make would be this
would provide-and it would be merely a
short additional section to the bill-that
whenever any firm, corporation. or person
should be found guilty of violating that
law the court should forthwith appoint a
receiver. and that the receiver should pro-
coed without delay to dispose of the prop
erty at public sale and distribute the pro-
ceeds among the stockholders, after the
expenses of the proceeding has been salts
fed II we adopt that amendment, and il
we will enforce the criminal provisions Of
that law, trusts will disappear from our
commercial life. Just as now the mana
gers and owners Of those trusts 60 as far
beyond the law as they dare to 90 without
compelling the Government to take notice
OF their transgressions, so under a system
such as have suggested they will keep as
far inside the law as is necessary to insure
their safety against prosecution by a rea-
sonable officer and insure their requital
If they happen to be prosecuted by some
man who is unreasonable.
These men for the sake of enormous
profits promised by these combinations will
II, take the chance of individual impris-
bent. nor will they take the chance Of
destruction of their property values If
will adopt that simple amendment and
our faces resolutely to the enforcement
he law. we can destroy the trusts.
{ we do not do that. the trusts will de-
y this Government. The injustice which
practice upon their customers and the
lruction wrought among their competi-
are all stupendous and awful in their
sequences but sir, to see a great gov
nent like this confess before the world
mpotency to deal with any crime. ad-
ting that it cannot enforce its statutes
onfess publicly to the world that it is
deficient in its wisdom that it cannot
Use law to destroy these commercial
avs without devisins one that will
wise destroy this Government, is the
sedy Of this century"