The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-02-25
The Trade Commission
iStence.

Inc lfade COMMISSION
Of the four trust regulation measures now
being placed before Congress, President Wilson
considers the Trade Commission bill of greatest
Importance. He has been devoting personal at
tention to it and using all his powers to press it
forward to the earliest possible passage.
AS the bill now stands the new Trade Com
mission will take the place of the erstwhile Bu-
reau of Corporations and will correspond after a
fashion to the now existing Interstate Commerce
Commission.
AS now proposed, the new Commission will be
made up of five members, the chairman of which
would be Mr. Davies, the present chairman of the
Bureau of Corporations. These members will be
appointed by the President with the approval of
the Senate and will receive $4,000 per year.
The Trade Commission will have power to in
vestgate the affairs of all corporations doing in
terstate business, having capitalization of
SIS, OOO, 900 over with the exception of COM
mon carriers. These latter naturally come with
in the province of the Interstate Commerce Com
mission. The new Trade Commission will be
vested with inqusitorial power and have authori-
ty to order any records, reports or similar data
to be brought before it and to have interested
persons testify to it it's delegated sub-commit
tees. BY using this power to subpoena, it may
cause any official of any corporation to appear
before it and may fine such person corporation
81 900 per day if the subpoena order is not com
piled with, and it may appoint agents to go to any
part of the country to make Investigations.
The records thus ascertained to be con
sidered as public property and various district
courts over the country will be instructed to en-.
force its orders.
Any person found guilty of false statements
Lofoy +L,
may be fined not more than $1,000 or impris
oned for year or both.
The chief duty of the commission is to learr
if any given corporation is violating the Sherman
Antitrust law. If such seems to be the case
the facts are to be submitted to the attorney gen
era who will take steps to deal with the corpora
ton in question.
! The attorney general or any of the courts
having jurisdiction over such matters may use
the commission as an investigating committee
and will hold such information as it may furnish
as legal testimony.
| Each year before January 1, the Trade Com
mission is to compile the essential data gathered
during the period and submit it in report tt
tCongress. This report will be made public in the
same manner as other similar reports.
This is the essence of what President Wilson
considers his most important measure for deal
| ing with monopoly. But the most friendly advo
cate of the administration will find great Difficult
| ty in discovering just where such commission
as this is going to affect monopoly at all. Whel
all these duties are boiled down, the Trade Com
mission is seen to be nothing more than the ole
Bureau of Corporations re-christened with litt
or power other than that enjoyed by simila
bureaus of investigation which have power of in
QUESTION.
i What it possibly do toward dissolving thu
trusts is difficult to 1t has only authorit,
to gather the facts. These facts are then uset
by the Attorney General just as is the case
Where then will this regime have the advan
tage over the present and how can President Will
sons attorney general accomplish more thar
i President Taft's attorney general?
Il president Wilson's proposed industrial com
mission writes prominent student of politica
affairs, els mere clearing house. bureau of in
formation, a board of mediation between tn
great corporations and the government and tn
courts. It would only increase official red tap
and multiply office holders. 1t would settle moth
ling"