The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-06-22
PRESIDENT WILSON'S ANTITRUST LEGISLATION NECESSARY TO RESTORE
 CONFIDENCE TO BUSINESS MEN

By far the chief contributing factor, as The Farmer has said, is the general feeling of un- certainty among investors, caused by stock wa terng and wholesale footing of great properties by financiers
 A second factor of less, but increasing inn portanee, is the uncertainty regarding what a business corporation can lawfully do in the conduct of it's business.
 For the remedy of this evil the antitrust legislation proposed by the Wilson administra-7 ton is necessary.
 For many years the sherman anti trust law. was not enforced. It was law forbiddfng all examinations in restraint of trade
 Finally the supreme court took it and read into it the word undue" so that the law, by iiu- dicial interpretation, came to mean that only unreasonable restraints of trade are unlawful.
 This word unreasonable, or undue, had been. .urge ed upon congress again and again But. Econgress had repeatedly refused to incorporatet 1t into the statute.
 The effect of this judicial change was de. PloFable.; Whether or not the sherman law had. ever had beneficial effect is outside the pres ent discussion, but in the form in which con gress passed it, the law defined an offense which any business man could understand knowing absolutely what it was that was for Ebidden.
 But when the supreme court legislated the every certainty was removed. Business enterprises were no longer subject to law and business men could no longer know what was forbidden.
 No business could be deemed lawful until some judge had looked it over and declared it l so, and no two judges would agree upon what was CT was not undue restraint
 Thus business men, instead of being sub ljeet to law, became subject to the arbitrary views of judges and prosecutors, and notably to. the economic ideas and industrial policies of the attorney general who ever he might be.
 The disturbing effect of this judicial action may be better understood by considering some familiar statute subject to the same change
 The law forbids assault. Anybody who at taeks the person of another assaults him. The. crime is precisely defined. The function of the judge is to consider the evidence to see if it is sufficient to prove the assault
 Now suppose the judges should take the law forbidding assault and say that it was not assaults that were forbidden, but undue as saults
 There would no longer be a law which any, bodyacouId be certain of. One judge might con- I sider an undue assault one on which a man re- ceiyed black eye, while another judge might consider no assault undue in which there was Hess than two black eyes.
 Il There would no longer be any certainty in I the law, and the fundamental principle that un- lderlies the theory of criminal law would be des- T troyed This principle is that the thing for lbidden must be so certainly stated that every  lcannot do.
 Into this chaos of uncertainty and depend I ence upon judicial will has the supreme court plunged the. business of the. country. | The uncertainty and it's evils will remain Iuntil by the necessary enactments congress gives precision again to the law, stating the things that may be done, or may not be done Eso plainly that every business man can under stand and guide himself accordingly.
 In defence of the unchanged Sherman law some business men claim that it has been inter- preted by the courts until it has all the precision Ithat can possibly be needed
 If this is true, it follows that the definitions necessary to precise statute are in existence and can be stated
 T But few business men appear to know that all precision that had been given to- this statute was upset bY judicial legislation of the word undue into it, and that by this unconstitu- ltional judicial conduct all that had been accom- lplished in the direction of order and certainty was undone, and the business of the country left subject to the economic whimsies, convic- tions, or ignorance, of judges and prosecutors.
 Every intelligent business man whose pur- pose is to conduct his business under the law will welcome President Wilson's trust legisla- ton. This legislation is necessary before bus Iiness can have the protection of law
 Considering what inconspicuous the June bridegroom plays surprising that the occasionally forget to mention him.
 I- 5saa