The Washington herald., 1914-10-29
The Clayton Antitrust Bill.

| II is our opinion that, with the exception of the
clause making interlockng directorates Illegal the
Clayton antitrust bill neither extends nor reduces
in any important particular the restrictions and pro-
hbitions in the Sherman law enacted fourteen years
ago; and it is mostly because of recognition of this
fundamental fact that the business of the
try are much less concerned over the passage of the
new legislation than they when the propaganda
for it was in full force and fever after the success
of the Democratic party in the elections of 1912
This is only another way of saying of course, that
the bill that has been passed is the bill that
originally proposed. 1t was speedily found when the
lawmakers sat down with pen and paper before them
to put their ideas in practical form, that a large
number of the proposals and amendments put for
ward were really radical amendments to the Con-
stitution, and that the Supreme Court would GER
tainly take little time in annulling any attempt to
amend the Constitution by means of Congressional
statutes 1t was also found that there were few
prohibitions that could be directed under the Con-
stituon, against harmful and 'monopIistic' business
activities that not already contained in the law
to which Senator John Sherman had attached his
name The Sherman law is a broad and inclusive
statute covering pretty nearly everything of anti
trust description. The Clayton bill is really sur
plusage.
As to the attempt in the bill to give special prvi-
business of many of the rights secured to them
by our Constitution-the organic law of the land
they have been abandoned deity and automatically
it is true, but still abandoned The original pro-
posal in the Clayton bill that nothing contained
in the law should be construed to forbid or restrain
individual members of labor unions and farmers
organizations from carrying out the legitimate OBJ
jects thereof" In the bill actually passed. the
word lawfully" has been inserted before the words
carrying out" leaving the guarantees of the Con-
stitution and outstanding provisions of law on the
subject in unmpaired vigor Exactly the same
species of revision has been extended to the Clay
ton bill from beginning to end. 1t has been pointed
out that the bill, in its primary form, made decree
of against any defendant conclusive evidence
against that defendant in any other subsequent pro-
ceedings; but all this has been changed so as to
read "prma-facie evidence" Many other instances
might be cited. The Clayton bill is mostly old
Sherman law writ large
Concerning the only feature of the bill that is
novel, the interlocking directorate prohibition we
only say that it has become very plain that
wisely unwisely, public sentiment is strongly in
favor of nterdict of this character Interlocking
directorates, so-caled device adopted by the
railroad companies, and largely confined to those
companies, in order to themselves from the
cut-throat competition which began over genera
ton ago. The enforcement of substantial uniform
railway tariffs with the establishment of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission, deprived nterlocling
directorates of their chief reason for being Be this
it may, these forms of corporate management are
to be forbidden, for better for worse and in so
far as we can discover the business men of the
country have honestly made up their minds to get
along without them. Whether it may not be found
later that the much abused nterlocking directo-
rates really served a worthy purpose, even in the