The Washington herald., 1914-01-30
Shah We Step to Count Il.
Csstl

degree to n II II ahould pe snow
that y the rssnlt Of the formation
Of the Internationa
IAN Harvester Compan,
:lExTRA0R- the price Of harvest
lDMARY ing machines to tn
IUTTERANCE. farmers of the United
/ States has actually
been cut in hafw exclaimed thu
Representative of the Attorney Gen.
eral of the United States in his re.
cent argument against the Interna.
tional Harvester Company in the
Circuit Court Of the United States in
St. Paul. We have been perusing
the printed reports Of the case, and
this was q sentence that caught our
instant attention.
It seemed q queer, almost crazy,
remark from the counsel for the
government, but it was not at all
queer or crazy and it was in perfect
tenor with the position assumed by
the government in the case. The
governments case against the Har-
vester Company has entirely and
frankly failed in any attempt to
prove that the company was or
could be a monopoly, or that its
conduct had been in any way op-
prsssive or unfair either to com.
petitors or to consumers. So the
government was driven back to de-
fend its sole remaining fortress,
which was that, as a mere combina.
tion of previously competing COM
panies. the Harvester Company was
in and of itself in restraint of trade,
even without any further act of its
own.
In order clearly to understand the |
nature of this legal argument, it
will be necessary for us to 20 back |
few years in the
THOSE legal history of the
TWO EX- country. It may be
PRESS recalled that in the
WAGONS. preliminary proceed
ings taken by the
government against the American
Tobacco Company Judge Lacombe, !!
If the United States Circuit Court
Tor the Northern District of New
York, in his written opinion &C.
,ompanying the Judgment of the
court declaring the Tobacco Com
,any illegal, asserted that every
combination of individuals or cor
formerly Independent,
Immediately upon its formation ter.
inmates an existing competition;
nd that the Sherman act, as con-
trued in this way land as the Judge
Ieclared. necessarily construed)
every contract or COM
ination whatever. The Judge used
THAT afterward became a very ia
lous illustration of a supposed case {
t a combination of two individuals I
Tho had been driving rival express j
'agons between two villages in two
'ntiguous States, who entered into &
combination to join forces and Z
perate single line. The Judge de.
Jared that a prohibition of this
was absurd; but. he de-
ared, nevertheless, that it'was pro- {
ibited by what he called the plain
ords of the Sherman act. {
Now, when the government came {
argue the Tobacco Case on appeal 4
the Supreme Court of the United a
States, it specifically =.
.ZE disavowed any such d
'AS construction of the p
OF THE anti trust law as b
FFENsE. Judge Lacombe gave v
to it. It maintained q
fore the Supreme Court that the {
sential purpose of the Sherman Il
W was to prevent injury. not a
erely to reverse a course of con- II
let, and the Chief Justice of the h
lpreme Court supported this dis. Il
oval of Judge Lacombe's opinion. RI
declared that the words "re. m
raint of trade" as they were used Il
the antitrust act, embraced only p
mpanies or contracts which oper. NJ
II A.