The Sentinel=record., 1915-05-27
TAFT CRITICISES
 CLAYTON ACT
DECLARES IT IS DETRIMENTAL TO THE BUSINESS INTERESTS
 OF THE COUNTRY.
The Trade Commi ssion Act Is Also Condemned and the Personnel of the Members Attacked Is Not to Command Public Confidence.

New York, May 2G.-Former Presi dent William Howard Taft in an ad dress tonight at the annual banquet of the National Association of Manu facturers severely criticized the Clay ton act and the federal trade com mission act as detrimental to the business interests of the country" and denounced the leaders of the Ameri can Federation of Labor for exercis ing a power that has become excess. i've and detrimental to the public wealth and the good of society"
 Prof. Taft was co-spea.l,er with Sen. ator Warren c. Harding of Ohio, who declared that the greatest menace of American progress is the profes- sional batting of big enterprises"
 'I fully approve" said the former president of the principle of labor unions. But the power their leaders have acquired by the principle of combination in their organization has intoxicated them and they have ex- ercised a tyranny over society and over their own members that is cer. tainly leading to a reaction and to a restraint of their great power within proper and lawful limits.
 They have failed to condemn in any way, as they ought. the use oi criminal methods to which in a law Jess spirit their representatives at various times nave seen fit to re sort. They have raised large fund in the defense of men who have proven to be, by tAeir own comics sions, violators of the criminal laws and they have manifested a desire to secure in express statutory declara tions an immunity for lahor union, from the operation of general laws that should be uniform In other words, they have sought to make themselves and their agents a privi legged class not subject to the laws that affect every other man and even themselves when not engaged in la hor disputes"
 Mir. Taft caid his objections to the Clayton act and the trade commission act were that their enactment with such a blare of trumpets and avow als of hostility to capital in genera with little discrimination had a strong l tendency to frighten those whose | judgment determines the amount O. new investments Of capital and thu; to restrict the normal expansion O our business due to the reinyestmen' of earnings"
 | The aftermath of a crusade anC great reform in our political and busi ness conditions and rescue of thu l country from the dangers of pluto cracy," he continued. 'is excess VI hostility in legislative expression t. 1 success in business and to those whi control capital The hostility has beer manifested in all sorts of restrictions unwise and useless, and the enact ment of further restraints in th' | Clayton act and in the trade com
 ssion act were much more detrl mental to the business interests O the country in frightening them thar 1 in any req effect after they snal
 have passed the scrutiny of th courts and their essence has beel | disclosed in the test of actual ltiea tion.'
 Mir. Taft thought that the Claytol | act added but little to the anti-trus act The trade commission act, h' | held provided for a tribunal whose acts must be subjected to the courtt before they had in any degree effec' i've sanction and enforcement ant wnich might be held to have been en dowed with Legislative authorit, (which congress has no constitutions power to delegate to it.'
 l The speaker attacked the 9ersonn9 of the members of the trade comm's 1 sion Gas not such as to give grea 1 public confidence in their experience
 or iudgm ent.
 The association today unanimousl l declared itself in favor of an Amer
 can mercantile marine.
 ~The National Association of Nant | lecturers" the resolutions continue
 regard an adequate American mel
 chant marine as indispensable to tn fun development of American con
 merce and this inn ortant fact shoul
 be impressed upon the American pe' pie and the congress of the Unite
 States"
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