The Washington herald., 1915-08-22
Col. Roosevelt Tells How Anti
Trust Law Sometime Fails

In an article Encourage Business an,
Control It." Theodore Roosevelt. discuss
ing prosecutions Of corporations durini
his administration in the White House
writes in the Metropolitan Magazine:
The only successful suits against grea
corporations. great combinations. during
the last fifteen or twenty years, wer,
those thus begun and sometimes ended
under my administration. The important
suits undertaken since then have eithel
failed or have not yet been decided b,
the upper courts
| THE two most prominent of thest
suits were suits which during my ad
ministration the Department of Justice
| after consultation with me, had declined
to bring. They were the suits in refer.
ence to the United States Steel Corpora,
ton and the International Harvester
Company. The most prominent individ
uals in these two corporations We're the
same individuals who made the majority
of the parties in interest in the Northern
Securities case. In the latter case the
government proceeded against them be-
/ cause II deemed that their actions had
been wrongful. As regards the Harvester
; Company and the Steel Corporation
cases. the government at that time de-
clined TO proceed against them because
! 1t thought that their actions had not
: been unlawful. In other words, in each
case the government judged the actions
of the corporation. and of the individuals
composing it. by their conduct. by the
propriety and the morality of what they
had done.
Decides Not to Prosecute.
.As regards the Harvester Company
and the Steel Corporation, the Bureau of
Corporations reported favorably in each
case; and the Department of Justice took
no proceedings against either. The facts
produced to the administration tended 20
show that there was nothing in the then
conduct of either corporation to warrant
action against it. We therefore decided
that We would not take action merely be-
cause of the size of the corporations and
without regard to their conduct. From
the standpoint Of government policy and
social morality. | am certain that this
was the only right position. The recent
decisions of the Appellate National
Courts in the two cases seem to prove
that legally it was also the proper po-
sition.
After the end of my administration
suits were brought against these two
corporations. The same issues were in
NOlNtu III tne Two SUITS, ana
appellate divisions of the Federal judi
ciary have now passed on both. In one
case the three judges explicitly declared
that the Harvester corporation was not
guilty of improper acts. that it had treat
ed and was treating its customers, Its
competitors. its shareholders. and the
general public properly. One of the
three judges declared that there was no
violation of law. The other two declared
ration had been proper and beneficial to
the public, nevertheless under the statute
1t would have to be dissolved merely be-
cause of its size. merely because it was
q combination. in spite of the fact that
1t was useful and well-behaved corpo-
ration. AS regards the Steel Corpora
ton, the four judges sitting took the
same ground that the one dissenting
judge did in the Harvester Company
case. They unanimously declared that
whatever might have been the purpose
or action of those who organized the
its conduct now and of re-
cent years was and had been such as
to make 1t a beneficial and not a mis-
chieyous corporation, and that it was
not monopoly and that it should not
be dissolved merely because of its size.
wiIIfuI Misrepresentation.
Two points were incidentally decided
in these two cases to which it may be
worth while to allude. merely because
they have been for years the subject OF
and uiI1ful