The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1915-02-24

mess under the antitrust laws Is
however, held accountable at the Grim
inal bar because his business is
strong, not because he proposes tt
abuse it's strength. Is that kind Of
law calculated to make America in
it calculated to build up factories and
trade organizations which will employ
labor and make a home market for
| farms? 1t may occur to some layman
that the courts have become some
what tangled in the threads of the
rule of reason by condemning property
and outlawing everybody responsible
for its existence because that proper
ty,. though honestly accumulated, can
be used against the advantage OF the
public, though it is actually used for
the public's advantage.
Cause Of Depression
Some statesmen are inquiring into
the cause of busines depression at this
| IllAC WHICH, CfCly hdICl COuulllOu 10
apparently favorable to activity. 1t
is pertinent to the inquiry to look
back twenty-five years and assemble
the evidence. Has a single instance
of oppression of products or extor-
ton from consumers been brought to
light and injurious practices stopped,
either by personal punishment or by
judicial injunction? Some students of
the times will say if no good has come
framework which holds together the
working parts, these working parts are
still running and no harm has been
done. That is probably true respecting
the prosecuted trusts, but does 1t fol-
low that there is no historical evil
dence of injury TO the public welfare
by the antitrust act, the prosecutions
under it, and the supplemental leg
islation of congress? / am grouping
all together to avoid any charges of
political partisanship. The period be-
gins under republican administration
and congress, and ends under asdemo-
cratic administration and congress,
while vigorous prosecution was initial
ed by the acknowledged leader of the
progressive party.
The passage of the act and the earl
Ter cases upholding its constitutionality
was followed by four years of pro-
found business depression, attributable.
no doubt, to many causes and to what
extent this trade regulation is respon-
sible no student would venture an opin-
ion Two facts were in sequence, the
act and the panic. The administration
which followed the panic of '93 treat
ed this statute either as dead letter
or construed it as inapplicable to the
general reorganization of the time. The
captains of industry and the captains
of politics worked hand in hand.
Concentration, consolidation, and CO.
operation were the resurrection, and |
1uickened the life of business. The
whole land was transformed from re-
pose to intense activity.
The political policy of the Mckinley
and the congress of the
,ime may not be responsible for the
of the period, but we have
he two contemporaneous facts, pOlit-
cal friendliness to big business, and
Then came the beginning
If what has since been termed civic
righteousness An administration,
strong in the hearts of the people,
onscientiously and fearlessly put
ofth the slogan "that the law must be
beyed though the heavens fall" and
he old truth "that the law is no re-
pector Of persons" which being IN
meant person. big in the !
yorld of business. :
The following administration fol- !
owed in the line of prosecution with
ven greater vigor. Business started !,
ownhill with the initiation of these .
nti-trust prosecutions. There may be
O connection. but we have these two .
enforcement of the n
herman Antitrust law, and decline h
{ business. The country apparently 6
aught it's breath after the supreme
ourt laid down "the light of reason" =
octrine. The New Freedom" as =
nbotlied in the Trades Commission y
ct and the Clayton Act, is an expert n
ent in business legislation and posi-
y, depending on judicial construc- q
on, the inauguration of a new and s,
revolutionary public policy 9,
ere history stops and theory begins. 2,
The popular fear of oppression by t.
e business being apparently not =
ounded in the facts OF history, two =
her grounds for this state of the =
lblic mind suggest themselves. So
r as deductions can be drawn from
e lessons of experience, labor and
pital have both benefited from the
Grafton of natural economic laws, j