The Washington herald., 1916-02-19


his program for legislation supplementary to the
Sherman law, was misconceived by him and by
Congress. Expert students of the subject cor
rectly understood it but the politicians of the
try all mixed up about it. The wonder is
that the President. who presumably wished to
take correct position, failed so signsly in his
efforts.
The decisions of the Supreme Court in 1911,
in the Standard Oil and the Tobacco Trust
case, had made evident the force of the Sherman
law with respect to its power to repress the great
trusts and monopolies. The decisions OF the court
in those two cases went to the full limit of legal
power in denouncing and eondemning the practices
of those great trusts and their disruption COM
msnded by the court. In repeated decisions of
the Supreme Court rendered subsequently, the
power of the Sherman law to repress trusts and
monopoes has been reiterated again and again.
Unfortunately however, the decisions of the
court ordering the disruption of the Standard Oil
Trust and the Tobacco Trust and the restoration
of competitive conditions in each of the great in
dustries in which those trusts dominant
proved to be miscarriages of justice. The Supreme
Court did its full duty, but the administration then
in power failed to do its duty. The country justly
denounced the manner in which the administration,
through the Department of Justice carried out the
mandate of the Supreme Court. The dissolution
Of the Standard Oil Trust and the dissolution Of
the Tobacco Trust proved in each instance to be
farce and burlcsque. These dissolutions were
carried out with the consent of the administra-
tion, in such manner that in each of the two
industries affected, the various companies into
which the two great trusts divided were left
under the same control they had been before
such dssolutions, and, moreover the disintegrated
companies were Of such huge magnitude that no
independent competitor having capital ordinarily
sufficient for the purpose could, or can, dare to
compete. Widespread indignation resulted and
found reflection in the national platform of the
Democratic party adopted at the Baltimore con-
vention in 1912. The trainers of that platform,
having before them the almost universal protests
OF the community against the farcical dissoutions
of the Standard Oil and the Tobacco Trusts laid
the blame for these results upon the supposed in
sufficiency of the Sherman law The plank on this
subject reads follows:
"We regret that the Sherman antitrust law has
received judicial construction depriving it of
much of its efficiency and we favor the enactment
OF legislation which will restore to the statute the
strength of which it has been deprived by such in
lterpretations.
As matter of fact, neither the Sherman law
itself nor the Supreme Court in its Interpretation
was in any wise to blame. The fault rested entirely
with the improper manner in which the Depart
ment of Justice acted in carrying out the DEGREES
of the Supreme Court. Under this misconccption.
the trainers of the Democratic platform demanded
additional legislation to make the Sherman law
more drastic.
This msconcepton aggravated and the
situation greatly confused by the fact that while
the politicians clamoring for the Sherman law
to be made drastic, moderate sized business
throughout the country complaining that the
Sherman law had made impossible cooperative
agreements intended to prevent wasteful and de-
structive competition For it is fact that although
the Sherman law was originally aimed soieiy at
the repression of the great trusts the courts had
so interpreted it make it include the prohibi-
ton of every kind of cooperative effort upon the
part of modcrate-szed business units.
The situation which thus followed was that, on
the one hand, the politicians, with loud acclaim.
but wholly without just basis clamoring that
the Sherman law should be made more drastic:
while, the other hand, the plain business in
terests of the country, neither aiming at monopoly
nor having the power to become monopolies, were
demanding some relief from law which compelled
| them against their will to enter into uneconomic
and senseless competition.
President Wilson, in an attempt undoubtedly
honest, to meet this situation, presented to Con-
grcss in January, 1914 his program. Its substance
was a two-fod recommendation; first, that the
Sherman law should be made explicit by
definition, and, second, that trade commission
should be established which would give to the bus
mess men of the country advice definite guidance
and information"
In neither of these recommendations did the
President properly meet the situation Competent
students of the subject, by mere reading of the
decisions of the courts, could have told the Pres
ident that there neither any necessity for the
Sherman law to be made more drastic nor any
need that it should be made more exnl;c;t Tb.