Evening star., 1918-01-08
.. S. CONTROL Of RAILS
|. NECESSARY ROOSEVELT
Colonel Declares So.Called Anti
Trust Law Just a. Mischievous
in Peace a. in War.
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
In the Kansas City Star.

In the Kansas City Star.
The assumption Of control by the gov
ernment over the railroads was certainly
necessary, exactly how far It will go is not
evident. At present what has been done
is merely to introduce government super
vision and control over railroads which
are required to combine their operations
in fiat defiance Of the Sherman law. In
other words, the government has wisely
abandoned the effort to enfore competi-
ton among the railroads and has intro
duced the principle of control over corpora
tive organisations.
The Attorney General has just announced
that he will, for the time being. abandon
the suits under the Sherman law to break
up the Harvester and Steel corporations
because it is not wise to do SO during
the war Mr. Culbertson. the able expert
on the government tarin board, has an
nounced that the Sherman law is mis-
chievous in international trade. Mr..
Francis Heney, than whom in all the
country there is no more determined and
efficient enemy Of wrong-doing corpora
tions. has stated that the Sherman law,
the so-called antitrust law. is mischief
ous.
q. S. Right and Power Established.
In other words under the strain of the
war the Sherman law has completely
broken down and the government is not
merely conniving at but encouraging its
violation by many different corporations.
The Sherman law, or so-called anti
trust law. is just as mischievous in
peace as in war. 1t represents an ef-
fort to meet great evil in the wrong
way. AS long as corpor itions claimed
complete immunity from government
control the first necessity was to es-
tablish the right of the government to
control them. This right and power
Of the government was established by
the Northern Securities suit, which
prevented all the railroads of the coun
try from being united under one cor
poration which defied government con-
troll. The suits against the Standard Oil
and tobacco trusts followed. The Su-
preme Court decreed that the trusts
had been guilty OF grave misconduct
and should be dissolved. but not par
ticle of good followed their dissolution.
In No Way Meets Industrial Evils.
1t is evident that the Sherman law
or so-called antitrust law, in no way
meets the evils of the industrial world
To try to break up corporations be-
cause they are big and efficient is
either ineffective or mischievous. What
Is neeOeO Is TO exercise government
control over them SO as to encourage
their efficiency and prosperity, but to
insure that the efficiency is used in the
public interest and that the prosperity
is properly passed around. Merely to
repeal the Sherman law without put
ting anything in its place would do
harm. 1t should at once be amended or
superseded by a law which would in
some shape. permit and require the is
suing of licenses by the federal gov
ernment to corporations doing an inter
state or international business. Cor
porations which did not take out such
licenses or comply with the rules of the
governments administrative boar6
would be subject to the Sherman law
The others would be under government
control and would be encouraged to CO.
operate and in every way to become
prosperous and efficient. the govern
ment guaranteeing by it's supervision
that the corporations prosperity and
efficiency were in the public interest.
Copyright. 1918, the Kansas City star)