The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-06-20

new experiments designed to estab-
lish business facilities, to take the
place of the old-fashioned trust.
condemned by the Sherman law as
monopolistic and in restraint of
trade, are being tried out in the
United States. The oldest single
problem of the American govern
ment in the regulation OF business
has been the suppression OF mali
ciouS combinations Perennially,
the private business interests seek
out a new way of combination as
soon as the government breaks up
an old one. Recently. government
officials have adopted the policy OF
working in cooperation with bust
ness in an effort to discover means
of cooperative effort which will not
be malicious.
Economists and some government
officials take the position that there
is such a thing as beneficent COM
bination of business interests. The
great problem is to make laws and
regulations which will produce the
benefits of concerted business and
repel the evils of monopoly.
The two latest experiments are,
first: the plan of an agreement,
personal in nature, between a high
officer of the government and the
individual members of an industrial
group or trade whereby joint action
may be had along beneficent lines
and without general Conspiracy;
and, second, the agreement within
a group in business or industry to
operate between two extremes, I'M
der the general auspices of govern
ment supervision, but avoiding abb
Solute definite agreement.
The outstanding purpose of all
trusts, monopolies and combina-
tons is to fix prices. The motive
is to create business situation
wherein the predominant element
controls the price the public must
pay for a given product.
The old-fashoned maIeEolent
trust operated in this way: 1t
would accumulate a strong fighting
capital. With this backing it
would reduce prices so low that
Independent and weaker competi-
tors would be forced out of bust
ness. Then when the field was
clear, it would increase prices to a
point where huge profits would &C
crue. This is the sort of trust the
Sherman law forbids.
The Heir of the Trust.
The trade association is declared
by government truSt-busters to be
the heir of the old-fashioned trusts.
An association in, for instance, the
leather industry, would be made
up of ostensibly competing indie
pendent leather manufacturers
They would furnish to a general
headquarters a statement of the
prices they intended to charge.
Each member would see the trend
being followed by the other mem
bers with the result that a tacit
understanding would ensue and
concerted action leading ultimately
to mOnopolistic control of the
prices would follow. This system
was broken up recently by the SUI
preme court of the United States
which declared a price-f1xing trade
association, even though composed
of independents was. in effect, a
monopoly in restraint of trade.
The first experiment is being
made by Secretary of Commerce
1AOONC4- ne DSllGNSS JndI the
emergency of the coal strike makes
concerted action among coal operSI
ators and dealers desirable and be-
lieves it is better for the public to
have prices fixed on a fair basis
than TO have wild competition
which would run prices of coal up
to eXtortionate levels. Therefore,
he has adopted the plan of making,
personally, an agreement with each
individual that he will charge no
more than a given maximum price
for coal which Mr.. Hoover and his
federal experts have determined IS
a fair price In this case, the deal
ers do not deal with each other, /
any sort of an association. !
By dealing individually with Secre-
tary Hoover it is claimed the law
is not violated, yet the public has
the benefit of concerted action to
control the price on a relatively |
low level
Should the plan work success
fully, it is possible it may be en-
ployed in other industries, result |
ing in the creation of a new sort I
of beneficent trust
The second experiment is being |