The Washington times., 1924-08-08
HARD SUNS
Up j. s.
CASE:
Writer Finds Government Is
Busy Fighting New Schemes
for Trade Control
By WILLIAM HARD.


While campaign orators are raw
ing as usual about "trusts" and
"monopolies" and about how no.
body checks them, business men
are raving as usual about how the
Government interferes and inter-
NEEDLES to check and counter and
upset even the most innocent
efforts to Stabilize" business and
to establish "co-operaton" for keep
ing business "on an even keel" and
for preventing the '"cut-throat
competition which leads to bank
ruptcy and unemployment.
It is the absolutely usual state
Of things. This reporter now re-
ports it for the sixth time in a
Presidential year.
This Harding Coolidge Admins
tration, as was pointed out in a
preceding article in this series,
has won nineteen antitrust. cases
in which the defendants have ad-
mitted defeat and has won six
other antitrust cases in which the
defendants have appealed to higher
courts.
Cement Case Cited.
The reader may inquire:
What is the nature Of the Gov
Ornment's contention, and what is
the consequence of the Govern
ment's victory, in an antitrust
case?
The writer gives now herewith
an illustration, from which the
reader may himself judge the ex-
tremes to which the Government
has gone.
There was an institution called
the Norcross Audit and Statistical
Bureau. 1t entered into contracts
with certain cement companies.
Each cement company engaged to
give the bureau the facts about its
production OF cement and about its
sales of cement and about its quo
tations of prices on cement.
The bureau engaged in return to
give to each cement company COM
plete information regarding cement
production and distribution in the
States Of Iowa, Nebraska, Mis-
souri,, Kansas, Arkansas, and Okla
homa.
This was one step beyond the
open competition association"
which the Supreme Court declared
unlawful in 1921 in the hardwood"
case.
Had Learned Lesson.
In the hardwood" case certain
manufacturers and distributors Of
lumber exchanged statistical in
formation among themselves on
their own motion and by their own
effort and then met in person to
discuss that information.
Here in the Norcross case the
manufacturers simply sent informa-
ton to a bureau and then sub
Scribed to get from that bureau
similar information regarding the
stocks and the prices of other
manufacturers.
There was no proved "price-fix-
ing" There was only a proved
"price-knowing."
Nevertheless, in April of this
year, under arguments from the
Department of Justice, the Federal
district court in the western divi-
sion of the Western district Of
Missouri enjoined the Norcross
Audit and Statistical Bureau from
continuing in it's business.
The link Of information of a sta.
tistical sort between the rival CO.
ment firms concerned was de-
stroyed.
Thus we come to an advanced
and remarkable stage in the de-
velopment Of trust" and anti
trust" activities in this country.
Monopoly" ObsoIescent.
The individual big companies,
often called. trusts" like the
United States Steel Corporation.
have made no progress for a long
time toward owning any larger per.
centage of the industries in which
they exist.
The various standard" oil com.
panies, when all put together in a
statistical computation, own less of
the oil industry that the old United
STANDARD Oil Company owned be-
fore its dissolution by the United
= States Supreme Court under argu-