The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-10-10
Antitrust Laws

Efforts of the Armour and Swift packing com
panies TO obtain modification of their 1920 consent
decree" renewed this week in District Of Columbia
supreme court again will focus attention on the
antitrust laws and their enforcement.
The governments case. with the exception of that
against Standard Oil, was probably the most i'm
portant of its kind ever instituted under the acts
The decree followed an ANTITRUST suit started in
1919 as the result OF federal trade commission in
vestigation Of the five packers" The government
charged monopolstic control of foodstus and price
fixing.
The packers agreed to get out of the wholesale
grocery business the retail meat business, to sell
holdings in stock yards and made other concessions,
to avoid prosecution
But during the last ten years, the packers con-
tend, conditions of production and marketing have
undergone material and radical changes, and they
are at a disadvantage They cite the tendency to-
ward mergers in all lines including foodstuTs and the
growth of chain stores
seventy-hve thousand chain grocery stores owned
by corporations do annual business of three and
a half billions. they assert which is 40 per cent Of
all grocery business and there are in addition 42l
voluntary or cooperative chains with $4,000 stores
one big food corporation, an amalgamation of
numerous companies, does annual business OF
SI2sOOOOOO; another of s6400O0Oo And these con-
Germs sell meat and meat products.
If they we're permitted to engage in retail trade
and handle unrelated products, competition would be
increased the packers insist with apparent logic and
mass production and distribution would lower con-
sumner prices.
Farmers and live stock men favor modification
of the Decree the federal trade commission has
ascertaned and the old hostility OF congress to the
packers has died down The government, neverthe-
less. is resisting modification.
This is in line with the policy announced by At
tornev-Ceneral Mitchell soon after he took office
He said that while the government had no dlspo-
ston to interfere with business his department pro-
posed o deal vigorously with every violation OF tne
antitrust laws which comes to its attention" until
congress abandoned the political philosophy underly
ing existing laws
The alternative as he saw it, would be bureau
cratic control, which he thought not an attrac-
tive prospect Since then, several important anti
trust suits have been filed.
So the department struggles along with crude
and cumbersome statute riddled by conflicting court
interpretations The law has not stopped mergers
and it has few friends Organized labor, coal oper-
ators the oil men and numerous other groups nave
advocated it's repeal
The public has little interest in it. Even congress
is unwilling to support it. The appropriation Tor VS
enforcement is 100000 the same as twenty-five
years ago. although those charged with enforcement
are supposed to scrutinize nnumerable mergers IN
yolvng billions and affecting almost every COMMONLY.
4Apparently there is nothing for Attorney General
Mitchell to do but go ahead as he is, so long as the
law stays the books.
But if the law is to be repealed, or MADE nenec-
tive through court decisions, or is to be ignored "na
We wonder is to take its place? Are we to nave I'M
brided monopoly? Or the bureaucratic control that
nstcbeu foresaw? How is the public to be protected?