Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-08

petition. Bring an end to price war"
was how they put it.
But because this happened in WASH
ington, Mr.. Arnold and his assistants
could take immediate action. The
Justice Department sought restraining
injunction which Immediately put an end
to the agreement. And in his speech
Mr.. Arnold pointed the moral by showing
that to have allowed city-wide increase
in order to help the border line stations
would have given the larger stations,
with extra storage capacity, "a still
greater profit" To DIRECTORS who plead
ed the cause of the little stations he
argued that it would be far cheaper to
give them an outright subsidy, since for
every dollar of profit given to the impe-
cunious one-third we have to give two
dollars of profit to those who do not
need it."
Ethyl Case Cited.
This was Small-scale economics that
every motorcar driver could understand.
In later speech, celebrating the 18th
anniversary of the Sherman Act. Mr..
Arnold explained how the Antitrust
Division had attacked the Ethyl Corp,
which is owned jointly by General
Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey and
the Du Points. This firm had a patent
on the fluid called tetraethyl lead, which
is essential to about IS per cent of the
motor fuel used in automobiles, accord
ing to Mr. Arnold. BY virtue of this
patent they were able "to put a floor
under the prices of nearly all of the
gasoline sold" The Supreme Court held
that this price fixing scheme was illegal.
Consumers of gasoline have not yet
obtained real benefit from the decision,
Mr.. Arnold said, outlining his proposed
attempt to compel the major companies
to divest themselves of their pipe line
facilities, their tankers and their market
ing facilities so as to separate transport
tatlon and marketing from the produce
ton of oil. This, in Mr.. Arnold's view,
would make it possible for the independ-
entS to compete and consumers would
have the benefit of drastic price reduc-
lions. Such change would of course,
constitute virtually revolution in the
oil industry, where the whole process
from the oil we'll to the customers car
has been carried out by huge companies
with far-f1ung resources.
The Ethyl case" he said in a radio
broadcast, declared that a patent could
not be used unreasonably to fix prices.
The same methods of illegal price fixing
by means of patents are found in all
sorts of mechanical products There are
81 patents on electrical equipment.
There are patents on war materials The
Ethyl case is going to affect all of these?
Building Industry Probed.
Theorizing about enforcement of the
antitrust laws is of no use whatsoever,
in Mr.. Arnold's view. What is required
is specific attack on the economic toll
bridges" which levy tribute from the con-
sumner. And Mr.. Arnold emphasizes in
this connection that the Justice Depart
ment is not interested in breaking up big
companies merely because they are big
If large corporation can produce goods
at low cost then the Antitrust Division
is all for the large corporation.
In various fields Mr. Arnold has been
successful in breaking monopolistic bot
tlenecks. In Pittsburgh, for example, the
Antitrust Division conducted a grand
jury investigation of the whole building
industry from top to bottom. A low-cost
housing project built after the investiga-
ton and the disclosures coming out of it
cost II per cent less than similar prof.
by,ilt taJ,r
tigation.
In Chicago the Antitrust Division
indicted milk producers, milk distribu-
tors, the Milk Wagon Drivers Union and
officials of the municipal Board of
Health for conspiring to keep independ-
ent distributors out of the market and to
stop the sale of milk by stores in order
to force door door delivery. Inmedi-
ately after the indictment the price of
milk in Chicago fell to between and 9
cents quart. The indictment was
thrown out by a lower court and the
price of milk went up to II cents, with
delivered milk at IS cents. Finally the
Supreme Court upheld the Justice De-
partment, and Mr.. Arnold has estimated
that consumers in Chicago are saving
between S4,OO0O0O and $4,000 900 year.
Particularly in the building industry,
Mr.. Arnold has attacked trade unions as
we'll as business firms. He has aimed his
attacks at the types of labor practices
- designed to prevent use of cheaper
materials or equipment, to compel the
hiring of useless and unnecessary labor,