Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-10-29

Jail several lead ~
ing businessmen kSss
on the ground David Lawrence.
that they restrain interstate COM
merce in tobacco products.
Whether a group of tobacco eXecu-
tives have or have not restricted
competition in prices by their meth
DDS of buying raw tobacco over a
period of years is subject so tech
nical that it took 20 weeks for the
Justice Department to present the
case to a jury. Not content with the
filing of a civil suit which would
really prevent the recurrence Of any
Of the alleged wrong practices, the
administration. under Assistant At
torney General Thurman Arnold, in
sisted on a criminal suit.
When the Justice Department,
with an array of lawyers and staff
of technitians occupying a three
story building in Lexington, KY,
starts out to influence a country
Jury in district where it is to the
interest of the tobacco farmers to
see the way paved for higher to-
bacco prices, it is time to examine
the true purpose Of using the GRIM
inal instead of the civil sections of
the law.
Official Blackmail Charged.
The real purpose is to brow-beat
American business into a new form
OF FasciStic control, whereby the
Justice Department will hereafter
dictate how businesses shall be con-
Quoted. For now that an important
suit has been won on the criminal
side, Nh Arnold can go forward with
his scheme Of Official blackmail
whereby American businessmen are
threatened with criminal suits under
the Sherman Antitrust Act unless
they agree in advance to consent
DEGREES that go beyond the law
itself.
These consent DEGREES will require
quite a bureaucracy to police and
administer, but the Justice Depart
ment staff accumulated for the anti
trust operation is the largest in all
history.
The main vice of the tobacco
cases is that the Justice Department
selected Lexington, KY, in the heart
of the tobacco farming district as
the place to try the companies that
purchased tobacco. Here is an e.
ample of trial by public sentiment,
for while the jurors were honest
men, they still have the natural
prejudice of their region against the
buyers of tobacco.
More difficult than this angle.
however, is the question OF trying
a complicated antitrust suit before
a jury. Even with the convictions
that have been recorded at LeXing-
ton. there is no restraint now
against a repetition of the practices
complained of unless civil suit is
filed
No Rule of Law Laid Down.
No rule of law has been laid down
for the guidance of others. Why
did the administration decide to
invoke these criminal provisions?
ONLY to emphasize that hereafter
when the Justice Department wants
the executives in any business group
or industry to toe the marx they VIII
be influenced by threats and terror
lied into submission.
The three big tobacco companies
convicted by the jury are not Wlltull
yiolators of the Sherman law. The
technicalities which the Justice De-
partment used as a basis for trlal
involve honest differences OF opln-
ion which a civil suit could have
resolved. But the present admins
tration would rather prosecute
American businessmen than lay a
restraining hand on labor leader,
for instance, who ties up production
in a critical time in the life of the
Nation.
Such an unfair administration of
the laws of the land does not make
for public confidence in Govern
ment as an institution. Just why
the President permits as basic
policy of his administration the use
of the criminal statutes instead of
the civil in antitrust cases has
never been explained. Congress
adopted the criminal provisions with
the idea that if civil suits failed
and offenses were repeated, the eX-
IRENE penalty could then De in
voked. Mr.. Arnold with the full
approval of Mr.. Roosevelt has re-
versed the process. Congress can
call q halt by refusing to appro-
pirate funds hereafter for the anti
trust division unless 1t files civil