Evening star., 1942-01-09
Critieizes "Sophistry" Of Complaint
Against Big Business.

Against Big Business.
To the Editor Of The Star:
In his annual report to his superiors
and hence to Congress, Assistant Attor-
ney General Thurman Arnold charges
big business with responsibility for our
national failure to meet the urgent de-
mands OF all-out defense and war pro-
duction. He argues that the large and
powerful industrial organizations Of this
Nation, being fearful Of postwar over
production and dislocation of normal
business mechanisms of supply. demand
and distribution. have conspired against
the healthy and regulating restraints Of
the antitrust laws which his division
of the Department of Justice so zealously
enforces. Specifically. he charges that
the concentration of defense contracts in
the hands of the powerful, entrenched
few, their monopolistic price-fiXing prac-
tices in respect to essential and key
commodities and their malign. subver-
sive control over transportation and
eventual distribution are violations of the
Sherman Act designed to continue and
perpetuate the dictatorial and monopo-
listic control Of big business over the
economic destiny Of our Nation.
There Is little doubt that there Is much
that is timely and relevant in Mr.. Ar
nold's indictment and recommendation,
but it is just as obvious that his pleading
contains elements Of sopkistry and in
consistency. His sophistry is shown in
the circumstance tisst whereas he pleads
for regulation by lawful and orderly
process and mandate of Congress, his
past performance marks him as one who
would usurp the sovereign jurisdiction
Of the Legislature and substitute the
personal and arbitrary rule Of bu-
sistency lies in the fact, as demonstrated
in his recent antitrust prosecutions OF
the oil and aluminium interests, that
whereas he indefatigably has been de-
termined to destroy the economic and
productive pattern symbolized by these
big business organizations, the President,
his superior. was patiently and carefully
negotiating to utilize their undoubted
efficiency and suficiency for all-out pro-,
duction. Surely Mr.. Arnold does not
presume to nullify the painstaking and
deliberate planning of his commander
in chief, simply because 1t does not con.
form to his personal concept of anti
trust law Interpretation and application.
But 1t is especially the sophistry I'M
plicit in Mr.. Arnold's known philosophy
and past performance to which this
writer wishes to call critical attention.
There is no dispute among reasonable
men that our entire political economy
would be benefited by further amend
ment and more particulasized applica-
ton of existing antitrust laws. Condi-
tions and circumstances have arisen
amid the complexities of modern life
and an accelerating and expanding So
cial economy which our antitrust laas
in tlSir present form miserably have
failed to meet. The orderly democratic
process of constitutional government,
however, requires that these Necessary
changes be effected by Congress after
public hearings and debate. The fact
that the Legislature has been woefully
delinquent in the urgent matter Of mod
ernizing the application and jurisdiction
Of the antitrust statutes does not in any
sense Of the word justify the expedient
alternative of which his past perform
ance and personal philosophy marks Mr..
Arnold AZ exemplar In the past he has
used the secret, politically manipulated
grand jury hearing and indictment to
s,1nnlAnE the prescribAd constitutional
mechanism Of the fair and epea publ1D