Part 31 (1/2)

Such a result is lamentable from the standpoint of justice The decision of the Circuit Court, if allowed to stand, e its clothes, that none of the real offenders have received any real punishment, while, as the New York Times, a pro-trust paper, says, the tobacco concerns, in their new clothes, are in positions of ”ease and luxury,” and ”ime of justice is not too strong a term to apply to such a result when considered in connection hat the Suprereat Court in its decision used language which, in spite of its habitual and severe self-restraint in stigly conde that the case shows an ”ever present ” by the Trust, whose history is ”replete with the doing of acts which it was the obvious purpose of the statute to forbid,de of a purpose to acquire dominion and control of the tobacco trade, not by the ht to contract and to trade, but bycompetitors out of business, which were ruthlessly carried out upon the assumption that to work upon the fears or play upon the cupidity of competitors would make success possible” The letters from and to various officials of the Trust, which were put in evidence, show a literally astounding and horrifying indulgence by the Trust in wicked and depraved business methods--such as the ”endeavor to cause a strike in their [a rival business fir off thethe necessary steps to give theree ”a deth of time as uilty of such conduct should be absolutely disbanded, and the only way to prevent the repetition of such conduct is by strict Government supervision, and not merely by lawsuits

The Anti-Trust Law cannot meet the whole situation, nor can any modification of the principle of the Anti-Trust Law avail to meet the whole situation The fact is that ressives, and who certainly believe that they are Progressives, represent in reality in this ress at all but a kind of sincere rural toryis the Anti-Trust Law to restore business to the competitive conditions of the middle of the last century Any such effort is foredoomed to end in failure, and, if successful, would be ree Business cannot be successfully conducted in accordance with the practices and theories of sixty years ago unless we abolish stea cities, and, in short, not only all modern business and modern industrial conditions, but all the modern conditions of our civilization The effort to restore coo, and to trust for justice solely to this proposed restoration of coo back to the flintlocks of Washi+ngton's Continentals as a substitute for modern weapons of precision The effort to prohibit all coht to fail; when made, it merely means that some of the worst combinations are not checked and that honest business is checked Our purpose should be, not to strangle business as an incident of strangling co and effective fashi+on, so as to help legitihly and co the interests of the people as a whole Against all such increase of Governument is raised that it would aument is faainst the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, and of all the different utilities commissions in the different States, as I islator at Albany, and these questions came up in connection with our State Government Nor can action be effectively taken by any one State Congress alone has power under the Constitution effectively and thoroughly and at all points to deal with inter-State coress, as it should do, provides laws that will give the Nation full jurisdiction over the whole field, then that jurisdiction becoress does act affirhly it is idle to expect that the States will or ought to rest content with non-action on the part of both Federal and State authorities This statement, by the way, applies also to the question of ”usurpation” by any one branch of our Governhts of another branch It is contended that in these recent decisions the Supreress had signally failed to do its duty by legislating

For the Supreislature as unconstitutional except on the clearest grounds is usurpation; to interpret such an act in an obviously wrong sense is usurpation; but where the legislative body persistently leaves open a field which it is absolutely imperative, from the public standpoint, to fill, then no possible blame attaches to the official or officials who step in because they have to, and who then do the needed work in the interest of the people The blame in such cases lies with the body which has been derelict, and not with the body which reluctantly o, Senator Cushman K Davis, a statesman who ahest courage, of the sternest adherence to the principles laid down by an exacting sense of duty, an unflinching believer in democracy, as as little to be cowed by a mob as by a plutocrat, and ination, a gift as important to a statesman as to a historian, in an address delivered at the annual coan on July 1, 1886, spoke as follows of corporations:

”Feudalism, with its domains, its untaxed lords, their retainers, its exe spirit of hurandeurs Its spirit walks the earth and haunts the institutions of to-day, in the great corporations, with the control of the National highways, their occupation of great domains, their power to tax, their cynical conteifted men to the capacity of splendid slaves, their pollution of the eration in one man of wealth so enormous as to make Croesus seem a pauper, their picked, paid, and skilled retainers who are sus of steain of feudalism and of the modern corporations--those Droinated in a strict paternalism, which is scouted by rown froression, and development, which they commend as the very ideal of political wisdom

_Laissez-faire_, says the professor, when it often est may work his will It is a plea for the survival of the fittest--for the strongest male to take possession of the herd by a process of extermination If we examine this battle cry of political polemics, we find that it is based upon the conception of the divine right of property, and the preoccupation by older or more favored or more alert or richer men or nations, of territory, of the forces of nature, of machinery, of all the functions of e call civilization

Soreat, follow these conceptions to their conclusions with dauntless intrepidity”

When Senator Davis spoke, few reat power had the sympathy and the vision necessary to perceive the rowth of corporations; and the et rid of it, not by franklyupon the entirely futile effort to abolish what modern conditions had rendered absolutely inevitable Senator Davis was under no such illusion He realized keenly that it was absolutely io back to an outworn social status, and that we must abandon definitely the _laissez-faire_ theory of political economy, and fearlessly cha no heed to the cries of the worthy people who denounce this as Socialistic He saw that, in order to meet the inevitable increase in the power of corporations produced by modern industrial conditions, it would be necessary to increase in like fashi+on the activity of the sovereign pohich alone could control such corporations As has been aptly said, the only way tothe protection of a hundred-billion-dollar government; in other words, of the National Governh both to do justice to corporations and to exact justice from them Said Senator Davis in this admirable address, which should be reprinted and distributed broadcast:

”The liberty of the individual has been annihilated by the logical process constructed to maintain it We have come to a political deification of Maat modern democracy, and made the modern republic possible There can be no doubt of that But there it reached its lian to incline toward the point where extremes meet

To every assertion that the people in their collective capacity of a governht of self-defense, it is said you touch the sacred rights of property”

The Senator then goes on to say thathave to deal with an oligarchy of wealth, and that the Governh to enable it to do the task

Feill dispute the fact that the present situation is not satisfactory, and cannot be put on a permanently satisfactory basis unless we put an end to the period of groping and declare for a fixed policy, a policy which shall clearly define and punish wrong-doing, which shall put a stop to the iniquities done in the name of business, but which shall do strict equity to business We deive the people a square deal; in return webusiness honestly endeavors to do right he shall hiiven a square deal; and the first, and ive him in advance full inforally and properly do It is absurd, and much worse than absurd, to treat the deliberate lawbreaker as on an exact par with the er to obey the lahose only desire is to find out from some competent Governmental authority what the law is, and then to live up to it Moreover, it is absurd to treat the size of a corporation as in itself a crie Hook says in his opinion in the Standard Oil Case: ”Magnitude of business does not alone constitute a enius and industry of man when kept to ethical standards still have full play, and what he achieves is hissuccess and nitude of business, the rewards of fair and honorable endeavor [are not forbidden][the public welfare is threatened only when success is attained] by wrongful or unlawful methods” Size ht with potential menace to the community; and may, and in my opinion should, therefore h its adh its judicial) officers a strict supervision over that corporation in order to see that it does not go wrong; but the size in itself does not signify wrong-doing, and should not be held to signify wrong-doing

Not only should any huge corporation which has gained its position by unfair hts of others, by de and corrupt practices, in short, by sheer baseness and wrong-doing, be broken up, but it should be overnmental body, by constant supervision, to see that it does not coain, save under such strict control as shall insure the coainst all repetition of the bad conduct--and it should never be per as these parts are under the control of the original offenders, for actual experience has shown that these e, unfit to be trusted with the power i of ie inter-State and international industrial organization _which has not offended otherwise than by its size_, into a nuulate the way in which those concerns as a whole shall do business Nothing is gained by depriving the Areat field of international industrial competition Those ould seek to restore the days of unlimited and uncontrolled competition, and who believe that a panacea for our industrial and econo corporations, si not only the impossible, but what, if possible, would be undesirable They are acting as we should act if we tried to daht The effort would be certain to result in failure and disaster; ould have atte, or worse than nothing But by building levees along the Mississippi, not seeking to dam the stream, but to control it, we are able to achieve our object and to confer inesti

This Nation should definitely adopt the policy of attacking, not thewhich so frequently acco is a a close and jealous supervision over it, because its size renders it potent for mischief; but it should not be punished unless it actually does the mischief; it should uarantee us, the people, against its doing ulated co corporations, that is, of all the most efficient business industries in the land Nor should we persevere in the hopeless experiulate these industries byseveral years, and of uncertain result We should enter upon a course of supervision, control, and regulation of these great corporations--a regulation which we should not fear, if necessary, to bring to the point of control of monopoly prices, just as in exceptional cases railway rates are now regulated

Either the Bureau of Corporations should be authorized, or soovernmental body similar to the Inter-State Commerce Commission should be created, to exercise this supervision, this authoritative control

When once immoral business practices have been eliain revived as a healthy factor, although not as foreneral business situation sound Wherever immoral business practices still obtain--as they obtained in the cases of the Standard Oil Trust and Tobacco Trust--the Anti-Trust Law can be invoked; and wherever such a prosecution is successful, and the courts declare a corporation to possess a monopolistic character, then that corporation should be coain assembled save on whatever terovernulatory power Methods can readily be devised by which corporations sincerely desiring to act fairly and honestly can on their own initiative co administrative control by the Govern of the Anti-Trust Law But the laill redoers; and under such conditions it could be invoked far orously and successfully than at present

It is not necessary in an article like this to attempt to work out such a plan in detail It can assuredly be worked out Moreover, in my opinion, substantially some such plansuch as was perpetrated by the Standard Oil Trust, and especially by the Tobacco Trust, should not only be punished, but if possible punished in the persons of the chief authors and beneficiaries of the wrong, far more severely than at present But punishment should not be the only, or indeed the main, end in view Our aim should be a policy of construction and not one of destruction Our ai corporation successfuland successful, but to exercise such thoroughgoing supervision and control over the exercised in the interest of the public and not against the public interest Ultimately, I believe that this control should undoubtedly indirectly or directly extend to dealing with all questions connected with their treates, the hours of labor, and the like Not only is the proper treaters, shareholders, and e from that corporation the best standard of public service, but when the effort is wisely made it results in benefit both to the corporation and to the public The success of Wisconsin in dealing with the corporations within her borders, so as both to do them justice and to exact justice in return fronal; and this Nation should adopt a progressive policy in substance akin to the progressive policy not merely formulated in theory but reduced to actual practice with such striking success in Wisconsin

To sum up, then It is practically impossible, and, if possible, it would be mischievous and undesirable, to try to break up all coe and successful, and to put the business of the country back into the hteenth century conditions of intense and unregulated competition between small and weak business concerns Such an effort represents not progressiveness but an unintelligent though doubtless entirely well- toryism Moreover, the effort to administer a law nal failure, and meanwhile to be attended with delays and uncertainties, and to put a preal sharp practice Such an effort does not adequately punish the guilty, and yet works great harive the publicity which is one of the best by-products of the system of control by adood in itself, but furnishes the data for whatever further action may be necessary We need to for with big corporations that behave themselves and which contain no menace save what is necessarily potential in any corporation which is of great size and very well ulation and supervision, so that the Governuard the interests of the whole public, including producers, consue-workers This control should, if necessary, be pushed in extre control over monopoly prices, as rates on railways are now controlled; although this is not a power that should be used when it is possible to avoid it The law should be clear, unauous, certain, so that honest ly they have violated it In short, our aioing fashi+on to regulate and control, in the public interest, the great instrumentalities of eneral welfare of the community to destroy, and which nevertheless it is vitally necessary to that general welfare to regulate and control

Competition will remain as a very important factor when once we have destroyed the unfair business hts of others, which alone enabled certain swollen combinations to crush out their competitors--and, incidentally, the ”conservatives”

will do well to rereat masters of corporate capital have done more to cause popular discontent with the propertied classes than all the orations of all the Socialist orators in the country put together

I have spoken above of Senator Davis's ado Senator Davis's one-ti, the Government counsel who did so much to win success for the Government in its prosecutions of the trusts, has recently delivered before the Palimpsest Club of Omaha an excellent address on the subject; Mr Prouty, of the Inter-State Coregational Club of Brooklyn, dealt with the subject fros of the American Bar association for 1904 there is an ad Federal control over corporations doing an inter-State business, by Professor Horace L Wilgus, of the University of Michigan The National Government exercises control over inter-State coh an appropriate governanizations engaged in inter-State commerce This control should be exercised, not by the courts, but by an administrative bureau or board such as the Bureau of Corporations or the Inter-State Coe permanently perform executive and administrative functions

APPENDIX B

THE CONTROL OF CORPORATIONS AND ”THE NEW FREEDOM”

In his book ”The New Freedoazine articles of which it is courated as President, Mr Woodrow Wilson ressive party in connection hat he asserts the policy of that party to be concerning the trusts, and as regards my attitude while President about the trusts

I a whatever about President Wilson at the outset of his Administration unless I can speak of hi or doing one thing since election that could put the slightest obstacle, even of misinterpretation, in his path It is to the interest of the country that he should succeed in his office I cordially wish him success, and I shall cordially support any policy of his that I believe to be in the interests of the people of the United States But when Mr Wilson, after being elected President, within the first fortnight after he has been inaugurated into that high office, permits himself to be betrayed into a public misstatement of what I have said, and what I stand for, then he forces me to correct his state that the Progressive ”doctrine is that monopoly is inevitable, and that the only course open to the people of the United States is to submit to it” This statee hiressive platform or in any speech of mine which bears him out I can point him out any number which flatly contradict hies about monopolies We have said: ”The corporation is an essential part of modern business The concentration of ree, is both inevitable and necessary for National and international business efficiency” Does Mr

Wilson deny this? Let him answer yes or no, directly It is easy for a politician detected in a e in evasive rhetorical hyperbole But Mr Wilson is President of the United States, and as such he is bound to candid utterance on every subject of public interest which he hirees with us, let hiress that all corporations be ely based on a deft but far fro of e have said of monopoly, which we propose so far as possible to abolish, and e have said of big corporations, which we propose to regulate; Mr Wilson's own vaguely set forth proposals being to attempt the destruction of both in ways that would harm neither In our platform we use the word ”monopoly” but once, and then we speak of it as an abuse of power, coupling it with stock-watering, unfair coes Does Mr

Wilson deny this? If he does, then where else will he assert that we speak of monopoly as he says we do? He certainly owes the people of the United States a plain answer to the question Inthe Sherree to sell to customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas whilethe power of transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and all other unfair trade practices” The platforhways of Aation of monopoly Unless Mr Wilson is prepared to show the contrary, surely he is bound in honor to admit frankly that he has been betrayed into a misrepresentation, and to correct it

Mr Wilson says that for sixteen years the National Adulation of the trusts,” and that the big business men ”have already captured the Governht perhaps be pardoned as h it is the kind of statement that never under any circumstances have I permitted myself to make, whether on the stump or off the stump, about any opponent, unless I was prepared to back it up with explicit facts But there is an added seriousness to the charge when it is made deliberately and in cold blood by a man who is at the time President In this volue Mr Wilson to controvert anything I have said, or to naulated, or in any shape or way controlled, or captured, the Govern my term as President He must furnish specifications if his words are taken at their face value--and I venture to say in advance that the absurdity of such a charge is patent to allMr