Mr. CULBERSON (when his name was called). I again announce my pair, and abstain from voting because of the absence of the senior Senator from Delaware [Mr. DU PONT].

Mr. SMITH of Georgia (when his name was called). Again transferring my pair with the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] to the senior Senator from Alabama [Mr. BANKHEAD], and allowing that transfer to continue for the balance of the day without repeating it, I vote "nay."

Mr. SMITH of Maryland (when his name was called). Announcing my pair with the senior Senator from Vermont [Mr. DILLINGHAM], I transfer it to the junior Senator from South Carolina [Mr. SMITH] and will vote. I vote "nay."

Mr. THOMAS (when his name was called). I understand that my pair and I are in accord upon this amendment, and I therefore vote "yea."

Mr. WILLIAMS (when his name was called). Transferring my pair with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. PENROSE] to the senior Senator from North Carolina [Mr. SIMMONS], I vote "nay."

The roll call having been concluded, the result was announced-yeas 16, nays 46, as follows:

ANTITRUST LEGISLATION

SPEECH

OF

HON. DANIEL J. MCGILLICUDDY

OF MAINE

IN THE

IIOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MAY 26, 1914

WASHINGTON
1914

SPEECH

OF

HON. DANIEL
DANIEL J. McGILLICUDDY,

Antitrust Legislation.

The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union had under consideration the bill (H. R. 15657) to supplement existing laws against unlawful restraints and monopolies, and for other purposes.

Mr. McGILLICUDDY. Mr. Chairman, if the Democratic Party in addition to tariff reform as exemplified in the Underwood bill and currency and banking reform as exemplified in the banking and currency bill shall pass these antitrust bills at the present session of Congress, it will have created more constructive legislation in one session of Congress than any other political party in the history of our country.

I have listened with much pleasure and profit to the argument of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. GRAHAM]. The burden of his song is that the small interests in this country will suffer if this bill is passed. That is an old-time trust argument. Whenever you touch monopoly and the trusts, their cry immediately goes up that you are not hurting them, but the small business interests of the country. Whenever you hear this tender solicitude on the part of the trusts for small interests and small business you can be pretty sure you are getting the probe on the right spot. When I heard our friend from Pennsylvania he had a suspicious look in his eye that while he was talking about the small interests he was really interested in something bigger than the small interests of this country. It is akin to another complaint that I have heard in this House against this bill. I heard a gentleman say here the other day that the Democrats were bringing this forward as a matter of politics, because the tariff bill did not reduce the cost of living and high prices in this country as they promised to do.

Now, if our political opponents undertake to state the Democratic position, I hold that they ought to do it fairly. The Democratic Party never said that under present conditions the reduction of the tariff alone would accomplish the desired reduction in high prices in this country. The tariff is only one of the prime causes of high prices. Monopolistic power and trust control of production and prices the Democratic Party realized as most potent factors in high prices, and promised the country to reform and correct them. The tariff, of course, is intimately related. In fact, the trust itself in this country is the legitimate child of high tariff. It developed from the tariff as direct as the fruit from the blossom. In relation to high prices the two are interlocking, and both must be treated before relief is obtained.

It is well for us to see exactly what the Democratic Party did say about that, and I quote from the platform of 1912:

The high cost of living is a serious problem in every American home. The Republican Party, in its platform, attempts to escape from responsibility for present conditions by denying that they are due to a

protective tariff. We take issue with them on this subject, and charge that excessive prices result in a large measure from the high tariff laws enacted and maintained by the Republican Party, and from trusts and commercial conspiracies fostered and encouraged by such laws, and we assert that no substantial relief can be secured for the people without import duties on the necessaries of life are materially reduced and these criminal conspiracies broken up.

A private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable. We therefore favor the vigorous enforcement of the criminal as well as the civit law against trusts and trust officials, and demand the enactment of such additional legislation as may be necessary to make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States.

The Democratic Party has revised the tariff downward in good faith with the people, precisely as that party promised that it would, and it is now on its way to fulfill its other great promise by the passage of this antitrust bill. It will fulfill it, and in the words of the Democratic platform, it will make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States. I have listened to the attacks upon this bill from the Republican side of the Chamber. I find them in neither harmony nor agreement in the line of attack. If there was anything fundamentally wrong with the bill you can be assured that its oppopents would have discovered it and united on a common ground of attack upon it.

If I felt there was any coherence in the Republican opposition to this bill I should have some fears about it, for I respect the arguments and I respect the integrity of our Republican friends; but I hear a portion of them, intelligent, patriotic men. telling us that this bill is too radical, that it goes too far, that it will be destructive, and I hear responding to it another portion of the same party, equally intelligent and patriotic, telling us that it is too neutral, too conservative, that it will not accomplish anything in the way of reform legisla tion. My belief is that if there was anything inherently wrong about the bill our opponents would be in substantial agreement in their grounds of opposition. They are not in harmony in opposition to the bill for the reason that they are unable to make common cause against it, and I am convinced that the bill as a whole is safe, practical, and rational, and that is precisely the kind of a bill the Democratic committee started out to frame.

No committee could construct a bill that would be satisfactory to everybody in the country. That is not to be expected. No group of men could write such a bill. It is not expected that this bill will correct every possible evil of trust conditions that oppress the people of this country. But that it is a long step in the right direction and will correct the great trust evils that oppress the people there can be no reasonable doubt in the mind of any fair and impartial man.

The Democratic Party should have a fair chance with reference to this legislation. You can not correct in a day the trust evils that have been steadily growing and gathering strength for the past 30 years. These evils in this country have become deep rooted, widespread, and are guarded by combinations of wealth and power unequaled on the face of the globe. They have not only controlled the business of the country, but its politics as well. Their giant forms have stalked into the legislatures of the States and even into the Congress of the Nation, compelling their will to be done. The executives of the States