monopoly; you still leave it in all its force and power, as it has been able to form itself under the corporation laws of the several States. All that you can do, taking all that is claimed for section 5, is that you can suppress unfair competition; but in all other respects the octopus, the monopoly, remains a living being to plague the American people. I can tell you what section 5 is for. It does not require much to tell what it is for. It is to act as a brake, as a protector, aз a back fire for these monopolies against the enforcement of the antitrust law. This is not a new matter, Mr. President. Ever since these big concerns found that there was some virtue in the antitrust law, and found that the courts had power to dissolve these trusts and resort to drastic remedies, the hue and cry went up from them: "Oh, for God's sake, let us know how to do business within the pale of the law. Since these decisions in the Trans-Missouri case and the Joint Traffic case and the Knight case and the Standard Oil case we are at a loss to know how to do business in this country. For God's sake come to our relief and tell us how we big monopolies can transact business in this country "; and so the cry has gone on from that day to this. In 1898 several bills were introduced, akin to section 5 of this measure-bills to relieve these great monopolies from the onus of the antitrust law; bills for the purpose of informing them, for they were so ignorant that without advice they could not tell, how they could do business. Bills were introduced, as I said, prepared in New York by the attorney of the Steel Trust. One of those bills, a remarkable bill, segregated all corporations engaged in interstate commerce into corporations operating under the interstate commerce law and all other corporations, and then it provided that the Bureau of Corporations should have jurisdiction over corporations not under the interstate commerce law and should investigate them, and if they gave them a clean bill of health they were to be bidden Godspeed on their journey, and if the Interstate Commerce Commission gave the railroads a clean bill of health they were to be bidden Godspeed on their journey. Fortunately, that legislation failed to pass. The Judiciary Committee of the Senate, with one accord, vetoed that measure. Section 5 of this bill is of a more homeopathic character, and yet it is in the same trend, in the same direction. The plan of it is: "Do not go for these trusts in court. Charge them with being unfair in their competition, snake them before this wonderful commission, and if this commission determines that they are not guilty of unfair competition, why, God bless you, let them go; they have not violated any law. If the commission does determine that they are guilty of unfair competition, why, make them stop that part of their program; but in God's name let them have a free hand for everything else." That is all there is in this legislation, in a nutshell. My idea is that we should leave the antitrust law intact. There has been much criticism here by the Senator from Iowa [Mr. CUMMINS] about the antitrust law being so difficult to interpret. There is not any difficulty on the part of the law. nor does the difficulty arise from the varied opinions of the judges. It arises from the fact that the methods by which these monopolies and trusts pursue their calling and carry out their program are as manifold and as intricate and as devious as the cases of fraud and usury. Have you ever found a court that was able to lay down a hard and fast rule as to what constituted fraud? Have you ever found a court that was able to lay down a hard and fast rule as to what constituted usury? No more can you find a hard and fast rule in the courts in respect to violations of the antitrust law. Mr. REED. Mr. President Mr. NELSON. I yield to the Senator from Missouri. Mr. REED. And yet does the Senator know, in all his experience as a lawyer, of any man really committing an actual fraud who did not know he was engaged in rascally practices every minute he was engaged in that fraud? Does not the man who perpetrates the fraud always know he is perpetrating a fraud? Mr. NELSON. There are some cases where, of course, it would seem at first blush that it is difficult for a man to know that he is violating the law, and he wants some moral instruction on it. I remember a case in the neighborhood of my old home in Wisconsin. An old farmer who was very rich loaned out money to his neighbors. They had a very rigid usury law in Wisconsin. No one could get more than 10 per cent interest, and if he took a cent more he forfeited principal and interest combined. This old fellow had this cute way about it: If a poor neighbor came to him to borrow $100, he would scratch his head and say, "Well, money is pretty scarce. I don't know whether I can raise it for you." Then he would chat with him a little while, give him a chew of tobacco if he used chewing tobacco, or give him a pipe to smoke, and then he would take him out into the yard and say, "I have got some fine cows here and colts and steers. If I could sell some of these, I might be able to loan you the $100." Then he would show the poor fellow a $20 cow and say to him, "Now, that cow is worth $50. If you will take that cow for $50, I will loan you $100, and you can give me your note for $150." That was his idea of that transaction; and it never dawned upon him, until the circuit court of Dane County explained to him that that was a case of usury, that it was actually usury. [Laughter.] It is so with this antitrust law. The law is as broad and as comprehensive as the commerce clause in the Constitution, and the courts, whenever a case has come before them, have met that case upon the facts in each case. Take the case that I quoted a moment ago. Take the American Tobacco Co. case. Among the grounds which the Supreme Court said were entitled to consideration in determining whether it was a trust and monopoly was this-I read from the opinion in the Tobacco case: Because immediately after that combination and the increase of capital which followed the acts which ensued justify the inference that the intention existed to use the power of the combination as a vantage ground to further monopolize the trade in tobacco by means of trade conflicts designed to injure others, either by driving competitors out of the business or compelling them to become parties to a combinationa purpose whose execution was illustrated by the plug war which ensued and its results, and by the snuff war which followed and its results. If the Senator from Nevada had had his law on the statute books at that time, he might have suppressed the plug war and the snuff war, but the American Tobacco Co. would still have existed as a monopoly. He would have had the glory, through this commission, of stopping competition in plug tobacco and in snuff, and he could not have gone an inch farther. No, Mr. President. In the first place, I am utterly opposed to section 5, because it is designed-I do not say that was the purpose of the Senator from Nevada or of anybody else, but its manifest purpose and design must be to act as a kind of a protector, as a kind of a shade, as a kind of a brake for these trusts and monopolies; and, in the next place, as a remedy it is the most harmless pill garlic imaginable. It strikes at only one side of the manifestations of the trusts and nothing else. Mr. President, it is late in the evening, and I have no desire to enter into a discussion of this matter, but I could not help saying what I have, in view of the peculiar remarks made by the Senator from Nevada. 53155-13688 O |