COURT SALVAGES ANTI-MONOPOLY CASES

...In its recent survey of the economic situation in the United States, Fortune magazine concluded that big business in this country must lower prices on consumer goods in order to maintain purchasing power among the masses...

...Monopoly prices levied by private monopoly will once more reduce and destroy the purchasing power of the American people and once purchasing power is again destroyed, business collapse will follow...

...The cases against the big oil companies were started by the federal government because the government believed these oil companies were fixing prices at unreasonably high levels and thereby exploiting the consuming public...

...Through the use of the federal credit and the consequent spending program, the Roosevelt administration has succeeded in putting business in this country back on a comparatively sound basis...

...Representatives of the U. S. department of justice bitterly denounced this action on the part of Judge Stone, hut Judge Stone's action stood because of a tie vote of 4 to 4 in the U. S. supreme court when the Stone decision was appealed...

...But the Roosevelt administration appreciates that if big business is permitted to exact profits from the American people that amount to exploitation through the levying of monopoly prices, we will again eventually arrive at the same situation which brought the 1929 collapse...

...The court's position is an endorsement of the anti-monopoly policy being pursued by the Roosevelt administration...

...The significance of the supreme court decision of Monday, therefore, goes much deeper than a mere approval of the 12 convictions that came out of the oil trials begun here in Madison...

...THE Roosevelt administration has bas-ed its entire policy on the argument that we can have a sound business economy in the United States only when the masses of the people have money with which to buy the things that business and industry produce...

...If business in the United States heads more and more toward the private monopoly status* and selfishly exacts high prices and keeps for itself, the savings that come from technological advance, then we will be laying the ground lor such an economic catastrophe as occurred in 1929...

...THERE was not very much left of tne cases brought against 72 oil companies and individual officers after Judge Patrick T. Stone in federal court here and the federal circuit court of appeals in Chicago had riddled the jury findings...

...In these days of tremendous technological advances which bring big savings in labor and raw materials, big business must pass on a considerable part ot these savings in lower prices in order that people will have the money to Duy other goods that will create labor and jobs...

...It was on the appeal from the decision of the federal circuit court of appeals in Chicago that the U. S. supreme court rendered its decision on Monday...

...THE decision of the supreme court is a big victory at a time when tne Roosevelt administration is launching a crusade against private monopoly...

...Meanwhile, the 12 whose convictions stood after Judge Stone had entered his ruling dismissing 11 and granting new trials to 18 others appealed the jury convictions...

...The present monopoly drive is a part of a consistent program for recovery and rehabilitation which has been followed by the Roosevelt administration...

...Once more the U. S. department of justice was given a hard blow when the federal circuit court of appeals in Chicago reversed these convictions on the ground that Judge Stone's instructions to the jury were erroneous...

...If the government reasoned, the consumer can be freed from exploitation by the oil companies, then they will have more money to spend — more purchasing power—for other goods, and such spending will help business and reduce unemployment...

...It is because private monopoly is a foe of this policy that the Roosevelt administration has launched its anti-monopoly drive...

...Court Salvages Anti-Monopoly Cases [AN EDITORIAL] THOSE who believe that the increasing sway and power of private monopoly is a dominating issue in this country will hail the decision of the United States supreme court, announced Monday, on the so-called oil cases which were started here in Madison...

...All of the business charts reveal a steady upturn since 1933 — increased production, increased sales, increased profits, increased dividends...

...They will be glad to know that the cases against the oil operators charged with fixing prices in 10 midwestern states which were so ably presented by the U. S. department of justice and which were riddled by decisions in the lower courts, have now been salvaged to some extent by the U. S. supreme court...

...It will be remembered that on July 19, 1938, six months after the defendants had been convicted by a jury in his court, Judge Stone dismissed 11 convictions as being contrary to evidence and granted new trials to 18 on the ground that they were linked to the conspiracy only by circumstantial evidence...