SECRECY STRANGLES TRADE COMMISSION
Thompson, Huston
Secrecy Strangles Trade Commission Facts Showing One Per Cent of People Own 59 Per Cent of Wealth and Evidence of Trust Iniquities Kept From Public By HUSTON THOMPSON (Former Chairman Federal...
...One of its spokesmen stated to the Board of Review of the Federal Trade Commission that the pian was in the making for several years but it was decided to put it over immediately after President Coolidge was elected...
...Among these sugar companies was the Michigan Beet Sugar Company with offices in the same building as the Larrowe Company in the City of Detroit...
...Are you for forcing 900.000 people from the farms each year...
...danger flag is flying DURING the last year I have covered the United States from New Orleans to Minnesota and from the Atlantic to the Pacific...
...This installment scheme is fostered and encouraged by these colossal combinations...
...The whole scheme becomes automatic since the smaller comnetitor does not dare go below the price of the combine...
...The Bread Trust Case UNDER the secrecy rules of the Commission, although a complaint had been issued against the Continental Baking Corporation, no publicity had been made of it...
...You, the people, have a right to know them...
...thompson received his bachelor degree from princeton and his law degree from georgetown university...
...when millions of farmers are compelled to sell their cotton at 14c a pound with no profit at 18c, or when thousands upon thousands of our cattle ranches have been foreclosed or so mortgaged that the ranchmen are thoroughly discouraged when, after having shipped their cattle and paid the present freight rates, they are forced into insolvency...
...that 13 per cent of our peopled owned more than 90 per cent of the $353,000,000,000 of our national wealth...
...Such facts as these should be exposed to the world because the very knowledge of them is the greatest corrective there is...
...If veu're for these things, then you will be for President Coolidge's policies...
...If it does it means a price war...
...This gave it a tremendous purchasing power in Hour, sugar, shortening, yeast, milk, eggs, fruit, etc...
...after the report of the Attorney General and on February 11, 1925, the Republican majority voted, with the Democratic Commissioners dissenting, that its data should be furnished to the attorney General "subject to the qualifications that material obtained from the aluminum company of america itself shall not be made available bat shall be kept confidential...
...it was producing one billion pounds of bread daily and sixty million pounds of cake...
...Are you for bankrupting the cattle ranchmen of this country...
...the doors of opportunity to your children...
...he began the practice of law in denver in 1899...
...The Commission functioned with a will until about a year ago when the control passed into the hands of the appointees of mr...
...That with re-snect to some of the Practices complained of...
...At the time of the issuance of the complaint it was not known by any of the members of the Commission that Mr...
...Are vou for 14-cent cotton...
...If you favor these things, then vou will be for our present Republican prosperity...
...The Aluminum Comnany of America has a monopoly of all the bauxite in the United States from which aluminum is made...
...We now have six companies controlling one-third of the total developed waterpowef...
...was lecturer in law at the university of denver law school, 1903-1906...
...It, as well as most of the other companies, had access to the books of the Larrowe Company and there was a constant exchange of information and advice between the Larrowe Company and all of the sugar companies on the subject of price, so that there was a control of this product that is used all over the United States in feeding cattle and other stocks...
...It is for this reason that prices advance and decline with a uniformity as exact as that of marching soldiers...
...it deprives the farmers all over the United States who use the feed for cattle and other stock of the benefits which would accrue from the lower prices under normal conditions of competition...
...The dominating company then either by telephone or telegram notifies the other companies in the industry of the minimum price...
...Coolidge and prosperity" must justify the greater and greater accumulations of capita] in this country, which have gone scot free under this system of GOVERNMENT BY SECRECY...
...the Federal Trade Commission's action was taken Friday morning...
...Then for the first time public knew what was happening...
...Under this rule hundreds of cases have been dismissed without any public knowledge of them...
...one of the most universally used articles in our household is aluminum ware...
...It does not care how high the competitors go so long as they do not go below its minimum...
...As in other industries one company in a field, the dominating company composed of a number of corporations, names the price, or if it does not so name the price it permits some other company to name it...
...In the time alloted to me I have given you a glimpse of government by secrecy...
...This company was the manufacturer of mixed feed containing beet sugar pulp, and was also the distributor of 75 per cent of all the beet sugar pulp sold by the various sugar companies of the United States...
...and through the failure to try the case openly has deprived the public of the right to be informed of this monopolistic situation which is so ruinous- to our farmers and one of the reasons why farmers in the cattle business have been deserting that industry, having their farms foreclosed and leaving for the cities...
...Lest there be any misunderstanding i would like it known that i made no imputation of any moral turpitude whatsoever toward the other members of the Commission, with whom i have labored on most friendly personal terms...
...Are you in favor of wage reductions...
...The Secrecy Rules ALMOST immediately after the Commission came under the control of the administration majority it instituted what has been termed the "secrecy rules...
...Do von favor making thousands of millionaires of one class of our peonle and thousands of bankmnts of another class...
...thompson believes that the federal trade commission should function in behalf of the public and not for the exclusive benefit of the special interests...
...it is apparent, therefore, that during the time covered hv vour report the Aluminum Company of America violated several provisions of the decree...
...April 2nd, and after the Attorney General had been informed by a messenger from Commissioner Nugent of the dismissal of the complaint bv the Commission...
...Control of Aluminum THE UPSHOT of the whole situation is that the Continental Corporation, which both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice chared with being formed contrary to law and which has an annual sale of $140 000 000 continues as it was before, except that it is much larger, having absorbed many more comoaries...
...Are you for control of prices bv colossal combinations...
...FOR EIGHT YEARS I have been a member of the Federal Trade Commission and have had the in-side of business revealed to me by the statements, testimony, cor-respondence and actions of this representatives of these great groups...
...two companies controlling well over half of the iron-ore reserves, four companies controlling nearly half of the copper reserves, and so on and on, with similar conditions in other industries...
...i have heard everywhere that the retailers of this country are doing only a hand to hand business because the people have stopped buying...
...For three years the Commission has made the most exhaustive survey ever made in this country covering the subject of wealth, and we found that one per cent of the people owned 59 per cent of the wealth...
...for more than three years the bread trust had been in the making...
...Warren had anything to do with the Michigan Sugar Company...
...Secrecy Strangles Trade Commission Facts Showing One Per Cent of People Own 59 Per Cent of Wealth and Evidence of Trust Iniquities Kept From Public By HUSTON THOMPSON (Former Chairman Federal Trade Commission) as chairman of the federal trade commission, huston thompson, has been outstanding in his opposition to government by secrecy...
...This corporation had a capital stock of $600,000,000...
...his term of office expired in september, 1926, and because of his opposition to the secrecy rules of the federal trade commission, he was not re-appointed.—managing editor...
...It does not necessarily say that they must abide by its minimum nor do they agree that they shall keen the price...
...Six months after issuance of the complaint Commissioner Nugent and i, the two Democratic members, refused to be bound by the rule of secrecv and (rave out the complaint charging a violation of the law in the taking over by the Continental Company of the stock of the comnanies of competing corporations...
...Such could be the case although the practice might have been going on for a number of years, great damage suffered by the wrongdoer's competitors and the public grossly deceived and defrauded either through false advertising or misrepresentation of an article...
...The dismissal left the competitors of the Larrowe Company precisely where they were before the complaint was issued...
...The popularity of the nolice dog was shown at a recent London Kennel Club show where 644 of the animals, or a quarter of the total number exhibited, were Alsations...
...1, 1875, mr...
...Do you favor closing...
...their wages cannot catch up with their installment debts...
...The Commission issued a complaint on January 23, 1925...
...Just two days later Charles B. Warren, who was president of the Michigan Sugar Company, resigned as its president, having already been nominated for the position of Attorney General by President Coolidge...
...These rules permitted a person who had been charged with breaking the law against unfair methods of competition, when informed of the complaint against him, to sign a stipulation agreeing to desist from the practice and thereafter going scot free without any publicity whatsoever...
...This report was submitted to Attorney General stone, a Renubliean, who said in a brief summary to the press...
...assistant attorney general of the united states, 1913-1918, and was appointed a member of the federal trade commission on december 11, 1918...
...Senators and Congressmen who have made their platform "mr...
...A Consent decree was drawn, without (he knowledge of the two Democratic Commissioners, and presented, and rushed through the Commission against the protest of Commissioner Nugent, the Democratic member present at the meeting, after fifteen minutes' consideration and without living him an opportunity to make an examination of the decree...
...in other words, the commission was made the sanctuary for the files of those suspected of violating the anti-trust laws...
...Are you for government bv secrecy...
...All of this time the Department of Justice was being given the same information that the Federal Trade Commission had, but did nothing...
...In 1925 one of the cases suppressed from the public through the secrecy rule was the Lar-rovve Milling Company case...
...assistant attorney general of colorado, 1907-1909...
...WE ARE often asked how it is that the price of gasoline is so uniform that it does not deviate a penny, between companies, except on the rarest occasions...
...Tts control is strengthened bv bich tariff duties on imported crude and semi-finished aluminum...
...Government by secrecy is further exemplified in the case of the so-called bread trust...
...They do not have to...
...Dismiss Larrowe Milling Case SHORTLY after this was learned the administration majority of the Commission entered into a stipulation of fact with the Larrowe Company which contained many statements contrary to the letters and documentary evidence in the files, and failed to cover many of the important points contained in the evidence upon the recommendation of the Chief Counsel of the Commission, without taking any evidence or having a trial of the issues, the admin,-istration majority voted to dismiss the complaint, the Democratic members dissenting...
...The consent decree was signed Saturday, April 3rd...
...born in lewisburg, pa., nov...
...This rule has been applied by the Commission in a number of instances since the Aluminum case...
...Coolidge, and there was then instituted a new system of government by secrecy, which is continuing down to this hour...
...on October 6, 1924, the Commission made a unanimous report showing that there was monopoly and price control in the aluminum utensil industry...
...The Michigan Company was the one that usually named the price of pulp at the beginning of each season...
...they were so frequent and long continue the inference is the Comoany either was indifferent to the provisions of the deree or knowinely intended that its provisions should he disregarded, with a view to siinnrssing competition in the industry...
...The Federal Trade Commission was brought into existence during the Wilson regime for the very purpose of brineing into action this curative remedy of publicity and of halting the unfair interests in the business world who were seeking to build up gigantic combines...
...What kind of prosperity is it that permits us to go on increasing the number of our millionaires when at the same time we are reducing wages in our New England cotton and woolen factories...
...the fact is the danger flag is flying, a fact which is being whispered and quietly discussed in all business circles despite what we read in the newspapers...
...all of its purchasing power for all of the eighty or more plants that had been absorbed by it, located throughout the United States and also in Canada, was under the control of the Bakery Service Corporation which in turn was controlled by the Continental Company...
...How is the Government, under such a condition of circumstances, to be able to enforce its decrees or prosecute these greater and greater accumulations of capital, if they can have a secret sanctuary in the F. T. C. ? Why Uniform Gas Price...
Vol. 18 • December 1926 • No. 12
