REPUBLICAN REFORM RETROGRADING (CONTINUED)
Chandler, William E.
REPUBLICAN REFORM RETROGRADING ( Continued.) Railroad Pooling Contracts must not be Authorized by Special Law. Imperative Duty of Republican Party to Prevent Reactionists from Completely...
...I. The "Community of Interest" idea—a small corporation with little capital stock, owned by a few men, with vast issues of bonds, may purchase and own all the stock of all the big corporations in the United States...
...But this offer to Mr...
...Victor Morawetz, general counsel of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and Francis Lynde Stetson, of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., of New York...
...Hepburn's bill No...
...H. R. 19745...
...Seth Low, former Mayor of New York...
...The Senate bill, 6440, is to be kept back till next winter and then re-introduced to await its opportunity...
...The above newspaper extracts are in confirmation of the statements made in my previous article of May 15 and in Senator Nelson's report and testimony referred to in La Follette's Weekly Magazine of that date...
...How Existing Suits are to be Disposed of and New Suits Prevented...
...The Congressional Program for 1910 I N the Washington Post of May 17, 1909, an inspired writer, Mr...
...How do the real reformers like this prospect...
...Fred Starek, outlines the program for 1910...
...The Paralysis of Opposition to Monopolies and Trusts...
...CONGRESS must refuse to pass any law allowing railroads to make agreements with each other fixing rates on all the roads, and providing penalties against each other for carrying passengers or freight for less than those rates...
...Moreover, and even more in the interest of labor than of business combinations, all suits brought for causes of action heretofore occurred should be brought only if the contract or combination complained of was unfair or unreasonable...
...The manner in which these statutes conflict has been pointed out before and the desire is to secure harmony in their operation, without the sacrifice of an iota of their effectiveness...
...Embraced in the plan also will be the effacement of the antiquated features of the Sherman anti-trust law, for concededly modern business conditions require a modification of the provisions of that statute...
...6440, Mr...
...No pooling clause could they get added...
...Others present were Secretary Root, Secretary Garfield, Attorney-General Bonaparte, Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations...
...To legalize them is the present program of the reactionists and it has been approved by high authority in the Republican party...
...Denunciation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law...
...Is it reform progressing or retrograding...
...S. 6440...
...No "Good Trust" Hereafter to be Disturbed...
...Washington, March 12.—As the result of a White House conference that extended into the early hours of this morning, President Roosevelt was at work today on the final draught of a bill to take the place of the Sherman anti-trust law...
...Combinations of all kinds will be given an opportunity to adjust themselves to the new law...
...Gompers rejected the offer when upon study he realized the danger to result from the national statute containing therein a section expressly authorizing all corporations to combine together to fix the wages of labor—and he introduced his own anti-injunction bills in Senate and House...
...Gompers THIS law was baited with a clause saying that there should be no restrictions upon the right of workmen to institute strikes, provided that employers might be free to discharge laborers and "combine to peacefully obtain labor on satisfactory terms...
...On February 23, 1895, Senator M. C. Butler of South Carolina, who as chairman had reported the bill favorably from the Interstate Commerce Committee, moved to proceed to its consideration but was voted down—yeas 24, nays 42...
...It authorizes all the different railroads in the United States to make a contract with themselves as one combination to divide among themselves the whole of their traffic and earnings, such contract to be "lawful and enforceable between the parties thereto," unless within twenty days from the filing thereof with the Interstate Commerce Commission it shall be disapproved by the Commission "upon inspection thereof...
...A bill has been presented in the Congress to remedy this situation...
...The Roosevelt crusade disclosed glaring incongruities in the Federal laws dealing with corporations...
...Who is back of the Bills THE origin of bills 19745 and 6440 is intensely interesting...
...The headings and extracts are as follows: Destruction of the Interstate Commerce Law...
...J. Pierpont Morgan was of temporary brilliancy only...
...Judicial decisions destroyed any such power which the Commission had possessed...
...3d Sess...
...Francis L. Stetson of New York, counsel for J. Pierpont Morgan...
...In each case, unless within thirty days the contract is officially denounced by the government as an unreasonable restraint of trade, no suit or prosecution by any person shall be maintained against it unless it can be proved to be an unreasonable restraint of trade...
...Movement Began for Pooling THE railroads also began another movement to repeal the 1 anti-pooling law...
...If complained of after the injuries are suffered complaints must be made by lawsuits, to be made interminable...
...6331, authorizing reasonable combinations in restraint of trade...
...This anti-trust law was a most unwisely drawn statute * * * drawn up in such sweeping form as to become either ineffective or else mischievous...
...A short statute of limitations should be provided so far as the past is concerned, not to exceed a year...
...The law should not affect pending suits...
...It is not strange that notwithstanding the enormous expenditures of the railroads in getting the Patterson bill through the House the Senate did not dare pass it...
...page The provisions of this defeated bill are atrocious...
...Every law suit, whether civil or criminal, seeking legal remedies for extortionate prices after they have been collected is to be subject to this fundamental principle that if at the end of the long and costly trial the judges of the courts shall conclude that on the whole the offences complained of were reasonable, the citizen shall lose his case, and pay the costs...
...The Anti-Trust Law Repeal Bill IT first provides that any corporation party to any contract or combination in restraint of trade may file the contract with the Commissioner of Corporations...
...The advocates of pooling kept watch and made tests but soon realized there was little immediate hope for pooling...
...Ill...
...and tremendous efforts were made to drive it through the democratic Senate...
...There is to be no interference by legislatures or by executive or administrative officers of the government in the fixing of prices of commodities or rates of transportation...
...Senator Foraker also introduced a bill No...
...Record, Vol...
...Combinations are absolutely necessary * * * the only effective way of meeting actual business needs...
...How, Hereafter, Trusts and Monopolies Are to be Allowed Full Sweep...
...Taft will explain it in his message to Congress next December...
...Victor Morawetz, General Solicitor of the Santa Fe, and Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor...
...They were able to do no more than the deadly work of paralyzing, by securing their provisions for court review, the new power of controlling rates apparently given to the Commission by the Act of June 29, 1906...
...It is clearly to be seen that there are four ever present dangerous plans which the people are to dread from the monopolists...
...The proposed changes in the law, it is expected, will be along the lines suggested by the conference of the Civic Federation held in Chicago a few weeks ago...
...All three were laid to sleep for the 60th Congress by Senator Nelson's report No...
...Pressure for Pooling since the act of June 29,1906 IMMEDIATELY again, however, the railroad pressure and intrigue for pooling began and it was shortly arranged by high contracting parties that "the Interstate Commerce Law should be so amended as to give railroads the right to make traffic agreements," and this arrangement was accompanied by the announcement that "combinations are absolutely necessary and are the only effective way of meeting actual business needs...
...On the other hand, public sentiment became so thoroughly aroused by the impotency of the Interstate Commerce Commission as denuded by the Supreme Court that at last an irresistible demand for legislation giving the Commission power pressed upon Congress during the long session of 1905 and 1906...
...The contract would then only be liable to attack on the ground that it constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade...
...These sententious executive utterances became Senator Warner's bill No...
...as stated below: (From the Associated Press, March 13, 1908)— Washington, March 12, 1908.—An important conference was held at the White House last night, and, in a sense, today, respecting amendments to the Sherman anti-trust law...
...Such order of disapproval is to be subject to review by the Circuit Court, which may make the contract "lawful and enforceable" notwithstanding that disapproval...
...Provisions to this effect were accordingly incorporated in what was known as the Hepburn bill of March 23, 1908...
...Imperative Duty of Republican Party to Prevent Reactionists from Completely Abolishing Railroad Competition By WILLIAM E. CHANDLER Ex-United States Senator from New Hampshire...
...19745...
...It is already known that material changes in the laws under which the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Bureau of Corporations, and the Department of Justice operated are to be proposed...
...It is the understanding that if this bill is passed all pending prosecutions of trusts will be stopped and the slate wiped clean...
...These pooling agreements the railroads have been fighting for thirty years to obtain the right to make...
...In such men as Wickersham, the Attorney-General, and his youthful though able assistants, Bowers and Ellis, Dickinson, the Secretary of War, Knox, the Secretary of State, MacVeagh, the Secretary of the Treasury, and Nagel, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Taft has a combination of men well adapted by experience to work out what today is the greatest problem of his administration...
...Congress can not afford to leave it on the statute books in its present shape...
...Men who Face Big Problems...
...27, part 3, 53d Cong...
...They are further proved to be correct by extracts from the special message of President Roosevelt of March 25, 1908, point to which is given by headings written by me...
...The Foraker bill has been re-introduced in the House of the first session of the 61st Congress, by Representative Charles G. Washburn of Worcester, Mass...
...The contracts or combinations could be disapproved or forbidden only after notice and hearing with a reasonable provision for summary review, on appeal, by the courts...
...Last night's conference was arranged by Seth Low, of the Civic Federation...
...The Interstate Commerce Law should be amended so as to give railroads the right to make traffic agreements...
...Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor...
...Participating in the conference were the President, Secretary Root, Secretary Garfield, Attorney General Bonaparte, Herbert Knox Smith, commissioner of corporations...
...introduced also in the Senate by Senator Warner on April 1, 1908...
...From the New York World, March 13, 1908...
...848, second session...
...Persistent Pressure for Pooling AFTER this defeat of pooling laws in 1894 railroad pressure continued with varying force...
...Movement Began Against Rate Fixing Power BUT immediately the great railroads began one movement through the courts to destroy the Commission's power to fix rates—and after a few years they succeeded...
...Specific laws are to be passed allowing, legalizing and making enforceable combinations of all sorts, forbidding competition and fixing prices and rates which must be paid...
...Yet the railroad raid upon Congress continued and in 1894 the Patterson bill authorizing pooling agreements passed the House...
...The Supreme Court could not approve this, but destroyed the Association...
...Incidentally they defied it and thirty roads between Chicago and New York formed the Joint Traffic Association under which if any one road lowered its rates without the consent of the others, it was heavily fined...
...Gompers to allow him to become a partner with Mr...
...Much of the time of the President and his cabinet officers during the summer and fall will be devoted to the construction of this plan for the proper control of corporations, and Mr...
...It next provides that any railroad which is a party to any traffic agreement or combination in restraint of competition in transportation may file the same with the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...The complete abolition of railroad competition is the fixed plan...
...It is mischievous and unwholesome to keep upon the statute books unmodified a law like the anti-trust law" * * * "The time has come when it is imperative to modify it...
...They are to be fixed only by the corporations and are to be paid by the public...
...Offer to Mr...
...When the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887, was passed it was supposed that it gave the Commission power to fix reasonable rates of fares and freights and it was certain that it prohibited railroads from agreements with each other not to compete with each other...
...It also provides that no future law suit under the former Act shall be brought unless within one year from the passage of the new Act...
...The presidential election of 1896 was approaching, neither party dared to enter upon the canvass with responsibility for a pooling bill, and leading men of both parties united in defeating it...
Vol. 1 • June 1909 • No. 23
