The following talk is taken from Proceedings on the National Conference on Trusts and Combinations Under
the Auspices of the National Civic Federation, October 22-25, 1907, New
York: The McConnell Printing Company, 1908, pp. 11, 221-231. . . . which title probably
explains why this insightful talk was “long lost.” It wouldn’t be at the top of too many reading
lists being included in a book with a title like that.
Anti-Trust Laws
Peter S. Grosscup
Judge U. S. Circuit Court, Chicago
“The corporations of
this country have grown up as developments of our business life, without much
reference to their relations to the people as institutions of, and for, the
people. It is time that they be looked into as institutions of, and for, the
people. The Sherman Act was passed before the regulation of interstate carriers
was seriously attempted or foreseen. Now that ‘regulation’ has come it is time
to inquire how far the old ‘prohibitions’ should remain. The whole matter —
corporate reconstruction and a restudy of the anti-trust act — should be gone
over carefully with a view to bringing some kind of order out of the disorder
that now prevails!” — Peter S. Grosscup
The Chairman: It
gives me pleasure now to present the Hon. Peter S. Grosscup, of Chicago, who
will speak on “Anti-Trust Laws.”
Hon. Peter S.
Grosscup: Mr. Chairman — We are now well into the eighteenth year since the
passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and well into the seventh year since Mr.
Roosevelt’s administration began actively to enforce it.
Thus, so far as enactments make law, there has been a
prohibitory law against the so-called trusts or big corporations for nearly
five times the length of time it took to fight out the Civil War; and so far as
a sincere and vigorous purpose to enforce law results in actual enforcement,
the battle line against the so-called trusts or big corporations has been in
action for nearly twice as long as it took to fight out the Civil War.
In its means of enforcement, as well as in its purpose, the
Sherman act was as comprehensive as language could make it. It withheld no
power, civil or criminal, that the lawmakers thought would contribute to the
complete eradication of the supposed evil. It had been preceded in Texas, Kansas,
Michigan and Maine by State laws directed to the same end, and was quickly
followed by like laws in one-half of the other States, including New York,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and the West generally.
Our Ineffective
Struggle Against Trusts
Have the so-called trusts or big corporations been
exterminated? Have they been even diminished? Has the Sherman act brought about
any decrease in the cost of living or any increase in wages? Has the process of
combining ceased? Has any specific, practical purpose of the Sherman act, not
present in the law as it has existed for centuries, been fulfilled? On the
contrary, were I to call the roll of the so-called trusts or big corporations,
organized since the Sherman law went into effect, I would be naming the largest
ones in America today, an inspection made for me of a list of one hundred and
twelve of the leading so-called trusts or big corporations showing that all but
thirteen have been organized since the passage of that act. And if it be said that
this is because the Sherman act, until the past six years, was treated as a
dead statute, I ask. How many of the so-called trusts or big corporations have
been exterminated, or even diminished — what increase has there been in wages
or decrease in the cost of living — by what is admitted on all hands to have
been a sincere and vigorous attempt to enforce the law during the
administration of President Roosevelt? Injunctions have issued against the
several packing houses that make up the meat industry, and here in Indiana
against certain concerns in the drug business, and against certain other
so-called trusts throughout the country; but in no case have these so-called
trusts or big corporations been exterminated; in no case have wages or prices
been affected; in no case, except in minor detail, has anything been done that
could not have been done as effectually under the common law that was in
existence before the Sherman act went into effect — that could not be done
against individuals as well as against corporations; and though, in this
respect, perhaps, the case of the Northern Securities Company is an exception,
even in that case the several railroads that made up the Securities Company are
managed now almost precisely as they were before the order of dissolution was
entered.
If, then, the enactment of the Sherman Anti-Trust act was
intended to exterminate the so-called trusts or big corporations, or to affect
wages or prices, manifestly the Sherman Act has failed. If the entrance of Mr.
Roosevelt’s administration upon a vigorous enforcement of that law was
intended, as some of his more radical followers constantly give out, to
exterminate the so-called trusts and big corporations, manifestly that feature
of Mr. Roosevelt’s administration has failed. The organization of industry into
corporate form does not cease. Neither wages nor prices change. That much, at
least, has been proven. And the reason that the organization of industry in
corporate form is not ceasing, is because, as an effective, industrial agency
to wield the energies of mankind, the corporate form, beyond any other form, is
the most effective yet discovered. What government is to mankind politically
organized, the corporation is to modern industry organized. It is on that
account that the corporation is here at all; and it is on that account that it
is here to stay. And not until men, in their general relations to each other,
can safely dispense with government, will come a time when men, in their
industrial relations, can safely dispense with industrial organization.
(Tomorrow: “Our Legislation Wrong in Principle”)
