This particular power of defining reasonableness and unreasonableness, however, the proposed law centered in the President, acting through the Commissioner of Corporations. It provided a limited system of federal registration for corporations, and, in a modified form, for federal license and publicity--the two circumstances which probably led President Roosevelt to support the measure. In effect it granted indulgences to corporations to combine, provided they would do certain things. The Sherman Law, as it stands to-day, was not specifically to be repealed; it was simply to be waived in favor of those combinations and trusts which paid the price of these indulgences. In order to obtain absolution, the offending corporation must do two things: register with the Bureau of Corporations and answer such questions as might be propounded to it. The bill authorized the President to determine precisely what information should be exacted, and also to change from time to time the requirements regarding data. That is, for registered corporations, it gave the executive branch of the government absolute inquisitorial power. Registered corporations had the right to file with the Bureau any agreement or contract or combination to which it became a party--the precise kind of transactions made illegal by the Sherman Act. The Commissioner had thirty days in which to examine such contracts; if, within that period, he declared them in reasonable restraint of trade, then they became practically legal.[L] If not, then they could be proceeded against under the Sherman Law. The chief point of criticism in this arrangement was the stipulation for a thirty-day period during which the Commissioner must pass upon these contracts. This, it was asserted, was the loop-hole by which the corporations were to secure immunity. The Commissioner must declare these contracts reasonable or unreasonable within thirty days; if he failed to act upon them in that time, they became reasonable, precisely as if he had declared them to be so. How, it has been asked, could the Bureau possibly act intelligently within that period upon many of the exceedingly intricate questions which would come up for judgment? Whether a contract is reasonable, of course, largely depends upon the way it affects prices. An examination would therefore frequently involve an economic study of the particular trade, as well as the organization of the particular corporation involved. It would be necessary to go deeply into capitalization, values behind this capitalization, cost of production, wages, transportation charges and so on. There are said to be more than 200,000 corporations in existence. Supposing half or a quarter should register,--how could the Bureau possible examine them within thirty days? Would it be possible to investigate the United States Steel Corporation within that period? Under the suggested law, however, unless the Commissioner