State of the Union AddressesTaft, William H. (William Howard)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Taft, William H. (William Howard)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
It has been assumed that the present pro rata and common ownership in all
these companies by former stockholders of the trust would insure a
continuance of the same old single control of all the companies into which
the trust has by decree been disintegrated. This is erroneous and is based
upon the assumed inefficacy and innocuousness of judicial injunctions. The
companies are enjoined from cooperation or combination; they have different
managers, directors, purchasing and sales agents. If all or many of the
numerous stockholders, reaching into the thousands, attempt to secure
concerted action of the companies with a view to the control of the market,
their number is so large that such an attempt could not well be concealed,
and its prime movers and all its participants would be at once subject to
contempt proceedings and imprisonment of a summary character. The immediate
result of the present situation will necessarily be activity by all the
companies under different managers, and then competition must follow, or
there will be activity by one company and stagnation by another. Only a
short time will inevitably lead to a change in ownership of the stock, as
all opportunity for continued cooperation must disappear. Those critics who
speak of this disintegration in the trust as a mere change of garments have
not given consideration to the inevitable working of the decree and
understand little the personal danger of attempting to evade or set at
naught the solemn injunction of a court whose object is made plain by the
decree and whose inhibitions are set forth with a detail and
comprehensiveness.
VOLUNTARY REORGANIZATIONS OF OTHER TRUSTS AT HAND.
The effect of these two decisions has led to decrees dissolving the
combination of manufacturers of electric lamps, a southern wholesale
grocers' association, an interlocutory decree against the Powder Trust with
directions by the circuit court compelling dissolution, and other
combinations of a similar history are now negotiating with the Department
of justice looking to a disintegration by decree and reorganization in
accordance with law. It seems possible to bring about these reorganizations
without general business disturbance.
MOVEMENT FOR REPEAL OF THE ANTI-TRUST LAW.
But now that the anti-trust act is seen to be effective for the
accomplishment of the purpose of its enactment, we are met by a cry from
many different quarters for its repeal. It is said to be obstructive of
business progress to be an attempt to restore old-fashioned methods of
destructive competition between small units, and to make impossible those
useful combinations of capital and the reduction of the cost of production
that are essential to continued prosperity and normal growth.
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