Show yr V T 11 1 1 THE BIG BUG STICK stich WAVES AGAIN T q 1114 11 14 4 A A DL government opens new antimonopoly anti monopoly campaign headed by trustbuster trust busier buster robert H jackson revives favorite american political custom by JOSEPH IV labine la BINE the big stick is being waved once more in washington this time to an accompaniment of sound and fury that makes the trust busters austers bu in the lusty days of 1900 and 1910 seem like so many baa ing sheep by comparison cracking down is pretty much the same old game only the terminology the amplification and the size of the field are different trust 1 was the cry almost ex elusively clu in the old days clays now we hear monopolies big business combines princes of privilege and sixty american families I 1 men honed in the same breath A generation ago the anti trust campaigns were fought in the courts at comparatively small po lotical meetings and in the press today they are fought in large meas ure over the radio with some of the government s ablest fire eaters stir ring up millions of people in m a long parade of special broadcasts in addition the current attack advances at one time in a vast number of directions that would have amazed and confounded the old timers but which are charac te of the tremendously in creased scale of operation which the nation has come to accept from its government in recent years monopolies were originally sched wed to have been dealt with by the special session of congress which closed just before christmas but when it became evident that pro wrangling was to keep even the wages and hours bill the execl tive reorganization bill or any other of the must legislation for which the special session was called from being enacted the anti monopoly drive was switched post haste from the legislative chambers to the broadcasting studios assistant at r torney general robert haughwout Hough wout pronounced haughwout Hough wout jackson and secretary of the interior harold L ickes were the nos I 1 and 2 cheer leaders at this writing jackson is rumored about to become united states solicitor general what these two and the president have said has been so wide ly heard and read that even the remotest hamlet is already familiar with it t but what is the govern ment actually doing not saying in this renewal of the old familiar war against trusts seek new laws the administration is again de manding that congress pass laws such as that requiring the federal li ensing censing of corporations which will strengthen the campaign against big business and monopoly president roosevelt is seeking the operation cooperation of heads of large cor po rations toward a planned econ omy orny which may or may not re move some of the alleged evils and the anti trust division of the department of justice has 29 anti trust cases pending determination nation by the federal courts these are the evidence on the record of what the government is actually do ing their scope defies history to produce a precedent four acts in eff effect act the sherman anti antitrust trust law of 1890 remains still the most imbor r tant of the rules under which the battle is being fought but there are three others the clayton anti trust act of 1914 the federal trade corn f act of 1914 and the robin on patman law of 1936 to protect small business men from chain competition now the adminis tra tion seeks more As robert H jackson himself has said the anti trust law is an american invention it has served two noble american purposes it has kept the mushroom growth of american industry from killing it self and severely injuring the peo pie in the period of its growing pains and it has provided excel lent campaign material for abbl bious politicians trust busting as the national po lotical sport died at the opening of the world war from the time the sherman act was passed until the close of the first wilson adminis there were a little over suits instituted by the government seven under benjamin harrison eight under grover cleveland three under william mckinley forty four under theodore roosevelt both ad ministrations 37 under william howard taft and 18 under woodrow wilson then the thunder died down for a decade and a half inconsistent policy now since president roosevelt first took office in 1933 there have been 47 suits and more than half of them are still pending the in gerim between the two eras of trust busting brought out certain incon in the federal attitude which the administration is deter mined to clear up jackson speak ing before the georgia bar assoria tion last may 28 23 pointed out what he termed one of the most obvious conflicts in our policy when he de dared f while the nation has forbidden monopoly by one set of bf laws it has been creating them by another patent laws valuable as they may be in some respects often father monopoly unless we are prepared to reconsider the conditions upon which we will extend patent pro lection we can hava have no consistent anti monopoly policy most conspicuous example orthis of this line of reasoning is the aluminum company of america against which the government had filed suit a month before the jackson speech and which had so frequently been sued by the government without any conviction having been obtained that it has come to be known as public whipping boy no 1 for the trust busters the company actually does manu facture all of the virgin aluminum ingot in the country today but ex plains the only reason there is no other firm producing virgin alum mum is the enormous capital in vestment required to make it on a large scale the electrolytic process invented in 1888 1886 by charles martin hall made it possible for the company to reduce the price of aluminum from 8 3 a pound to 20 cents despite continually rising production costs but it is an expensive process the company now has such a head start that no group of investors has been willing to risk the capital necessary to set up a competing business paradoxically the same govern ment now prosecuting it protected A sen ellison D smith of south carolina shows how he hurled anier amer icalas sixty families the book which inspired secretary ickes recent monopolies attack to the senate floor during a heated discussion sen josiah bailey of north carolina cave gave the book its first heave to the floor robert H jackson center is the busy director of the government governments s trust busting forces lie ile carries the double burden of prosecuting the government governments s antitrust anti trust suits in new york federal courts and of campaigning for the governors governorship lup of the same state he ile is shown here with rep william P connery jr left and supreme court jus tice hugo L black before black was named to the high bench the hall patents until they ran out in 1909 monopoly charges against the ethyl gasoline corporation earl C webb and john coard taylor also grow out of the manner in which the government protects patents on vital inventions new york headquarters jackson as head of the anti trust division has 20 new assistants costing to help him wield the war club and has opened of cices in the new york federal courts building for the big drive western union and postal telegraph terns are due to be tried there and he recently succeeded in obtaining MP sen william E borah of idaho is the dean of trust busters now with senator 0 mahoney of texas he seeks a federal law licensing cor po rations as a curb on monopoly permission to sue the aluminum company already operating under the consent decree of a pennsylvania federal court in new york where he is slated to run for gover goven nor this year an idea of the variety and scope of other federal anti trust cases pending in the courts may be gleaned from a brief summary of a handful of them jackson swears that the party dress guild inc is restraining in ter state trade in women s and misses party dresses monopolies heS are apparently making it something of a task for odd size ladies to get out at all even to parties for he also charges the half size dress guild inc with restraining interstate trade in women s and misses half size dresses the protective fur dressers corporation po ration he says is skinning the public as well as the more sprightly world of rabbits by restraining and monopolizing trade in rabbit skins local no of the international brotherhood of teamsters chaff feurs deurs stablemen and helpers of america is charged with restrain mg ing the fruit trade the united sea food workers with tying up the salt water fish business and the dairymen s association ltd with fixing the price of milk in honolulu oil defendants several oil company officials recently convicted at madison wis on charges of conspiring to restrain gasoline trade are making plans to appeal the verdict the anti trust division may have an the interstate circuit inc on a decision which agreed that the tion was setting minimum adais sion charges for second run moving pictures and prohibiting the use of them on double feature programs federal investigations are being made of suspected monopolies in the rubber cement milk and window products industries A fed eral era grand ury jury in milwaukee wis was investigating monopoly charges against automobile finance corn com banies linked with ford chrysler and general motors but the court count dismissed the grand jury without hearing its report much to the chagrin of the department of justice more will probably be heard on this score which of these suits will be won by the government which may be dropped and which won by the de P fend fenc ants lants of course remains to be seen the record for the first era of trust busting up to a time short ly before the war was 42 persons imprisoned 1 1333 fined and decrees crees secured in civil proceedings Q western New U union aiom |