210 PHILANDER C. KNOX 



If the Sherman act exhausts the power of congress over 

 monopolies, the American people find themselves hopelessly 

 impotent, facing a situation fraught with the most alarming 

 possibilities, with which neither the federal nor state govern- 

 ments can deal. While states may regulate the production 

 and sale of articles within their own borders, at these borders 

 their authority ceases. Jefferson, in his letter of March 15, 

 1789, to Madison, says of the constitution: "This instrument 

 forms us into one state as to certain objects, and gives us a 

 legislative and executive body for those objects." One hun- 

 dred years later the Supreme court of the United States de- 

 clared "that in the matter of interstate commerce the United 

 States are but one country, and are and must be subject to 

 one system of regulations, and not to a multitude of systems." 



These are illuminating and vital statements of the origi- 

 nal purpose in founding this government to provide for na- 

 tional control of intercourse and of the extent of the national 

 power over it. These statements were made, respectively, by 

 that great leader of the constructive period who was most 

 jealous for the reserved rights of the states against the en- 

 croachment of the new national sovereignty and by one of the 

 wisest judges who have interpreted the constitution's pur- 

 poses and meaning. In the light of such statements, then, 

 can it be possible that the people of the United States, feeling 

 the pressure of undoubted evils, are nevertheless totally 

 powerless? Is it true that although they know with growing 

 certainty the nature of the wrong and are seeking a remedy, 

 the constitution as it stands does not permit them to pursue 

 it ; that amendment to that charter is first necessary ; that the 

 power of congress does not now extend over detriments injur- 

 ing the entire body of citizens in their most vital concerns be- 

 cause these detriments originate in the states, although the 

 states in the aggregate, and by the co-operation which is 

 essential, do nothing effective to remove them? I do not be- 

 lieve that we find ourselves so helpless. When the currents 

 of monopoly evil obviously flow out over state lines and cover 

 the country, not only entering, but largely filling the channels 

 of interstate and foreign trade, it will not do to say that the 

 evil is beyond the national reach, and that because the first 



