CONTROL THE TRUSTS BY CONGRESS 217 



ence of these transcontinental railroads as competing lines. 

 The United States Supreme court sustained the department's 

 contention and ordered the Northern Securities company 

 dissolved. 



Here, then, are four phases of the attack on combinations 

 in restraint of trade and commerce — the railroad injunction 

 suits, the cotton pool cases, the "beef trust" cases, and the 

 Northern Securities case. The first relates to the monopoly 

 produced by secret and preferential rates for railroad trans- 

 portation; the second to railroad traffic pooling; the third to 

 a combination of independent corporations to fix and main- 

 tain extortionate prices for meats, and the fourth to a cor- 

 poration organized to merge into itself the control of parallel 

 and competing lines of railroad and eliminate competition in 

 their rates of transportation. 



There appears to be no doubt of the facts as set out in 

 the bills filed in these various cases. The combinations pro- 

 ceeded against are in some respects different from those con- 

 sidered in cases that have been decided by the Supreme court, 

 and it is said by their organizers that they have avoided the 

 prohibitions of the anti-trust law. The department of jus- 

 tice, being of opinion that they are each in violation of that 

 law, found it to be its manifest duty to so advise the president, 

 with the result which is known to all. 



My whole purpose in what I have said is to challenge the 

 proposition that we are hopelessly helpless under our system 

 of government to deal with serious problems which confront 

 us in respect to our greatest interests. Since the radical ques- 

 tions of human rights and human governments have been 

 settled, the production, preservation, and distribution of 

 wealth receive the chief attention of civilized peoples. 



The extent to which legislative control over commercial 

 activities should be exercised is, of course, a question for legis- 

 lative wisdom. We have the experience of the other nations 

 to guide us in determining how far the delicate and mysterious 

 rules of trade can be interfered with by positive statutes with- 

 out injury. That experience teaches us that the least inter- 

 ference consistent with the preservation of essential rights 



