Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
May,  1 91 8. 
Editorial. 
315 
fact  that  our  eminent  alumnus  was  at  all  times  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  loyally  adhering  to  American  principles  and  traditions. 
CAN  PRICE-CUTTING  BE  CONTROLLED  BY  THE 
PRESENT  LAWS? 
The  advocates  of  price  maintenance  are  taking  to  themselves 
great  encouragement  and  consider  that  their  cause  has  been  greatly 
advanced  by  the  recent  action  of  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  in 
filing  complaint  against  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company,  the  Chicago 
mail-order  house.  They  have  gone  so  far  as  to  claim  that  this  com- 
plaint "  is  in  complete  harmony  with  the  principle  and  purpose  of 
the  Stephens'  Bill,"  the  passage  of  which  by  Congress  they  are  ad- 
vocating, and  to  state  "that  the  object  of  the  latter  bill  is  to  protect 
the  public  against  dishonest  advertising  and  false  pretenses  in  mer- 
chandising." Radical  claims  of  this  character  may  do  their  cause  far 
more  harm  than  good.  The  passage  of  the  Stephens'  Bill  in  its 
original  wording  will  yield  far  less  protection  against  dishonest  ad- 
vertising and  false  pretenses  in  merchandising  than  can  be  obtained 
by  existing  laws. 
The  truth  is  that  the  Stephens'  Bill  aims  to  extend  price  monop- 
oly to  articles  already  enjoying  monopoly  of  production  by  virtue  of 
being  protected  by  patent  or  trade-mark  and  does  not  extend  the 
principle  of  real  price  maintenance  to  all  merchandising.  Our  pat- 
ent laws  aim  to  stimulate  and  encourage  invention  by  granting  for  a 
period  of  years  a  monopoly  of  manufacture,  but  it  never  was  the 
intent  that  our  patent  laws  or  trade-mark  enactments  should  likewise 
establish  the  principle  of  price  monopoly  for  products  so  protected. 
It  should  be  so  well  known  to  the  drug  trade  that  comment  should 
be  unnecessary,  that  certain  foreign  holders  of  United  States  patents 
on  medicinal  chemicals,  by  unauthorized  methods,  stretched  the 
patent  protection  to  cover  the  right  to  forbid  resale  of  their  products 
which  they  had  marketed  in  other  countries  into  the  United  States, 
for  the  purpose  of  compelling  the  American  consumer  to  pay  prices 
many  times  in  advance  of  what  they  supplied  their  products  in  other 
countries.  It  is  somewhat  peculiar  that  some  of  those  who  years 
ago  so  strenuously  objected  to  the  surreptitious  methods  of  these 
German  manufacturers,  should  not  realize  the  danger  of  engrafting 
such  a  fallacy  onto  our  patent  law.  The  very  fact  that  it  is  now 
aimed  to  create  for  patented  articles  price  monopoly  proves  that  such 
