~ which include 
a 
N QO 
Vip Bile Ast 
Se s et Oe ve 0) 
of the iron ores south of the Poto- 
mae and the Ohio. My information, 
which I have every reason to believe 
is accurate and not successfully to 
be challenged, is that, of these 
Southern iron ores the Steel Corpo- 
ration has, including the property 
gained from the Tennessee Coal and 
jron Company, less than 20 percent 
—perhaps not over 16 percent. 
This is a very much smaller percen- 
tage than the percentage it holds of 
the Lake Superior ores, which even 
after the surrender of the Hill lease 
will be slightly over 50 percent. Ac- 
cording to my view, therefore, and 
unless—which I do not believe poss- 
ible—these figures can be _ success- 
fully challenged, the acquisition of 
the Tennessee Coal and Iron Com- 
pany’s ores in no way changed the 
situation as regards making the 
Steel Corporation a monopoly. The 
showing as to the percentage of 
production of all kinds of steel in- 
gots and steel castings in the United 
States by the Steel Corporation and 
by all other manufacturers respec- 
tively makes an even stronger case. 
It makes the case even stronger 
than I put it in my testimony before 
the Investigating Committee, for I 
was scrupulously careful to make 
statements that erred, if at all, 
against my own position. It appears 
from the figures of production that 
in 1901 the Steel Corporation had to 
its credit nearly 66 percent of the 
total production as against a little 
over 34 percent by all other 
steel manufacturers. The percen- 
tage then shrank steadily, until in 
1906, the year before the acquisition 
of the Tennessee Coal and Iron prop- 
erties, the percentage was a little 
under 58 percent. In spite of the 
acquisition of these properties, the 
following year, 1907, the total per- 
centage shrank slightly, and this 
shrinking has continued until in 
1910 the total percentage of the 
Steel Corporation is but a little over 
54 percent, and the percentage by 
all other steel manufacturers but a 
fraction less than 46 percent. Of 
the 54 3-10 percent produced by the 
Steel Corporation 1 9-10 percent is 
produced by the former Tennessee 
Coal and Iron Company. In other 
words, these figures show that the 
acquisition of the Tennessee Coal 
and Iron Company did not in the 
slightést degree change the situa- 
tion, and that during the ten years 
the acquisition of 
_ these properties by the Steel Corpo- 
ration the percentage of total output 
of steel manufacturers in this coun- 
try by the Steel. Corporation has 
shrunk from nearly 66 percent to 
but a trifle over 54 percent. I do 
4 
BREEZE 15 
not believe that these figures can be 
successfully controverted, and if not 
successfully controverted they show 
clearly not only that the acquisition 
of the Tennessee Coal and Iron 
properties wrought no change in the 
status of the Steel Corporation, but 
that the Steel Corporation during 
the decade has steadily lost, instead 
of gained, in monopolistic character. 
So much for the facts in this par- 
ticular case. Now for the general 
subject. When my Administration 
took office, I found, not only that 
there had been little real enforce- 
ment of the Anti-Trust Law and but 
little more effective enforcement of 
the Inter-State Commerce Law, but 
also that the decisions were so cha- 
otic and the laws themselves so 
vaguely drawn, or at least inter- 
preted in such widely varying 
fashions, that the biggest business 
men tended to treat both laws as 
dead letters. The series of actions 
by which we succeeded in making 
the Inter-State Commerce Law an 
efficient and most useful instrument 
in regulating the transportation of 
the country and exacting justice 
from the big railways without do- 
ing them injustice—while, indeed, 
on the contrary, securing them 
against injustice—need not here be 
related. The Anti-Trust Law it was 
also necessary to enforce as it had 
never hitherto been enforced, both 
because it was on the statute-books 
and because it was imperative to 
teach the masters of the biggest cor- 
porations in the land that they were 
not, and would not be permitted to 
regard themselves as, above the law. 
Moreover, where the combination 
has really been guilty of misconduct 
the law serves a useful purpose, and 
in such cases as those of the 
Standard Oil and Tobacco Trusts, 
if effectively enforced, the law con- 
fers a real and great good. 
Suits were brought against the 
most powerful corporations in the 
land, which we were convinced had 
clearly and beyond question violated 
the Anti-Trust Law. These suits 
were brought with great care, and 
only where we felt so sure of our 
facts that we could be fairly certain 
that there was a likelihood of suc- 
cess. As a matter of fact, in most 
of the important suits we were suc- 
cessful. It was imperative that 
these suits be brought, and very real 
good was achieved by bringing 
them, for it was only these suits that 
made the great masters of corporate 
capital in America fully realize that 
they were the servants and not the 
masters of the people, that they 
were subject to the law, and that 
they would not be permitted to be a 
law unto themselves; and the cor- 
porations against which we pro- 
ceeded had sinned, not merely by 
being big (which we did not regard 
as in itself a sin), but by being 
guilty of unfair practices towards 
their competitors, and by procuring 
unfair advantages from the rail- 
ways. But the resulting situation 
has made it evident that the Anti- 
Trust Law is not adequate to meet 
the situation that has grown up be- 
cause of modern business conditions 
and the accompanying tremendous 
increase in the business use of vast 
quantities of corporate wealth. As 
I have said, this was already evident 
to my mind when I was President, 
and in communications to Congress 
I repeatedly stated the facts. But 
when I made these communications 
there were still plenty of people 
who did not believe that we would 
succeed in the suits that had been 
instituted against the Standard Oil, 
the Tobacco, and other corporations, 
and it was impossible to get the pub- 
lic as a whole to realize what the 
situation was. Sincere zealots who 
believed that all combinations could 
be destroyed and the old-time con- 
ditions of unregulated competition 
restored, insincere politicians who 
knew better but made believe that 
they thought whatever their consti- 
tuents wished them to think, crafty 
reactionaries who wished to see on 
the statute-books laws which they 
believed unenforceable, and the al- 
most solid ‘‘ Wall Street crowd’’ or 
representatives of ‘‘big business”’ 
who at that time opposed with equal 
violence both wise and necessary 
and unwise and improper regulation 
of business—all fought against the 
adoption of a sane, effective, and 
far-reaching policy. 
It is a vitally necessary thing to 
have the persons in control of big 
trusts of the character of the Stan- 
dard Oil Trust and Tobacco Trust 
taught that they are under the law, 
just as it was a necessary thing to 
have the Sugar Trust taught the 
same lesson in drastic fashion by 
Mr. Henry L. Stimson when he was 
United States District Attorney in 
the city of New York. But to at- 
tempt to meet the whole problem 
not by administrative governmental 
action but by a succession of law- 
suits is hopeless from the standpoint 
of working out a permanently satis- 
factory solution. Moreover, the re- 
sults sought to be achieved are 
achieved only in extremely insuffi- 
cient and fragmentary measure by 
breaking up all big corporations, 
whether they have behaved well or 
il, into a number of little corpo- 
rations which it is perfectly certain 
