Privileges Derived From the Government Must Be Reasonably Used It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form, which frees them from individual responsibility, and enables them to call into their enterprises the capital of the public, they shall do so upon absolutely truthful representations as to the value of the property in which the capital is to be invested.-Message first session Fiftyseventh Congress. [p. 542.] IT. ANTI-TRUST ACTIONS A Brief History T was shown that certain trunk lines had entered into unlawful agreements as to the transportation of food products from the West to the Atlantic seaboard, giving a few favored shippers rates much below the tariff charges imposed upon the smaller dealers and the general public. These unjust practices had prevailed to such an extent and for so long a time that many of the smaller shippers had been driven out of business, until practically one buyer of grain on each railway system had been able by his illegal advantages to secure a monopoly on the line with which his secret compact was made; this monopoly enabling him to fix the price to both producer and consumer. Many of the great packing-house concerns were shown to be in combination with each other and with most of the great railway lines, whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions in rates and thus obtained a practical monopoly of the fresh and cured meat industry of the country. These fusions, though violative of the statute, had prevailed unchecked for so many years that they had become intrenched in and interwoven with the commercial life of certain large distributing localities; although this was of course at the expense of the vast body of law-abiding merchants, the general public, and particularly of unfavored localities. Under those circumstances it was a serious problem to determine the wise course to follow in vitalizing a law which had in part become obsolete or proved incapable of enforcement. Of what the Attorney-General did in enforcing it I shall speak later. The decisions of the courts upon the law had betrayed weaknesses and imperfections, some of them so serious as to render abortive efforts to apply any effective remedy for the existing evils. It is clear that corporations created for quasipublic purposes, clothed for that reason with the ultimate power of the state to take private property against the will of the owner, hold their corporate powers as carriers in trust for the fairly impartial service of all the public. Favoritism in the use of such powers, unjustly enriching some and unjustly impoverishing others, discriminating in favor of some places and against others, is palpably violative of plain principles of justice. Such a practice unchecked is hurtful in many ways. Congress, having had its attention drawn to the matter, enacted a most important anti-rebate law, which greatly strengthens the interstate commerce law. This new law prohibits under adequate penalties the giving and as well the demanding or receiving of such preferences, and provides the preventive remedy of injunction. The vigorous administration of this law-and it will be enforced -will, it is hoped, afford a substantial remedy for certain trust evils which have attracted public attention and have created public unrest. This law represents a noteworthy and important advance toward just and effective regulation of transportation. Moreover, its passage has been supplemented by the enactment of a law to expedite the hearing of actions of public moment under the anti-trust act, known as the Sherman law, and under the act to regulate commerce, at the request of the Attorney-General; and furthermore, additional funds have been appropriated to be expended under the direction of the Attorney-General in the enforcement of these laws. All of this represents a great and substantial advance in legislation. But more important even than legislation is the administration of the law, and I ask your attention for a moment to the way in which the law has been administered by the profound jurist and fearless public servant who now occupies the position of Attorney-General, Mr. Knox. The Constitution enjoins upon the President that he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and under this provision the Attorney-General formulated a policy which was in effect nothing but the rigid enforcement, by suits managed with consummate skill and ability, both of the anti-trust law and of the imperfect provisions of the act to regulate commerce. The first step taken was the prosecution of fourteen suits against the principal railroads of the Middle West, restraining them by injunction from further violations of either of the laws in question. About the same time the case against the Northern Securities Company was initiated. This was a corporation organized under the laws of the State of New Jersey with a capital of four hundred million dollars, the alleged purpose being to control the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railroad companies, two parallel and competing lines extending across the northern tier of States from |