If any man thinks this condemnation extreme, I refer him to
the language officially used by the Supreme Court of the nation in its
decision against the Standard Oil Company. Through their counsel, and
by direct telegrams and letters to Senators and Congressmen from various
heads of the Standard Oil organization, they did their best to kill the
bill providing for the Bureau of Corporations. I got hold of one or two
of these telegrams and letters, however, and promptly published them;
and, as generally happens in such a case, the men who were all-powerful
as long as they could work in secret and behind closed doors became
powerless as soon as they were forced into the open. The bill went
through without further difficulty.
The true way of dealing with monopoly is to prevent it by administrative
action before it grows so powerful that even when courts condemn it they
shrink from destroying it. The Supreme Court in the Tobacco and Standard
Oil cases, for instance, used very vigorous language in condemning these
trusts; but the net result of the decision was of positive advantage to
the wrongdoers, and this has tended to bring the whole body of our law
into disrepute in quarters where it is of the very highest importance
that the law be held in respect and even in reverence.
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