It is a vitally necessary thing to have the persons in control of big
trusts of the character of the Standard 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 attempt to meet the whole problem not by
administrative governmental action but by a succession of lawsuits is
hopeless from the standpoint of working out a permanently satisfactory
solution. Moreover, the results sought to be achieved are achieved only
in extremely insufficient and fragmentary measure by breaking up all big
corporations, whether they have behaved well or ill, into a number of
little corporations which it is perfectly certain will be largely, and
perhaps altogether, under the same control. Such action is harsh and
mischievous if the corporation is guilty of nothing except its size; and
where, as in the case of the Standard Oil, and especially the Tobacco,
trusts, the corporation has been guilty of immoral and anti-social
practices, there is need for far more drastic and thoroughgoing action
than any that has been taken, under the recent decree of the Supreme
Court.
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