Limitations of Anti-Trust Legislation

Abstract

I am here to-night in the capacity of a Greek chorus. I am not so antique and I am sure not half so intelligent. The Greek chorus fulfilled its mission of commenting upon that which the chief actors had said, and whether it was the hero or the villain, it commented with breadth of view and judicial impartiality. Therefore being but a chorus and not an actor, I must be brief. There is another reason that requires brevity and also discretion in my few comments. As the chairman has said I professionally represent as its general counsel one of the big interests against which the attorney-general has directed his zealous and skilful activities. I am therefore in the position of defendant in a United States court at Philadelphia when I was district attorney. A strong case had been proved against him on a charge of selling liquor without a federal license, and his attorney, knowing that Judge Butler most despised a perjurer, counseled him not to testify but to keep off the stand. The colored man said, All right. I 'spects I had better remain neutral. There is a third reason why I want. to be brief in my remarks, and that is, as I still account myself of Philadelphia, and as a speaker, a distinguished member of congress, from another state, is to follow me, I would only postpone your pleasure and do him an injustice if I unduly prolonged my remarks, and I would be wanting in courtesy if I encroached upon the time which remains to him before the arrival of the President. I was much impressed with the fact that each of the preceding speakers treated a different phase of the warfare of the government against moder methods of doing business, and that each gave some testimony as to the practical results of his especial line of work. The attorney-general, on the one hand, spoke of the great legal department of the government, spoke, not only for himself in the successful work which he has done as attorney-general, but in a sense for all his predecessors in that high office since the enactment of the Sherman law. And the only tangible result of the enforce(296)