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publicly, I think judges of that kind have largely ceased their usefulness.

Senator CUMMINS. Are you speaking now of Judge Kohlsaat? Mr. MARTIN. I so read the report of the proceedings yesterday in the newspapers.

Senator CUMMINS. I have not read any such remark on the part of the judge.

Mr. MARTIN. That was the construction that was put on it in the newspaper reports of the story yesterday, in the Associated Press dispatches. Senator, that again brings up the fact that we have to meet everywhere, in the attempt to enforce this law, the cunning and immense and widely extended power of the combined money that resists this by every possible means.

Senator CUMMINS. The trouble is apparent, but we depend for the enforcement of the law upon the courts, and your suggestions here this morning seemed to indicate that the courts are not to be trusted in the enforcement of the law, that there is something in connection with the law that enables the court to always evade, or very often. evade their duty; now it seems to me that under those circumstances the wit of man ought to be sufficient to put the desire of the people into law in such certain terms that there can be no evasion.

Mr. MARTIN. I want to say that if the Senator drew that inference from my statement it must have been due to my inability to use clear and well-understood language, because that was not my intention at all. I mentioned out of the hundreds of judges and scores of courts, two or three cases which were conspicuously bad, and I desire, if possible, to correct the Senator's impression, and to make nyself perfectly clear to this committee, that I believe the great bulk of the courts of the United States, especially including the Supreme Court, have soundly and wisely and justly interpretated this antitrust law whenever brought before them, and have given the people all the relief called for under the circumstances. The judges of the Supreme Court have done it over and over again in these cases. The judges of the United States circuit court in the TransMissouri case and the Addyston Pipe Co. case, when President Taft sat on the bench, did it. I hold that the great bulk of the judges are all right. I only spoke of this case because I though it such a case of dereliction that it required the attention of the Senate and Congress. In regard to cases where the judges are performing their duties, we have only words of commendation.

Senator CUMMINS. You spoke of the Standard Oil Co. case. If it should happen that that reorganization into 34 companies, all controlled by the same people, should be found possible under the antitrust law we would not have accomplished very much, would we?

Mr. MARTIN. As I said before, if it will all prove to be a failure, which it is not, then we would have to take some different course. We do not concede that it is proved to be a failure wherever it has been properly enforced.

Senator CUMMINS. Where has it restored competition? In what particular instance has a trust been destroyed and competition restored in the business?

Mr. MARTIN. Of course all things are imperfect; and when we get a partial restoration of competition it is somewhat of a benefit. As

I spoke in the case of the Standard Oil Co., all the decisions against the railroad combinations, the decision in the Joint Traffic Association case and the Trans-Missouri case and others of similar character, and the prosecution of the Standard Oil Co., have resulted in a growth of competition.

Senator CUMMINS. We had nothing to do with the Traffic Association case. We had nothing to do with the rebates under which the Standard Oil Co. had been built up. Those rebates were prohibited in the interstate-commerce law.

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir. They had a tendency to dissolve the unified action that always brought benefit to big corporations.

Senator CUMMINS. There was no unified action in reference to rebates. In those times there were secret rebates, and the Traffic Association case had nothing to do with that pernicious practice, had it?

Mr. MARTIN. The latter part of my sentence would cover that case. I was only speaking in regard to that one point, and that is, that the enforcement of the antitrust law, and the beginning of the efforts to enforce it, has resulted, along with the abolition of rebates on railroads, to some extent in the restoration of partial competition.

Now, in the case of the Steel Corporation, the investigation as to whether the law had been enforced against it, not the attempt to enforce it, but the mere attempt to investigate it has caused in a few months the restoration of extensive competition in that industry. I think as to that there can be no question. If the civil and criminal provisions of the antitrust law were thoroughly and vigorously enforced it would be an impossibility to maintain any one of those big trusts.

Senator CUMMINS. Has there been any additional steel company created in the last two or three years? You say there is additional competition. Has there been any other company come in to compete with the United States Steel Co. within the last two or three years?

Mr. MARTIN. Not extensively. The big companies that already existed have realized by this prospective

Senator CUMMINS. Realized in what way?

Mr. MARTIN. By this inquiry and the prospective action to be taken.

Senator CUMMINS. Realized what?

Mr. MARTIN. Realized the condemnation of the Steel Trust. You see the Steel Trust was not simply the United States Steel Corporation. The Steel Trust was the United States Steel Corporation as the center and backbone, and then there were a lot of little companies.

Senator CUMMINS. I am pretty familiar with the organization of the Steel Co., but I want you to tell me in what way this competition. was realized.

Mr. MARTIN. I could not tell you the way until I made clear the fact that the independent companies were called together and held together by various devices in collusion with the Steel Corporation itself to maintain prices. Sometimes it was by one method and sometimes by another; sometimes it was by pools like the steel-plate pool and the wire pool and various others.

Senator CUMMINS. The wire pool was before the United States Steel Co. was organized.

Mr. MARTIN. It was also after.

Senator CUMMINS. Are you able to be more definite in regard to the way in which competition was realized, in view of the examination that had been going on over in the House?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir. I shall endeavor to do that. For instance, there were meetings at regular and sometimes irregular intervals known as the Gary dinners, which were supposed, in the eyes of the public, to be merely social gatherings where gentlemen ate dinner, drank their wine, smoked their cigars, and had a good social time. As a matter of fact, when the Stanley committee came to get hold of the reports of what was said and done at those Gary dinners, it was developed that those Gary dinners were for the purpose of entering into a conspiracy on the part of the Steel Corporation, under the guise of an umbrella, as they called it, of the Steel Corporation, to bring the independents into an understanding and agreement with them to maintain and fix prices and to practically create a trust by verbal agreement.

Senator CUMMINS. Have those dinners been abolished?

Mr. MARTIN. They have. They have not occurred since.
Senator CUMMINS. When was the last one held?

Mr. MARTIN. In May of this year.

Senator CUMMINS. How often were they held previously?

Mr. MARTIN. Sometimes they were held once a month, or once in two months, and sometimes once in six months.

Senator CUMMINS. We have no assurance that there won't be another, have we?

Mr. MARTIN. We have no indication that there will be another; in fact, every indication points to the fact that there won't be another, because the United States Attorney General and the district attorney have brought the matter to the attention of the United States courts. Senator CUMMINS. And then you think competition is restored in the steel business?

Mr. MARTIN. Not entirely.

Senator CUMMINS. What else should be done in order to restore it? Mr. MARTIN. I think the enforcements of the requests made in the bill of the Government and the institution of criminal prosecutions against organizers and officials and managers of the Steel Trust would be helpful.

Senator CUMMINS. I mean practically. I am not speaking of the legal proceedings. What power would you give the independents that they do not now have that would enable them to compete with the Steel Corporation?

Mr. MARTIN. I would reduce the ore rates on the railroads from the ore mines at least one-half of what they now are.

Senator CUMMINS. That is a proposition before the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. MARTIN. I would uncover and thoroughly investigate and straighten out the division of the rate scheme by which rebates go to the corporations.

Senator CUMMINS. The commission has abundant power to do that now.

Mr. MARTIN. You were asking me what I would do. I am answering your question. One thing would be done by one branch of the Government and another by another branch. I am giving you a practical answer as to what could be done. I believe the criminal prosecution of the directors, officers, and managers would have a very helpful effect. It would cause them to cease practices which render them indictable and liable to fine and imprisonment. And when it comes to the question of fine and imprisonment I think there is, perhaps, a misunderstanding in the minds of many who favor an amendment to the antitrust law that the fines imposable under the antitrust law are inadequate. We do not believe so.

We believe that the cumulative character of the fines imposable under the antitrust law, if properly and energetically pushed, would result in such penalties being imposed on the organizers and managers of the trusts that they would be very glad, in order to escape the financial penalties alone, to quit.

I want to say, Senator, on that point, if I be permitted, that our organization is actuated by no vengeful spirit against the organizers of these combinations. We are not seeking a "pound of flesh," nor would it give us any particular pleasure to see these elderly gentlemen behind prison bars and wearing stripes at hard labor. What we want for the people is not revenge, but relief, and if they will do as we ask them in a Christian spirit to do-repent and make restitution and go and sin no more--I do not think any imprisonment would be necessary. But there are some who are so hard-headed that a little imprisonment may be necessary.

Senator CUMMINS. It seems to me that your association is taking a position that will not give the people relief.

Mr. MARTIN. In what way, Senator?

Senator CUMMINS. Because it will not bring competition into the business and prices will still remain unduly high. Suppose there could be no corporation in the steel business with a capital of more than $200,000,000, do you not think that would be something to restore competition to the business?

Mr. MARTIN. I think it would be helpful.

Senator CUMMINS. Suppose that the law forbade the manufacturing company from owning the source of supply-the ore to which all manufacturing companies must resort-do you not think that would do something to restore competition?

Mr. MARTIN. I am inclined to think it would be helpful.

Senator CUMMINS. Suppose the law absolutely forbade the manufacturing company from owning any railway over which these ores or these products were transported, do you not think that would do something toward restoring competition?

Mr. MARTIN. That is one of our demands, the enforcement of absolute separation of transportation companies and manufacturing companies.

Senator CUMMINS. You are not accurate when you say you are opposed to any amendment or addition to the antitrust law.

Mr. MARTIN. These provisions you suggest could be adopted without amending the antitrust law.

Senator CUMMINS. What do you mean by amending the antitrust law? Do you mean to change the phraseology of the law-that it requires that sort of legislative action in order to be an amendment?

Mr. MARTIN. Not necessarily. The addition of another paragraph modifying the existing phraseology just as it is would be an amend

ment.

Senator CUMMINS. You are opposed to that as well as any other? Mr. MARTIN. At the present time, Senator.

Senator CUMMINS. You are opposed to any steps toward securing competition in business, and in that way relieve the people of the burden they are now bearing?

Mr. MARTIN. By no means; no, sir. I am not. That is not my position at all. My position is that I am in favor of taking any steps within reason and common sense that Congress can take that will restore freedom of competition and equality of rights in the world of commerce and business. I have suggested two or three steps. There are plenty of others we are in favor of besides.

Senator CUMMINS. Then you are in favor of amending the law with reference to the control and regulation of trusts and corporations?

Mr. MARTIN. I do not want to be technical or narrow in my language in this matter. I take the position and our counsel takes the position that the amendment of the antitrust act itself at the present time, before it has had a fair chance of enforcement, involves us in the danger of endless further new litigation before we can get down to the point where we have it down now, and our best friends, advisers, and our legal wisdom, both outside and inside the Senate, advise us against such a course, and we believe their advice is sound, for that reason, that it would involve us in a new tangle of litigation that may take 10 or 15 years again before we come to a conclusion, get to the point where we now are, which we submit is a very dangerous risk to run if we can accomplish the same results without doing it. Senator CUMMINS. But, after all, what you want is to restore competition?

Mr. MARTIN. That is one of the things we want, and those of us who believe that the present law, no matter how vigorously enforced, will not restore competition, ought to be in favor of some legislation that would be, I fancy. That is the privilege of every gentleman, of

course.

Senator CUMMINS. You would oppose an amendment to the law providing that no corporation could employ more than a certain. amount of capital in the business in which it was engaged?

Mr. MARTIN. I should object to that as an amendment directly to the antitrust law. The same purpose can be accomplished by other means without the dangers that I have spoken of.

Senator CUMMINS. How do you mean? I fancy you are a little technical about the word "amendment." You do not understand it in the same sense I do.

Mr. MARTIN. Possibly.

Senator CUMMINS. We have a law here regulating corporations, forbidding corporations from doing certain things, and persons too for that matter, engaged in interstate trade. Any statute which is intended to further regulate that subject is an amendment to the law from my point of view; and I want to get your opinion as to whether you are going to stand here opposing any effort on the part of Congress to deal with this subject in any other way than it is now dealt with in the law.

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