Mr. VINSON. No, sir; we have not. We have a State mine inspector.

Senator NEWLANDS. You have a railroad commission?

Mr. VINSON. No, sir; we have no railroad commission. We are living strictly under the common law, except we have a mining statute and a mining inspector.

Senator NEWLANDS. Do you not think that you could go pretty far in the direction of covering the matters which you propose by State legislation?

Mr. VINSON. We can cover some of them, but they would be inefficient. We could not cover the one that pertains to interstate commerce, and 95 per cent of the coal that is produced in West Virginia goes into other States for consumption.

Senator NEWLANDS. That is with reference to coal, is it?

Mr. VINSON. Yes, sir.

Senator NEWLANDS. I presume that is the case with reference to your iron?

Mr. VINSON. We do not produce any iron to amount to anything. Our iron is an importation rather than an exportation. We manufacture a great deal of iron. I mean we have no local deposits of iron to amount to anything. We have a good many furnaces and quite an iron and steel industry.

Senator NEWLANDS. You propose that the commission shall be organized with reference to coal mining, and, of course, if we enter upon that policy the other businesses will be demanding at the same time that we shall create commissions covering them. Is it your idea that we should cover the coal-mining question first-try the experiment?

Mr. VINSON. That is what I would like to see.

Senator NEWLANDS. And then later on take up the other subjects? Mr. VINSON. I believe we need that sort of a system, more perhaps than any other industry in the country, and I think the experiment in the coal business would perhaps be a justification for following it up in other industries.

Senator NEWLANDS. You would prefer that to having a general commission that would cover all interstate trade, and it would have powers of investigation and correction and recommendation to Congress relating to all interstate trade?

Mr. VINSON. I think you would get much better results. The industry itself and the business as a whole of the country would get much better results and specialize.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you proceed, Senator Brandegee, I would like to ascertain the sense of the committee as to adjournment for luncheon. It is now 1 o'clock.

Senator NEWLANDS. I move that we adjourn until 2 o'clock.

The CHAIRMAN. Before we adjourn, Mr. Vontermyer writes that he will be here Saturday, and I would like to get the sense of the committee as to whether we shall sit Saturday. Without objection, it seems to be the sense of the committee that we should sit on Saturday. The committee will now take a recess until 2 o'clock p. m., when the committee will take up the examination of Mr. Vincent. The committee thereupon took a recess until 2 o'clock p. m.

AFTER RECESS.

The committee met at 2 o'clock p. m.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Senator Brandegee, have you any inquiries to make?

Senator BRANDEGEE. The resolution intrusted to the committee provides that we are to inquire into and report what changes are necessary or desirable in the laws of the United States relating to the creation and control of corporations engaged in interstate commerce, and what changes are necessary or desirable in the laws of the United States relating to persons or firms engaged in interstate commerce. I had assumed, therefore, that it would be the task of the committee, if it were possible, to suggest some one comprehensive scheme for the regulation of corporations engaged in interstate commerce among the States for all businesses, and so I was somewhat unprepared for the bill which you proposed, limiting your recommendations simply to the coal business. Of course, I have not had the opportunity to read the whole bill, but I would like to ask you, if I may, to state briefly whether you think there is anything peculiar about the coal business, as distinguished from other large businesses? For instance, other kinds of mining which would necessitate a special act for the regulation of the coal business?

Mr. VINSON. Senator, I am not familiar enough with metallic mining to intelligently answer your question. I only know of it in a most general way. So far as other lines of industry are concerned, it might be that a commission along the lines indicated in what I have said would be the best remedy to regulate that character of business.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Well, of course, you will admit that to classify the businesses of the country, all the businesses engaged in commerce among the States-to have a separate commission, to be paid salaries, to regulate each class of business, would involve a very considerable number of commissions.

Mr. VINSON. Yes, sir; it would.

Senator BRANDEGEE. And if they were modeled on the plan of your bill you would have, would you not, each commission determining what sort of agreements it considered to be reasonably in restraint of trade or unreasonably in restraint of trade, and there very likely would be a lack of uniformity in the decision of those commissioners, would there not?

Mr. VINCENT. I think necessarily there would be a lack of uniformity, dependent, of course, upon the particular character of the business; and that was one of the reasons why I suggested this plan along the lines of a better efficiency; these businesses to be controlled and regulated by a commission that knew or would be supposed to know all about that particular branch of industry.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Well, what is it that leads you to suppose that a commission such as would be liable to be appointed by the President, as provided in your bill, would be better able to say whether a proposed trade agreement in restraint of commerce among the States was reasonable or unreasonable restraint, rather than a court?

Mr. VINSON. My own idea, Senator, is that what is or what is not an unreasonable restraint is more a question of facts than a

question of law; and that a tribunal acquainted with all the facts that would come to bear upon that question would be in much better position to reach a wiser conclusion than a court which depended only upon the facts submitted in the evidence in each particular case. Senator BRANDEGEE. Well, the courts would take the evidence just the same as a commission would take it, would they not?

Mr. VINSON. Well, they would take it in a way. My idea would be that the commission would make not only its own investigation, but have the witnesses appear before it at a hearing just like we have here to-day, and in that way it might get at the facts much more speedily than they could be gotten at through the slow process of taking depositions in a regular court proceeding.

Senator BRANDEGEE. It might be a speedier method, but my question was designed to bring out your idea of whether a court was not as well qualified to determine in the case of a trade agreement what was reasonable as it was to determine what was reasonable in any other matter that comes before a court.

Mr. VINSON. That probably might be true, generally speaking. The difficulty in resorting to the court method is the long time involved from the time your proceedings would be instituted in the lower court, in producing the evidence, finally hearing arguments, and then taking an appeal to the Supreme Court or to the Circuit Court of Appeals. The business would be tied up two or three years.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Then, if I understand you, your objection is not so much to the incompetency of the courts to determine such a question as it is that under the present system the question of the legality of a corporation is not determined at the time of its organization?

Mr. VINSON. That is true.

Senator BRANDEGEE. You spoke in opening about representing some company in West Virginia that owned 30,000 acres of mining land, was it?

Mr. VINSON. Yes, sir.

Senator BRANDEGEE. What is the name of the company?

Mr. VINSON. The United States Coal & Oil Co.

Senator BRANDEGEE. What is their capitalization?

Mr. VINSON. About $6,000,000.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Are they in the oil business as well as the coal business?

Mr. VINSON. No; they are not in the oil business now. They were, but they sold their oil properties, and they do nothing now but a coal business.

Senator BRANDEGEE. In what way do you represent that company? Mr. VINSON. I am general counsel.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Did you prepare this bill which you have presented here?

Mr. VINSON. I did; yes, sir.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Have you presented it to the directors of your company?

Mr. VINSON. Not to all of them.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Are you prepared to say that your company is in favor of that bill?

Mr. VINSON. The executive committee of the company were consulted, and while it was not in a regular, formal meeting, no resolution having been passed, I take it that it met their approval.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Was it submitted to any other companies engaged in the business in West Virginia?

Mr. VINSON. We had a National Mining Congress, held in Chicago two or three weeks ago, and I submitted it there. There was a resolution passed by the congress, without a dissenting vote, urging the Congress of the United States to pass a law providing for workingmen's compensation, and also to amend or modify or give such remedial legislation as would relieve the coal business from the exactions and the trouble that it was now in and as made so by reason of the operation of the Sherman antitrust law.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Was this National Mining Convention a coalmining convention?

Mr. VINSON. Coal and oil mining, both.

Senator BRANDEGEE. So far as you know, is there any movement afoot to urge the repeal of the Sherman law?

Mr. VINSON. Well, the people do not seem to know whether the law ought to be repealed or whether it ought to be modified or amended. The people generally-I am speaking now of the business people generally as well-want some action taken so that they can enter into these trade agreements, because they feel that these trade agreements are necessities. Whether they want the act repealed as a whole or modified or amended, I think that would be immaterial. It is the result they want rather than a method.

Senator BRANDEGEE. If I understand you correctly, the people whom you represent and the mining congress which you speak of having attended want to be exempted from the operation of the Sherman law if that law is to stand as it is?

Mr. VINSON. They do.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Supposing quite a number of the smaller coal mining companies were to form an agreement, a trade agreement, and it should be approved by the commission which our bill provides for, and should then become a very strong company, as strong as some of the large companies which you are now unable to compete with, does your bill provide for any change of mind from time to time by the commission?

Mr. VINSON. Not specifically. The bill itself provides that only such agreements as would be in reasonable restraint, agreements that would not raise the price or would not oppress a party not to it, would be legal.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Supposing at the time the agreement was presented to the commission, which should appear to them not in unreasonable restraint of trade, and supposing after the agreement had been worked under for 5 or 10 years it became, in their opinion, oppressive and in restraint of trade, in unreasonable restraint of trade, does your bill provide that the commission may from time to time change its opinions or make any orders adapted to the changed situations?

Mr. VINSON. It does not in specific words, but I am frank to say that it ought to.

Senator BRANDEGEE. My idea was an agreement might appear in advance to be in perfect reasonable restraint of trade, and later on it

might become perfectly and obviously in unreasonable restraint of trade.

Mr. VINSON. I say that power ought to rest in the commission that whenever an agreement heretofore reasonable becomes oppressive, they should have the power to set it aside, cancel it.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Does your bill in fact provide anything about the determination of a reasonable price, selling price, for the commodity?

Mr. VINSON. Only in general terms; and that is that the price should not go beyond what the supply and the demand justify. That is about as specific as I could get it.

Senator BRANDEGEE. That is about as I remember it as you read it; but from the phraseology you used, it does not convey at once to my mind much of a standard for a commission to go by, when you say that it should not be a higher price than the supply and demand justified.

Mr. VINSON. I was unable, Senator, to make it more specific because of the varying conditions of the market.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Supposing you had said it would not be an unreasonable price?

Mr. VINSON. I take it it does say that.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Is not that enough?

Mr. VINSON. Probably it would be. That really involves the other expression. I construe that to mean the same thing.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Then, as I understand you, you would advocate the Government, through its administrative commission, fixing a maximum price for the sale of coal, a price beyond which the companies who made the trade agreement should not be allowed to sell the coal?

Mr. VINSON. No; I can not say, Senator, that that is so; that certainly is not the terms of the bill.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I mean under the operation of the terms of the bill, is not that what it means? If your language is susceptible of the interpretation that the companies entering into the agreement should not charge more than a certain price per ton for coal, does it not mean that they shall not charge at unreasonable price? Mr. VINSON. Yes; it means that.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Well, then, has not the commission got from time to time, in view of your own standard which you set up, to wit, what supply and demand will justify-has not the commission got from time to time to notify the parties to the agreement, "You are charging too much for coal," or "You must reduce your price for coal to such an amount "?

Mr. VINSON. They would certainly have that power.

Senator BRANDEGEE. But does not the price of coal vary from season to season?

Mr. VINSON. It does.

Senator BRANDEGEE. In the market?

Mr. VINSON. Yes, sir.

Senator BRANDEGEE. And if these small companies should unite. under their trade agreements, your idea would be that there would be quite a number of them throughout the different coal-producing