tion in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is illegal. Any person making such combination or conspiracy is guilty of a misdemeanor, and such offence is punishable by a fine not exceeding $5,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both punishments at the discretion of the court.

A significant example of the working of the Sherman Act is exhibited in the defeat of the Northern Securities Company, which was organized in 1901 under the laws of New Jersey as a holding corporation, with power to purchase the securities of any other corporation. Its certificates were exchanged for the stock and bonds of the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railways, two parallel railway systems which were thus merged. The Supreme Court declared the combination illegal, being in restraint of interstate and international commerce.

While in theory the Sherman Law prohibits every combination in restraint of interstate commerce, yet in practice few of the large trusts have been prosecuted successfully. It has been held that its provisions are too dangerous to the innocent to be enforced against the guilty. But the act has demonstrated the important principle that Congress, by virtue of its power to regulate interstate commerce, may forbid any conspiracy or combination in restraint of interstate commerce and that a contract for

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the purchase price of goods cannot be enforced if such contract forms one of the essential factors in an illegal scheme.

While the Sherman Anti-Trust Law was aimed chiefly at industrial combinations, the decisions of the Supreme Court have made this law an important part of legislation for the regulation of railroads. In fact, its interpretations have given it a wider field of action in inter-railway relations than as a regulator of the relations of purely industrial corporations. The enforcement of the Sherman Law has been greatly facilitated by the enactment of several laws making the testimony of witnesses compulsory and granting immunity to the persons so testifying. These laws, together with the "Expediting Act " of 1903 (which provides that in important cases prosecuted under both the Interstate Commerce and Sherman acts, where the Government is the complainant, a direct appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court), have greatly facilitated the enforcement of trust legislation.

But up to the present time antitrust legislation has failed to destroy the tendency of corporations to become monopolies or to repress the restraints they exercise upon production and trade. In 1892, when the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the first and most famous trust, was declared by the circuit court to be an illegal combination, the trustees dissolved the corporation by exchang

ing its certificates for a pro rata number of shares in 20 subordinate corporations which controlled the remaining companies in the original trust. In 1899 the charter of the company was amended to allow it to hold and

sell the stock of other corporations, and thus the company became the holding company for the Standard Oil interests then distributed among 19 concerns. In 1906 the Attorney-General sued the company in the United States court, and in 1909 its decision declared the company an illegal combination under the Sherman AntiTrust Act and enjoined it from continuing business in its existing form. The company simply exchanged its certificates for shares pro rata in each of the 19 subordinate companies and continues doing business, as heretofore, under a mere technical change of form. Another important case was that of the so-called Tobacco Trust.

The Department of Commerce and Labor. No other department of the Federal government comprises such varied activities for the regulation of commerce and labor as this. The Bureau of Corporations, established in 1903, is authorized to make diligent investigation into the organization, conduct, and management of the business of any corporation, joint stock company, or corporate combination engaged in commerce among the several States, so as to furnish Congress data for legislation for the regulation of such

commerce.

The work and province of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization are clearly expressed in its name. A tax of $4 per immigrant more than defrays the cost of maintaining this Bureau. The Act to Encourage Immigration passed in 1864 allowed the agents of American employers to employ laborers in foreign countries who pledged their wages for cost of shipment hither. This act was repealed in 1868, and in 1875 the importation of coolies was forbidden. senger Act of 1882 excluded convicts, lunatics, idiots, or any persons likely to become a public charge. The Knights of Labor started an agitation against the competition of employés engaged abroad to work at European wages, and in 1885 the Alien Contract Labor Law made it unlawful to assist the immigration of foreign labor under wage contract. Chinese are excluded by the Exclusion Act of 1882, reënacted in 1902.

The Pas

The Bureau of Labor is concerned with the more radical study of the condition of the laboring classes of the country, but not with the enforcement of labor laws. It collects and publishes information regarding the cost of food, the economic laws for the amelioration of the condition of the working population in other countries, the railroad pension systems in the United States, strikes and strike conditions, laws enforcing compensation for accidents to workmen in foreign countries, old age pensions wherever

compulsory, and the conditions of woman and child labor. In 1869 Congress passed a law fixing an eighthour day for all workmen in the employ of the United States.

Just as the Bureau of Labor is concerned with the economic welfare of the laborer, so the Bureau of Manufactures seeks to promote the commercial interest of manufacturers. It was provided for by the act of 1903, but was not organized until 1905. It is engaged in classifying the vast amount of commercial information relating to foreign countries supplied by our consuls. Thus the Consular Service, which belongs to the Department of State, is really an adjunct to the Bureau of Manufactures. It deals with commercial affairs in foreign lands, but has nothing to do with political matters, which is the province of the Diplomatic Service. The information supplied by the Consular Service is the means of opening new markets for American commerce and is given to the public in the form of the Consular and Trade Reports. The International Commercial Directory, containing the names of buyers of goods in foreign countries, is one of the achievements of this Bureau.

The Bureau of Fisheries represents a very interesting phase of the activity of this Department and stimulates a highly profitable form of commerce and labor. It annually distributes over 3,000,000,000 eggs and fish. The conservation of oysters, sponges, VOL. X 32

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lobsters, terrapin, clams and seaweed is being provided for.

An altogether uncommercial function is that of the Lighthouse Board, which has charge of the construction and maintenance of lighthouses on the coasts of the United States. It was first organized in 1789, but its present establishment dates from the law of 1852. It was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to that of Commerce and Labor in 1903. Its duties include the construction and maintenance of light vessels, lighthouse depots, beacons, fog signals, buoys, and everything pertaining to the lighthouse establishment.

The Bureau of Navigation, as its name clearly indicates, has general supervision of the merchant marine and merchant seaman of the United States; yet, strangely enough, it remained as division of the Treasury Department up to 1884. It has general charge of the registration, enrolment and licensing of vessels, and reports on the operation of all laws relating to navigation.

The Steamboat Inspection Service was founded in 1839, reorganized in 1852, and transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. Its duty, as its name implies, is to inspect all steam vessels of the United States and those clearing from American ports. It has charge of the general administration of the laws relating to vessels and their officers.

The Coast and Geodetic Survey

dates from 1870, but its methodical organization came in 1832, and its present name in 1878. It was added to the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. It is charged with the survey of the coasts of the United States and rivers to head of tidewater, or ship navigation, deep sea soundings, researches as to ocean currents, magnetic observations, determination of latitude, longitude and azimuth of geographical positions, and reference points for State surveys. The publications of the survey comprise charts of coast and harbors, advance tide tables, sailing directions in all navigable waters, etc.

The Act of June 1910 created a special court, known as the United States Commerce Court, which was given jurisdiction of all suits brought to enforce the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The first session of this court was held on February 15, 1911, and since then no decision has been rendered by the various circuit courts.

The Post-Office.

The Post-Office is a most important adjunct to the commerce of the country and is the largest institution of its kind in the world. It requires 300,000 employés to handle its enormous business, consisting of 15,000,000,000 pieces of mail matter a year. Its growth has been phenomenal. In 1837 the average citizen spent 32 cents a year in postage, whereas he now spends $2.30. The receipts vary from

$5 a year at the smallest post-office to $25,000,000 a year at the largest.

The railway postal service has 18,000 employés, and its work is the most vital part of the system. The transportation of mails on railways costs $50,000,000 a year and the pay of the clerks amounts to $20,000,000 more. The rural free delivery service costs about $44,000,000 a year, yet does not produce one-fourth of this in revenue. The Government mail, which is carried free, amounts to 50,000,000 pounds annually. The dead-letter office handles yearly 12,000,000 letters and 8,000,000 postals. The most recent innovation in the postal service is the creation of a postal-savings system. Deposits were first accepted on January 3, 1911, in 48 post offices. An agitation for a parcels post recently resulted in the extension of the postal service to carry parcels of the maximum weight of 11 pounds at the rate of 12 cents per pound.

The Patent Office.

Though not such a universal necessity as the Post-Office, the patent office, by its encouragement of American ingenuity, has done as much as, if not more than, any other agency of the Government to make Government to make the United

States the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Over 36,000 patents for new inventions is the present yearly record. During the last 40 years inventions in the field of electricity alone have created an industry in which the total capital invested is

$7,000,000,000, employing hundreds of thousands of workmen, with annual salaries aggregating $350,000,000. Of the 3,000,000 patents issued throughout the world since the institution of such systems, about 1,000,000 have been issued in the United States.

The Department of the Interior. This department is composed of several unrelated bureaus, chief of

which is the General Land Office. With a territory to dispose of consisting in all of 1,835,000,000 acres, it has granted or sold to the people of the United States 1,135,000,000 acres. A large proportion of the public lands

has been distributed free in homesteads of 160 acres each. Congress has recently passed a law permitting farmers to settle upon coal lands, while reserving the underlying coal deposits, and in this way crops can be raised pending the exploiting of the coal itself. Thus millions of acres of fertile land have been made available for husbandry.*

The Pension Office is another bu reau of the Interior Department. The total number of pensioners on the pension roll at the beginning of 1912 was 900,000. The survivors of the Civil War number over 500,000. The names cancelled by death number 30,000 per annum. The annual payment of pensions for 1911 amounted to $158,000,000, the average pension being $171.90. The total amount paid out for pensions up to the beginning

*See chapter on Land System, ante.

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of the fiscal year in 1911 was $4,000,000,000.

The Reclamation Service of the Interior Department, which is concerned with the irrigation of desert regions in the Western States, is calculated to add enormously to the wealth and commerce of the country. An act of Congress in 1902 set apart all funds received from the sale of

public lands in certain States and Territories, which resulted in an aggregate of $68,000,000. This amount, with other funds appropriated by Congress, has been used in constructing irrigation works, each settler obtaining 40 acres as a homestead. Over 11,000 acres have been thus reclaimed from the desert. The cost of construction is repaid to the Government by the settlers in small annual pay

ments. In some cases the settlers pay for water rights in labor on ditches, flumes, and canals used in irrigation. The yield in crops on irrigated land far exceeds that of lands not irrigated.*

The Treasury Department.

The Treasury Department exercises a most potent influence on the commerce of the country. Among the duties of the Secretary of the Treasury are the preparation of the annual budget, looking after the collection of the revenues, and supervising all the fiscal operations of the Government. He is assisted by three assistant secre

* See chapter VII. ("Internal Improvements") and VIII. ("Conservation of Natural Resources"), ff.