The views of the President with regard to railroad regulations were largely met in the Mann-Elkins bill, finally passed after a long and notable debate on June 18, 1910. It supplements the Hepburn Act of 1906 in greatly enlarging the powers of the Federal Government over railways, and makes it much more difficult than heretofore for the railroads to conceal rebating from the Interstate Commerce Commission. Among other powers the Commission was granted the right to suspend new tariffs for ten months, if necessary, while hearings were being held; and this provision was invoked when, shortly before the passage of the Mann-Elkins Act, several Western roads increased their freight rates between all points, to take effect July 1. These tariffs were therefore suspended, and on February 24, 1911, the decision was handed down refusing rate advances on eastern and western roads, but granting most of the increases asked by southwestern roads.*

The creation of the Commerce Court was one of the principal advances made by the Mann-Elkins Act,

and one which the President had consistently striven for from the first.t

* Another important instance when this extension clause was put into operation was near the end of the administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission on August 31, 1912, extending until December 31, 1912, proposed increases in freight rates from eastern points to Pacific coast points.

The members of the Commerce Court were Martin A. Knapp, formerly chairman of the VOL. X 19

This court was designed to review cases on which appeal should be made from the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in lieu of having them passed upon, as formerly, by the United States Circuit Courts. This was not only in the interests of greater expedition but, it was hoped, of a more searching and painstaking adjudication than the busier courts could make. Up to the close of 1911 the Commerce Court had rendered decisions in 27 appeals from rulings, usually in favor of the railroads against the shippers, and in only three cases sustaining the original orders of the Commission. A distinct hostility against the court gradually grew up, and in 1912 only the utmost exertions. on the part of President Taft saved it from being wiped out of existence by Congress. Other troubles culminated in 1912, when the House of Representatives presented to the Senate articles of impeachment against one of the judges of the court, Robert W. Archbald, for alleged business transactions with railroad companies at times when the railroads were litigants before the Commerce Court and

the Interstate Commerce Commission.

In accordance with another section of the Mann-Elkins Act the President, in 1910, appointed the Railroad Securities Commission to decide whether

Interstate Commerce Commission, John E. Carland, Robert W. Archbald, William H. Hunt and Julian W. Mack. The first public sesssion was held in Washington. D. C., on April 3, 1911.

railway stock and bond issues could properly come under Federal regulation. The committee reported on December 11, 1911, that it would be practically impossible to do so, but made several important suggestions for amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act, which should provide for giving the fullest publicity to every detail of railway financiering.

The second part of the President's message of January 7 dealt with proposed modifications of the anti-trust law. The message argued that large combinations of capital were not intrinsically unfair, yet it was necessary for judicial investigations to be instituted whenever suspicions of viola

tions were aroused. This disturbance to business was to be deprecated and, it was thought, could be eliminated if the great concerns should subject themselves to Federal regulation under the terms of a National incorporation act. This would enable a line to be drawn between trusts that had nothing to conceal and those that employed unlawful methods between "good trusts" and "bad trusts." A constructive bill was drawn by the Attorney-General, Mr. Wickersham, and presented to Congress, but formal debate on it was soon withdrawn.

the provisions of the bill itself, were considered as a few among many hopeful indications of a much more reasonable spirit as regards the regulation of industrial corporations - a weakening of the demand for ruthlessly "smashing big trusts." In President Taft's "Lincoln Day Speech 99 at New York, for instance (in which, by the way, he reiterated his "best ever" characterization of the new tariff) he disclaimed "all intention of pursuing the corporations in a hostile spirit." The Administration's atti

tude toward the whole trust question made it more and more evident that regulation and publicity, properly applied, would be powerful factors in discriminating between lawful and unlawful combinations; and that was one of the chief aims sought by the Wickersham bill.

Prosecutions were continued during 1910 and the early part of 1911 against the Sugar Trust, the meat packers, the Window Glass Trust, the Electrical Trust, and many others, but although, in nearly all cases, the Government advanced inexorably toward the heart of the citadel and no truce was called, yet the chances of final victory or defeat could not be accurately gauged until the decision of the United States Su

Tobacco Trust cases should be announced. So momentous and far reaching were the consequences of these decisions felt to be that a little more detail must be ventured in recounting the procedure and its effects.

In November of 1909, the United States circuit court at St. Paul, Minnesota, had declared the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey a "combination in restraint of trade" and therefore illegal under the Sherman Act as not only a combination but a monopoly, the decree of the court being an order for dissolution and an injunction against the formation of any similar combinations. An appeal was taken by the company, in December of 1909, to the Supreme Court of the United States, alleging sixty-five errors. The case was first argued in March of the following year, but following year, but owing to the death of Justice Brewer and Chief Justice Fuller, the illness of Justice Moody, and the fact that Justice Lurton had not been upon the bench when the first arguments were made, a reargument was heard in January of 1911.

The principal contentions of the defence were, briefly, that the Standard Oil Company was not a combination of subidiary rival companies but only a natural, simple evolution of an expanding industry, a private undertaking that had a right to use trade devices in advancing its interests, not a public service corporation that would come under closer legal restrictions. The government, on the other hand, endeavored to show obvious" intent" to secure restraint of trade and monopoly, evidences being found, it was alleged, in transportation rebating, price discriminations, and other unfair methods that enabled the

company to establish and maintain monopoly.

The decision was handed down on May 15, 1911, written by Chief Justice White and concurred in by eight members (vigorously dissented from, however, by Justice Harlan), the crux of which was the now famous "rule of reason" principle that the Sherman Law should in each case coming up for adjudication be given a "reasonable " interpretation. The Supreme Court, nevertheless, found the Standard Oil Company guilty of illegal combination, and ordered its dissolution on September 1, 1911. The order of the court was strictly obeyed, and on that date the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey surrendered the ownership of the stock of other oil companies.

While the first effect upon business men of the decision was optimistic, there was a feeling of doubt whether the dissolution actually dissolved, although technically the law had been strictly complied with. There was a very general endorsement, too, of Justice Harlan's view that "reasonable interpretation " led, or might lead, to emendations of legislative enactments by means of the judicial construction placed upon them, creating "judgemade law" that would" in the long run prove disastrous for our political system." The uncertainty produced by the necessity of interpreting each particular case as it arose, rather than by a general principle applying to all cases, was deprecated also, and it was

feared that its effect upon the expansion of legitimate business would be hampering. But the country had not recovered from its rather dazed condition when, only two weeks later, the Supreme Court handed down a decision requiring the dissolution of the American Tobacco Company, suit against which had been begun in the circuit court for the southern district of New York in July of 1907. The higher court swept away the interpretation of facts made by the circuit. court, as well as the interpretation of law, and held the combination unlawful "not only because of the dominion and control over the tobacco trade which actually exists" but because "the conclusion of wrongful purposes and illegal combination is overwhelmingly established by the undisputed facts of the evidence."

In June of 1911, the circuit court granted to the government contention a decree of dissolution against the DuPont Powder Company and, in October of the same year, decrees against the Southern Grocers Association and the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company, the latter commonly known as the "Bathtub Trust." It was in October also that suit was filed in the United States court at Trenton, New Jersey, against the United States Steel Corporation and eighteen individuals, seeking the dissolution not only of the corporation itself but of its constituent companies as well. This prosecution is perhaps the most important and far

reaching yet started under the Sherman Law, not so much on account of the enormous capitalization of the Trust as its acknowledged freedom from some of the worst features that had characterized other corporations. Two suits, civil and criminal, were also begun against the Beef Trust, one result of which was that, in the summer of 1912, the corporation was obliged to publish its plan for dissolution. In the latter year the Attorney-General asked the Supreme Court to dissolve the merger of the Union Pacific and Southern railroads, and took decisive measures against the Harvester Trust.

One of the most important events of the second year of Mr. Taft's administration was the satisfactory culmination of the century-long and sometimes bellicose disputes between the United States and Great Britain regarding the North American fisheries. These disputes had resolved themselves into seven questions involving the interpretation of the Anglo-American Treaty of 1818 and were referred to the Hague Tribunal for final settlement. It was a triumph for the cause of international arbitration that these vexing and sometimes threatening complications could be adjudicated so smoothly and that the result should be accepted with such entire acquiescence by the parties concerned. The decision was rendered on September 7, 1910, and became irrevocable on September 12. During the five-day period allowed by law for protest, no protest whatever, or even comment, was offici

ally offered by either the British or United States governments.

There were five arbitrators on the board of award, the United States being represented by the Hon. George Gray, of Delaware, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals; the leading counsel for the United States. was Senator Elihu Root.* Of the seven questions, the first and fifth were decided contrary to the claims of the United States, the others in her favor. The first question involved the point whether any "reasonable regulations made by Great Britain, Canada and Newfoundland in the form of municipal laws, ordinances or rules. must be submitted to the consent of the United States." Its decision in the negative appears to impartial observers a reasonable one, as any other view would have been, seemingly, an unwarrantable cession of sovereignty on the part of those countries. The fifth question involved the "headland doctrine." The British had contended that "the three marine miles within which the United States agreed not to fish should be measured from an imaginary line drawn across the

*The other members of the tribunal were; President of the Tribunal, Dr. Heinrich Lammasch, of Austria, professor in the University of Vienna and member of the upper house of the Austrian Parliament; His Excellency, A. F. de Savornin Lohman, former Minister of State of the Netherlands; Canada's special representative, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, Chief Justice of the Dominion Supreme Court; and Dr. Luis Maria Drago, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Argentine Republic, probably the most eminent jurist of South America.

mouth of the bay, no matter how wide, from headland to headland," while America argued that the line should follow the coast's sinuosities. One of the judges, Dr. Drago, dissented from the majority opinion on this question which was some consolation to American pride.

The other five points, on which the United States won, established that hereafter the British cannot compel our fishermen to report to custom houses; they cannot impose on these fishermen light, harbor or other dues when entering bays or harbors for shelter or other necessities; we may employ men who are not inhabitants of the United States on our fishing vessels, and these vessels have the right to purchase supplies and to enjoy other commercial privileges. The award provided also- and this was not the least of the benefits it wrought— that other disputed fishing regulations be submitted to a commission, the composition of which is stipulated, and recommended that a similar permanent commission be created for the settlement of future disputes.

One of the chief causes of the midadministration revolt, so likely to occur against the party in power, had its inception in the tariff, that ancient trouble-maker for more than one President. While the business world had a sincere purpose to regard the new schedules as a fixed fact for at least some years to come and so adjust itself to changed conditions, the country as a whole, including many leaders in