Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/98

 MR. JUSTICE MOODY The accumulations of unmeasured wealth by corporations, a result, in part, legiti mately due to extraordinary national pros perity, had excited grave apprehension in others than those who denounce all acquisi tions of property in which they have no sha re. Students of political economy were rightfully alarmed that activities of corpo rate ambition or avarice threatened to over throw the protective barriers and safeguards of the law itself, and to build up a dominion of wealth that would array class against class, by arrogance of power upon the one side, and oppression and despair upon the other. Such fears, well or ill founded, aroused an intense popular agitation, reason able at least, in the belief that unrestrained combinations of wealth or corporate energy, especially in relation to the production or distribution of the necessities of life, or to the agencies of transportation, were a serious menace to the welfare of the country'. Combinations and monopolies of a magni tude never before conceived in finance, or industrial enterprises, were in efficient oper ation through the instrumentalities of cor porations, themselves the creatures of the law. Federal and state legislation, at best a laggard behind the tireless energy of selfinterest and desire for gain, had sought, with more or less effective phrase, to restrain a manifest, existent, and increasing evil. The Congress, reflecting a popular demand, enacted the "Sherman Anti-Trust Law" and the so-called "Elkins Rebate Law," dealing with the subject, in so far as it lay within the limitations of federal jurisdiction, necessarily confined, for the most part, to territorial and interstate commercial conditions. But the written law, unless it be animated by the vigorous life of executive action, might as well be inscribed upon the walls of the sealed tombs of Assyrian or Theban kings. Unless it be put into fearless, relentless execution, it is truly but a dead letter, as a stone given to a people crying for bread. The anti-trust laws required for their en forcement a plan of campaign, a policy, an

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activity, as extended in operation as the field of the evil they sought to eradicate and punish. Any isolated action must have been futile. Sporadic proceedings by district at torneys, at best, changed the scene rather than the nature of the wrong. From the Attorney General with his commanding view point, his control of the entire operation of the law, successful plan and action must emanate. Mr. Attorney-General Olney, type of the finest quality of New England lawyer and statesman, Mr. Attorney-General Knox, accomplished lawyer of great experience and resource, had instituted many proceedings in law and equity, criminal and civil, but the great work had only intermittent and indif ferent success. Never was greater opportun ity offered, never graver responsibility com mitted to public officer, than to the new Attorney General succeeding Senator Knox. The vigorous enforcement of the law meant far more than an incident, favorable or un favorable, to a political party. The issue was to determine whether corporations, through the power that the law had given them, and through the magnitude of their interests so acquired, could ignore or subvert the law itself. Soberly, gravely, with a concentration and sagacity that omitted no detail of exact and careful investigation and preparation, that neglected no consideration of the vast re sources of wealth and intelligence, con trolled by the offenders, the Attorney General entered upon a series of prosecutions, many of which have already resulted in the com plete vindication of the law and the cause of the people. It was at once manifest that his acumen and learning as a profound law yer had ripened into fullest development rather than deteriorated through the varied duties of his public life. Encouraged by the ardent sympathy of the President, assisted by the special appro priation of five hundred thousand dollars, he has pursued wrongdoers from the scenes of their defiant or secret misdeeds, in the phosphate fields of Florida to the mining