Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/27

 To Samuel Johnson BY HARRY R. BLYTHE [Samuel Johnson once remarked that if he had more money he would have been a lawyer.]

AD fortune smiled you say you would have been Not author, but a frequenter of courts,

Pressing your petty case of crimes or torts, Or laying down shrewd argument for men -

Who paid you fees to drag them from the fen Of legal woe—that swamp of sad resorts. As though, dear Sam, your name in the Reports Could ever wield more magic than your pen!

Oh! well for us you never had your way, Dining with silver spoon and golden plate, Else we had never known you, Sam, today, And loved you for your every human trait. The gods know best. 'T is useless to inveigh Against their wishes-no man fashions fate.

The Standard Oil Decision and the Sherman Act HE attitude of the press toward the Standard Oil decision may be taken as tolerably expressive of the state of en lightened public opinion with reference to the Sherman act. There has been more un favorable than favorable comment in in fluential quarters. There are, to be sure, some conservative newspapers which approve of the decision. Thus the Boston Advertiser, whose editorials on legal subjects sometimes have weight, says:—— "The decision in the St. Paul case is wholly satisfactory and is in the interests of the pub lic welfare. It should serve as a warning to the other great trusts, organized in restraint of trade between the states. Their turn, too, must come. sooner or later, unless they are ready to submit to such government supervision as will regulate them, for the public's welfare and safety." Likewise, the Providence journal considers the ruling "in accord with a widespread pub lic conviction." A more typical attitude,

however, is expressed by the

New

York

Times, which observes :

"That the law should be permitted to re main what it is would be shocking to the moral and business sense of the country. The Standard Oil Company has been a great sin ner, but that furnishes no reason why inno cent business methods should be punished,

or why Justice should have her scales strapped over her already bandaged eyes. We feel sure that if the Senators and Representatives will read with an open mind the opinion in the Standard Oil case and will candidly weigh the objections to the law, they will enact such changes as will convert it into a reasonable and workable statute, which it is not now." It is probable that many members of Con gress are of one mind with the New York Times. Congressman Charles G. Washburn of Massachusetts has declared: “The crux of the situation is that business combinations affecting interstate business