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 Latest Important Cases offenses therein enumerated. “While the facts do not disclose an absolute

373

v. United States, decided May 29, the Court handed down a companion judg

percentage

ment closely resembling the former in

of the business which they control indicates that they intended to acquire at least a commercial monopoly.” (See

its fundamental reasoning. The chief interest of the opinion, however, arises from the fact that it goes more into

23 Green Bag 108.) See Monopolies.

particulars with regard to the nature of the abnormal practices which the statute was designed to prevent. The Court

monopoly,

yet

the

large

Monopolies. “Tobacco Case” — Sher said:— man Law — "Rule of Reason" — Trade Wars and Appeals to cupidity of Competi tors — Abnormal Competition. U. S. In Standard Oil Co. v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the

Sherman Act must be interpreted in the light of reason, its meaning being deducible from the state of the common

"Indeed, the history of the combina tion is so replete with the doing of acts which it was the obvious purpose of

the statute to forbid, so demonstrative of the existence from the beginning of a purpose to acquire dominion and con trol of the tobacco trade, not by the mere

law at the time of its passage, and as

exertion of the ordinary right to contract and to trade, but by methods devised

the law existing at the time of the adoption of the act permitted a wide

driving competitors out of business,

scope of freedom of contract and the

exercise of every reasonable right inci dent thereto, short of undue restraint of competition, the statute was to be

construed as prohibiting only those practices which the law regarded as unreasonable at that time. The Court thus reached the result that the cri terion to be applied was the rule of reason guided by the established law, and further held itself bound by the duty to apply and enforce the public policy obviously underlying the statute.

Ap

plying the rule to the facts, the Court considered that the Standard Oil Company was guilty of an illegal re straint of trade because a power dangerous to the public welfare had been built up by other than normal methods of competition. The Court did not go into any particulars as to the nature of the abnormal business practices by means of which competi

tion had been suppressed, evidently thinking them suﬂiciently obvious. In American Tobacco Company et al.

in order to monopolize the trade by which were ruthlessly carried out upon the assumption that to work upon the fears or play upon the cupidity of competitors would make success pos sible. We say these conclusions are in evitable, not because of the vast amount of property aggregated by the combina tion, not because alone of the many

corporations which the proof shows were united by resort to one device or another. Again, not alone because of the dominion and control over the tobacco trade which actually exists, but because we think the conclusion of wrongful purposes and illegal combination is overwhelm

ingly established by the following con siderations: — “A. —- By the fact that the very ﬁrst organization or combination was com pelled by a previously existing ﬁerce trade war, evidently inspired by one or more of the minds which brought about

and became parties to that combination. “B. — Because,

immediately

after

that combination and the increase of

capital which followed, the acts which