Review of Periodicals
that some statute should be passed not only infiAlabama, but by all the states, makin cohabitation or the public assumption 0 marital relations necessary to the validity of any marriage not contracted in conformity withgthe statutes of the state?" "The Clergy and the Marriage Laws." By J. S. Franey. Nineteenth Century, v. 86, p. 554 (Man). _ Discussing historical aspects of matters involved in the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Act, 1907. lonopoliel. "The Federal Anti-Trust Act." By Robert L. Raymond. 23 Harvard Law Review 353 (Man).
In many res cts an admirable article. The Sherman nti-Trust Act is conceived as so uncertain in its phraseology as necessarily
to have led to a remarkable exhibition of judicial legislation. The decisions of the Sn reme Court construing the act are care fu y analyzed. The actual signification of the Sherman Act is then concisely summarized. In consequence, probably every great com bination in the count liable to prose cution and dissolution under the Anti-Trust Act." Business and law have thus both got into “what it is little exaggeration to call an impasse." And this cause the act has been construed as prohibitin com binations simply taking the form of t e large corporation. “The logic of events is certain to brin about a change either by continued judicia construction or by legislation. The en lightened and modern view of the trust problem is that it is an economic question. . . . “The remediable evils are economic evils. The rinciple of real combination is inherently soundlt.J . . . The evil of the trusts, it is now generally believed, consists merely inimonopoly control; that is, in the power of a combination to do as it pleases. . . . “The law must strike not at the principle of combination but at monopoly control. glis . . . means lrlmlydthat actual and bona com tition on thatgivhen be 'ven op rtunity to eenterptlie field,s and itylras done so it should be fought only by fair and proper methods." Up to this point the writer seems to be on pretty firm ground. When, however, he comes to explain just how free bona fide competition is to be maintained, it is to be
feared that he may not grasp the fact that the real nub of the evil of monopoly is coercive conduct of which the boycott is an illustra tion as regards the treatment of competitors, and extortionate price-fixing as regards the treatment of consumers. The pro lem is not that of maintenance of competition,
but that of maintenance of freedom to enter the field of competition-two things which are anything but synonymous. Entire freedom of competition involves freedom of combination, as Mr. Raymond perceives, but it likewise implies freedom to crush competition. and where competition is sup pressed without coercion, fraud, or extortion,
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the courts have no right to declare that there has been a “restraint of trade." It may seriously he questioned, therefore, whether Mr. Ra nd is ri ht in concluding that the Anti- rust Act ‘performed a tremendously valuable service ‘in reparing the way for more just regulation," an whether, "in so far as it covers loose combinations," 1e, those where there is not a single corpora tion, it "is a piece of final and complete legislation." "The Sherman Anti-Trust Act and In dustrial Combinations." By Herbert Noble. 44 American Law Review 177 (Man-Apr).
Read at the last annual meeting of the Maryland State Bar Association. "That competition, free and unlimited, is the life of trade is a pat phrase which rolls from the 1i 5 of the orator in high sounding periods. I literally applied, no partnerships would be possible, no combinations of capital could be made, no combined methods of distribution established. Unlimited com petition is not desirable. . . . "One constantly sees the expression that a combination to maintain prices is, of course. unlawful, because com tition is thereby directly restrained, and t t the object of the Sherman act is to maintain free and un trammeled competition. Attention is called to the fact that there is not one word in the act about competition, and that all that is said in the cases about the act being passed for that purpose is a matter of 'udicial interpo lation. The act prohibits irect restraints of interstate trade, but it does not follow at all that all restraints of competition, whether of other persons’ business on the one hand or self-imposed on the other are pro hibited. . . . “The proper construction of the act is that it makes unlawful only those contracts, combinations, conspiracies or acts— "(0) which directly, immediately and necessarily restrain interstate trade or com merce to such an extent that the public is thereby injured; or “(b) which restrain the trade of another, such as the driving of a rival out of business; or “(0) which restrain the trade of another, as
in the Danbury Hatters’ case, by boycott; or “(4) which result in the suppression of competition between the parties thereto without leaving substantial competition in the trade; or “(e) which amount to a monopoly in the field to which they relate, whether done as the result of the act of a single person or of a combination." “Prosperity with ]ustice—-Working Toward a Solution." By Judge Peter S. Grosscup. North American Review, v. 191, p. 311 (Man). “First: Let there be a valuation of each of the railway pro rties (I take the railway properties as an ilustration onl ), rejecting ‘the cost of reproduction’ as t e measure, but takin as the measure what it fairly cost to bring these railroads to their presen