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
