Trusts, Pools, and Corporations

advantages in stimulating interest and, it is to be hoped, arousing enthusiasm among students. But lectures alone entirely fail to do justice to the possibilities inherent in economic science for rigorously training the mind in habits of close and consecutive thought. The law has always enjoyed a peculiar and well-merited prominence among other studies for this reason.

The first requisite, therefore, for the successful conduct of economic instruction in the descriptive field is to provide raw material; which in discussion, supplementary to the general lectures, may be worked over in detail in the classroom. Such material, by reason of the great increase in economic periodical literature since 1890, is now rapidly augmenting. Yet with classes often aggregating in such economic courses from one to two hundred men, as at Harvard University, resort by each student to the files of such periodical literature is out of the question. Public documents are also impossible for reference reading with a class of considerable size. And finally, in my judgment, a generally neglected and amazingly rich find lies embedded in the mass of factual evidence accumulated in the course of legal proceedings in our courts. The mere decisions, as long currently used, are of course well known. But it is not the legal pronouncement in the case, infrequently interlarded with brief statements of fact, but the actual testimony adduced "The Record" of evidence submitted-which has rarely been utilized. Such matter must be painstakingly uncovered, abridged, even digested, and made more conveniently accessible, to serve its due end for the teacher. To direct attention to this material by a few concrete illustrations from such sources, reprinted in this volume, is not an unimportant motive in its production.

A second incentive to the preparation of the original volume, ten years ago, was the hope that it might contribute to the crystallization of public opinion in favor of a fair policy of governmental control over monopolistic and corporate enterprises. This revised edition affords an opportunity to record the complete conviction of the people of the United States in favor of such a policy. The recent amendments of the Anti-Trust law in 1914

mark the formal entry of the Federal government upon a course of action imposing a grave responsibility upon its administrative agents. An understanding is needed, henceforth, not of the general principles of governmental control but rather of the application of that control to concrete instances of real or fancied abuse. The need of an annotated, quasi-official literature is insistent. By gathering together in convenient form this series of papers and documents it is confidently hoped that progress toward an understanding of one of our most troublesome public questions may be in some degree facilitated.

Both for the purpose of saving space and in order to avoid the appearance of discontinuity in the text, it has seemed best to eliminate many footnotes from the four hundred pages of new material added to this edition, as well as oftentimes to leave out all indication of solid omissions in the reading matter. The technical student under such circumstances is warned always to turn to the original article or document for detailed citations.

Acknowledgment is due to the editorial boards of the Political Science Quarterly, the Economic Journal, the Yale Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and in even greater measure to the authors of the several papers herein reprinted, for permission to make use of their material in this enterprise. In every instance a most hearty acquiescence in the project has been expressed, for the which I cannot be too grateful. Without such assent the meagre original contributions of the editor would have made but a sorry show. To my former teacher at Columbia, President Goodnow of Johns Hopkins; to my former assistants at Harvard, Professors Tosdal and Dewing, and, with a peculiar sense of personal attachment, to my old friend Dr. Francis Walker, I wish especially to acknowledge indebtedness. This volume as it appears is largely the work of professional colleagues and friends. It is earnestly to be desired that the editor's endeavors may serve to direct attention anew to the value and interest of their contributions.

Libros