APPENDIX L.

EXPEDITING ACT OF 1910.

[36 Stat., 854.]

AN ACT to amend an act, entitled "An act to expedite the hearing and determination of suits in equity pending or hereafter brought under the Act of July second, eighteen hundred and ninety, entitled 'An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies,' 'An act to regulate commerce,' approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, or any other acts having a like purpose that may be hereafter enacted," approved February eleventh, nineteen hundred and three.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Section one of the act entitled "An act to expedite the hearing and determination of suits in equity pending or hereafter brought under the Act of July second, eighteen hundred and ninety, entitled 'An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies,' 'An act to regulate commerce,' approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, or any other acts having a like purpose that may be hereafter enacted," approved February eleventh, nineteen hundred and three, be, and the same is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

"That in any suit in equity pending or hereafter brought in any circuit court of the United States under the act entitled 'An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies,' approved July second, eighteen hundred and ninety, 'An act to regulate commerce, approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, or any other acts having a like purpose that hereafter may be enacted, wherein the United States is complainant, the Attorney General may file with the clerk of such court a certificate that, in his opinion, the case is of general public importance, a copy of which shall be immediately furnished by such clerk to each of the circuit judges of the circuit in which the case is pending. Thereupon such case shall be given precedence over others and in every way expedited, and be assigned for hearing at the earliest practicable day, before not less than three of the circuit judges of said court, if there be

three or more; and if there be not more than two circuit judges, then before them and such district judge as they may select; or, in case the full court shall not at any time be made up by reason of the necessary absence or disqualification of one or more of the said circuit judges, the justice of the Supreme Court assigned to that circuit or the other circuit judge or judges may designate a district judge or judges within the circuit who shall be competent to sit in said court at the hearing of said suit. In the event the judges sitting in such case shall be equally divided in opinion as to the decision or disposition of said cause, or in the event that a majority of said judges shall be unable to agree upon the judgment, order, or decree finally disposing of said case in said court which should be entered in said cause, then they shall immediately certify that fact to the Chief Justice of the United States, who shall at once designate and appoint some circuit judge to sit with said judges and to assist in determining said cause. Such order of the chief justice shall be immediately transmitted to the clerk of the circuit court in which said cause is pending, and shall be entered upon the minutes of said court. Thereupon said cause shall at once be set down for reargument and the parties thereto notified in writing by the clerk of said court of the action of the court and the date fixed for the reargument thereof. The provisions of this section shall apply to all causes and proceedings in all courts now pending, or which may hereafter be brought.

Approved, June 25, 1910.

APPENDIX M.

CONTROL OF CORPORATIONS,

PERSONS, AND

FIRMS ENGAGED IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.

[Senate Report No. 1326, Sixty-second Congress, third session; ordered to be printed, February 26, 1913.]

Mr. Cummins, from the Committee on Interstate Commerce, submitted the following report of the committee:

The Committee on Interstate Commerce, to which was referred the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Committee on Interstate Commerce is hereby authorized and directed, by subcommittee or otherwise, to inquire into and report to the Senate at the earliest date practicable what changes are necessary or desirable in the laws of the United States relating to the creation and control of corporations engaged in interstate commerce, and what changes are necessary or desirable in the laws of the United States relating to persons or firms engaged in interstate commerce, and for this purpose they are authorized to sit during the sessions or recesses of Congress, at such times and places as they may deem desirable or practicable; to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, to summon and compel the attendance of witnesses, to conduct hearings and have reports of same printed for use, and to employ such clerks, stenographers, and other assistants as shall be necessary, and any expense in connection with such inquiry shall be paid out of the contingent fund of the Senate upon vouchers to be approved by the chairman of the committee.

begs leave to make the following report:

On the 26th day of July, 1911, the Senate adopted the foregoing resolution, and acting under the authority and in pursuance thereof the Committee on Interstate Commerce provided for open hearings upon the subject matter of the resolution. The hearings began on the 15th day of November, 1911, and were continued from day to day for more than three months, during which time 103 men appeared before the committee, and their statements, together with the exhibits and documents submitted by them, fill 2,799 printed pages. A printed copy of these statements, exhibits, and documents, including an index, laws and reference concerning industrial combinations in foreign countries and a collection of judicial decisions touching the power of Congress in the regu

lation of commerce among the States, in all, five volumes, is herewith presented to the Senate.

While the committee is conscious that some of the matter adduced at the hearings and submitted as a part of this report is not relevant to the questions under consideration and of little worth, it believes that, upon the whole, the hearings have furnished one of the most valuable contributions that can be found in the literature of the subject. It is not yet ready to report any of the bills which are now before it, and which propose specific modifications of or additions to the existing statute; nor is it prepared at this time to report a substitute for them. It hopes that it may be able before the close of the present session to act finally upon these bills and recommend in definite form the legislation which it may think necessary or wise to meet modern business conditions. It is, however, prepared to answer the general inquiries propounded in the resolution, and in view of the overwhelming importance of the subject it ventures to add to the direct response some observations upon the origin, purpose, and effect of the enactment commonly known as the Anti-trust law, to indicate wherein it is inadequate, and to suggest the general scope of further regulation.

The committee is of the opinion:

First. That the statute should stand as the fundamental law upon the subject, and that any supplemental legislation for more effectual control and regulation of interstate and foreign commerce should be in harmony with the purpose of the existing statute.

Second. That whatever may be our views respecting the power of Congress to enact a general Federal incorporation law, it is neither necessary nor desirable at this time to provide for the organization under act of Congress of industrial corporations which propose to engage in commerce among the States and with foreign nations.

Third. That it is desirable to impose upon corporations now or hereafter organized under State law, and engaged or proposing to engage in such commerce, further conditions or regulations affecting both their organization and the conduct of their business, and also to impose further conditions or regulations upon persons, copartnerships, and other associations now engaged, or hereafter engaging, in such commerce, the general character of

such regulation to be the same as those laid upon corporations, except such conditions or regulations as are in their very nature peculiar to the corporate form of commercial activity.

It is plain that the first question to be answered in considering what additional legislation upon the subject is necessary or desirable is a vital one, it is this: Should Congress attempt to maintain competitive conditions in the general interstate commerce of the country, where they still exist, and to restore such conditions where they have been destroyed, or should it accept the complete or partial overthrow of competition and resort to some other method of protecting the people against the power of combination and monopoly?

Without doubt the chief if not the only object in mind, when the Anti-trust law was passed, was to maintain competition as an effective regulating force in business by making it unlawful to enter into any contract or combination in restraint of trade or commerce among the States or with foreign nations, or to monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, such trade or commerce. The bill introduced by Senator Sherman, out of which the present statute grew, was in terms directed against the suppression of competition. After a long debate and much reflection the Judiciary Committee of the Senate reported a substitute in which “restraint of trade" was the thing forbidden instead of interference with competition. This was accepted not because there was any abandonment of the desire to preserve competition, but because there was a common law on the subject well established and carefully elucidated in the English decisions. The common law was that both contracts and acts in restraint of trade were injurious to the public welfare and therefore opposed to public policy. The Congress of 1890 very wisely borrowed the language of the common law and with it came the learning of the judges, who had from time to time declared and expounded it. It is not the purpose of the committee to recite the development of the English doctrine. It was not always stated with exact accuracy and there is some inharmony of expression, but it may be said with confidence that a restraint of trade consisted of such unreasonable restriction of competition as impaired substantially, and to the public injury, the freedom of trade or the freedom to trade. Interference with free competition was generally but not necessarily a restraint of trade, for there were some restrictions