After much study of the mass of suggested legislation, Congress relied upon its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several states and passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, which received President Harrison's signature on July 2, 1890. Its most significant portions are the following:

Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is illegal.

Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other such person . . . to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.

The purpose of the framers of the Act seems clearly to have been to draw up a general measure whose terms should be those usual in the English common law and then rest on the assurance that the courts would interpret its meaning in the light of former practice. For some centuries restraint of trade had been considered illegal in England, but no contract was held to be contrary to law if it provided only a reasonable restraint-that is, if the restraint was merely minor and subsidiary. The Sherman act was a Senate measure, was presented from the Judiciary Committee and was passed precisely as drawn up by it. In speaking from the Committee, both Edmunds and Hoar took the attitude which the latter expressed as follows: "The great thing that this bill does, . . . is to extend the common-law principles, which protected fair competition . . . in England, to international and interstate commerce in the United States." Just how far the members of Congress who were not

on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate shared in this view or really understood the bill can not be said. Indeed, many members of both chambers absented themselves when the bill came to a vote.1

For a long time the Sherman Act like the Interstate Commerce Act was singularly ineffective and futile. Trusts were nominally dissolved, but the separate parts were conducted under a common and uniform policy by the same board of managers. The Standard Oil Company changed its form by selecting the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a "holding corporation." Stock of the members of the combination was exchanged for stock in the New Jersey organization, leaving control in the same hands as before. The same business was carried on in the same way but 'under a new sign.'' The wide variety of conditions tolerated under the corporation laws of the several states made confusion worse confounded. In its early attempts to convict corporations of violation of the law, the government was uniformly defeated.

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In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the purchase on the ground that it was con

1 The authorship of the Sherman law has often been a source of controversy. Senator John Sherman, as well as other members, introduced anti-trust bills in the Senate in 1888. Senator Sherman's proposal was later referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was not a member. The Committee thoroughly revised it. Senator Hoar, who was on the Committee, thought he remembered having written it word for word as it was adopted. Recent investigation seems to prove that the senator's recollection was faulty and that Edmunds wrote most of it, while Hoar, Ingalls and George wrote a section each and Evarts part of a sentence. If this is the fact, it seems most nearly accurate to say that Sherman started the enterprise and that almost every member of the Judiciary committee, especially Edmunds, shared in its completion.

trary to the Sherman law, and to order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government. Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the AttorneyGeneral's office had drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United States government could not control them.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd. His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in The Atlantic Monthly (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is Wealth against Commonwealth (1894); consult also C. A. Lloyd, Henry D. Lloyd (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals are in Political Science Quarterly, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp. 296319; W. Z. Ripley, Trusts, Pools, and Corporations (rev. ed., 1916), is useful; B. J. Hendrick, Age of Big Business (1919), is interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S. C. T. Dodd, Trusts (1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, The Anthracite Coal Combination in the United States (1914); J. W. Jenks, Trust Problem (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale production; J. W. Jenks and W. E. Clark, The Trust Problem (4th ed., 1917), is scholarly and complete; J. D. Rockefeller, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (1916), is a brief defence of

the Standard Oil Company; W. H. Taft, Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court (1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on the subject are in Senate Documents, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol. 14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society.

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CHAPTER XII

DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION

N view of the fact that Harrison had been success

ful in 1888 and that Cleveland had been the most able Democratic leader since the Civil War, it seemed natural that their parties should renominate them in 1892. Yet the men at the oars in the Republican organization were far from enthusiastic over their leader. It is probable that Harrison did not like the rôle of dispenser of patronage and that he indicated the fact in dealing with his party associates; at any rate, he estranged such powerful leaders as Platt, Quay and Reed by his neglect of them in disposing of appointments. The reformers were no better satisfied; much had been expected of him because his party had taken so definite a stand in 1888, and when his choice of subordinates failed to meet expectations, the scorn of the Independents found forceful vent. Among the rank and file of his party, Harrison had aroused respect but no great enthusiasm.

The friends of Blaine were still numerous and active, and they wished to see their favorite in the executive chair. Perhaps Blaine felt that there would be some impropriety in his becoming an active candidate against his chief, while remaining at his post as Secretary of State; at any rate he notified the chairman of the National Republican Committee, early in 1892, that he was not a candidate for the nomination. The demand for him, nevertheless, continued and relations