Littlefield On Control Of Trusts

LITTLEFIELD ON CONTROL OF TRUSTS.

Congressman Littlefield of Maine is evidently deserving of the prominence he has acquired during the time he has been in congress. His address on the Trust Problem last week was au ab!e effort and furnished good reasons for his leadership of the house on this great question. He thinks some advancement was made in the interest of the people by the legislation passed by the last session of congress. He is practically in accord with Judge Grosscup, however, in thinking the legislation is not adequate to secure the results so much desired. He quoted the attorney general at length in his recommendations as to needed legislation, if the executive officers of the government are to control the criminal trusts. Only half of the recommendations of Mr. Knox were legislated upon it all and the legislation passed, he showed, does not come up in all respects to what he desired. Consequently the responsibility for any failure on the part of the executive department in securing desired reforms, within the limits of the attorney general's recommendations at least, will have to be attributed to congress.

Mr. Littlefield stated, however, that since the passage of the legislation of the past session, an important decision or two under the old anti trust law had greatly extended the scope of the power of congress in the natter of its control over interstate commerce, it having been held in the Lottery cases that congress may even prohibit entirely such commerce when it is deemed injurious to the people.

He declared that overcapitalization is one of the greatest evils involved in the whole question. He instanced the case of a trust representing an actual investment of $500,000 which was capitalized at $8,000,000. The products of such combines are sold, of course, at such prices as to enable the declaring of a dividend on this overcapitalization, which in this instance is sixteen times the actual capital. This is a fine illustration of the manner and degree in which the people are robbed to pay enormous profits to these criminal trusts.

Mr. Littlefield, like all prominent thinkers on this subject, believes full and complete publicity as to trust affairs would aid materially in remedying these evils.

He gave a vivid portrayal of the methods which prevail in the senate with reference to all such organizations. These organizations in some mysterious way are able to get words inserted in bills aimed at proper control of their operations which defeat the very purpose of the legislation. Senators frankly admit that some little word or words destroy the effectiveness of the legislation, admit that these words ought to be taken out, or never should have been inserted, and yet they are there and there they frequently stay. In other words the power of the trusts over supposed representatives of the people is greater than the control of the people themselves over their representatives, that corrupt practices in congress are able and frequently do thwart the will of the people in the most important legislative matters.