SAMUEL GOMPERS, FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERATION OF LABOR. MR. GOMPERS DEMANDS AN AMENDMENT OF THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT THAT WOULD MAKE LEGAL THE INTERSTATE BOYCOTT
Over the question of federal control of large combinations these five men and their colleagues debated for nearly two years. Senator Sherman introduced his first anti-trust act August 14, 1888; the present statute finally became a law on July 21, 1890. During this period six separate trust bills, all modifications of that originally introduced by Mr. Sherman, were laid before the Senate. They were considered by two committees—the Finance and the Judiciary—and debated at great length in the committee of the whole. The discussions occupy one hundred and fifty pages of the Congressional Record.
A striking illustration of the general ignorance of the circumstances under which the Sherman Act was passed is furnished by the present Republican platform. This declares that "the Republican party passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act over Democratic opposition." The records of Congress, however, show no indications of any opposition at all, Democratic or other. Of the five men most conspicuous in framing the law, three were Republicans and two were Democrats. In the Senate only one senator voted against the passage; in the House two hundred and forty-two votes were cast in favor of the act, and not a single one was cast against it. The whole debate was notable for its seriousness and its dignity; one or two Democrats did suggest that a revision of the tariff might help to curb the trusts; but that was the only partisan note struck. Congress keenly appreciated the issues raised by the trust problem and the necessity of taking action that would be beneficial and permanent. Everybody realized, also, the inherent difficulties of the situation. The debates in the Senate on this issue, far from indicating a scrappy investigation, furnish material for a liberal education in the constitutional questions involved in dealing with monopolies. Senator Hoar, in preparation for the work, studied the history of legislation concerning monopolies from the time of Zeno. One of the sections in the bill—that providing that a successful litigant against a trust can recover three times the damages suffered from it—Mr. Hoar incorporated from a statute on monopolies passed in the reign of James I.
Sherman Act Intended to Apply to Labor Unions
Of all the legends which have grown up about this law, perhaps the most absurd is that it was never intended to apply to workingmen. "As a matter of fact," said Samuel Gompers before the Judiciary Committee of the House last winter, "every man who now lives and is familiar with the legislation of the day knows that the Sherman Anti-trust Law was never intended to include organizations of labor," Chief Justice Fuller, in a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court, flatly contradicts Mr. Gompers' statement. "The records of Congress show," says Justice Fuller, "that several efforts were made to exempt, by legislation, organizations of farmers and laborers from the operation of the act and that all these efforts failed," In fact, the question of the relation of labor unions and the law occupied a conspicuous place in the debates; it was almost as constantly in the minds of the Senators as the question of capitalistic combinations themselves. To meet this situation, Senator Sherman introduced an amendment specifically excepting labor unions and agricultural associations from the operation of his statute. Mr. Gompers, according to his remarks before the Judiciary Committee last winter, was partly responsible for the introduction of this amendment. Senator Edmunds opposed it on the ground that it granted rights to labor which it withheld from capital, and he insisted that both sides should be treated upon an exact equality. In the following words he disposed for all time of Senator Sherman's plea for preferential treatment of laboring men:
The fact is that this matter of capital, as it is called, of business, and of labor, is an equation, and you cannot disturb one side of the equation without disturbing the other. If it costs for labor 50 per cent. more to produce a ton of iron, that 50 per cent. more goes into what that iron must sell for, or some part of it. I take it everybody will agree to that.
Very well. Now, if you say to one side of that equation, "You may make the value or the price of this iron by your combination for wages in the whole Republic or on the continent, but the man for whom you have made the iron shall not arrange with his neighbors as to the price they will sell it for, so as not to destroy each other," the whole business will certainly break, because the connection between the plant, as I will call it for short, and the labor that works that plant, is one that no legislation and no force in the world—and there is only one outside of the world that can do it—can possibly separate. They cannot be divorced. Neither speeches nor laws nor judgments of courts nor anything else can change it, and therefore I say that to provide on one side of that equation that there may be combination and on the other side that there shall not, is contrary to the very inherent principle upon which such business must depend. If we are to have equality, as we ought to have, if the combination on the one side is to be prohibited, the combination on the other side must be prohibited, or there will be certain destruction in the end....
On the one side you say that it is a crime and on the other side you say it is a valuable and proper under-taking. That will not do, Mr. President. You can not get on in that way. It is impossible to separate them; and the principle of it therefore is that if one side, no matter which it is, is authorized to combine, the other side must be authorized to combine, or the thing will break and there will be universal bankruptcy. That is what it will come to.
SENATOR GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, GENERALLY REGARDED AS ONE OF THE GREATEST CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYERS OF HIS TIME. THE SHERMAN ACT, AS IT STANDS AT PRESENT, IS VERY LARGELY HIS WORK
Senator Edmunds' logic absolutely killed any attempt to place capital and labor upon different footings, Instead of adopting this proposed amendment, the Senate referred the whole question of trust legislation to the Judiciary Committee, of which Senator Edmunds was chairman. Mr. Edmunds and his colleagues threw into the waste basket all the pending trust bills and their amendments and struck out on new lines. As a consequence, Senator Edmunds became the chief author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. His most active associates, were Senator Hoar and Senator George. The one man who had practically nothing to do with the statute as it stands to-day was Senator Sherman himself. He played an important part in the preliminary discussion and in framing the measures which served as a basis for this discussion; but the bill as it was finally adopted by Congress bore little resemblance to his. The amendment upon which he laid especial stress—that of exempting laboring and agricultural organizations from the operation of the Anti-trust Law—was absolutely ignored.