Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1911 — No Prosperity So Long as Laws of the Past Are In Effect [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

No Prosperity So Long as Laws of the Past Are In Effect

By Congressman MARTIN U F W. LITTLETON of New York

* W-F CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT WILL ONLY RECOGNIZE I THAT INDUSTRIAL CONDItIONS HAVE BEEN REVOLUI TIONIZED IN TWENTY YEARS AND INSTEAD OF RIGOR- “ * OUSLY ENFORCING ANCIENT AND ARCHAIC LAWS MAKE A CALM, DISPASSIONATE, CONSERVATIVE STUDY OF PRESENT PROBLEMS THROUGH A COMMISSION, PROSPERITY COULD BE RESTORED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR. The UNDERLYING, basic fact in seeking for the cause of the present dull period of business is that for FIFTEEN YEARS the country has DEVOTED itself WHOLLY to the interests of the PRODUCERS and totally IGNORED THE CONSUMER. What we MUST SEEK is a CALM MIDDLE GROUND. When the Sherman law was passed eighteen or twenty years ago it was to meet certain conditions then existing, like the small criminal combinations to limit production and fix prices. Since that time conditions have arisen which the framers of the Sherman anti-trust legislation could not possibly have foreseen and for which their laws are TOTALLY INAPPLICABLE. Now, instead of RIGOROUSLY enforcing this ANCIENT and ARCHAIC LEGISLATION ' and keeping business disturbed I propose to have a commission of the entire problem and completely ItE Y'lUJF'ifi’e anti-trust legislation. . I would have this commission study problems here and also take, counsel with Germany, England and France, the big industrial nations of Europe, for we must recognize that this trust or combination question is INTERNATIONAL. Conditions are such that to prosecute our own combinations means that we simply give those across the water the benefit.