bitant prices to the necessities of life, and thereby to limit and control the comforts and manner of life of the people. There was a time, doubtless, when rebates on freight granted to favorite shippers and discrimination as to freight rates granted to favorite localities were crying evils, but freight rates have now been hammered down to so low a point that there is not much room for rebates, and the evil of favoritism as to localities has been very much lessened. It is now not the corporations that carry, but the corporations that produce, that seek to own the earth and to limit the mode of life of the people who live on it.

The bill now before Congress which provides for publicity in all matters relating to corporations is, at best, only a partial and incomplete remedy for the evils which afflict us.

So far as corporations enjoying public franchises which are necessarily more or less monopolies are concerned, publicity is certainly desirable. A railroad company has to have a public franchise and the power of eminent domain in order to exist, and the public is entitled to know just what is being done with the franchise it has bestowed, and just what profits are being made by reason of its exercise, so that it may be determined whether it is getting a fair return for what it has granted and honest treatment at the hands of its grantee.

Publicity, however, in regard to the business of a corporation which is or may be engaged in competition is entirely out of the question. Among the public which would be entitled to the result of this publicity are to be found the corporation's competitors in business, and if the incorporated Siegel-Cooper & Company establishment in New York has a chance to examine the books of the incorporated R. H. Macy & Company, and vice versa, then competition between Siegel-Cooper & Company and R. H.

Macy & Company comes to an end at once, and the natural result would be either the destruction of one competitor or a union of the two, and the establishment of another and greater monopoly. All such remedies are, in my judgment, either utterly valueless or of only limited value. I see no way of saving the Nation from the evils of monopoly except by legislating directly against the monopolists. Indirect legislation will be of little avail.

Granted that Congress has the jurisdiction under the Constitution to pass such legislation as it deems wise on this subject, the thing to be desired is legislation that shall curb the evils of the monopolies without embarrassing trade that is legitimate and beneficial to the community. The question with the ancient kings was how to cut off heads enough to save the throne without cutting off so many as to weaken the nation. The question with Congress is how to restrain monopoly without restraining trade. Trade is the life-blood of the Nation; monopoly, a disease that kills. How shall we cure the disease without draining the life-blood? Legislation providing for publicity as to the business of corporations engaged in competition would be legislation which would tend to kill trade without destroying monopoly. Direct legislation, such as I propose, would, I believe, tend to destroy monopoly without interfering seriously with legitimate trade.

Of one thing I am firmly convinced, and that is, that whatever remedy is adopted to cure the trust evils from which the community suffers, the application of the remedies should be in the hands of the courts rather than of the executive department of our Government. The training of the lawyer leads him always to favor judicial rather than executive remedies. The proposed statute puts the power in the hands of the court to judicially investigate

and render judgment. I think that the rights of the people and the interests of trade will be safer in judicial than in executive hands, and that we can trust the courts of the Nation to so interpret and administer a statute of this nature as to give to the community and the country the benefit that it is intended to confer and save them from the evils that might otherwise attend it. Ours is a judgegoverned land. It is a land of liberty because it is a judgegoverned land. Despotism has flourished only where the executive has over-shadowed the judiciary. The courts are the bulwarks of our institutions, the safeguards of Anglican liberty. In this day when our Nation and our race are confronted with a new evil, we may well turn to the courts of justice for a remedy. If there must be as it seems there must- an increase in the functions of government, let that increase be on the judicial rather than the executive side. Let it be the courts rather than the executive departments which shall receive the increment of power.

A great deal has been said about government by injunction. There have doubtless been ill-considered injunctions granted by our United States courts, but I think they are few much fewer than the mistakes that have been made in the executive departments of the Government. The courts are open. Their proceedings are conducted in the open. Reasons have to be given, and even judges are not impervious to criticism. Both sides are heard and mistakes or errors of judgment can be remedied by appeal. Our American courts are well worthy to bear the added responsibility which we are planning to impose upon them. The American judge is simply the American lawyer put upon the Bench. It may be that no pronounced change in the nature of the man occurs when he steps from before the Bench to behind it, but he breathes a different atmo

sphere. The American lawyer is a partisan. The American judge is as impartial as it is possible for a thinking and intelligent being to become. The criticism that has been levelled against what is called government by injunction should be directed rather against the law-making than the law-interpreting power. In the labor troubles the writ of injunction has been ordinarily invoked by corporate employers against workmen. It has been looked upon often as an interference by the courts on the side of monopoly against the people. The legislation we are considering will give the people a better opportunity to invoke the writ of injunction against the monopolists, and we may fairly assume that the courts will be quite as astute to administer the law in favor of the people as against them. Government by injunction in the way in which the proposed legislation would tend to establish it will, I think, be found to be the most effective and popular government that has ever been established by man.

No one appreciates more than I do that in adopting any legislation that affects trade and commerce we are handiing edged tools, but a road cannot be cut through the forest without an axe, and we should not refuse to place tools in skilful hands because they might be dangerous in the hands of the unskilful.

No one appreciates more than I do the seriousness of the question, but it is a serious emergency we have to meet, and I think the occasion demands the application of a drastic remedy.

Of one thing more I am sure, and that is that the men to meet the crisis and to guide the country safely through the dangers that surround it are the lawyers of the land. In this day of doubt and question the American people instinctively turn to the American Bar. I believe that they will not turn in vain. The day when the lawyer

played the buffoon character in fiction and in comedy, when he was the butt of ridicule and the target against which the pointed darts of the satirist were directed is past. The lawyers of to-day are the leaders in thought and in action, supreme not only within the narrower limits of the profession, but supreme also among statesmen and financiers and among those holding positions requiring unusual executive talent- yes, when the time of national peril comes they have often proved supreme among the nation's defenders. The two serious questions that the administration of the first President had to face when the new government created by the Constitution was starting. on its career were how to organize our finances at home and to establish relations with foreign nations abroad. The wisdom of Washington solved these two questions. by placing a New York lawyer at the head of the Treasury Department and a Virginia lawyer at the head of the Department of State, and our national wealth at home and our national influence abroad to-day are the legitimate and direct results of the work done by Hamilton in the Treasury and Jefferson in the Department of State. The hero of the War of 1812 was not a West Point graduate or a man brought up to the profession of arms, but Andrew Jackson, the lawyer. The savior of the nation in the Civil War, the man whose name goes down to history inseparably connected with our triumphs in that struggle, was not Grant or Sherman or Sheridan or Farragut, but Abraham Lincoln, the lawyer. The great hero of the Spanish War was not Dewey or Sampson or Schley, or Miles or Shafter or Merritt, or Joe Wheeler or Roosevelt, but the man who, as Supreme Commander of the Army and Navy of the United States, guided with firm hand and unerring judgment the movements of fleets and armies as well as the counsels of statesmen and the