Anti-trust Quotes
Standard Oil was found guilty after over 400 witnesses of violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the company was broken up. However this quotation and {629196} were crucial in the decision against Standard. Very often, the defense of the successful monopolist is that the industry could not have been made successful other than the way he did it.
Here, an officer of a large corporation (Pittsburgh Plate Glass) makes the classic argument of large corporations about the anti-trust laws which prevent them from using their economic power to crush competition. The claim that the large corporations are at a disadvantage and handicapped in competing with small companies is easily refuted by the bankruptcy rate of small businesses which is large, and that of large corporations which is very small, and that of major monopolies which is virtually zero.
At the time, the Chamber of Commerce represented the small and medium business which were being decimated by the large businesses and their monopolies. A century later, the Chamber became a creature of the large business and their money and by 2010, the Chamber had virtually become the representative of the large businesses outside of the high technology field and had become a campaigning arm of the Republican Party, In 1880 however, they called public attention to the abuses of the large corporate monopolies.
He was referring to the accusations that the Donald Trump Campaign Staff had colluded with the Russians in 2016 and 2017. Senior members of the Trup Staff including his Campaign Manager and his son Donald Trump Jr had met with Russian agents to get damaging information about Trumps opponent. Trump staff had claimed that there was nothing wrong because the didn't get anything useful.
In 1904 President Theodore Roosevelt instructed his Attorney General to file one of America’s first and the largest anti-trust case against Northern Securities Company. The President was a Republican and a patrician. Most of his social acquaintances and a few friends were totally surprised that the President could turn against his own class in what they saw as an act of class warfare. They sought explanations for the unthinkable.
See {642189} where Sherman explained some of the reasons for the law.
