THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST LAW welfare of the laborers and their associa tions, it is quite obvious that it is equally essential to maintain the existence of capi tal in order that the laborer whose welfare is so essential should continue to be em ployed. It is absolutely impossible for the one to exist without the other. Senator Hoar did not suggest, nor can there be suggested, any line of differentiation or distinction with reference to the effect of either upon the welfare or prosperity of the Republic. To these suggestions Senator Edmunds made this reply: "On the one side you say that is a crime, and on the other you say it is a valuable and proper undertaking. That will not do, Mr. President. You cannot 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 uni versal bankruptcy. (Vol. 21, p. 2729.)
To this remark of Senator Edmunds a careful reading of the debate from that time on shows that no attempt was ever made to reply. After having thus stated that the amendment made is a crime for one set of men to do what was lawful for another set of men to do, and that it was impossible to separate the two factors of the great equa tion, the Sherman anti trust bill, with all pending amendments, was referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which Senator Edmunds was chairman. It was reported back, by that committee on the second day of April, 1890, with an amendment, which is the Sherman anti trust law as it reads today, without the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t," because after it was reported from the Senate committee it was not amended in any particular but became a law precisely in the language of that report. It is hardly necessary to suggest that after the statements made by Senator Edmunds no bill would be reported by him that either directly or indirectly exempted
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labor organizations from its operations when he had himself declared that it was impos sible to construct legislation upon that basis. The bill went through all the various stages of conference reports, and amend ments of various characters were from time to time suggested. It was taken up on the floor of the House, referred to and reported from the Judiciary Committee, and debated somewhat extensively upon the floor, but in no part of the debate and in no part of the proceedings was any effort made, after the conclusive and unanswer able statement of Senator Edmunds, to en graft upon the act any provision excepting labor organizations or men engaged in labor controversies therefrom. We not only have this clear history, which is an unanswerable demonstration of the fact that the act was intended to cover employees and employers in interstate com merce, but in addition we have the state ment made by Senator Edmunds, published in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, November 21, 1892, in which he said, referring to the Sherman anti trust law: "It is intended and I think will cover every form of combination that seeks to in any way interfere with or restrain free competition, whether it be capital in the form of trusts, combinations, railroad pools or agreements, or labor through the form of boycotting organizations that say a man shall not earn his bread unless he joins this or that society. Both are wrong; both are crimes, and indictable under the anti trust law." He further stated that it was the intention of the committee "to cover all such cases." THE SCOPE OF THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST LAW. I think it can be made clearly to appear that there is a profound misconception as to the legal scope of this statute. The com mon law applies to two well-defined and thoroughly understood conditions — con
