Public Policy in Respect to Monopole I 1

§ 19. Guiding principles of the new policy.

The Com mission in March, 1915, began its work. Only two years later, and for the next three years, it was called upon to give a large part of its efforts to aiding other governmental agencies in their war-time and post-bellum work, especially in cost fixing investigations, and could not adequately perform its original task. At the end of six years, many of the evils which the Commission was designed to correct still prevailed.

The price advances within that period had been so swift and bewildering that they obscured all distinctions of normal demand, normal supply, fair price, war profiteering, and monopoly. For example, investigations in 1921 in New York and other cities revealed incredible monopolistic practices in the building industries, by labor and capital alike.

But for all this it cannot be doubted that a new and potent agency for creating higher business standards has been brought into existence. The new legislation drew the atten tion of the country to the development of a better commercial morality. Many business men wrote to the Commission com mending the purposes of the law, and offering their coopera tion to eradicate long standing practices which they deplored. The Commission admirably declared that it iwas seeking "to understand and make allowance for the difficulty of the prob lem, to see both sides of every case, to protect men in the furtherance of legitimate self-interest by all reasonable and normal methods, and at the same time to keep the channels of competition free and open to all, so that a man with small capital may engage in competition with powerful rivals, as sured that he may operate his business free from harassment and intimidation and be given a fair opportunity to work out his business problems with such industry, efficiency, and intelligence as he may possess."

§ 20. Some early fruits. Through the investigations of its economic division the Commission has collected a stupen dous mass of detailed information on the conditions and the trade practices in many of the leading industries of the coun try, throwing the light of publicity into many a dark corner of commercial abuses.

The legal division of the Commission at the end of its first five years had received almost exactly two thousand ap plications for complaints (for unfair practices and violation of the C'ayton Act), upon which it had made inquiries and dismissed about one half without publicity. The number of these had increased each year, more than one third having been in the last year. The Commission had in more than six hundred of these cases issued formal complaints, of which more were in the last year than in the previous four years.

In taking up these complaints the names of the complain ing parties are not disclosed. The Commission's work is primarily to protect the public interest and not merely to intervene in "contests between individuals in relation to their private rights." On this theory, the Commission may and does institute proceedings "on its own motion without charges being made to it or upon application of parties not directly affected by the practices complained of." This present policy in respect to monopoly stands out in striking contrast to the theory of the private litigant and the injured party as embodied in the preceding law and practice. It still remains to be seen whether, in the near future, it will be possible to scotch the snake of monopoly and give to the "common man" the chance to live and work according to fair rules of the game in business enterprise.