a majority of cases. The substitution of expert civil-service assessors, working in accordance with a uniform systematic plan of assessment, for the present haphazard method of local assessment might be expected to remove a great part of the defects in the working of the general-property tax. That some classification would still be desirable is, of course, obvious. The report of the special tax commission contains two plans for relieving the present situation and for providing efficient administration of the laws. The majority report apparently favors a central tax commission with power of advisory supervision over the local assessor and with the added right of requiring the reassessment of any district that in their judgment suffers from unjust and inequitable valuations. The minority report by Commissioner Riley suggests a more radical measure in urging that the entire assessment system be placed in the hands of the central tax commission which is responsible to the governor alone. Which of the two plans is the more expedient politically may be a matter of doubt, but that the latter would secure the more thorough enforcement of the assessment laws is hardly open to question. Yet political bias and the democratic aversion to bureaucracy is so strong that there is little hope of its becoming a law in the immediate future, although previous attempts to improve the tax system of the state show conclusively that it strikes at the very root of the lax administration that has been one of the principal sources of the admitted failure of the property tax. What action will be taken by the General Assembly in the matter of revising the revenue system of the state at its next session is, of course, impossible to predict. During the present session neither the recommendation of the Special Commission for a permanent tax commission nor the proposed constitutional amendment was favorably acted upon. The former was given very scant attention and the latter was voted down during the closing hours of the session. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO F. B. GARVER NOTES WASHINGTON NOTES THE STANDARD OIL DECISION PROGRESS WITH RECIPROCITY REFORMING THE WOOL TARIFF REORGANIZATION OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT LIMITING BANK ORGANIZATION Probably the most important decision handed down by the federal Supreme Court within the last few years is the opinion in the Standard Oil case, delivered by Chief Justice White on May 15 (Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1910, No. 398). This has now been printed as a Senate document for general distribution (Sen. Doc. No. 34, 62d Cong., 1st sess.). The general finding of the court is adverse to the Standard Oil Company and in favor of the government, the company being directed to dissolve within six months on the ground that it is a combination of the kind properly to be held illegal under the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890. While, however, very widespread interest has been excited by the facts reviewed in the finding and by their effect on the stock market, the controlling interest is undoubtedly expressed in the general legal foundations of the decision, and the position assumed by the court therein. Briefly stated, the court's view is that the Sherman anti-trust act, in prohibiting every combination in restraint of trade, is simply a statutory statement of the common law, and when interpreted in the light of common-law precedents. amounts merely to a prohibition of every unreasonable or improper combination in restraint of trade. This then places on the court itself the duty of determining when and under what circumstances a combination is actually in restraint of trade in the sense referred to by the law. Perhaps the most significant passage of the decision bearing upon this new and pregnant doctrine is that in which the court undertakes to justify its interpretation of the act and in so doing offers the following defense: When the second section of the act is harmonized with and made, as it was intended to be, the complement of the first, it becomes obvious that the criteria to be resorted to in any given case for the purpose of ascertaining whether violations of the section have been committed is the rule of reason guided by the established law and by the plain duty to enforce the prohibitions of the act and thus the public policy which its restrictions were obviously enacted to subserve. And it is worthy of observation, as we have previously remarked concerning the common law, that although the statute, by the comprehensiveness of the enumerations embodied in both the first and second sections, makes it certain that its purpose was to prevent undue restraints of every kind or nature, nevertheless, by the omission of any direct prohibition against monopoly in the concrete, it indicates a consciousness that the freedom exercised was the most efficient means for the prevention of monopoly, since the operation of the centrifugal and centripetal forces resulting from the right to freely contract was the means by which monopoly would be inevitably prevented if no extraneous or sovereign power imposed it and no right to make unlawful contracts having a monopolistic tendency were permitted. In other words, that freedom to control was the essence of freedom from undue restraint on the right to contract. While the Standard Oil decision and particularly that phase of it which has been especially set forth in the foregoing language was received with more than a little satisfaction by those business interests which had feared a "narrow interpretation" of the statute, and while consequently the depressed state of prices on the stock markets of the country gave way to an active upward movement, the optimism thus shown was speedily superseded by a calmer and more reflective frame of mind. It was seen that the real future of the industrial combinations of the country was dependent under the Standard Oil decision upon two essential factors: (1) whether or not the national administration would or would not undertake prosecutions against the concerns which are on the border line of doubt as to their legality; and (2) whether the courts, and ultimately the federal Supreme Court, would or would not adopt a severe attitude with respect to their "reasonableness" or "unreasonableness." It was recognized that the adverse finding in the Standard Oil case threw no light upon the latter factor, inasmuch as, if the Standard Oil Company were not found in violation of the Sherman Act, there would probably be few, if any, corporations which would thus be in violation. Interest in the finding in the American Tobacco Company case, the companion suit to the Standard Oil case, was therefore redoubled. A decision in the American Tobacco Company case was handed down on May 29, two weeks after the judgment in the Standard Oil case (October Term, 1910, Nos. 118 and 119, Sen. Doc. No. 40, 62d Cong., Ist sess.). In this, a point of view even more severe toward the defendant corporation than in the Standard Oil case was adopted. The court ordered the concern dissolved and brought into conformity with law, holding that it also was unmistakably a combination in violation of the spirit of the Sherman Act. The growth of the American Tobacco Company is thoroughly familiar to students of the development of American capitalism and the Supreme Court's review adds nothing new to financial history. Nor is there anything in the decision by way of reasoning which makes it different from, or superior to, that in the Standard Oil case. A notable and unique feature of the decision, however, is found in the suggestion that the combination could be brought into a position honestly in conformity with existing law, and that in so doing it must be guided by the orders of the lower court before which the cause was originally urged. This idea was expressed in the following salient words: We must approach the subject of relief from an original point of view. Such subject necessarily takes a twofold aspect-the character of the permanent relief required and the nature of the temporary relief essential to be applied pending the working out of permanent relief in the event that it be found that it is impossible under the situation as it now exists to at once rectify such existing wrongful condition. In considering the subject from both of these aspects dominant influences must guide our action: (1) The duty of giving complete and efficacious effect to the prohibitions of the statute; (2) the accomplishing of this result with as little injury as possible to the interest of the general public; and (3) a proper regard for the vast interests of private property which may have become vested in many persons as a result of the acquisition either by way of stock ownership or otherwise of interests in the stock or securities of the combination without any guilty knowledge or intent in any way to become actors or participants in the wrongs which we find to have inspired and dominated the combination from the beginning. Under these circumstances, taking into mind the complexity of the situation in all of its aspects and giving weight to the manysided considerations which must control our judgment, we think, so far as the permanent relief to be awarded is concerned, we should decree as follows: First, That the combination in and of itself, as well as each and all of the elements composing it, whether corporate or individual, whether considered collectively or separately, be decreed to be in restraint of trade and an attempt to monopolize and a monopolization within the first and second sections of the anti-trust act. Second, that the court below, in order to give effective force to our decree in this regard, be directed to hear the parties, by evidence or otherwise, as it may be deemed proper, for the purpose of ascertaining and determining upon some plan or method of dissolving the combination and of recreating, out of the elements now composing it, a new condition which shall be honestly in harmony with, and not repugnant to, the law. The significance of the finding was promptly seen in the expression of the opinion by financial interests that there had now for the first time been afforded to them a definite means of ascertaining how and by what process they might bring themselves into conformity to law, inasmuch as it would now be the duty of the lower court to pass upon the remedies suggested by attorneys for the company. That this is actually to be a means of supplying such a mode of determination as has been sought by the capitalistic combinations is indicated by the fact that, since the Tobacco decision was rendered, officers of the government have referred inquiring representatives of corporations to the proceedings shortly to be instituted in the federal court for the southern district of New York, there to learn by what means it would be practicable for the American Tobacco Company to reorganize in a form not obnoxious to the spirit of the Sherman Act. Apart from the immediate effect of these decisions upon the stock market, which has been favorable, the anti-trust situation in Congress has been somewhat clarified, the issues on either side standing out with decidedly greater clearness than at any time in the recent past. The so-called "conservative" element in Congress now takes the view that the anti-trust situation has been reduced to a satisfactory position, inasmuch as the question of reasonableness can be determined by the courts, and inasmuch as the two decisions in question have shown a strong disposition on the part of the federal tribunal to protect the rights of the public in the most positive manner. On the other hand, radicals in the Republican party, and the main body of the Democrats are disposed to argue that the determination of the reasonableness of a corporate enterprise cannot properly be left to the |