Posted on 11/20/2015 2:35:45 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion
An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Reading an interesting tome, The Millionaire and the Bard, I took note of its discussion (in passing, relatively speaking) of the Sherman Antitrust Act. It mentioned that the act was little more than a hundred words long, and I bethought myself to find and post it. Because it is so short, it is general and does not define terms - meaning that it is an open invitation to activism, judicial and otherwise.In researching the author, I found that the wiki entry for John Sherman to be long and fascinating. Who knew that he was elected to the Senate (R, OH) in 1861? Who knew that he succeeded Senator Salmon P. Chase, named Secretary of the Treasury by Lincoln? Who knew that one of his ten siblings was William Tecumseh Sherman? Who knew he was Secretary of the Treasury under Rutherford B. Hayes, and Secretary of State under William McKinley? (by that time he was in his seventies, came to realize he was past it, and resigned shortly after the declaration of the Spanish-American War).
The Millionaire and the Bard discusses the milieu the actor and playwright William Shakespeare, quite fascinating in its own right, and the history of Henry Folger, unrelated to coffee but right hand man to John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Folger became fascinated by Shakespeare while still in college, married a fellow aficionado, and - while rising to the top of the Standard Oil empire - became a sophisticated and almost manic collector of rare Shakespeare documents. Late in life he bought property in Washington, DC in sight of the Library of Congress, a stealth project that took most of a decade, and built and endowed the Folger Shakespeare Library (just as he was preparing to begin demolition for the project, it was announced that Congress was going to condemn that property, and more, for an expansion of the Library of Congress. Folger wrote to the Librarian of Congress, announcing his plans for a site-appropriate structure and his fabulous collection of Shakespeare materials which he intended to locate on the site. And indicating that if he could not build it on that site, he would not build in Washington at all. That got the Librarian’s attention, and through him that of Congress).
Freepers will understand the nexus of Standard Oil and the Sherman Antitrust Act . . .
The Our Documents initiative is a cooperative effort among National History Day, The National Archives and Records Administration, and USA Freedom Corps.
Of possible interest . . .
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"Nationalize as much as possible [and thereby] make men love their country before their states."
” 4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract [emphasis added] of indemnity against loss.” - Paul v. Virginia, 1869.
Insights welcome.
Sec. 7.I have argued that the wire services in general, and the AP in particular, are a standing violation of antitrust law. Now that I see the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the above section in particular, I am struck by what an inviting target the AP is.
Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by any other person or corporation by reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act, may sue therefor in any circuit court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found, without. respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover three fold the damages by him sustained, and the costs of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee.The AP started life as the New York Associated Press in 1848 - four decades before passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The AP was aggressively monopolistic during that time - putting the screws to telegraph lines to give the AP exclusive rights to transmit news reports over them, for example. Not only was the AP monopolistic against any competing wire service, it systematically homogenized, and continues to homogenize, news reporting. This is obvious in the AP Stylebook, which rules certain usages, such as “illegal alien” and others, in or out. Even without the Stylebook, the effect is obvious when an NBC News broadcasts a George Zimmerman tape, editing out an answer and then a question, putting words into his mouth in answer to the preceding question. Were there actual ideological competition among journalists, the reputation of NBC would have been savaged by other journalists after that. Instead, the other members of the AP were busily piling on Zimmerman in other ways.
It is perfectly understandable that journalists tend to be “liberal,” because journalists are reporters of bad news, and bad news is criticism. Since journalists are critics, their position is the exact opposite of that of Theodore Roosevelt in his “man in the arena” speech the operative portion of which begins, “it is not the critic who counts.” Naturally the journalist prefers to think the opposite of “the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” The opposite of that is exquisitely expressed by “liberal” Elizabeth Warren: “You didn’t build that.” Nevertheless, Adam Smith perfectly characterizes the AP when he asserts that
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of NationsThe AP newswire is a continuous virtual “meeting” of all of major journalism. There is no need for a RICO suit to go after treble damages and ruin the AP; the Sherman act includes provision for that very thing. The real objection to the AP is its fraudulent “journalistic objectivity.” And the homogenization of all of major journalism, so that people who deviate from that consensus are “not objective, not journalists.” The AP was found to be in violation of the SAA in 1945, but it was not broken up. It was too big to fail because its mission - the conservation of expensive transmission bandwidth in the dissemination of news - was seen as too vital. in the 21st Century, information transmission bandwidth is dirt cheap. I venture that Free Republic alone uses as much bandwidth now as the whole Associated Press did in 1945. The mission of wire services to economize on bandwidth which is no longer a significant expense is therefore an anachronism.The AP and its membership constitutes a conspiracy against the public. The AP should be transformed into something quite different - and it should be stripped of its membership. There should be lawyers lining up to pick the bones of the AP.
Thank you, conservatism_IS_compassion.
And we are still living under the disastrous effects of ruthless, remote and violent centralization that he and his equally psychopathic brother inflicted on the States that were United.
BTTT
Some interesting information, tho I cannot claim to have read the whole thing closely. In inveighing against the Associated Press (see for example my #7), I have relied on Adam Smith, but it is clear that not only Sherman but many other acts, before and after the Norman Conquest, attest to the moral rejection of monopolies.A10, it seems according to “Dubious Origins” linked above that your suspicions about the constitutionality of Sherman were shared vociferously in 1890 by Senator George, who the article says was vindicated by events but who was ignored by everyone else in Congress.
I sympathize with your desire to have someone critique your analysis; I have wished for more substantive critique of the analysis scantily outlined in my #7. Unfortunately I don’t seem to be the one who can pick up your challenge. I can only comment that if the AP were subjected to the kind of antitrust action which seems amply warranted by the facts, the MSM might suddenly get religion about the constitutionality of Sherman.
Just as with many other federal laws in the history of the USA, Congress basically ignored complying with the Constitutions Article V to petition the states for specific new power to make the unconstitutional (imo) Sherman Antitrust Act.
Traitor Alexander Hamiltons national bank was probably the first such piece of legislation, followed by the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which was followed by the public works act of 1817 which President James Madison, generally regarded as the father of the Constitution, actually vetoed.
Low-information citizens need to stop thinking of the federal government as a king and take the Constitution out of its gift wrapping and actually start using it.
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