ITEMS OF INTEREST May 4, 1912 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis and fourteen railroads entering that city and owning the Terminal Company, were last week held by the supreme court of the United States to be a combination operated in violation of the Sherman antitrust law to control transportation across the Mississippi river at St. Louis. Justice Lurton announced the decision. Topographical conditions at St. Louis, he said, made it impracticable for any railroad to reach St. Louis without using the Terminal Company across the Mississippi. The combination of the three crossings owned by the Terminal Company gave control over competition. In addition the Terminal Company had power to exclude all railroads from the city. The justice said the court had based its decision on these facts and that the combination must be struck down unless it acted as the "impartial agent" of all. The company was given a fixed time in which to reorganize in accordance with express conditions set forth by the court. The first condition was that future railroads be admitted to equal control of the Terminal Company.

Directors of the United States Steel Corporation, through stock ownership and places on the directorates of the great railway systems of the United States, have a controlling voice in nearly fifty-five per cent of the railroads of the country, according to a statistical study prepared for the Stanley steel trust investigating committee of the House. The aggregated value of the railroads is fixed at approximately eighteen billion dollars and of that the Steel Corporation affiliations are said to control more than ten billion dollars. The twenty-three directors of the Steel Corporation also sit on boards of directors of banks, insurance companies, express companies, and various other industrial corporations with an aggregate capitalization of $7,388,099,416. Figures collected for the committee's record by one of the special investigators show that Steel Corporation officers and directors sit as officers or directors in banks, trust and insurance companies having aggregate capital, surplus, deposits, and undivided profits of $3,314,811,178.

The department of agriculture is facing prospects of another investigation by a committee of the House. Representative Nelson has introduced a resolution in the House, calling for an inquiry into the United States meat inspection service. He charges that the meat inspection laws are being openly and notoriously violated by the packers and that the solicitor of the department and the chief of the bureau of animal industry are cognizant of these violations and are doing nothing to stop them. He says the federal guarantee of the purity of meat products is worthless.

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