“Then you will perhaps explain why your corporation, the largest trust in existence to-day, is immune, while other trusts are being persecuted to the extent of the Government’s power.”

“I am not authorized to answer any question which has to do with the Government,” Gorham continued; “but it may be that it is due to the same reason that some of the ‘other trusts’ you mention are not as yet incorporated as a part of the Consolidated Companies.”

“Then they have been approached?” the Senator asked, quickly.

“Several of them have approached us; but they have thus far been unwilling to accept the principles upon which the Consolidated Companies is founded.”

“You refer to its alleged benevolent aspect?”

“Yes, if you choose to call it that,” Gorham replied, smiling.  “We prefer to call it reciprocity.  If we receive favors in the form of concessions from the people, we believe it to be not only fair, but also sound business, to use these concessions not to bleed them, but for their benefit.”

“In other words, the Consolidated Companies is a good trust, and the others are bad trusts?”

“Exactly.”

“The Sherman Act, if I read it correctly, makes no distinction.”

“But the Government does.”

“And to that extent unlawfully discriminates,” the Senator said, emphatically.

“What would be the effect upon the country if the Sherman Act were enforced literally?” Gorham asked.

“That is not for me to say.”

“Perhaps the Attorney-General will give us his opinion,” Gorham persisted.

The Attorney-General had been listening to the discussion with much interest.

“There can be but one answer to that question,” he replied; “it would produce an industrial reign of terror, and yet I am frank to say that, from a legal standpoint, I believe Senator Hunt is correct in his statement that the Government unlawfully discriminates in drawing any distinction between good and bad trusts; but let me say further, that it is my definite opinion that the Sherman Act, as it now stands, is a menace to the country.  That Act, literally interpreted, would break up every trust into smaller corporations.  It is based on a hasty inference that great consolidations are of necessity monopolies.  Even if we disintegrated a great corporation like the Consolidated Companies, for instance, into a large number of smaller corporations, we should not have solved the problem.  There would always be methods by which a common understanding could be reached, and, in the disintegration, producing concerns would lose much of the efficiency in serving the public which has already been demonstrated by the Consolidated Companies.  I have answered your question frankly, giving you my opinion from a legal and also from a personal standpoint.”

“Was there not a time,” Kenmore asked, “when the public in England was as much afraid of the formation of business partnerships as our public has been afraid of trusts?”