To
illustrate my meaning I shall refer to but one litigation, but that one
is so extraordinary that I must deal with it in detail.
In 1890 the dread of the enhancement of prices by monopoly, as the
Supreme Court itself has explained, caused Congress to pass the famous
Sherman Act, which prohibited indiscriminately all monopolies or
restraints of trade. Presently the government brought a bill to dissolve
an obnoxious railway pool, called the Trans-Missouri Freight
Association, and in 1896 the case came up for adjudication. I have
nothing to say touching the policy involved. I am only concerned with a
series of phenomena, developed through several years, as effects of
pressure acting upon a judiciary, exposed as the judiciary, under our
system, is exposed.
The Trans-Missouri Case was argued on December 8, 1896, very elaborately
and by the most eminent counsel. After long consideration, and profound
reflection, Mr. Justice Peckham, speaking for the majority of the
tribunal, laid down a general principle in conformity to the legislative
will, precisely as Marshall had laid down a general principle in the
Dartmouth College Case, or Story in the Charles River Bridge Case, or
Waite in Munn _v_.
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