Munsey's Magazine, January 1912

# Munsey's Magazine, January 1912

This issue contains a substantive policy article by Judson C. Welliver examining the effectiveness of Sherman Antitrust Act enforcement, specifically addressing recent high-profile cases. Welliver analyzes three sectors—banking, transportation, and industrial corporations—arguing that while government supervision succeeded in banking and railroads through the Interstate Commerce Law, industrial regulation under the twenty-one-year-old Sherman Act has created uncertainty and failed to preserve competition.

The article focuses heavily on the American Tobacco Company dissolution decree, detailing how the court ordered the conglomerate (comprising approximately 250 corporations) split into three major entities—American Tobacco Company ($118M assets), Liggett & Myers, and P. Lorillard—plus the R.J. Reynolds Company. Welliver criticizes the plan for keeping the same twenty-nine controlling stockholders in power across three companies rather than eliminating monopolistic control. He notes the court distributed assets and brand holdings equally among the three companies, giving them advantages independents cannot match, and observes that Judge Lacombe acknowledged courts lack competence in economic matters while administering industrial reorganization. The article begins discussing Standard Oil's disintegration, though the OCR becomes unclear at the conclusion.