increased and improved facilities of transportation. We cannot postpone
action in this matter without leaving the railroads exposed to many
serious handicaps and hazards; and the prosperity of the railroads and
the prosperity of the country are inseparably connected. Upon this
question those who are chiefly responsible for the actual management and
operation of the railroads have spoken very plainly and very earnestly,
with a purpose we ought to be quick to accept. It will be one step, and
a very important one, toward the necessary separation of the business of
production from the business of transportation.

The business of the country awaits also, has long awaited and has
suffered because it could not obtain, further and more explicit
legislative definition of the policy and meaning of the existing
antitrust law. Nothing hampers business like uncertainty. Nothing daunts
or discourages it like the necessity to take chances, to run the risk of
falling under the condemnation of the law before it can make sure just
what the law is. Surely we are sufficiently familiar with the actual
processes and methods of monopoly and of the many hurtful restraints of
trade to make definition possible, at any rate up to the limits of what
experience has disclosed. These practices, being now abundantly
disclosed, can be explicitly and item by item forbidden by statute in
such terms as will practically eliminate uncertainty, the law itself and
the penalty being made equally plain.

And the business men of the country desire something more than that the
menace of legal process in these matters be made explicit and
intelligible. They desire the advice, the definite guidance and
information which can be supplied by an administrative body, an
interstate trade commission.