GEORGE F. EDMUNDS - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 06/02/1908 - HFSID 3173

GEORGE F. EDMUNDS
Edmunds signed this typed letter in 1908 to William H. Taft, then Secretary of War, begging his fellow Republican to keep the Sherman Antitrust Act in the party's platform at its national convention. Edmunds authored the act, which was sponsored by Senator John Sherman.
Carbon copy typed letter signed "(signed) Geo F. Edmunds" in black ink. With black ink corrections in unknown hand. 2 pages, 8x10½, single-sided sheets, on very thin paper. Bay Head, New Jersey, June 2, 1908. Addressed to the Honorable William H. Taft, War Department, Washington, DC. In full: "My dear Mr. Secretary: I see from the newspapers that the subject of platform resolutions for our national republican convention is under consideration at Washington. I wish to implore you as the candidate I favor, and also as a republican from the beginning believing in and trying to act upon republican principles to prevent the insertion in the platform of any sort of proposition looking to the change of the so called Sherman Act in any respect whatever. Excepting the enacting clause I wrote every word of it myself and in that very form it was enacted by both Houses. At that time I thought the Courts might wisely construe it as not prohibiting contracts & c. that thought literally in restraint of trade were in fact promotive otherwise and I have ever since been glad that they did. In my belief infinitely more injury and inequality would arise from opening the question than from keeping the law exactly as it now is. I am satisfied and I have no doubt a collection of statistics on the whole subject would prove this. I need not with you say anything on the unconstitutionality of any law that should make distinction in rights and remedies between any classes of people. Anybody who maintains the contrary is not in my opinion a republican and the party that attempts any such step will deserve the defeat that it would probably get. In respect of limiting or hampering the powers of a Court of Equity as proposed in the House injunction bill I wish simply to say that such action as is proposed would be an obstruction to the course of justice and there the last twenty years have not. I really think exceeding two per cent. I therefore take the liberty to make my republican protest against any action by the Convention committing our party in any way to these newly invented and destructive contrivances. Always faithfully yours,". The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first federal law limiting the power of economic cartels and monopolies. It was sponsored by John Sherman, a Republican Senator from Ohio in 1890 and authored by Edmunds. However, it was used only rarely - and mostly against trade unions - until the administration of hard-charging trustbuster Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. Taft - whom Roosevelt had picked to carry on the Republican Party's progressive banner and who would be elected president in 1909 - seemed like the perfect person for such an appeal. Taft did become a trust-busting president like his predecessor and sponsor, Theodore Roosevelt. But Taft alienated progressives with his support for anti-progressive laws and lackluster administration, leading to Roosevelt's formation of the Progressive Party, better known as the "Bull Moose Party", and Taft's defeat in 1912 at the hands of Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Edmunds (1828-1919, born in Richmond, Vermont) represented Vermont in the U.S. Senate from April 3, 1866 until his resignation on Nov. 1, 1891. He served as President Pro Tempore of the Senate from 1883 to 1885 when, with no Vice President after Garfield's assassination, he was next in line to the Presidency. He was also a member of the Electoral Commission that decided the hotly contested election of 1876 - a squeaker with only one electoral vote between Republican victor Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic Samuel J. Tilden, who won the popular vote. Lightly toned and creased. Signature is slightly shaky, but legible. Large tear at left edge in both pages. Light tear in right edge of page 2. Adhesive residue at bottom of both pages. Staple holes in upper left corner. Otherwise in fine condition.