William Howard Taft

Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval "An Act Making Appropriations for the Sundry Civil Expenses of the Government for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1914, and for Other Purposes"

March 04, 1913

To the House of Representatives:

I return without my approval the bill H. R. 28775, being "An act making appropriations for the sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, and for other purposes."

My reasons for failing to approve this important appropriation bill are found in a provision which has been added to that appropriating $300,000 for the enforcement of the antitrust laws in the following language:

"Provided, however, That no part of this money shall be spent in the prosecution of any organization or individual for entering into any combination or agreement having in view the increasing of wages, shortening of hours or bettering the condition of labor, or for any act done in furtherance thereof not in itself unlawful; Provided further, That no part of this appropriation shall be expended for the prosecution of producers of farm products and associations of farmers who cooperate and organize in an effort to and for the purpose to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products."

This provision is class legislation of the most vicious sort. If it were enacted as substantive law and not merely as a qualification upon the use of moneys appropriated for the enforcement of the law, no one, I take it, would doubt its unconstitutionality. A similar provision in the laws of the State of Illinois was declared by the Supreme Court to be an invasion of the guaranty of the equal protection of the laws contained in the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States in the case of Connelly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. (184 U. S., 540), although the only exception in that instance from the illegality of organizations and combinations, etc., declared by that statute, was one which exempted agriculturists and live stock raisers in respect of their products or live stock in hand from the operation of the law leaving them free to combine to do that which, if done by others, would be a crime against the State.

The proviso is subtly worded so as in a measure to conceal its full effect by providing that no part of the money appropriated shall be spent in the prosecution of any organization or individual "for entering into any combination or agreement having in view the increasing of wages, shortening of hours, or bettering the condition of labor, * * * etc." So that any organization formed with the beneficent purpose described in the proviso might later engage in a conspiracy to destroy by force, violence, or unfair means any employer or employees who failed to conform with its requirements, and yet because of its originally avowed lawful purpose it would be exempt from prosecution so far as prosecution depended upon the moneys appropriated by this act, no matter how wicked, how cruel, how deliberate the acts of which it was guilty. So, too, by the following sentence in the act, such an organization would be protected from prosecution "for any act done in furtherance" of "the increasing of wages, shortening of hours, or bettering the condition of labor," not in itself unlawful. But under the law of criminal conspiracy acts lawful in themselves may become the weapons whereby an unlawful purpose is carried out and accomplished. (Shawnee Compressed Coal v. Anderson, 209 U. S., 423-434; Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U. S., 194-206; Swift v. United States, 196 U. S., 375-396; U. S. v. Reading Company, Dec. 16, 1912.)

The further proviso that the appropriation shall not be used in the prosecution of producers of farm products and associations of farmers who cooperate and organize in an effort to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products is apparently designed to encourage or, at least, to discourage the prosecutions of organizations having for their purpose the artificial enhancement of the prices of food products, and thus to avoid the effect of the construction given to the antitrust law in the case of United States v. Patten, decided January 6, 1913.

At a time when there is widespread complaint of the high cost of living it certainly would be anomalous to put on the statute books of the United States an act in effect preventing the prosecution of combinations of producers of farm products for the purpose of artificially controlling prices; and the evil is not removed, although it may masked, by referring to the purpose of the organization as "to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products."

An amendment almost in the language of this proviso, so far as it refers to organizations for the increasing of wages, etc., was introduced in the Sixty-first Congress, passed the House, was rejected in the Senate, and after a very full discussion in the House failed of enactment. Representative Madison, speaking in favor of the amendment which struck out the proviso, characterized it as an attempt "to write into the law so far as this particular measure is concerned, a legalization of the secondary boycott. * * * The laws of this country," he pointed out, "are liberal to the workingman. He can strike, he can agree to strike, he can act under a leader in a strike, and he can apply the direct boycott; but when it comes to going further and so acting as to impede and obstruct the natural and lawful course of trade in this country, then the law says he shall stop. And all in the world that this antitrust act does is to apply to him that simple and proper rule that he, too, as well as the creators of trusts and monopolies, shall not obstruct the natural and ordinary course of trade in the United States of America." "I believe," he added, "in the high aims, motives, and patriotism of the American workingmen and do not believe that rightly understanding this amendment they would ask us to write it into the law of this Republic." (Congressional Record, p. 8850, 61st Cong., 2d sess.)

It is because I am unwilling to be a party to writing such a provision into the laws of this Republic that I am unable to give my assent to a bill which contains this provision.

Signature of William Howard Taft
WM. H. TAFT.

The White House, March 4, 1913

William Howard Taft, Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval "An Act Making Appropriations for the Sundry Civil Expenses of the Government for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1914, and for Other Purposes" Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/365173

Simple Search of Our Archives