roping and declare for a fixed
policy, a policy which shall clearly define and punish wrong-doing,
which shall put a stop to the iniquities done in the name of business,
but which shall do strict equity to business. We demand that big
business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that
when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right
he shall himself be given a square deal; and the first, and most
elementary, kind of square deal is to give him in advance full
information as to just what he can, and what he cannot, legally and
properly do. It is absurd, and much worse than absurd, to treat the
deliberate lawbreaker as on an exact par with the man eager to obey the
law, whose only desire is to find out from some competent Governmental
authority what the law is, and then to live up to it. Moreover, it is
absurd to treat the size of a corporation as in itself a crime. As
Judge Hook says in his opinion in the Standard Oil Case: "Magnitude
of business does not alone constitute a monopoly . . . the genius and
industry of man when kept to ethical standards still have full play,
and what he achieves is his . . . success and magnitude of business, the
rewards of fair and honorable endeavor [are not forbidden] . . . [the
public welfare is threatened only when success is attained] by
wrongful or unlawful methods." Size may, and in my opinion does, make a
corporation fraught with potential menace to the community; and may, and
in my opinion should, therefore make it incumbent upon the community to
exercise through its administrative (not merely through its judicial)
officers a strict supervision over that corporation in order to see
that it does not go wrong; but the size in itself does not signify
wrong-doing, and should not be held to signify wrong-doing.

Not only should any huge corporation which has gained its position
by unfair methods, and by interference with the rights of others, by
demoralizing and corrupt practices, in short, by sheer baseness and
wrong-doing, be broken up, but it should be made the business of some
administrative governmental body, by constant supervision, to see that
it does not come together again, save under such strict control as shall
insure the community against all repetition of the bad conduct--and it
should never be permitted thus to assemble its parts as long as these
parts are under the control of the original offenders, for actual
experience has shown that