individual financial interests have become
involved, the courts have proved to be incapable of undoing the deeds.
In practice the most sweeping remedy attempted under the law has been
the dissolution of enormous combinations formed years after the law
went into effect. This has been called the job of unscrambling the
eggs. The most notable cases were those of the Standard Oil Company
and of the Tobacco Company, decided in 1911, the results being
absurdly futile.

Sec. 11. #Policy of monopoly-accepted-and-regulated.# A second policy may
be called that of monopoly-accepted-and-regulated. This is represented
by the Interstate Commerce Act (at first weakly, and more vigorously
after its amendment), and by the great mass of state legislation
putting the local and interurban public utilities under the control
of regulative commissions. For some decades after these industries
developed, the public faith was in competition as the effective
regulator. If monopolistic prices were too high, another company was
chartered to build a parallel railroad or another horse-car line on
the next street, or to lay down another set of gas pipes in the same
block. Almost from the first some students of the subject saw the
wastefulness and futility of this kind of competition, and nearly a
half century later the public reluctantly came to this view. Still,
sad to relate, the same history had to be repeated in regard to the
telegraph and telephone industry, and in some quarters the ultimate
outcome is not yet recognized. The Interstate Commerce Act itself,
with odd inconsistency, contains an anti-pooling provision (section
5) the purpose of which seems to have been to compel competition as to
rates which is now practically impossible under the other provisions
of the law. The policy of "monopoly-accepted" was seen to involve as
a necessary feature, public regulation of rates, to the point, if
necessary, of absolutely fixing them. The principle has come to be
accepted that wherever competition ends there public regulation of
prices and service begins. Monopolistic enterprises are _ipso facto_
quasi-public institutions.

Sec. 12. #Field of its application#. This policy, gradually extending
in practice, came to be applied to the class of industries which,
for lack of a better name, are called local utilities. The one
characteristic that they all have in common is that the service,
or product, which is sold requires for its delivery an expensive,