September 26, 1914: The Federal Trade Commission Is Established

September 26, 1914: The Federal Trade Commission is established, as President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Trade Commission Act into law. It is an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The inspiration and motivation for this act started in 1890, when the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed. There was a strong antitrust movement to prevent manufacturers from joining price-fixing cartels. After Northern Securities Co. v. United States, a 1904 case that dismantled a J.P. Morgan company, antitrust enforcement became institutionalized.

Soon, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Bureau of Corporations, an agency that reported on the economy and businesses in the industry. The agency was the predecessor to the FTC.

Over time, the FTC has been delegated with the enforcement of additional business regulation statutes and has promulgated a number of regulations. The broad statutory authority granted to the FTC provides it with more surveillance and monitoring abilities than it actually uses.

The Federal Trade Commission Building opened in 1938, as part of the Federal Triangle complex, at 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in downtown Washington.

*

September 26, 1914 was a Saturday. Fitness expert and gym tycoon Jack LaLanne was born.

The only major professional sport in North America at the time was baseball; and, this year and the next, there were 3 leagues playing.

In the American League:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers at Navin Field in Detroit (later to be renamed Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium). The Tigers won the opener, 6-3. The Yankees won the nightcap, 4-3. Over the 2 games, Ty Cobb went an uncharacteristic 0-for-8 with a walk, dropping his batting average from .378 to .369. He finished the season at .368, and won the AL batting title, anyway.

* A doubleheader was split at League Park in Cleveland. The Cleveland Naps won the opener, 5-4. The Washington Senators won the nightcap, 6-0.

In the 1st game, the Senators scored 2 runs in the top of the 9th inning. But in the bottom of the 9th, with the ill-fated Ray Chapman at the plate, Jim Shaw, meant to start the 2nd game, came in to pitch relief, and catcher John Henry had a passed ball, allowing Bill Wambsganss to score the winning run. Shaw started the 2nd game, anyway, going 7 innings. He and David "Mutt" Williams (2 innings) combined on a 4-hit shutout.

Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the slugger, 2nd baseman and manager for whom the Cleveland team was then named, went 2-for-8 with an RBI. Left fielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson was injured, and did not play in either game. The next day, Lajoie collected his 3,000th career hit. But they finished last, and so he asked to be traded, and was. The next season, the team was renamed the Cleveland Indians. And it traded Jackson to the White Sox.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Collins went 2-for-3 with a walk. John "Stuffy" McInnis went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs, and Frank "Home Run" Baker went 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs, including not a home run, but a triple. The next season, needing money, A's manager, treasurer and part-owner Connie Mack sold Collins to the White Sox for $50,000.

* And the St. Louis Browns swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox, 4-1 and 6-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Tris Speaker went 2-for-6 for Boston. Rookie Babe Ruth had made 2 appearances for the Red Sox in July, and would make 2 appearances at the end of the regular season in October, but, at this point, was pitching for the Providence Grays, helping them win the International League Pennant.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants split a doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates at the Polo Grounds, with each game ending 4-2. In the 2nd game, Babe Adams outpitched Christy Mathewson. Honus Wagner, who got his 3,000th career hit earlier in the year, went 3-for-7 with a walk and 2 RBIs for the Pirates.

* The Brooklyn Robins -- as the Dodgers were known under manager Wilbert Robinson from this season until 1931 -- split a doubleheader with the St. Louis Cardinals at Ebbets Field. Brooklyn won the 1st game, 6-3. St. Louis won the 2nd game, 3-0. William "Pol" Perritt pitched a 4-hit shutout. Over the 2 games, Zack Wheat went 2-for-7 with 2 RBIs.

* The Boston Braves swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs, 6-2 and 12-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. The Braves had left the South End Grounds, but Braves Field wasn't ready yet, so the Red Sox let them groundshare in the interim. Dick Rudolph pitched a 7-hit shutout in the 1st game gaining his 25th win of the season. Four days later, the Braves clinched the Pennant, and went on to sweep the heavily favored Athletics in the World Series.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 10-9 and 7-4 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

And in the Federal League:

* The Brooklyn Tip-Tops were swept in a doubleheader by the Chicago Whales, 7-6 and 5-3 at Washington Park, which had been home to the Dodgers from 1898 to 1912.

* The Buffalo Blues beat the Kansas City Packers, 3-2 at the International Fair Association Grounds in Buffalo.

* The Baltimore Terrapins beat the St. Louis Maroons, 5-4 in the 1st game of a doubleheader at Terrapin Park in Baltimore. The 2nd game was tied, 1-1, after 7 innings, when it was called due to darkness.

* And the Indianapolis Hoosiers beat the Pittsburgh Rebels, 8-4 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh.

And n English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team I would one day support, went to East Yorkshire, and lost to Hull City, 1-0 at The Boulevard.

July 2, 1890: The Sherman Antitrust Act

Senator John Sherman.

His brother William was the General who burned Atlanta,

but John looks scarier to me.

July 2, 1890: The Sherman Antitrust Act is signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison. It was one of the most significant pieces of legislation between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and the start of the New Deal in 1933.

It was proposed by Senator John Sherman, Republican of Ohio, who had been Secretary of the Treasury under President Rutherford B. Hayes, and would later be Secretary of State under President William McKinley. He was also the author of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, signed by Harrison on the same day. That Act was supposed to help the U.S. economy grow, but backfired, leading to a recession in 1890 and, ultimately, a depression in 1893. 

For all that he did, successful and not, he was still only the 2nd-most consequential person in his family: His older brother was General William Tecumseh Sherman. The brothers were close, and William supported John's unsuccessful runs for President in 1880, 1884 and 1888. Their closeness may have been the reason Williams, when asked to run himself in 1884, said, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."

Business monopolies had grown significantly after the Civil War, and what would now be called small businesses were being squeezed, or bought, out of existence. The Antitrust Act was designed to encourage business competition. As a Supreme Court ruling, Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan, said in 1993:

The purpose of the Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself.

The Sherman Act broadly prohibits anticompetitive agreements, and unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. The Act authorizes the U.S. Department of Justice to bring lawsuits to enjoin, meaning to prohibit, conduct violating the Act, and additionally authorizes private parties injured by conduct violating the Act to bring suits for treble damages: Three times as much money in damages as the violation cost them.

Sherman's bill proved so popular that it passed the Senate on April 8, 1890, by a vote of 52 to 1; and the House on June 20, by a vote of 331-0. 

Over time, the federal courts have developed a body of law under the Sherman Act making certain types of anticompetitive conduct per se illegal, and subjecting other types of conduct to case-by-case analysis regarding whether the conduct unreasonably restrains trade.

Among the corporations sued under the Act, and how the Supreme Court decided:

* 1904, Northern Securities: The trust was dissolved.

* 1911, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey: Broke up the company based on geography.

* 1911, American Tobacco Company: Broke one company into four.

* 1922, baseball's National League: This one went the other way, as the Court ruled that baseball was not interstate commerce, and thus not subject to the law. This has become known as "baseball's special exemption."

* 1982, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T): Settled before the Court could hear that case, and "The Bell System" was broken up into "Baby Bells." This was one of the few monopolies that the general public liked, although it's hard to imagine the modern mobile phone industry with AT&T running everything.

* 2001, Microsoft: Settled before it could get to the Court, with Microsoft making concessions sufficient for the government to decide to drop the case.

*

July 2, 1890 was a Wednesday. Baseball was the only professional sport in season at the time. But this was the year of the Players' League revolt, so there were 3 leagues playing at the time.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, 13-9 at Recreation Park in Pittsburgh. The next season, the Alleghenys became the Pittsburgh Pirates, after one of their actions as part of the settlement of the 3-league dispute was called "nothing but piratical."

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, 6-1 at League Park in Cincinnati. The Brooklyn team was called the Bridegrooms because several players had gotten married in the 1886-87 off-season. They became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Boston Beaneaters swept a doubleheader from the Cleveland Spiders, winning each game by a 5-4 score, at National League Park in Cleveland. The Spiders folded after the 1899 season. The Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Colts, 7-4 at West Side Park in Chicago. The Colts became the Cubs.

In the American Association:

* The Brooklyn Gladiators lost to the Louisville Colonels, 5-3 at Eclipse Park in Louisville, Kentucky. With the folding of the AA after the 1891 season, the Gladiators folded, and the Colonels joined the NL, but folded themselves after the 1899 season.

* The Syracuse Stars beat the Columbus Solons, 7-2 at Recreation Park in Columbus, Ohio. Both teams folded with the AA.

* The Philadelphia Athletics and the Toledo Maumees played to a 5-5 tie at Speranza Park in Toledo, Ohio. There is no notation on Baseball-Reference.com as to why this game did not find a winner. There is no mention of bad weather, or of extra innings, which would suggest being called due to darkness.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Rochester Broncos, 6-2 at an early version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. With the folding of the AA, the Broncos folded, and the Browns joined the NL, becoming the Cardinals in 1900.

And in the Players' League, which didn't care that it was using team names already used elsewhere, as they saw themselves as the "real" versions of those teams, as they had the "real" players:

* The New York Giants beat the Cleveland Infants, 7-6 at Brotherhood Park in Cleveland.

* The Brooklyn Ward's Wonders lost to the Buffalo Bisons, 17-11 at Olympic Park in Buffalo.

* The Boston Reds beat the Pittsburgh Burghers, 4-2 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Exposition Park would later be adopted by the Pirates. It was also the site of the 1st professional football game, in 1892.

* And the Chicago White Stockings beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 10-3 at South Side Park in Chicago. Both names had been used by teams in previous leagues, including the team now known as the Cubs. And both names would be used by American League teams starting in 1901.

May 29, 1922: Major League Baseball's Special Exemption

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

May 20, 1922: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Federal Baseball Club v. National League. The Federal League ceased to exist after the 1915 season, but this ruling still has an effect on the game today.
 
The FL had sued, calling the collective formed by the National League and the American League – apparently not officially called "Major League Baseball" until 1969 – a monopoly that was restricting the chances of other would-be "major leagues" to compete.

It was always going to be a difficult decision to make. Especially since two former FL owners had been allowed to buy established teams: Charles Weeghman of the Chicago Whales bought the NL's Chicago Cubs (and moved them into his Weeghman Park, which became Wrigley Field), and Phil Ball of the St. Louis Terriers bought the AL's St. Louis Browns.

But Ned Hanlon, former manager of the NL's Baltimore Orioles, was the owner of the FL's Baltimore Terrapins, and wasn't permitted to buy into an NL or an AL team. And so, his was the "Federal Baseball Club" that was the plaintiff in this case. He argued that baseball was a monopoly, restricting competition, and thus subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Instead, in a unanimous 9-0 decision, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and presided over by Chief Justice William Howard Taft – a former catcher at Yale University, and the only President to have also served on the Supreme Court, the President who began the tradition of throwing out the first ball on Opening Day – the Supreme Court ruled that baseball did not qualify as "interstate commerce," and was thus not bound by the provisions of the Sherman Act.

 

MLB was relieved at this decision. There have been a few minor challenges to it since, including a lawsuit on behalf of players who "jumped" to the Mexican League in 1946, and the proposed Continental League that would have started play in 1960. On those occasions, the AL and NL chose to compromise rather than get their special exemption challenged.

In 2005, during the debate over performance-enhancing drugs, Congress told MLB officials that if they did not cooperate with hearings, the exemption might be revisited. MLB caved in, and the exemption is still in place.

Ned Hanlon died in 1937. In 1954, the Browns, having been mismanaged by Ball, leaving his successors to struggle to keep the team afloat, moved to become a new version of the Baltimore Orioles. In 1996, Hanlon was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for winning 5 Pennants as a manager. (He had also won 1 as a player.)

James McReynolds was the last Justice from this case still serving on the Court, until 1941. He was also the last surviving Justice from the case, living until 1946.

*

May 29, 1922 was a Monday. Football, basketball and hockey were out of season. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 7-4 at the Polo Grounds. Carl Mays went the distance, and Babe Ruth went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The New York Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-3 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known from 1914 to 1931) lost to the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Ebbets Field.

* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Washington Senators won the opener, 2-0. Eric Erickson pitched a 2-hit shutout. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 9-8 in 11 innings.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-5 at League Park in Cleveland. Tris Speaker went 1-for-3 with an RBI double, in support of fellow Hall-of-Famer Stan Coveleski.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 in 10 innings at Cubs Park. (It was renamed Wrigley Field in 1926.)

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-6 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. For the Browns, Ken Williams hit a grand slam home run, and George Sisler went 2-for-4 with an RBI. For the Tigers, Ty Cobb went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

May 15, 1911: The Breakup of Standard Oil

1904 political cartoon, showing Standard Oil as an octopus,

grabbing multiple smaller companies at once.

May 15, 1911: The Supreme Court of the United States renders its verdict in the case of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States. It found Standard Oil Company of New Jersey guilty of monopolizing the petroleum industry, through a series of abusive and anticompetitive actions. The Sherman Antitrust Act was one of the broken laws cited in the case. The Court's remedy was to divide Standard Oil into several geographically separate and eventually competing firms.

John D. Rockefeller, his brother William A. Rockefeller Jr., and Henry Flagler founded Standard Oil in Cleveland in 1863. Through its streamlining of refining petroleum, and its brilliant logistics, it became one of the biggest companies in America. Rockefeller ran the company as its chairman, until his retirement in 1897.

He remained the major shareholder, and, in 1911, with the SCOTUS-forced dissolution of the trust into 43 smaller companies, Rockefeller became the richest person in modern history, America's 1st billionaire, as the initial income of these individual enterprises proved to be much bigger than that of a single larger company.

John Davison Rockefeller

Standard Oil of New Jersey, the entity controlling Standard Oil at the time of the breakup, has since continued on. It would eventually be known as Esso (S.O., for "Standard Oil,"). In 1972, the name was changed to Exxon. In 1998, it merged with Mobil. Today, ExxonMobil is the largest investor-owned oil company in the world. Chevron and Marathon Oil are also Standard Oil descendants, while British Petroleum (BP) bought Standard Oil descendant Amoco.

The federal government, presided over by President William Howard Taft, "busted" the "trust" that was Standard Oil. His predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, has been called "the trustbuster," but Taft, with his legal background and absolute dedication to the law, used the law to bust more trusts in 4 years than TR did in 7 1/2 years. TR may have set that standard (if you'll pardon the unintentional pun), but, in this one regard, the usually much more conservative Taft surpassed the great progressive.

Charles Evans Hughes was the last serving Justice from Standard Oil v. U.S., on the Court until 1941. He was also the last surviving Justice, living until 1948.

By the middle of the 20th Century, enough time had passed that, when people thought of the Rockefeller family, thought of banking and politics -- not oil, the business that made its fortune. John D. Rockefeller Jr. and son David ran Chase Manhattan Bank; John Jr.'s sons Nelson and Winthrop served as Governors of New York and Arkansas, respectively, while Nelson ran for President 3 times and eventually served as Vice President under Gerald Ford; and John D. Rockefeller IV, a.k.a. Jay Rockefeller, served West Virginia as Governor and U.S. Senator.

*

May 15, 1911 was a Monday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Cleveland Naps, 6-3 at League Park in Cleveland. Russ Ford (no relation to Whitey) outpitched Fred Blanding. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the slugger, 2nd baseman and manager for whom the Cleveland team was named, did not play. A rookie named Joe Jackson, with shoes, did, and went 1-for-4. The Naps became the Indians in 1915, and the Guardians in 2022. The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-6 at the Polo Grounds. Fred Merkle, he of the 1908 "Boner," hit a home run.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Chicago Cubs, 6-2 at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Rustlers, 12-10 at the 3rd and last version of the South End Grounds in Boston. Honus Wagner went 3-for-5 with a home run and 4 RBIs.

The Boston team of the National League was known as the Doves when George Dovey, and then his brother John Dovey, owned the team. In 1911, William H. Russell bought the team, and renamed it for himself, the Rustlers.

He died a few weeks after the end of the 1911 season, and his heirs sold the team to James Gaffney, an official in New York's Tammany Hall political organization. Such officials were called "Braves," in connection with Tammany's identification with Native Americans. So the team became the Boston Braves in 1912.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 21-5 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. Sherry Magee went 4-for-5, and Dode Paskert and Fred Luderus each got 3 hits for the Phils.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-4 in 10 innings at Bennett Park in Detroit. Ty Cobb went 2-for-4 with a walk, a stolen base and an RBI. In the next off-season, Bennett Park was torn down, and a new ballpark was built on the site, which would one day be renamed Tiger Stadium.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Washington Senators, 8-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Jack Powell pitched a 3-hit shutout.

March 14, 1904: TR the Trust-Buster

He actually hated the nickname,

but didn't mind people using his initials, "TR."

March 14, 1904: The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its ruling in Northern Securities Company v. United States. It rules that the formation of the plaintiff was illegal.

The Northern Securities Company was a short-lived American railroad trust, formed in 1901 by E.H. Harriman of the Northern Pacific Railway, father of future Governor Averell Harriman of New York; James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railway; and J.P. Morgan of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. It was capitalized at $400 million, and Hill served as president.

The U.S. Department of Justice, pushed by President Theodore Roosevelt, sued the company in 1902, under the Sherman Antitrust Act. It was one of the first antitrust cases filed against corporate interests instead of labor. The government won its case, and the company was dissolved, so that the three railroads again operated independently.

It was a close vote, 5-4. Justices John Marshall Harlan, David J. Brewer, Henry B. Brown, Joseph McKenna and William R. Day made the majority opinion. Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Edward D. White each wrote a dissent, and were joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Rufus Peckham.

Nevertheless, it was one of several actions that Roosevelt took that earned him the nickname "The Trust-Buster." In a 1905 speech in Memphis, he said, "This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country."

As it turned out, his successor, William Howard Taft, for all his conservatism -- and for all of TR's eventual criticism of him -- used the power of the federal government to break up more trusts in his 4 years in office than TR did in his 7.

Holmes was both the last serving Justice from the Northern Securities case, serving until 1932; and the last surviving Justice, living until 1935.

*

March 14, 1904 was a Monday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Basketball barely existed. And the Ottawa Silver Seven had already defended the Stanley Cup. So there were no scores on this historic day.