Restraint of Trade

From the Omaha Daily Bee, February 24, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 “Oh, what’s our country coming to?” The trade restrainer cried,
 “What may a man hereafter do to bring him wealth and pride?
 They’re sending millionaires to jail and fining them because
 They happen now and then to fail to keep within the laws.
     It’s awful, simply awful!
         Have the judges gone insane?
     Once a thing was always lawful
         If it brought sufficient gain;
 But they’re scolding men of millions for the methods they pursue
 And they’re sending them to prison—what’s the country coming to?
 

 “We keep attorneys who should know how far we may proceed—
 How far it may be safe to go in satisfying greed;
 They point the loopholes out, they find the technicalities
 And yet the courts are not inclined to listen to our pleas!
     It’s frightful, simply frightful!
         Have the judges lost their wits?
     Have they suddenly grown spiteful
         That they wish to give us fits?
 They are fining men of millions—that would bother very few—
 But they’re sending us to prison! What’s the country coming to?
 

 “We’ve got to have another deal. That’s getting very plain;
 Why, even now, when we appeal it sometimes is in vain;
 This can’t go on—the thing must cease! If courts are pitiless
 How can we rapidly increase the millions we possess?
     They pain us, deeply pain us!
         What has made the judges sore
     That they wish to thus restrain us?
         Never was the like before!
 Once they merely lightly fined us and we paid without ado;
 Now they threaten us with prison—what’s the country coming to?”