THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE SHERMAN ACT

Two circumstances may be advanced by way of justification for the present addition to the voluminous literature dealing with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. First, the Supreme Court has in recent months handed down two decisions involving the application of the Sherman Act to the oil industry, which are of great importance both because of their sweeping application to marketing practices in that industry and because of the directness with which they raise certain issues of economic theory and policy. Second, the fiftieth anniversary of the Sherman Act on July 2, 1940 provides an appropriate occasion for a review of the development and present status of that law in the light of these recent decisions. We turn first to an analysis of the latter and thence to a discussion of the fundamental legal and economic issues involved.