Monopolion

"Tyrant, Satrap, Pharaoh, Khan, Caesar, Emperor, Tsar and Kaiser have left their sulphurous trail across the pages of history. Today in Europe they have new names.

In America we call the lesser rulers Business Leaders and Corporation Lawyers; the great ones are simple kings--oil kings, match kings, soap kings--hundreds of them. . . . History seems to indicate that in the end democracy has always been destroyed as the free competitive markets of capitalism have been overcome by predatory business practices. . . ."

These grandiloquent words last week rolled from the tongue of Willis Jerome Ballinger, a plump onetime editorial writer who is now director of studies for the Federal Trade Commission. Speaker Ballinger, who was once an amateur acrobat, was acting as ringmaster as FTC took over for two weeks the hearings of the Temporary National Economic (Monopoly) Investigation.

At 37, Willis Ballinger is a perfect example of the ex-teacher turned left-wing New Dealer. He wears a Phi Beta Kappa key, drinks bourbon whiskey, smokes a big curved pipe, is so proud of his speaking ability that he has framed programs of his debates on the walls of his bachelor apartment. FTC took him on two years ago when his ideas proved too acid for SEC.

The designated watchdog of the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts for 24 years, FTC has had more experience coping with monopoly than any other Government agency, seldom lets a week go by without cracking down on at least one corporate offender. Last week, prefacing a review of FTC's dealings with steel, milk, artichokes, cheese, liquor, fish, poultry, Mr. Ballinger stuck pretty much to generalities. His main point turned out to be the familiar FTC complaint that it has been unable to limit the growth of monopoly because the Clayton act forbids only corporate combinations through stock purchase, does not forbid actual purchase of physical properties.

Economist John T. Flynn, a close friend of Willis Ballinger and a professional viewer-with-alarm, popped up with a set of charts to show that "collapse" of the durable-goods market is due largely to monopolistic conditions. FTC Attorney PGad B. Morehouse developed the commission's belief thaft price control is the chief handmaiden of monopoly. And Princeton Professor Frank A. Fetter explained monopoly: "It is derivative of two Greek roots, 'monos,' alone, and 'polei, to sell, and it occurs in the Greek in two forms, feminine and neuter, 'monopolia and 'monopolion.' "

Next day at a stockholders' meeting in Chicago, Chairman Sewell L. Avery of U. S. Gypsum Co., which does about 50% of the nation's plaster business, was asked about the entry of Celotex Corp. m the field (TIME, March 6). Said Chairman Avery: "Monopoly in the U. S. is a joke.

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