The Bottlenecks of Business

Dedicated to the men of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, this powerful book was written by Thurman W. Arnold in 1940, when he was Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Under his astute and vigorous leadership, the Division prosecuted 230 companies for monopoly practices in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Mr. Arnold saw the Act as an instrument to clear the restraint of trade. His anti-trust purpose, he said at the time, was not to destroy the big corporations but to keep them within bounds. The book provides an enlightening analysis of some of the principal cases of the time.

Thurman W. Arnold, the New Deal's chief trust buster and one of Washington's most eminent lawyers, was born in Laramie, Wyoming in 1891. He entered Princeton at 16, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1911 and earning a law degree from Harvard in 1914. He led a colorful life. He was a homesteader, sheep rancher, Mayor of Laramie and a Yale law professor. He took time out at Yale to serve in Franklin D. Roosevelt's Administration. In 1943, Mr. Arnold was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He quit the bench after two years because "I'd rather speak to damn fools than listen to them." Subsequently, he established the prestigious law firm of Arnold, Fortas, and Porter, which was reorganized into Arnold and Porter in 1965. He died in 1969.