GOVERNMENT: A Question of Size

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After this angry blast, McGrath held out an olive branch—of sorts. The department would be perfectly willing, said he, to listen to any reasonable proposition by A. & P. and settle the antitrust suit out of court. Did McGrath insist on breaking up A. & P. into seven separate companies, as the suit had asked for? Not at all, said McGrath; that was merely his department's "suggestion." Said the surprised A. & P.: this is the first time it had heard anything like that. But as long as the trustbusters kept swinging their club at bigness itself, neither A. & P. nor any other corporation had much hope of finding the yardstick to measure the difference between bigness and evil.

Officers of Philadelphia's five biggest department stores-appeared in federal court last week on a charge that they had conspired to fix prices by agreeing to sell goods in certain price ranges at a uniform price. The effect, said the Justice Department, was to raise prices which had been between 90¢ and 97¢ to a uniform 98¢, those between $1.86 and $1.97 to $1.98, and so on up. The merchants said that they had abandoned the practice last October or November. On their plea of nolo contendere they were fined $2,500 each.