A Question of Size

(2 of 2)

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.