112 The Stock Market Crash—And After 
cutting. The Capper-Volstead Act empowers agri- 
cultural associations to fix prices, restrict output, and 
limit trading territory. Leading court decisions in- 
dicate that, should Congress see fit to make reason- 
able price agreements legal, the courts would uphold 
them. 
Output Needs Controlling 
In two basic industries, namely, coal and oil, the 
need is acute for authority to form agreements in 
order to control production and marketing and thus 
prevent the enormous wastes due to overinvestment, 
overproduction, collapse of prices followed by shut- 
ting down of plants, wage reductions, and severe 
unemployment. 
On the other hand, it is axiomatic that any modifi- 
cation of the anti-trust laws should provide for 
public supervision and control to prevent great con- 
solidated enterprises from setting unreasonable 
monopoly prices. Reasonable economy requires that 
the extraction of petroleum from the ground should 
be carried on in each producing area by an absolute 
monopoly instead of by competing companies as at 
present. Whether petroleum extraction is carried on 
as a government monopoly or a private monopoly 
subject to public control, the consumer of gasoline, 
and the hundreds of petroleum products must be 
protected. Careful estimates must be made of rea- 
sonable requirements of consumers of these products 
and only that quantity of crude petroleum should be 
brought to the surface, which will meet those reason-