The Age of Mergers 113 
able needs. In protecting the consumer, the law 
should also protect the producer against cutthroat 
competition with its “profitless prosperity” followed 
by bankruptcy and curtailment of output, resulting in 
prices even higher than would have existed under an 
organization to regulate output and prices. 
But much has already been done by way of legis- 
lation to protect producers and consumers against 
the wide fluctuations in output and prices in basic 
industries. Much has been done, also, through the 
agency of the Federal Reserve Board to stabilize 
more effectively the general price level for the pro- 
tection of all producers and consumers everywhere 
against insidious changes in the value of the dollar, 
and consequent losses which cannot be guarded 
against by any trade association or combination. 
What has been said about the superior economies 
of mergers, and the consequent increase in the price 
level of their securities during the long bull market, 
does not mean that many corporations are not still 
on trial before the bar of public opinion. Professor 
William Z. Ripley of Harvard University did a pub- 
lic service a few years ago in exposing the misleading 
or inadequate financial statements from certain large 
companies. Professor Ripley contended that visi- 
bility might be aided by floodlights of publicity at the 
point where the Main Street of widespread popular 
investment crosses Wall Street. This suggestion, by 
the way, was originally advanced with special refer- 
ence to railways more than a generation ago by Pro- 
fessor Arthur Twining Hadley, now Presidents