Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

190

THE NEW COMPETITION

“All right, let me use your telephone and I will call
up the secretary and tell him what you say; he will get in
communication with all who have bid and get at the truth
of the matter.”
The agent smiled, “I guess you got me cornered—you
may have the order.”
X
It cannot be reiterated too often that it is just as im-
portant for buyers to understand and approve the open-
price movement as it .is for sellers, and therein it differs
fundamentally from all associations under the old compe-
tition.
The cooperation'of buyers is needed when the attempt
is made to draw standard forms of contracts that will be
just to both sides.
A combination of buyers must decide what it—for
them—wants; a combination of sellers must decide what it
—for them—wants. There is no other way to accomplish
anything.
Yet in the face of this practical necessity, many good
lawyers will express doubts regarding the legality—under
the Sherman law—of a combination that in any manner
restrains a man’s freedom to make a fool of himself.
When a body of men draw a standard form of con-
tract and say, for instance, that they will not make bids in
such a manner that the purchaser may take the material
if it pays him to do so, or not take it if it pays him to
back out, or that they will not sign contracts which leave
all differences to the decision of the purchaser or his agent;
or that they will not make bids to a general contractor un-
less he agrees, in good faith, to sub-let on the lowest—in a
sense all such agreements restrain the freedom of bidders,
restrain their right to bid recklessly, and to enter into con-
tracts that are unfair and one-sided.