Regulation of American Business; J. Swearingen

REGULA TION OF AMERICAN BUSINESS I PROPOSE TO TELL what amounts to a modern-day ghost story. The specters in question are the ,manifold and proliferating regulatory agencies of the federal govern ment, whose existence was not contemplated by our Constitution and whose all-pervasive powers and activi ties go largely unrealized today by the average citizen. Too many of our people are going more or less blithely through life under the misapprehension that the country is being governed pretty much according to the original ground rules. I am not at all sure that a little knowledg,e in this instance is merely dangerous. It could prove to be fatal. Those who think that the federal government is made up primarily of an executive and a legislative branch, with an independent judiciary standing by as an im partial arbitrator, have lost touch with reality. Such peo ple dwell in wonderland. And while the wonderland ·may have unquestioned origins in the concepts under which Mr. Swearingen is President of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. This article is from an address before the Rotary Club of Los Angeles, February 28, 1962.

116 -REGULATION OF AMERICAN BUSINESS 117 this nation was wisely created, it is nevertheless a land of fantasy in terms of the facts of life in 1962. What has actually happened is that, starting in 1887 with the creation of the first federal regulatory commis sion-the Interstate Commerce Commission-we have witnessed the step-by-step development of a fourth branch of government. Today it embraces over sixty independent federal agencies with approximately 400, 000 employees and atotal annual budget of around $10 billion. Should any of you wish to examine this intri cate structure in more detail, I refer you to the United States Government Organization Manual, which devotes 236 pages to the subject. The results of this mushrooming process are in many ways astounding. We have arrived at the unhappy point at which the Cyclopean eye of some almighty regulatory agency is upon us when we buy or sell, ship or receive, hire or fire, grow or manufacture, save or spend, drink or diet, profit or lose, talk or listen.