Wendell Mountains

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Wendell Berge ( 1903 in Lincoln , Nebraska , † September 25, 1955 in Washington, DC ) was an American commercial lawyer and from 1943 to 1947 head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice .

Career

Berge came from a family close to the Democratic Party . He studied law at the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan , where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws .

After briefly practicing law in New York City , Berge went to Washington in 1930 at the invitation of John Lord O'Brian , a prominent antitrust attorney and director of the Justice Department's antitrust division. In 1941, however, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Berge as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice's crime department. It was not until 1943 that he became head of the antitrust department in the same ministry. In the course of his ministry, Berge gave a number of (later printed) speeches.

Berge consistently held the view that any monopoly would damage free economic life. In 1944 he published the combative book Cartels: Challenge to a Free World . With this, Berge was one of the spokesmen in the new campaign against international cartels, alongside Joseph Borkin , Charles Welsh and Corwin D. Edwards . This corresponded to a radical position of the Roosevelt progressivists that dominated American politics between 1943 and 1946. But it was rejected as unrealistic or imperialist by both the conservative and the Marxist side. Despite or precisely because of its thriller qualities, the book was also an international success: from 1946 it was translated into several Scandinavian languages, into Russian in 1947 and into Serbo-Croatian in 1953. Initially rejected by Marxists , the book appears to be well suited to portray the horrors of capitalism .

Wendell Berge died of a heart attack in Washington on September 25, 1955 .

The Washington Post regretted in its obituary: "The death of Wendell Berge takes from Washington one of its most public-spirited lawyers and a man who made a notable record in antitrust enforcement."

Works and speeches

  • Criminal jurisdiction and the territorial principle . Dissertation, University of Michigan Law School 1928.
  • The Case of the SS 'Lotus'. In: Michigan Law Review. Volume 26, 1928, No. 4 (19280201), pp. 361-382.
  • The monopoly investigation, what it means. An address before national retail credit association. February 20, 1939, Rochester, New York.
  • What shall we do about cartels in the post war period? An address ... prepared for delivery at a conference of the People's Lobby, Inc. February 12, 1944.
  • Cartels: Challenge to a Free World . Public Affairs Press, Washington 1944.
  • What substitute for private international cartels? An address ... prepared for delivery before the People's Lobby (broadcast over NBC). May 3, 1945.
  • Cartels as Barriers to International Trade . In: Law and Contemporary Problems. Volume 11, 1946, No. 4, pp. 684-695.
  • Kartellerna - ett världshot. Appeal for en fri värld . Kooperativa förb., Stockholm 1946.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jacob Anton De Haas: International cartels in the postwar world. American Enterprise Assoc., New York [et. a.] 1944; James S. Allen: World monopoly and peace. International Publishers, New York 1946.
  2. ^ Obituary of the Christian Register, November 1955, http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/wendell-berge/
personal data
SURNAME Mountains, Wendell
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American business lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Lincoln , Nebraska
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1955
Place of death Washington, DC