Like William Morse Cole’s accounting class, Bruce Wyman’s course on aspects of business law was a relatively popular course taken by undergraduate economics majors at Harvard in the early 20th century.
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From earlier years
1901-02. Autobiographical note for Bruce Wyman, enrollment, course description, syllabus, exams.
1902-03. Wyman Obituary, enrollment, course description, exams.
1903-04. Enrollment and exams.
1904-05. Enrollment, course description, exams.
1905-06. Enrollment, paper assignments, exams.
1906-07. Enrollment, paper topics, exams.
1907-08. Enrollment, exams.
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Course Teaching Assistants
1908-09
Dana Brannan (A.B. Harvard 1905; LL.B. Harvard, 1910).
Brannan went on to become a reporter and ultimately obituary editor for the New York Times. His mother was the prominent suffragist, Eunice Dana Brennan, a daughter of the founder and editor of the New York Sun, Charles A. Dana.
Harries Arthur Mumma (cum laude, A.B. Harvard 1907; LL.B. Harvard 1909).
Mumma went on to teach law at George Washington University and Fordham University before becoming a partner in the New York law firm of Mumma, Crane and Costabell for 40 years.
Source: Harvard University. Quinquennial catalogue of the officers and graduates 1636-1930, pp. 1038-39.
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Course Enrollment
1908-09
Economics 21 1hf. Professor Wyman, assisted by Messrs. Brannan and Mumma. — Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations.
Total 163: 3 Graduates, 103 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 3 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 68.
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Course Announcement
1908-09
This course along with Economics 18 (Elements of Accounting)
“…is designed more particularly to aid in the understanding of the problems likely to be met in business life, and is arranged with special regard to the needs of those looking to such a career. They are primarily for students who have reached or approached the close of their general education.”
[Economics] 21 1hf. Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Professor Wyman.
Course 21 is not open to students before their last year of undergraduate work. The course considers certain rules of the law governing the course of modern trade and the organization of modern industry. The problems brought forward are actual and the rules of law discussed are specific, so that the instruction may prove of service in a business career. The course forms a natural introduction to the study of law, as it involves many of the elementary principles. And as the course deals with adjudication and legislation on questions of first importance in the economic development of modern times, it may also be of advantage to all those who wish to equip themselves for the intelligent discussion of issues having both legal and economic aspects. In 1908-09 five principal topics will be discussed: Competition; Combination; Association; Consolidation; Regulation; — some very briefly, some with more detail. The conduct of the course will be by the reading and discussion of cases fromthe law reports which are contained in an edited series of case books.
Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. V, No. 19
(1 June 1908). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1908-09, p. 57.
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ECONOMICS 21
Mid-year Examination, 1908-09
- A manufacturer of patent medicine attacks the proprietors of another medicine thus: “They do not dare to publish their formula; our own belief is that it is poisonous; we have known of cases where people have died after taking their medicine, and of other cases where our warnings have been in time and patients have changed over to our medicine and have been entirely cured. We not only say that ours is the best medicine for this disease, but we say further that theirs is the worst. At the same time you pay $1.00 for their concoction, and 50 cents for our medicine.” Would you say there was anything in this advertisement for which suit could be brought?
- In a strike for shorter hours a union publishes advertisements requesting men not to take their places, posts a picket of two men near the mill gates, declares that it will not deal with grocers who sell to scabs, and gather at the railroad stations shouting warnings to incoming strike-breakers. For what can their former employer get an injunction?
- Would your answers be the same in question 2, if were sympathetic strike, a unionizing strike, a strike for higher wages, or a strike to get an unpopular official discharged?
- A combination of oil refiners decides to destroy a small rival so as to get a monopoly of the trade in his district. Accordingly they announce that none of them will sell to any dealer in that district who continues to deal with the rival after their contracts run out, that they will give 25% discount to those who will break their contracts, that to those who are not under contract they will make 12½ % discount, and that they will give 120 days besides to those who have been given any credit by the rival. For what can the small refiner sue the combination?
- A manufacturer of matches whose trade extends all over New England sells out his business to the North American Match Company, a monopolizing corporation, to which he agrees not to engage in the match business for ten years within the New England States, not to engage in the chemical business for twenty years east of the Mississippi River, to sell to the North American Match Company at cost plus 10% a year any plants he may establish thereafter in the United States, and to induce his customers to deal with the North American Match Company henceforth. How many of these agreements can the North American Match Company enforce?
- The X corporation is organized with capital stock of $100,000, which is sold to its stockholders at discounts averaging 50%. It issues $100,000 debenture bonds, which are sold to the public at discounts averaging 25%. It paid one of its stockholders $100,000 for goods not worth at market quotations over $80,000, and it par one of its directors $100,000 for goods not worth more than $70,000. After a disastrous season the X company fails leaving goods worth only $20,000. How much do the debenture bondholders get?
- A corporation organized to run cars, buys lands for its works twice as extensive as it then needs, it buys another tract nearby on which it constructs houses for its workmen, it constructs a foundry to make its own castings, it buys an iron works at a distance to smelt its own ore, the iron works owning great tracts of ore lands. To how much of this can the Attorney-General object as ultra vires?
- What arguments may be made against the legality of a combination of corporations in the form of a pool, a trust, a holding corporation, and a consolidating corporation?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1908-09.
Image Source: Memorial Hall, ca. 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.