# John Sherman Ohio Republican senator, Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State, and younger brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman. His name is on the most important economic statute in American history, and he did not write it. Sherman introduced antitrust bills in 1888 and again in January 1889, carried the fight for nearly two years, and moved consideration of S. 1 in March 1890. On March 27, 1890 the Senate voted 31–28 to refer his bill to the Judiciary Committee over his objection. The committee, under George Edmunds, **rewrote it completely** — keeping nothing but the title and re-grounding the authority in the Commerce Clause. Senator Hoar later said Sherman "had nothing to do with framing it whatever." Sherman told a reporter the final bill would be "totally ineffective." For the first fifteen years he was closer to right than wrong: the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]] was gutted for manufacturing by [[United States v. E. C. Knight Co]] (1895) — and used successfully against labor unions before it was ever used successfully against a trust. > Stub — fill out. See [[US Antitrust and Monopoly Timeline]].