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JUNE-21, 1907
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the defendant on all the. state's .pleadings In
volving contracts inade. outside of the state. The
compariy was convicted six years ago of violat
ing the anti-trust laws In making, through one
of Its agents in this state; an exclusive contract,
and the judgment of the court compelled its dis
solution. It was then that the company re
organised, represented Itself to be an indepond-
ent concern, and, upon this representation, se
cured a permit to do business in Texas. Its
defense in the recent litigation was that tho
ownership of a majority of its stock by the
Standard did not affect the independence of its
management! Tho jury manifestly held the
view that independence in this sense was a fic
tion arid that the Standard's ownership of stock
came within the prohibitions of tho statutes
against conspiracies in restraint of competition."
O
IN THE DEMOCRATIC primaries for Okla
homa, C. S. Haskell of Muskogee, I. T., was
nominated for governor. For United States sen
ators, Robert L. Owen of Muskogee, and Thomas
P. Gore, of Oklahoma, were nominated.
Referring to these candidates the Guthrie Leader
says: "Robert L. Owen is one-eighth Cherokee.
He was born at Lynchburg, Va., and was edu
. cated at Washington and Lee university. He
has been teacher in the Cherokee orphan asylum,
for a time edited the Chieftain, a newspaper at
Vinita; was Indian agent to the five civilized
tribes from 1882 to 1884, organized the first
national bank in the Indian Territory; was secre
tary of the first bar association organized in the
territory, and was counsel for the last seventeen
years, representing the Indians in various suits
against tho government, some of them notable.
He has been delegate to national democratic
conventions and a member of the democratic
national congressional committee."
REFERRING TO Thomas P. Gore, an Okla
homa City dispatch carried by the Asso
ciated Press saya: "He has been blind since he
-was eleven years of age, when he accidentally
shot his right eye out with an arrow gun. Three
years before,a playmate, while in a boyish pas
sion, had blinded his left eye with a stone. Gore
has been active in politics since, at the age of
eleven, he was a page in the Mississippi senate.
At nineteen he was a nominee for the legislature
of that state and three years later he was pop
ulist elector at large. In 1900 he was unani
mously .selected for congressional standard
bearer by the populists in Texas while he was
absent in South Dakota making stump speeches
for the fusion ticket. He lives at Lawton, Okla.,
and has made speeches in all the campaigns
since he came to this territory several years
ago."
O
THIS IS A GOOD STORY on Congressman
Burton and it is given by the Bellefontaine,
Ohio, correspondent for the New York World:
"It remained for the editor of the Mechanics
burg Weekly Telegram to score on Congress
man Burton, of Cleveland, when Senators For
aker and Dick had tried and failed. The rural
editor did it with the following editorial: 'Hon.
Theodore Burton, of Cleveland, will deliver the
Fourth of July address in Mechanicsburg. It is
also understood that the ladies of this commu
nity have tendered Mrs. Burton an invitation to
spend independence day in Mechanicsburg, and
vit is more than likely- that she will be our guest
on the Fourth. She is a most attractive woman,
and her appearance here will bje a great event
In social circles.' Mr. Burton is a bachelor." "
IN REFERRING to the Knox boom the New
York Press, republican, does not mince
words. The Press has an editorial entitled,
"Knox's Suit Against the Northern Securities
Merger a Big Humbug." The Press refers to
Mr. Knox's failure to send any wealthy criminals
to jail while he was attorney general, and says
he failed to accomplish anything of importance
in the way of suppressing unlawful combination.
Referring to the Northern Securities case, the
Press says: "Over and over again President
Roosevelt has praised Mr. Knox for his conduct
of this suit.- There has been a persistent effort
for a long time to make it appear that the North
ern Securities prosecution was a tremendous
triumph for the people. This effort may be suc
cessful so far as the general public is concerned,
but students of the railroad problem are not
deceived. It must be admitted that insofar as
the suit led the supreme court of the United
States to utter a thunderous dictum against the
merger of competing railroads the action was
of somevalue:. but not a great deal. As John
R. Dos Passos'points out in his searching analy
sis of the matter, the state statutes had already
expressly prohibited tho railroads to combirp,
and 'the tendencies of judicial utterances aixd
of public tliousht ran counter to any such com
bination.' If the action taken by the supromo
court at the Instance of President Roosevelt and
Attorney General Knox was to have any real
value it had to come from a specific application
of, the principle invoked to the particular case
in hand, namely, the combination of the com
peting Northern Pacific, Great Northern and
Burlington railroads for the purpose of main
taining rates. If the judgment of the court
was to be worth anything to the victims of tho
combination it would destroy that merger and
restore competition betweon the merged roads.
Did this happen? Not at all. Nothing like it.
On thtf contrary, as Mr. Dos Passos points out
in spite of the fulsome resolutions by the Penn
sylvania convention, 'the organizers of this pro
ject, with malice aforethought, took their
chances. They reasoned that they could in due
course of delay beat the law. And they have
succeeded well very well.' Mr. Dos Passos
further shows that 'after months of legal claw
ing and pulling, during- which time the public
were mystified by dull, technical legal discus
sions and maneuvering, the corporation shares
immensely increased in value and the original
shares were returned to their owners at a hand
some profit.' "
THE NET RESULT of Mr. Knox's "prosecu
tion" of the Northern Securities case was
in the language' of the Press, "nothing." That
reckless republican newspaper concludes this
more than candid editorial in these words:
"Shippers over the roads of the merged com
panies .still continued to pay rates that were
kept up just as easily by a criminal conspiracy
termed a 'gentleman's agreement' as if the
'holding company had not been called so many
hard names by the supreme court. Shippers
over tho Great Northern, Northern Pacific and
Burlington continued to pay rates just as 'high
as before Mr. Knox filed his bill. Not a dollar
of water has been taken out of the stock. On
the contrary, one of the companies in the merger
has attempted to issue $60,000,000 more securi
ties. And it was not the federal government
tut the attorney general of Minnesota that in
tervened in behalf of the public to stop the
meditated outrage. There .is ample ground for
the assertion of one of the foremost experts In
corporation law that 'the Northern Securities
litigation was a roaring farce at the expense of
the morale of the law.' As for Mr. Knox's share
in the joke thus played on the public, it is amply
characterized by Mr. Dos Passos in the assertion
that 'its progenitors saturated the courts with
the idea that the company must be handled ten
derly with white kid gloves which was unmit
igated humbug.' Humbug is the right word for
this Northern Securities business. Humbug is
the word for all the Knox pretense of enforcing
the law against criminal monopolies. ""Also if
Knox had been earnest in his efforts to punish
railroad rebaters he would have pointed out that
the Elkins law, which relieved rebaters from im
prisonment, was a humbug, and he would have
urged congress to do what it finally did in spite
of his efforts to bedevil the rate law make it
possible for an aggressive attorney general to
jput rebaters in stripes. When the republican
party looks back on the splendid opportunities
which were neglected by Attorney General Knox,
and considers the insincerity of his campaign
against the unlawful trusts, it will be impossible"
for him to get himself taken seriously as a can
didate for the presidency,"
history of his cduntry and tho Columbus (Olf(d)
Press-Post well says: "It would bo a good IUcaJ
for tko state officials to spend half a day "now and
then in tho state library, or, better still, for,
tho people to put now men into tho buildhig for
officiate."
THE5T HAVE A good joke on the statesman
that most do congregate at the Ohio state
house. At that institution there has been much
discussion for years concerning a mysterious
portrait. Finally a young man who hadn't much
to do with republican machine politics discov
ered that it was the portrait of Benjamin F.
Wade. The name of "Ben" Wade was
once familiar throughout the state of Ohio
as it was throughout the United States.
He began public life in 1841 as a member of
the Ohio legislature; he served on- the bench
of the state, and beginning with 1851 was elect
ed and re-elected to the United States senate.
He took a conspicuous part in pushing the
homestead bill; he fought for the repeal of the
fugitive slave law; opposed the Nebraska-Kan-"
sas bill, served as chairman of the joint commit
tee of congress on the conduct of the war and
was president pro tern of the United States
senate. At the time of Schuyler Colfax's nomina
tion to -be vice president in 1868 "Ben" Wade
received" a plurality of votes on the first four
ballots for the nomination for vice president,
but failed to obtain a majority of votes, He
died in 1878, but he left his impress upon'tho
A RALEIGH, N. C, dispatch 'to the' Wash
ington Post gives tho name of tho men
who insist on the statement that part of tho
Cannon speech at the Guilford college banquot
was suppressed. They are J. N. and O. E. Mcn
donhall. The latter was the toastmaster at tho
banquet, and both arc prominent and reputable
men. Tho dispatch says: "The Cannon story
stands and will not down. . Two as good men
as there are in North Carolina both bear testi
mony to the effect that Speaker J. G. Cannon
spoke foi4 states' rights and took tho southern
view of tho negro at the alumni banquet at Fuil
ford college. It is true that the exact languago
attributed to the speaker might have been other
than was actually used by him, and as much
was stated in the firBt dispatch, but the sub
stance of the dispatch was true, according to
the two moi). mentioned. Tho story has been
ofilclally denied and branded as a 'base fabri
cation,' but those who know tho two men who
have told what they hoard at that banquot
know that they have intelligence enough to un
derstand the English language, even when
spoken by tho 'czar of the house,' and it is also
known that their veracity is unquestioned among
their fellow citizens. This correspondent has
seen a letter, written in an anxious vein, asking
if the whole thing can not be hushed up, since
what the speaker said was only 'fireside talk.'
Whether intended for a few cars or for many,
the gentlemen who have furnished the. informa
tion were by no means bound to keep (heir
mouths shut. There were newspaper men pres
ent, some of them representing big state papers.
They are keeping a strange silence, if the story
is untrue. Ond of them, according to a gentle
man's statement to this writer, told a man at
the banquet that tho speaker's secretary said to
the newspaper men, 'It will never do to publish
that speech.' Tho same informant says that ho
exacted a promise of silence."
AFTER ALL THE relations .between Taft and .
'Foraker in Ohio are iiot so badly strained.
The Washington correspondent for tho New
York World says: ''President Roosevelt today
extended the olive branch to Senators Foraker
and Dick when he appointed General William
V. McMaken collector of Internal revenue at
Toledo. The Dick folio wors are working for
peace In Ohio, and it is even proposed that For
aker make the speech at the national conven
tion, presenting Taft for the presidency. Tho
senator performed a similar service for Mc
Kinley in 1896 after the peace terms had been
arranged. Foraker is so anxious to be returned
to the senate that it is believed ho will con
sent. In announcing the appointment of Mc
Maken President Roosevelt said he selected him
because he was the choice of Senators Foraker
and Dick, State Chairman Brown and Repre
sentative Southard, and because he had been
highly recommended by the officers of the Na
tional Rifle association, especially General
Drain, president of that organization, who called
upon the president today. Senator Dick was
the -first to indorse McMaken who Is one of tho
brigade commanders under Dick, the major
general of the Ohio national' guard."
THE NEW YORK Evening Post is "bewild
ered" by the midnight conference at tho
White House over the question whether Harrl
man is to be prosecuted. The Post says: "Tho
interstate commerce act speaks of 'the duty of
the commission' to prosecute violators of the
-law, and talks about evidence which shall be
'satisfactory to the commission.' It never oc
curred to the framers of the law that it would
be necessary to have the cases laid be
fore the cabinet and the president. But no
one should suspect that political considerations
have been injected into what the law intended
to be purely -a judicial process. It is not to be
imagined that Mr. Rodsovelt was arguing last
night with his advisers, one of them being a
former counsel of Harrlman, over the question
whether it would be good politics to start a
thundering suit against Harrlman in the pres
ent state of financial apprehension, and with
elections pending. No; the .commission and its
lawyers were simply doing their duty in seek
ing the yery highest legal opinion. To discover
precisely what the law is, what the courts will
, hjold, and what judges will get rapped over tho
'knuckles if they do not decide 'right,' it was
" absolutely necessary to, apply to the. White
House." - '
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