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The Commoner.
VOLTJME 6, NUMBER 37
ARE MEN NOW HONORED FOR "THEFT"
The New York World recently asked a num-
toer of New Yorkers If It is true, as freely charged,
that "the rich man Is honored for thieving and
' that the man who has the wisdom to steal a
m million avoids the miserable fate of the dabbler
f 'in hundreds." The World also asked if it is
' true that the laws are radically deficient and
, that the authorities allow existing laws to' Ho
idle on the statute books. The World says that
these questions were answered in the negative
by every person interviewed.
It Is not true that the rich man is honored
' for thieving. It is true, however', that- there
I are many men in this country who are highly
, honored by a large number of people in spite
'. of the fact that the methods of these men, if
I properly described, would come under the head
of thieving.
The man who steals a million dollars or any
considerable sum of money and takes to his
heels Is very liable to find the authorities in
" hot pursuit. We have in the case of Banker
Stensland of Chicago an example that the law
Is enforced against men who steal considerable
sums of money and then decamp. There are
also a number of bankers now doing time in
prison, and all because their wrongdoing came
so plainly under the b.eart of "thieving' that
they were treated as the common rogue is treat
ed. The mistake these men made was in in
dulging in their wrongdoing in a vulgar, coarse
way. They should have stood "pat." .
.The New York World need not have gone
to. the trouble of interviewing a considerable
number of men on this proposition ; it might have
gone to the records of District Attorney Jerome's
office; it might have reproduced some of its own
editorials showing the impunity with which rich
and powerful men violate the law. The World
might have recalled the disclosures of the past
year; there it would have obtained several
valuable reminders. It would have learned that
for the conspiracies in restraint of trade; for
the trusts organized in defiance of law; for the
money embezzled from the policyholders in In
surance companies; for the bribes given by trust
magnates for the corruption of public officials;
for the corners obtained by greedy men upon the
fuel and food of the land in the presence of shiv
ering children and starving women; for the crime
that since the "national honor" was redeemed in
1896 has stalked rampant in the circles where
these socalled captains of industry most do con
gregate there is not one rich criminal in convict
stripes as a living testimony to the vindication
of the law's majesty. .
If we would search for an object lesson show
ing strikingly -the difference between crime and
crime, take the case of former Senator Burton
and the case of the late Senator Mitchell and
make comparison with other cases available in
the vicinity of the senate chamber. Burton,
luckless and poor, accepted fees amounting to,
perhaps, several thousand dollars for appearing
as an attorney before one of the departments
of government. Mitchell poor and luckless equal
with Burton, shared with his law partner fees
paid to that partner for services rendered cer
tain clients before a department of government.
Comparatively speaking " these were cheap
offenses. Both these senators were indicted- mm
died and the other retired in disgrace ' Tt
what about Chauncey M. Depew? It hii wT
shown that from various source! he dre S
serving as senator, money to which he ww in
nowise entitled; and where Burton or MItcLn
drew one dollar Depew drew, perhaps, fifty De.
pew's offenses were bad enough to force him from
his office in Yale college and to drive him from
the directorates of many commercial concerns
but he yet holds his place as United States sen'
ator, and no serious demand has been made to
the effect tbat he relinquish his high commission
in that body. Even the newspapers that fought
Burton to his retirement and Mitchell to his
death have not seemed so serious, and by no
means so persistent, in -their criticisms of the
New York senator. But even Depew's offenses
pale into Insignificance compared with those of
other men, who, while serving in the United
States senate and being presumed to have a
watchful care for the public interests, are, in
fact, nothing more than the representatives of
powerful corporations. Perhaps these men are
not paid exactly as Depew was paid or as Bur
ton and Mitchell were paid, but it is a matter
of public knowledge that since entering the sen
ate they have grown richer and richer, and a
matter of public knowledge, also, that the great
concerns which habitually prey upon the Amer
ican people depend upon these same United
States senators to protect their Interests and to
make possible a continuance of their immoral
practices practices which are sometimes carried
on within the law and sometimes without the
law, but practices which, within the law or with
out the law, may be properly classified as theft.
"Robbery of the Many, for the Benefit of the Few
j.u uub uj. uio Bpeycuea oecreuiry snaw cojn
plained that the democratic convention of 1892
"declared that ,the republican tariff law was rob
bery of the many for" the enrichment of the few."'
That referred lto the McKinley bill. Since then
a1 republican congress 'enacted the Dlngley law,'
whose schedules Nelson Dingley himself said
had purposely been placed high in order that
they might be used as a basis for obtaining reci
procity treaties. Yet, while failing to strive for
reciprocity treaties, the republican party main
tains the high schedules at the expense of the
people of our own land. It Is true the republi
can tariff law, as represented by the McKinley
l;8;, roJ)ber3f the many for the enrich
25 tn W feT; but the Diny Mil, the-pres-?
i W' Is. so mucl1 more oppressive than
HolBariMaW f 1.892' tlmt republicans in all por
tions of the country are crying out against it.
nn,Je repuWi(ians in Iowa on two different
flSSSLffi. prteted In their state platform
SlSt G S lelter whIch the trusts find in the
i nd ??ly a few days aS Governor Cum
mins, now the republican nominee for governor
declared that he had nothing to retract ith
respect to any of the statements Ye had made
f. t,ari?,,que,S"on' So Governor Cummins il
a "standpat' witness as to the truth of the
rohWvnf lat thG rePuca tariff law of 1906 is
jobbery of the many for the enrichment of the
MasSchuff S XPi Gulld' Jr" governor of
tai th? w II T11 be remembered that dur
ingthe last campaign the Massachusetts repub
licans had a great scare caused largely, by the
tariff question. Soon after the election Governor
Guild wrote n letter to Mr. Koosevelt in whjch
he stated that in his judgment' the republican
ticket in Massachusetts would have been over
whelmingly defeated if the republican platform
had not contained the plank favoring immediate
tariff revision. The governor said that he
deemed it his duty to inform Mr. Rooseveltof
the real condition of public feeling in Massa
chusetts, and he urged the president to incor
porate in Juis message a suggestion favorable to
tariff revision.
During the year 1905 Secretary of War Taft
publicly declared that American manufacturers
were trying to hold up the government in the
prices charged for canal supplies. Mr. Taft said
that if necessary supplies for the canal would
be purchased abroad. This conclusion was given
to the public in an Associated Press dispatch
printed last May. That dispatch said that the
executive committee of the Isthmian canal com
mission had decided to purchase in the markets
of the world the material necessary for the build
ing of the canal, and added:
"This important decision was reached
with some reluctance because it was appre
ciated by Secretary Taft and the executive
committee that there would surely be a great
outcry from two great Interests in this coun
try, the producers of material and the ship
owners, if the purchases were not limited
to the American products. But it was decided
that, the money consideration was so great
that it could not be ignored, for it was held
that in many cases fully fifty per cent more
would be charged for the material .needed in
the canal construction than the same goods
could be procured for in Europe." .
The Washington correspondent for the Chi
cago Record-Herald likened Mr: Taft's order to
'a Chimose bomb, shell."
The Taft order was widely discussed and
very generally approved at the time, but re
cently we have heard but very little concerning
it. Since that order was made public the ad
ministration purchased for the canal service two
American ships of 5,700 tons each for $1,300,000,
when it was offered two foreign ships of 6,000
tons each for $750,000. Since then the adminis
tration has awarded to the Maryland Steel com
pany a contract for two dredges at $362,000 each
when a foreign concern had offered to build these
two dredges for $70,000 less. Since then Mr.
Roosevelt wrote to Representative Watson his
famous "stand pat" letter. But it will be observed
that while the administration has forgotten the
Taft order and has failed to purchase supplies
abroad in order to avoid the impositions of the
trusts, it has not hesitated to go abroad for its
labor, and now makes no effort to conceal the
fact that it Is preparing to build the Panama
canal with coolie labor. Perhaps the adminis
tration expects the people to overlook the fail
ure to carry out the Taft order, and remember
only the great benefits to be derived by carry
ing on American enterprises with yellow labor.
It is Not"An Ugly Question" And It Must be Met
The Wall Street N , ,- , . U ll XTXCit W XYll
The Wall Street News in ita aa , .
tember 17, complains because in his -St Louis
speech, Mr. Bryan made, what the News calls
Jan?"2115 QUery' mat trust ma&nates are in
FurtlermorTltTn; TW? an "& uestIon'
ininYJS 0re,It a absolutely useless one. cal
culated merely to play upon the feelings and not
the reason of excitable, uSthinkin peopled
nniJVi? an sUon" .ronf the stand
point of the man who violates, the law- but to
quTstion7 VCre en&Cted' lt Is ot w "y
It ia, indeed, a very pertinent auestion and
uelkm. 8lmuar to Ota mi,t bo prS'uS
the attention of men in authority, until no officer
whose duty it is to enforce the law, will dare
to permit a trust magnate to escape, any more
than he would give immunity to the rocue in
rags.
This question was not made Mto play upon the
feelings of excitable, unthinking people.'' The
editor of the News, if, he bo sincere in these
E?T4 1S t5G thoutless one. Does he not
SXmJw 7i? aVG uP0Ii,0Ur 8tatiite boofcg lawa
forbidding the organization of trusts-laws In
fSSS? JJo Pratatanont of the very men 5L
dT,,byJlleiesigllatIotl "t Magnate?
SSie, SP111? these law re made to be
vioated? The truth is that the best thought
of this country is now aroused to the ImpprS
of putting a check upon the greed and lawS
ness of the men who are commonly known as
trust magnates." These men have shown no
mercy for the consumers, and no respect for the
law. They are not to be restrained by feather
duster blows; they are not to be held in check
by solemn resolutions, or even by Unes; they are
to be proceeded against exactly as the common
est violator of the law is proceeded against And
it Is to be written in the code of American ethics,
even as it is written upon American statute
books, that in the eyes of society, as well as in
tne eyes of the law, the man who would conspiro
in Testraint of trade, and seek to obtain monopo
lies upon the necessaries of life, is no whit bet
ter than the thief who robs on the highway; no
better than any other human being who for the
ake of profit, defies the law of the land
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