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AUGUST 30 1907.
The Commoner.
9
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they are behind the breastworks of .corporate
organization. I wish there to be no mistake on
this point. It is idle to ask me not to prosecute
criminals, rich or poor. But I desire no less
emphatically to have it understood that we have
undertaken and will undertake no action of. a
vindictive type, and above all no action which
shall inflict a great or unmerited suffering upon
the innocent stockholders, and upo"n the public
as a whole. Our purpose is to act with the min
imum of harshness compatible with obtaining
our ends. In the man of great wealth, who has
earned his wealth honestly and used it wisely,
we recognize a good citizen worthy of all praise
and respect. Business can only be done under
modern conditions through corporations, and
our purpose is to heartily favor the corporations
that do well. The administration appreciates
that liberal but honest profit for legitimate pro
moters and generous dividends for capital em
ployed either in founding or continuing an hon
est business venture, are the factors necessary
for successful corporate activity and therefore
for generally prosperous business conditions.
All these are compatible with fair dealing as be
tween man and man, and rigid obedience to the
law. Our aim is to help every honest man, every
honest corporation, and our policy means in its
ultimate analysis a healthy and prosperous' ex
pansion of business activities, of honest business
men and honest corporations."
SECRETARY TAFT'S intinerary is given by
the Columbus (Ohio) Press-Post in this
way:. "Columbus, Ohio, August 19; Cincinnati,
August 20; Lexington, Ky., August 22; then to
Louisville, then to St. Louis; Oklahoma for a
speech August 24, Joplin, Mo.; then again to
St. Louis, and from there to Kansas City and
then to Denver, where he speaks August 29.
He will spend the time between August 31 and
September 3 in the Yellowstone Park, leaving
there in time to deliver an address in Portland,
Ore., October 6. He next speaks at Tacoma,
October 7, and Seattle October 9, sailing from
the latter place October 10 on the transport
Minnesota. He reaches the other side of the
world at Yokahoma September 25 and spends
eight days in Japan. October 4 he leaves for
China, reaching Shanghai October 6, going to
Hong 'Kong, from which port he sails to Manila,
reaching the Philippine city October 11. He
will remain on the islands twenty-two days,
leaving November 4 for Vladivostok, Siberia,
the Russian-Asiatic stronghold, crossing Siberia
to Moscow, which he will reach November 21
and landing in St. Petersburg November 2G. His
next destination is Berlin November 29, after
which he sails from Cherbourg, France, and ar
rives in New York between December 10-15. In
this journey he will be accompanied by Mrs.
Taft and his son, Charles Taft, aged twelve,
General Clarence R. Edwards, his military aid
and Fred W. Carpenter, his secretary."
HOW MANY 'men, if they -were as candid
as the editor of the Richmond Times
Dispatch r would join with him in this confes
sion: "The Charlotte Observer is authority for
the statement that all men sympathize with a
culprit who is a fugitive from justice and hope
that he will escape. We find much comfort in
the Observer's assurance. We never read of a
defaulter, for example, who runs away that we
do not squeeze for him while he runs, and when
we hear that a prisoner has been detected, just
as his well laid plans for escape are maturing,
we invariably have a sneaky feeling of regret
that his plan failed. We have never confessed
to this weakness until now, for we had sup
posed that it was a sort of latent criminal in
stinct, which no thoroughly honest man could
have. It is comforting, we repeat,, to be as
sured by the Observer that the instinct is
psychological and not criminal, and that it is
common to the human race." y
SOME OF THE republican politicians at the
national capitol, according to the Washington
correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat,
believe that in his Columbus, Ohio, speech Mr.
Taft made at least two blunders. The Globe
Democrat correspondent says: "One of these
blunders was in Mr. Taft's tariff utterances, and
the other in advocating the changing of the anti
trust laws so as to provide for the control of
those trusts in 'unreasonable' restraint of trade.
On the whole it is realized' that the speech, in
its general terms, is a direct reflection of the
administration view in. most things, The war
secretary read. his speech of yesterday to the
president and tHe president read. His, speech of
today to his war secretary and each Indorsed
the other. Relative to tho use of the word
'unreasonable' In a revised trust law, it is point
ed out that such an amendment would bo, in
a large measure, playing directly into the hands
of the big corporations popularly believed to bo
operating in restraint of trade. In the trans
Missouri caso, in the Joint Traffic asBodallon
case, and still later; and of evert more impor
tance, the Northern Securities caso, the de
fense claimed that the restraint of trade with
which they were charged was not unreasonable,
neither was it harmful or contrary to the public
interest. The position was attacked strongly
and successfully by tho government. Mr. Knox,
who was then attorney general, held that such
construction placed on the statute would nega
tive the efforts of the government."
ACCORDING TO this same authority some of
the "standpatters" are not Impressed with
Secretary Taft's remarks on the tariff. Tho
Globe-Democrat's correspondent explains: "For
instance, they don't like this language: 'It is
the duty of the republican party to see to it
that the tariff on imported articles does not ex
ceed substantially tho reasonably permanent
differential between tho cost of production in
the foreign countries and that in tho United
States. Whenever the tariff imposed is largely
in excess of the differential between tho cost
of 'production in the two countries, there is
formed at once a great temptation to monopo
lies.' It is especially the last sentence above
quoted to which exception is taken by a promi
nent official whose name has become synony
mous with 'standpattism,' a man whoso voice
has been raised in many states of tho union in
previous campaigns in behalf of the protective
tariff, but who does not desire his identity
known in this connection. He said of the sen
tence quoted: 'That is not true. Wo want to
. know that we have enough protection. Further,
the free trade or non-protective policy of Eng
land is more conducive to monopoly than our
high protective tariff.' This gentleman agrees
with Mr. Taft that the republican party can
well afford to wait until after another presi
dential election in order to make any possible
revision of the tariff, which he does not admit
is necessary. He thinks Mr. Taft has said some
thing "which the opponents of the republican
party desired him to say, in a seeming admis
sion that the protective tariff was conducive to
monopoly, and which would be used against tho
party at every opportunity. This same gentle
man differed with Mr. Taft in relation to his
' ideas of an income tax, saying that he believed
the supreme court decision on that question
was honest and based on honest and correct
grounds. He added that he noticed Mr. Taft
touched on inheritance and income taxes rather
gingerly."
THE GLOBE-DEMOCRAT, which is a "stand
patter" and a trust defender generally
speaking editorially approves the Taft speech,
saying: "The secretary's program will strike
a majority of the members of his party favor
ably." The Milwaukee Sentinel, another
"standpat," pro-trust partisan, approves the
Taft speech, saying: "It will strengthen Mr.
Taft's position with the country in general, we
have no doubt. It is an earnest that should
Mr. Taft be nominated and elected presi
dent there will be in the main a continuance
of 'Roosevelt policies' by a broad, able, ex
perienced, fair man of judicial training, who
is markedly without what some are disposed to,
regard as the defects of the Roosevelt tempera
ment." '
THE WARDEN of the Newcastle county, Dela
ware, workhouse A. S. Meservo de
clares that the' whipping-post is a failure. A
Wilmington, Delaware, dispatch to the New
York World follows: "Meserve, who is from
Wellsboro, Mass., took charge of the 'workhouse
six years ago. Coming in the wake of almost
general condemnation of the Delaware whipping
post, the attitude of Meserve will probably re
sult in the abolition of lashing. The warden
said today: 'I have made a very careful and
unbiased study of the effect of the whipping
post on men of this class, and have come to the
conclusion that it 4s all bad. It brings out in a
man all that is revengeful and hurtful, and Jio
arrays himself against law order and society.'
Mr. Merserve has lashed hundreds of negroes
and white men. r He.,has repeatedly stated 'that
the principle was wrong; and has strongly advo
cated tho ropoal of the mediaeval law. Mcnorvo
has always had tho unanimous support of tho
workhouso trustees in his manngomont of tho
institution and leaves tho position with the re
grets of ovory momber of tho board. Jio has
obtained an official position with tho Paulpy
Jail company, of St. Louis, and will superintend
tho construction of prisons in Burlington Vt.,
and Winncpeg, Manitoba. Ills salary at tho
Delaware institution was $1,200 a year, while
his wife was paid $000 as matron. There aro
now 31 G prisoners at tho workhouso. Tho legis
lature authorized tho incarceration therein of
all long term prisoners throughout the state,
as It is Delaware's solo penitentiary. The whip
ping post has been a Delaware institution more
than a century, but of late thoro has developed
a widespread sentiment against It. At the last
session of the legislature the wisdom of abollHh
lng it was fully discussed. The general assem
bly retained tho lashes, but abolished tho
pillory."
SEVERAL DAYS after Mr. Taft's Columbus
speech Senator Foraker gave out an Inter
view which the Associated Press sums up in this
way: "That Secretary Taft is losing ground in
Ohio, although if nominated all republicans will
support him. That his controversy with tho
president is over the question whether a public
servant shall do his own thinking. That if
Secretary Taft Is correct In saying that there
are evils in the tariff they ought to be removed
at once, without waiting eighteen months.
That tho secretary is wrong in saying that an
other great body of republicans desired tho
tariff revised cither now or eighteen months
hence. That the rate bill Instead of strengthen
ing tho Elkins bill weakens it. That through
an amendment inserted by Senator Lodge, a
friend of the administration, the harm was done
as his amendment required proof that an offenso
was 'knowingly' done. That If tho Standard Oil
rebate offenses had been committed after this
amendment the word 'knowingly' would have
cost tho United States $29,000,000 In fines In
Judge Landis' court. That tho 'unfortunate cir
cumstances' which Judge Taft speaks of in de
scribing the, elimination of Imprisonment from
the Elkins law was made at tho suggestion ot
the interstate commerce commission itself."
REFERRING TO the judge who imposed upon
tho Standard Oil trust the $29,240,000
fine the Washington correspondent for the St.
Louis Globe-Democrat says: "Judge Landis Is
only forty years old. His father was wounded
in tho battle of Kencsaw Mountain, hence his
name. Landis was born nearly two years after
the civil war had ended. Judge Landis is pic
turesque in appearance and manner. He was
private secretary to Walter Q. Gresham from
1893 to 1895. Judge Gresham had commanded
the regiment in which Judge Landis' father
served. Young Landis, prior to that, had been
a republican, but turned democrat to accompany
Gresham to Washington. While Landis was in
the state department the Alliance 'affair' oc
curred. The Alliance, an American vessel, was
overhauled by a Spanish gunboat outside tho
three-mile limit of Cuban jurisdiction and
searched on suspicion of being loaded with muni
tions of war for the Cuban insurgents. Thoro
was a great hubbub developed in favor of de
manding an apology. About that time Landis
came near running the state department. Sec
retary Gresham was ill and President Cleveland
had gone down the Potomac. Edwin H. Uhl
of Michigan was acting secretary of state. He
yielded to the popular cry and wrote a telegram
to Hannis Taylor, the United States minister
at Madrid, instructing Mr. Taylor to demand an
apology of tho Spanish government. He signed
It, 'Uhl, acting.' By the merest accident Secre
tary Landis saw the telegram. He withdrew it
from the department's telegraph operator and
hurried with it to Mr. Gresham. Under Landis'
advice Mr. Gresham scratched out 'Uhl, acting,'
and signed his own name. A few days later the
text of his telegram got into the newspapers,
with Mr. Gresham's name attached, and the
dying secretary of state was praised from one
end of the country to the other. When Presi
dent Cleveland returned home and learned what
had occurred he was furious. He declined to
sanction the demand for apology and redress,
and it looked for a while as if he would haul
Landis over the coals. Later Mr. Cleveland be
came attached to the young private secretary
and offered to send him to Venezuela as minis
ten But Landis had seen enough of- diplomacy
and declined. . He preferred law to politics.".
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