XyifflS mSKSv jiri,,'"" " " ii,ii,iiiii'frwwiwiwy)TvwlitL..iu
-rttaaaharni nn i V"
DECEMBER 20, 1907
The Commoner.
B?iyftiSB&
wV.
Senator Davis' Maiden Speech
Senator JofferSOn D.ivls nf Arlmnnna nil.
dressed the senate December 11. The Asso
ciated Press report follows:
Passionate oratory marked the proceed
ings of the senate today. Senator Jeff Davis of
Arkansas, who when elected declared that ho
would attack the trusts immediately after he
took his seat, fulfilled his promise although ho
was a few days late in doing so.
The speech was filled with sensational de
clarations and was given with that vigor for
which the Arkansas senator is famous in his
own state. Quaint phrasing, pointed denuncia
tion and evidences of intense emotion character
zied his remarks. He was given a careful hear
ing by senators and the galleries were well
filled throughout the time he held the floor.
Beginning shortly before 1 o'clock, he spoke
for a little more than an hour. At the close
of tho speech the senate went into executive
session 'and at 2:10 o'clock adjourned.
As he proceeded he showed groat emotion
and his voice trembled. His words rang with
resounding effect throughout the chamber.
Speaking of tho annual appropriations for
the expenses for tho government, amounting to '
$900,000,000, he turned to Senator Beveridgo
and added: "Pjle it up on this iloor and let
my good-looking young friend, the senator from
Indiana, start to count it. He would be as old
as Methuselah before he could count half of it."
"Everything," declared Senator Davis, "is
In a trust except acorns and persimmons."
"Holy writ," he said, "admonishes us to
go into the vineyard and work. I have found
nothing in the good book that warrants any
of us going into the vineyard to corner all tho
grapes."
"The president," he said, "has taken off
the dollar the words 'In God We Trust.' It's
time to- take it off. I wonder what the grand
old party is going to put on the dollar?"
"This panic was started by these trust mag
nates and stock gamblers in order that they
might take from the cotton producers half of
their property," ,he added.
"I am for the under dog, Senator Mc
Laurin," he said, addressing the senator from
Mississippi who sat before him. "Whenever you
hear of a dog fight just say 'Jeff Davis is for
the under dog.' "
He read some statistics from the Standard
Oil and, stepping out into the center aisle,
stamped his foot and said: "The Standard Oil
is the old he-trust of the country. It is the
trust that has all the paraphernalia and ear
marks of a trust. I dislike tho Standard Oil.
I hate the smell of coal oil. Petroleum makes
mo sick. Oh, sir, something ought to be done
to curtail the growth of this monster tvmt
John D. Rockefeller's trust the great Standard
Oil trust."
Senator Davis began by declaring that it
was not his purpose to remain in his seat in tho
senate until his hair shall have grown gray be
fore taking up his work actively in that body.
Ho proposed to present quickly, fearlessly and
as intelligently as he might, some of the living,
burning questions before the American people.
It was for that reason he had determined to
speak upon his bill to suppress trust, pools,
combinations and conspiracies.
"I undertake to say," he said, "that if this
bill is enacted into a law and faithfully and hon
estly enforced, trusts will be wiped from the
face of the earth and no longer will we feel
their grinding and destroying grip on the arteries
of trade and commerce."
A domestic corporation found fixing the
price of any article would, by his bill, he said,
have its charter forfeited, and a foreign cor
poration guilty of such an act would not be
allowed to do business in the United States.
"The trust evil," said Senator Davis, "is
a cancerous sore upon the body politic. Just
as upon the human body, the only remedy, the
only successful treatment is the surgeon'? knife.
Cut it out by the roots, destroy the virus before
tho whole body politic is affected and destroyed."
"Congress should not hesitate in It3 work
of jdestroying the trusts because of any fear -of
upsetting business," he continued. He spoke
of the Sherman anti-trust law. "Has it proven
effectual?" he aslced. "Has it destroyed, a single
trust under its operation? Have they not grown
strong, defiant and arrogant?"
"Almost for seventeen years the ShM'man
anti-trust law has been upon our statute books,
-more than four times as long as it took the
north to wear out Iho south upon tho bloody
fie Ids of battle. Nearly seven years of Roose
velt s strenuous term havo passed, with all tho
machinery of the government at his back, with
the great power of tho chief executive in his
hands, yet I ask, will somo republican senator
upon this floor toll me one trust that over has
been tamed, much less destroyed?
"Ah, Mr. President, it was stated by tho
metropolitan press before I entered this august
body, flippantly, too, that before I had boon in
the senate six months the trust magnates would
have mo feeding out of their hands. I may
share crumbs from a Lazarus, but I swoar to
you today, by every god in tho calender that
I shaU never eat from the hands of mammon.
I want to say to you, sir, and to tho mem
bers of this senate, that you need not loo any
sleep about a corporation getting its rights. You
need not lose any sleep about unjust discrimin
ation against them. They will take care of
themselves. But rather should our solicitude
be for tho man who bears the burdens of tho
government.
"This is an age when men havo gone mad
in their frenzied efforts for tho dollar. This
is an age when money is placod above men; when
gold is placed before God. When wo would soil '
our souls,-our government, our all for the bright
smilo from tho god mammon.
"What is monoy, Mr. President, that It is
held so priceless? You can not eat it, you can
not wear it. Your shroud has no pocket in it,
and St: Peter will not receive it for admission
into the golden gates.
"When we look to the leading cause for this
great wealth upon the part of these great cor
porations, and the causes leading to their forma
tion, to tho formation of trusts, wo are com
pelled to go no further than republican author
ity itself and take tho sworn statement of
Havemeyer, the great sugar king, who has gone
to his reward, be it good or bad, who has gone
to that land and that clime where St. Poter does
not take 'sugar in his' and where money is of
no value."
He recalled Havemeyer's statement before
the industrial commission that "tho tariff is tho
mother of trusts."
"under the operation ot this system," ho
said, "fifty-one men in the United States, multi
millionaires, if you please, have amassed total
fortunes of $3,295,000,000. Of this John D.'
Rockefeller, the oil king of the world, leads with
$000,000,000; Andrew Carnegie, tho steel king
of tho world, follows with half of this amount."
Tho secretary of commerce and labor has
calculated, ho said, all tho property owned by
89,000,000 American citizens is $107,000,000,
000, so that these fifty-one citizens own one-thirty-fifth
of tho entire wealth of the nation.
"What an alarming concentration of '
wealth; what an alarming concentration of pow
er," he declared. "In this day and time monoy
is king; money is god; without wealth tho doors
of opportunity are closed, the doors of society
are shut. Yea, even in some instances the doors
of the church do not welcome the man in rags
and tatters. How shall this condition be
changed? How shallthls government be saved?
One way, and one way only; that is to kill, de
stroy, annihilate the source of all this evil tho
trusts."
"What is needed today by the trust mag
nates of this union in order to make them re
spect the law and obey its solemn mandates,"
he said, "is that they be treated like ordinary
felons; that the strong arm of the law be laid
against them just as it would be against a horse
thief or anyone else charged with crime. Land
them in the penitentiary, plrice felon's stripes,
'the doxology of a misspent life,' upon them, and
you will see the trusts are busted and the people
will get relief.
"One trust magnate in the penitentiary of
the United States, one trust magnate with felon's
stripes, one trust magnate as a living example
and object lesson that the law is greater than any
man, that the law is above and beyond us all,
that the law protects the weak and punishes tho
strong alike, would be the most wholesome ex
ample that could be set in this republic today."
He declared that while he is an alarmist,
he is not an anarchist or a socialist.
"There is too much gold," he declared;
"there Is too much glitter; there Is too much
gloss; there Is too much of tinsel, and I say, sir,
that unless times shall change it will not be
long before the American statesmen will be
wearing knee brooches, with brass huokloa and
roTaR0;." ' g8' ftnd bOW,n d0W" -
n s,)?nk'nK of tho Kroat expense of tho gov
ernment, Senator Davis said: "Our praaldont
and I speak in tho most respectful terms' beside
his salary of $50,000 a year-and I say ha?
sVn0XC0HH,VO,8 pn,(1 U' "' congrcHH
$5,000 a year for traveling oxponaon. and nn
proxlmately $113,000 annually for living X
ponses. h
"Ah! Mr. Praaldont, thin In ononnous. This
is unreasonable. Tho president of the United
States has flvo chlldron, I bollovo. It Is trim
that ho should Ilvo In accordance with tho
dignity, with tho portion, tho greatest executive
upon tho face of tho earth; hut, Mr. President,
I have tho prosldont skluned a city block In thu
matter of family. I havo eight children, and
It doca not tako $118,000 for my living ex
pense. No, sir. Tho greatest president that
ever lived upon thla earth, that waa ever Inaug
urated in thla capltol, In my Judgment, waa 'Old
Blue Jeana,' Old Hickory Jackson, who rode
hla horae to tho Whlto Mouw dressed In a milt
of blue jeans."
Ho denounced Htock gambling, and ald hja
would do away with gambling in cotton, grain
and the necoaaltloa of life.
Washington Letter
Washington, D. C, Decombor 10. Aa a fair
Illustration of tho way In which tho republicana
are playing at cross purposes on tho currency
question, this may bo said: CongroHsmnn Burton,
ho who ran his head against the Tom Johnson
stone wall, wroto somo time ago a book on cur
rency and finance, ftmlnont authorities llko Mr.
Vandorllp, formor assistant secretary of tho
treasury, and Mr. Rldglcy, comptroller of tho
currency, have pronounced It tho host book on
tho subject over written. Of course that doesn't
prove that such Is tho fact. Tho book on
finance and currency which suits tho bankora
best, may not bo tho best book for the pooplo.
However let that pass. When Speaker Cannon
came to appoint the committee on banking and
currency of the houae a few days ago ho In
creased its membership by ono In order that
Mr. Burton might bo addod and tho other mem
bers havo the benefit of his financial sapience.
When Representative Fowler, chairman of that
committee, called it together he did not like
this apparent reflection upon his own encyclo
pedic knowledge, so the committee voted to
rreato a sub-committee of five which should
draft tho currency bill to bo reported by tho
full committee. With the utmost suavity, Chair
man Fowler appointed a sub committee leaving
Mr. Burton out. So far as constructive work
on tho committee of banking and currency Is
concerned, the representative from tho Cleve
land district might as well be serving on either
of the opera bouffe committees "tho committee
on the disposal of useless documents" or "tho
committee on ventilation."
Promising Isn't It? When even the repub
lican committee on tho currency can not get
together, what hope is there of the republican
house and senate and executives standing
shpulder to shoulder?
Speaker Cannon, widely known as "Undo
Joe" is not unlike Senator Foraker in his habit
of saying what he thinks without equivocation
or evasion. The speaker Is a man of force. Ho
has what is perhaps the moat magnificant quality
any public man may have, namely the ability to
think himself right even though all other men
.think him wrong. In this he Is not unlike his
particular aversion, the gentleman now inhabit
ing the White House.
Here Is an illustration of the speaker's self
confidence. To his office came the other day
a delegation which presented hlrn with somo
handsomely bound resolutions, asking his sup
port for the Issuance of a great block of bonds
for the purpose of developing the Interior water
ways of the United States. Just at present
Washington Is crowded with delegates to a river
and harbor convention and orators from Walla
Walla, Wash., down to Savannah, Ga., have
been preaching, and with good reason, the neces
sity of developing water communication as a
correction for railroad extortions. And even
so hardened a railroad man as "Jim" Hill ap
peared before the convention to urge the de
velopment of our inland waterways. Perhaps
Continued on Page Six)
Jl
l
ij.''.&fe.afcmto? jM.m., -t.