rW,7WW,W" swr9ur -"W" v
TTSfyji'
The Commoner.
5
SEPTEMBER 4, 19 OS
r7l
IT WHAT THE VOTERS OF GROSVENOR'S DISTRICT HAVE
DONE TO HIM THROW THEM OUT OP THE PUBLIC
SERVICE. "
tt
UNDERWRITTEN BY WALL STREET
M
On March 27, 1908, Ervin Wardman, editor of the New York
Press, delivered an address at Utica, N. Y. In that address Mr.
Wardman charged that the administration was using federal em
ployes for political purposes in every section of the country. Then
Mr. Wardman said: "WE ARE STRUCK WITH HORROR AS
THE DETAILS ARE UNCOVERED OF A COMPACT BETWEEN
MR. TAFT'S MANAGERS AND THE HIGH FINANCIERS OF
WALL STREET, whereby his candidacy is underwritten by those
very 'undesirable citizens' against whom so riproaring a war has
been waged for seven years, to land the residuary legatee in the
White House. Mr. Roosevelt denied that he has the federal machine
under his orders to force the nomination of Mr. Taft or anyone. I,
for one, say let us not show the disrespect to his high office to im
pugn his declaration concerning this prostitution of federal offices.
Let us take him at his word if you please. But the facts remain,
whether it be by his command or against his desire and injunction,
the federal machine is exerting all the power of the United States
government to compel the republican voters to make the nomination
of Mr. Taft, whether they want him or not. You will find a collector
of the port, or internal revenue officer or a land agent or a post
master, or some other holder of a government office in charge of
the Taft canvass in every state north and south, east or west. You
will find the. Taft delegations held by and composed of these fed
eral officeholders. When Mr. Roosevelt says that he is not doing
this, what's the use of doubting him. We need not blame Mr.
Taft. Sufficient is the evil of the fact, whoever inspires the fact
the indisputable fact an attempt, arrogantly conceived and des
perately prosecuted, to establish a White House dynasty by the
decree of the federal machine. And this I say, this striving to take
out of the hands of the American people the selection of the candi
dates for whom they may vote, is a thing that strikes at the ele
mental principles of our whole system of government."
A TERRIFIC ARRAIGNMENT
In an issue during the month of September, 1907, the New
York Press printed the following editorial:
Attorney General Bonaparte said in a recent interview: "We
tried in New York not long ago in the case of the licorice trust to
convict the president of the corporation, but the jury found the
corporation guilty and acquitted the president. The presidents of
these big corporations are usually excellent men of high moral
standing in their communities and unexceptionable in their private
life, and usually they stand high in church work. I suppose the
kind-hearted jury thought it would be cruel to put such excellent
men as these behind prison bars."
A few days later Secretary Taft said in his speech at Colum
bus: "Again, it is difficult to induce juries to convict individuals
of a violation of the anti-trust law if imprisonment is to follow.
In the case of the tobacco trust the government declined to accept
a plea of guilty by the individual defendants, offered on condition
that only the penalty of a fine be imposed, and the result was that
the jury did not hesitate to stultify itself by finding the corporation
guilty and acquitting the individual defendants, who had person
ally committed the acts upon which the conviction of the corpora
tion was based. In the early enforcement of a statute which makes
unlawful, because of its evil tendencies, that which in the past has
been regarded as legitimate, juries are not inclined by their verdicts
to imprison individuals."
This was followed by remarks in the same strain by President
Roosevelt at Provincetown: "In a recent case against the licorice
trust we indicted and tried the two corporations and their respec
tive presidents. The contracts and their other transactions estab
lishing the guilt of the corporations were made through, and so
far as they were in writing were signed by, the two presidents.
Yet the jury convicted the two corporations and acquitted the two
men. Both verdicts could not possibly have been correct; but ap
parently the average juryman wishes to see trusts broken up and
is quite ready to fine the corporation itself, but is very reluctant
to find the facts "proved beyond a reasonable doubt" when it
comes to sending to jail a reputable member of the business com
munity for doing what the business community had unhappily
grown to recognize as well-nigh normal in business."
The close relationship of these arguments and of the three
gentlemen who advanced them, the similarity of their attitude, the
likeness of their scarce illustrations and the sequence of their almost
identical utterances, point to more than a coincidence. Apparently
there has been a concert of action between President Roosevelt,
Secretary Taft and Attorney General Bonaparte, whose purpose
was to show that the reason for the failure of the department of
justice to put the big criminals in jail was that juries of American
citizens had refused to convict the malefactors and would continue
to refuse to convict them.
To support this apology for failure to bring prosecutions look
ing to imprisonment of monopolists and rebaters Messrs. Roosevelt
and Bonaparte both cited the single instance of the licorice trust.
This was a case so obscure that it was almost ignored by the news
papers where the trial was had.
Furthermore there was no great public demand for the con
viction of the officers of the licorice trust. Licorice is not a neces
sary of life, and the existence of a monopoly in that commodity
was known perhaps not to one man in a thousand. Everybody, on
the other hand, knows there is a coal trust, a beef trust, an oil
trust and a monopoly on sugar. For this reason the people cared
little or nothing about the conviction of the licorice trust officers.
For the same reason the writers for this nowspapor have devoted
no attention to the licorice trust, being kept busy with inquiry into
the facts about the corporations that monopolize the necessaries of
life and keep the highways of the country open or closed at will.
Our deliberate neglect of the licorice trust case makes it impos
sible for us to say whether the jury was to blame for the escape of
the culprits or whether the department of justice had blundered
its case, as it did those of the Chicago & Alton recently and of the
beef trust a 3 car ago. Possibly the jurymen may have felt that
the evidence as improper or insufficient. Maybe they felt that
the attorney general was beginning with the smallest of the trust
criminals end they were unwilling to convict little licorice trust
presidents while the Rockefellers, Baers and Armours were per
mitted to go free.
In any event, Messrs. Taft, Bonaparte and Roosevelt are scarce
ly warranted in citing one or two cases wherein American juries
have refused to send "reputable members of the business com
munity" (we deny that lawbreakers are reputable because they
are wealthy) as proof that it is not possible to send this class of
criminals to the penitentiary. If the president and his cabinet offi
cers are willing to form their judgment of what American juries
will do in one hundred cases upon what two American juries havo
done, why did they not cite the two trials at Toledo where jurors
who were neighbors of the men on trial condemned several "rep
utable" fellow-members of the community to imprisonment for
violating the anti-trust laws of Ohio?
We should say that a great deal depends on how the crooks
are prosecuted. If they are not prosecuted at all it will always
be easy to say that the juries would not send them to jail. If they
are lathered with immunity soap and doused in an immunity tub
the jurors can not do their share. If the big lawbreakers are prose
cuted in the half-hearted manner that might be expected from an
attorney general who talks like Mr. Bonaparte of course the jury
is not certain to convict. But the uproarious enthusiasm with which
President Roosevelt's declaration of war on the trust and railroad
criminals has been received by the country warrants the belief that
he and his advisers are happily mistaken about the powerful male
factors whom the president has charged with organizing a stock
panic in order to protect themselves from the consequences of their
crimes.
Bring the indictments against the Harrimans and Rockefellers.
Let the little counterfeiters and the licorice trust pikers wait. Give
the juries a crack at the way-up lawbreakers then see what will
happen! Let the department of justice do its duty and there need
be no fear that American citizenship will not vindicate itself from
the charge that it wants its worst enemies to go unwhipped! New
York Press.
HOW SENATORS SNEERED AND JEERED
In the month of May, 1906, the New York Press printed, from
the pen of its Washington correspondent, the following description
of the manner in which Mr. Roosevelt's message relating to the
Standard Oil was received in the American House of Lords:
"What the American people have to expect in the regulation
of the trusts was disclosed today in congress when the president
sent to the senate and the house the report of the bureau of corpora
tions showing that the Standard Oil corporation not only violates
the law but is a partner with many railroad corporations in pre
venting' competition and raising prices of all Standard Oil pro
ducts throughout the country. The report of the bureau of corpora
tions was accompanied by a strong message from the president.
In the house of representatives the closest attention was paid to the
reading of the message and the report, and there was generous
applause which proved that party lines were broken. The situation
in the senate suggested plainly that there would have to be a great
change in the body before any good results can come from the
president's campaign. Not two-thirds of the senators had the
if
9
i
n
ft
M
.
i!.
"Is
'H
t.
;;i
i
mi
i
i.mmt, m' hi wilfcfffiin-trlr
,iitr.wv
tek-
ii...JuttKf..Arfa jAa'w
.J AaH 'i