Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1906)
PAGE 2 U?e Nobrasko. Independent APRIL 26, 1906 lette, and they have expressed them selves as highly pleased with his speech, which: they characterized as one of the greatest that has been de livered in the senate for manyyears. Senator La Follette was, unfortu nate in delivering his speech at a lime when the public attention was occupied with a great horror on the Pacific coast, wherein a great city was destroyed and many lives lost. This event of absorbing interest to the people of the entire nation : not only diverted attention of what was 'going ore In the senate but absorbed, the thoughts of the people of the entire country,and filled the columns of the newspapers. At such a time little attention could be given ta the speech of the senator no matter how meritor ious it might be.' But it is believed here by many senators and congress men who have the remitation of heine politcally wise, that if It had not been for the San Francisco fire Senator La Follette's speech would have created a sensation in. the nation, and, lengthy extracts from it would have been pub lished In the columns of - the daily press in the country, and that liberal comment upon it would be found: in the editorial columns. If such had been the case and the remarks of the Badger; senator had been given ,the publicity that they undoubtedly would have received were it not for the San Francisco fire, it is believed that the effect of it would have been to make it impossible for the republican party to nominate any other than Mr. La Follette himself or some one holding views on the railroad question in line with Mr. La Follette's views and ac ceptable to him. These : political sages say that there is grave danger oven now that the Wisconsin senator will upset the political dough-pan of j-airuanKs, uannon and all others of me corporation lllc. It is understood here that Senator La Follette Is re reiving letters from all sections of the country in vast numbers and that he has had to employ a couple of ex- Tra secretaries to assist in handling ins man, an of which goes to show how receptive are the people of the country to advanced views upon the railroad question. The president has about concluded mat in order, to pass a rate bill that will redound to his credit that he must have help from the democrats, and nas aoout concluded that he must, stop piaying pontics and get down to busi ness." .. . i " -. V V A Gallant Boy A Boslonian was talking about the Ufe Henry Harland. "Harland. was a graceful, gallant soul," he said. "Even in his boyhood ne turned tne prettiest compliments. "In his boyhood he studied Latin under a charming young lady, "This young lady, calling him up in class one morning, said: '"Henry, name some of the chief beauties of education.' . "The boy, smiling into his teacher's pretty eyes, answered: " 'Schoolmistress.' " New York Tribune. All Run Down Wanting in vitality, vigor, vim, that is a condition that no one can safely ne glect, for it is the most common predisposing cause of disease. The blood is at fault; it needs purifying or enriching and the best medi cine to take is Hood's Sarsaparilia the great alterative and tonic builds up the whole system. For testimonials of remarkable cures send for Book on That Tired Feeling, No. 6. C. I. Hood Co., Lowell, Mass. MAKES THE LAW A FARCE Says President Roosevelt of the Ac quittal of the Beef Packers by Federal Judge President Roosevelt sent a sensa tional message to congress on the 18th Inst., in which he denounced the decision of Judge; Humphrey-Inithe Chicago beef packer casas a "mis carriage of justice." The president declared that Judge iiumpnrey s interpretation of the law lUaUS me Will Of Congress nhnrttvo licit ue u nor. hMvo ntlia juuges would follow the decision. . bucn an interpretation of the law,'? says the president " U T 1 ixr n - j tii ian a The president therefore ask gress to pass a declaratory art making its real intention on the law of im munity clear. He also resquests con. gress to Confer U Don the pnvrnmnf by statute the same right of appeal m cuminai cases which the defendant now enjoys, where the merits of the case have not been determined . Text of the Message . The full text of the president's mes sage, which is one of the most sensa tional ever sent to congress in the his tory of ther epublic, follows: "To the Senate and House of Rep resentatives; I submit herewith a tetter of the attorney general, enclos ing a statement of the proceedings by. the United States against the in dividuals and COr norat Inns cnmmntik- known as the 'beef packers' and com menting upon the decision of District Judge Humphrey. The result has been a, miscarriage of justice. It clearly appears from, the letter of the at torney general that no criticism what ever -attaches to Commissioner Gar field; what he did was in strict ac cordance with the law and In pursu ance of a duty imposed on him by con-! Biehh, wmcn could not be avoided; and, of course, congress In passing the Martin resolution could not pos sibly have foreseen the decision of Judge Humphrey. "But this Interpretation by Judge iiuwijurey oi tne will of the congress as expressed. in legislation is such as to make that will absolutely abortive Unfortunately there is e-mve rtht whether the government has the right ui appeal irom this decision of the district judge. "The case well iiinsfrafoo stability of conferring upon the gov ernment the same Hsrht- In criminal cases, on question of law, which the defendant now has, In all cases where the defend been put in jeopardy by a trial upon the merits of the charge made against him. The laws of many of the states, and the law of the nistriet f . v.. v VI VV lumbia, recently enacted by the con gress, give the government the right of appeal. A general law of the char acter indicated should certainly be enacted. "Furthermore, it is verr fW!mi,i to enact a law declaring the true construction of the existing legisla tion so far as" it affects immnriHv T can hardly believe that the ruling of Judge Humphrey will be followed by other judges, but if it should be fol lowed the result would he eithc completely to nullify very much, and puhsiwy me major part of the good to be obtained from the interstate commerce law and from the creating the bureau of corporations in the department of commerce and labor; or else frequently to obstruct an appeal to the criminal laws bv the department of justice. "There seems to be no good reason why the department of justice, the tiepartment of commerce and labor, the interstate commerce commission, each should not, for the common good, proceed within Us own powers with out undue interference with the func tions of the other. It is, of course, necessary under the constitution and the laws that persons who give testi mony, or produce evldenre as wit nesses, should receive Immunity from prosecution. It has hitherto been supposed that the immunity conferred by existing laws was only upon per- suus,, , wxio, peing subpoenaed, had given testimony or. produced evidence, as witnesses, relating to any offense witn wmcn they were, or might , be cnargea. But Judge Humphrey's de cision is, in effect, that if either the commissioner of , corporations vdoes nis amy or the interstate commerce commission does "it," by making the investigations which they by law are leqmrea to make, though they issue no subpoena and receive no testf. mony, or evidence, "within the proper meaning of those words,' the very fact of the. investigation mav rr it- self operate, to prevent the, prosecu tion oi any offender ior any offense which -may have been develoned in even me most indirect manner dur ing the course of the investls-ntinn nr even for any offense which may have been detected by investigations con- ouctea ny uie department of justice, entirely independently of the lahnrs of the interstate commerce commis sion or of the commissioner of cor porations fha. rwl.F ntiIUtt. c I " ' " " ,J tv VIII T IUUU1I.IUU til - riii- munity being that the offender should have given, or directed to be given information which related to the sub ject out of which the offense, has grown. "In offense's of this kind, it is at he best hard enough to execute jus ice upon offenders. Our svstem rf criminal jurisprudence has descended to us from a period when the danger was lest the accused should not have ais right adequately preserved, and it is admirably framed to meet this danger, but at present the danger is just the reverse; that is, the danger nowadays is. not that inn men will be convicted of crime hut- that the guilty man will go scot free, inis is especially the case where the crime is one of greed and cunning, perpetrated by a man of wealth in the course of those business opera tions where the code of conduct is at variance, not merely with the code of humanity and morality, but with the code as established in the law nf tne land. It is much easier hut much less effective, to proceed against a coiporauon man to preceed against the individuals in that, rnrnnratinn who are themselves responsible for me wrong-aoings. "Very naturally outsidA nernnc who have no knowledge of the facts and no responsibility ior the success of the proceedings are apt to clamor ior action against the individuals. The department of iustice has mnot wisely invariably refused thus to pro ceed against individuals unless it was convinced both that they were In fact gumy ana tnat tnere was at least a reasonaoie chance of establishing this tact oi tneir guilt. These beef pack ing cases offered one of the verv fn instances where there was not only the moral certainty that the accused men were guilty, but what seemed ana now seems sufficient legal evi dence of the fact. ."But in obedience to the 'explicit order of the congress the commis sioner of corporations had invecH. gated the beef -packing business. The counsel for the beef packers explicitly admitted that there was no rlflim ihnt any promise of immunity had been given by Mr. Garfield, as shown by the following colloauv durin? the argument of the attorney sen era i '-Mr. Moody: I dismiss almost with a word the claim that Mr. Gar field promised immunity. ; Whether there is any evidence of such a prom ise or not, I do not know, and I do not care.' - "'Mr. Miller (the counsel for the beef packers): There Is no claim to it.' "'Mr. Moody: Then I was mistaken and I will not even, say that word.' "But Judge Humphrey holds that if the commissioner of corporations, and therefore if the interstate com merce commission In the course of any investigation prescribed by con gress asks any questions of a person not called as a witness, or asks any questions of an officer of a corpora tion not called as a witness . with regard to the action of the corpora tion on a subject out-of which prose cutions may subsequently arise,, then the fact of such questions having been asked operates as a bar to the prosecution of that person or of that officer of the corporation for his own misdeeds. Such interpretation of the law comes measurably near making the law a farce; - and I therefore recommend that the congress pass a declaratory act stating its real inten tion. ": "THEODORE ROOSEVELT, "The White House, April .17, 1906." CHINATOWN 'WIPED- OUT This Abode of Abomination More . Ex tensive Than, Before Known. Los Angeles, Calif. "Stranee is the scene where - San Francisco's Chinatown stood," says W. W. Over ton, who reached Los Angeles todav among the refugees. "No heap of smoking rums marks the site of . the wooden warrens where the slant-eved men of the orient dwelt in thousands. the place is pitted with-deep holes and seared with dark passageways, from whose depths come smoke wreaths. All the wood has srone and the winds are streaking the ashes. aien, wnite men. never knew the depth of Chinatown's underground city," says Mr. Overton. "They often talked of these subterranean runwavs and many of them had gone beneath tne street levels, two and three stories But now that Chinatown has been un masked, for the destroyed "buildings were only a mask, men from the hill side have looked on where were its inner secrets. In places they can see passages a hundred feet deep. "The fire swept the Mongolian sec tion clean. It left no shred of the painted wooden fabric. It ate down to the bare ground and this lies stark, for the breezes have taken away the light ashes. Joss hour.es and mission schools, grocery stores - and opium dens, gambling hells and theaters all of them went. -The buildings blazed up like tissue naner lanterns. used when the guttering candles touched their sides. "From this place I followed the fire and saw hundreds of fright-crazed yel low men flee. In their arms they bore their opium pipes, their money bags, their silks and their children. Beside them ran the baggy-trousered women, and some of them hobbled painfully. "But these were the men and women of the surface. Far beneath the street levels in those cellars and passage ways were other lives. Women who never saw the day from their darkened prisons, and blinking jailors were caught like rats in huge traps. Their very bones were eaten by the flames. "And now there remain only holes They pit the hillside like a multitude of ground swallow nests. They show aepms wmcn tne police never knew. The secret of those burrows will never be known, for into them the hnntvrv fire first sifted its red coals and then licked eagerly in tongues of creeping flames, finally obliteratine except the earth itself." . A Minister's Story A certain minister of Bane-or Me joined a fishing party of his friends for two weeks in a woods camp. Sun day morning some of the boys want ed to go fishing, and go away without being seen by the minister- hut- fellow,- slower than the rest, was caught by the minister jsut as he was setting up his rod. The fisher man made, excuses, and added. t suppose you would not care to go'" In answer the minister told the following story: "When I was set tled in the church .at Dixmont, in the first yea'-s of my - ministry, I was called out of bed one nieht tn a couple who had both been bereft oi tneir first partners by death. When I got to the place ;where. T nsL-eri h man if he took this woman to be his lawful wife, he exclaimed: 'Look a here, parson, what in dn Im here for? 'Boston Herald.