Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1903 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

Republican Trust-Busters. A great deal of rubbish has appeared In print about the anti trust legislation that Congress has been engaged upon, most of It being Intended to befog the | minds of the voters Instead of enlightening them on what has been and is Intended to be accomplished toward controlling the trusts. There has been a conflict between the Senate and House on the measures that should be enacted and the Senate has won, as all the legislation on the trust Issue that has been passed or will be enacted by this Congress are Senate .bills. That is ominous of how little the new laws will really do against the trusts, for it is conceded that the publican leaders In the Senate are nil under obligations to combines and corporations, and are therefore unlikely to pass laws that will Injure their friends. Some weeks ago the trust attorneys visited Washington and conferred with the administration trust-busters, and the legislation that has so far passed and Is proposed to pass Congress Is the result of this consultation between the trust attorneys and the Republican leaders. The legislation is as follows: An amendment to the bill creating the Department of Commerce, which provides there shall be a bureau of corporations which shall Investigate the combines — except the railroads—and slinll “report to tho President from lime to time, as he shall require; and the information so obtained, e>r as mueh thereof as the President may direct, shall be made public.” Also to publish “useful information concerning corporations” as shall engage in Interstate commerce. These are the fpmous “publicity” provisions upon which the President has set so much store. Yet the only publicity required by this law is to publish “useful Information," or as much information as the President may direct. That publicity will be useless may be known by tho three years’ efforts In that line by the Industrial Commission, which published nineteen large volumes containing an enormous mass of facts about trusts and corporations, yet no law has ever been based upon these facts, and the trusts have increased and multiplied since the publication of this Information. The Interstate Commerce Commission has likewise Investigated and published all the facts about the railroads for sixteen years, but it has nover curbed their rapacity nor prevented the public from Investing in their watered stock. Publicity may even do harm by publishing “useful information” that the trusts want to have made public. The statistical bureau of tho various departments of the Government have for many years been publishing “useful information” that has been a prop and aid to the continuance of the protective tariff, and in fact has persistently rejected all that would expose Its enormity and fallacies. So much for publicity. The next law on the program is to advance trust suits iu the courts. 'This Is Attorney General Knox's particular pet and is certainly needed, for the suits against the beef trust and the railroad merger have been dragging along since last spring, and are still In their Initial stages. But it will require more than a law to advance trust suits. The great necessity la an Attorney General who is a real trust-buster; but so far, no Republican President has appointed such an one. Indeed, Mr. Knox, himself was attorney for the Carnegie Steel Corporation, and can hardly be expected to expedite the law against his friends. Mr. Knox complained that he had not been furnished with sufficient funds to adequately fight the trusts, so the Democrats have forced an amendment to the legislative and judicial appropriation bill giving him $500,000 for that purpose. This bill has been hanging Are in conference for some weeks, perhaps because of this amendment not being looked upon with favor by the Republican conferees. The last and the most extraordinary trust-busting bill is the one to prevent rebates by railroads, which Senator Elkins Is sponsor for. It Is not intended that this bill shall hurt the corporations; It was probably drawn after consultations with railroad attorneys, and Senator Elkins, being a corporation man himself and noted as a friend of the combines, is hardly likely to have pushed a bill through to take money out of the coffers of the great railroad mergers. The bill contains a clause repealing the criminal clause of the Interstate commerce act, and that alone would lndicute that the railroads and combines fnvored It, for they evidently fear that an administration who would enforce this provision''may be elected In 1004. This they do not mind, but Imprisonment would be unbearable to a trust or corporation magnate. AH this shows that the so-called antitrust legislation is a farce enacted to again fool the people by trying to make them believe that the Republicans aro trust-busters. Who Ha* Held Up the People? The strike commission has permitted the operators to present testimony against the miners and has delivered Incidental lectures to the miners on the subject of their responsibility to the public and their duty to mine all the coal possible. The miners deny that they have limited the output of the mines and assert that the operators

have done so. Fair play demands that the miners have their opportunity to question the men at the head of the coal combine. Whether the miners have been misrepresented is a question of minor Importance, however, compared with the right of the public to know svlio has been working the holdup game in the coal market.-—Philadel-phia North American. How I» Thi* for Conservatism? It was no obscure member sitting down away back that bobbed up In the House at Washington and proposed thnt Uncle Sam “take possession of all coal, coal beds and coal mines In the United States and all lines of transportation, agencies, Instruments and vehicles of commerce necessary for the transportation of coal.” It was the Republican chairman of the House judiciary committee who proposed all that. It was a man chosen for ills supposed cool-headedness, conservatism | and respect for the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof as head of the most conservative committee of the House. It was a man chosen by the Speaker ! of the House, who is supposed to stand very near the head of the Republican party of the country—the party which denounced and hooted and Jeered the expropriation plank of the New York Democratic platform last fall —the plank which the Democratic nominee for Governor of that State made haste j to repudiate. It was John J. Jenkins of Wiseon- ! sin, a Republican supposed to stand at about the farthest remove from revolutionary socialism, who proposed to distance the New York Hill platform and give the country a tremendous send-off in the direction of State socialism. What has happened to the Republican party lately'/ it looks a good deal like a panic and a general run for the tall timber. —■ Chicago Chronicle. An Expensive President. President has expensive tastes; he entertains more than any of his predecessors. Every week during the season there hnve been two or more entertainments, dinners, receptions, musicales, tens—pink and red. The renovating of the White House, just completed, cost $475,445; the original cost was less than SIOO,OOO. How this large sum lias been expended is hard to say, but It has nearli' all been spent on the inside decorations. The running expenses for this year were $40,000; there is appropriated for next year $80,500. The lighting of the White House and grounds .post- this year $17,180, next yenr It will be $24,030. When the Items of these expenditures ace published It will be interesting to know how it was expended. The less than two years of the present administration has so far cost more than a whole term of any other President.

Roosevelt and the Trusts. President Roosevelt’s opposition to removal of a tariff protection from the trusts, as stated by him during the recent campaign, was on the ground that small industries competing with the trusts might suffer. But the present Democratic proposition entirely meets and obviates thnt objection because It places the power to determine public necessity and the discretion to act entirely In the President’s hands, whereby danger to small Industries or to any other Innocent Interests could be avoided.—St. Paul Globe. Not Afraid of Roosevelt. New Jersey's Governor defends the big brood of trusts within that State, attacking Roosevelt ns n demagogue who needlessly alarms the people by questioning the power of the nation to deal adequately with Its own. Of course New Jersey should fight for Its wards, but the Governor's premise Is wholly wrong—Roosevelt has never alarmed anybody, even the trusts themselves, by his recommendations.— St. Louis Republic. A Peculiar Financial Policy. The established policy of the Republican party Is to tax the people more than Is necessary In order to create a surplus to lend to the banks without interest, so that the people can borrow It back by paying Interest. This Is financßrlng, and Is the result long ago predicted In theae columns of the mas* ter workings of the Republican financiers.—Cincinnati Enquirer.

Oliver Twist —Wants more.