Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1902-05-16
KNOX NOT IN EARNEST
ATTORN EY-GE NERAL'S MOVE
AGAINST BEEF TRUST A BLUFF.
He Has Been Too Long q Corporation
Lawyer, Identified with the Trusts, to
Turn Against Them Now-President
Roossvelt's Position.

Some days ago the president direc-
ted the attorney general to look into
the case of the alleged beef trust.
Mr.. Knox looked and saw some
| thing. What he saw was good
chance to make bluff at fighting a
trust under the Sherman law. When
he saw II he ordered United States
District Attorney Bethea to bring suit
in the United States circuit court in
Chicago to enjoin the packers from
continuing their alleged combination
in restraint of trade.
Mr.. Knox is said to be convinced,
after looking into the matter as direc-
ted, not only that the injunction pro-
ceedings will be successful, but that
there is ground for criminal prosecu-
ton under the Sherman act, and so
the atmosphere is to be rent by the
lightnings of aroused justice. Is it?
Before we say yes too confidently let
us remember who Mr.. Knox is and
from what school he graduated into
the Office of attorney general of the
United States.
When Republican administration
wanted successor to Mr.. Griggs of
the premier trust state of New Jersey
Mr.. Knox was discovered in Pittsburg
in the state of Pennsylvania, which in
the matter of practical benefits is the
premier trust city of the country.
Mr.. Knox had good deal of expert
ence and picked up a number of prac
teal points in the school of Andrew
Carnegie. He is known to have had
good deal to do with engineering the
greatest of the industrial combines
the steel combine to which his client,
Mr.. Carnegie, has contributed so
much, and out of which the latter
emerged with what ]. Pierpont Nor
gan, who is pretty well posted in such
matters, has called the largest private
fortune in the world.
1t has been said that Mr.. Knox was
never an attorney for trust; that
may be true. But it is quite as true
that Mr. Knox was around when the
monster steel trust was created, and
WAS Tie dllOIucy lOl IliC SAiSI pCAOh
ciary of that organization.
With this in mind he must have
something of that faith which moves
mountains who believes that legal
proceedings instituted by such an at
torney general against trusts will ever
result adversely to the trusts II he can
prevent it. When we see battle put
up between the steel trust and the beef
trust or any other trust of any mag
nitude we may surmise that 1t is
sham battle without being in much
DANGER of error. There may be tre-
mendous banging Of legal guns, but
nobody will be hurt.
Is the late attorney for Andrew
Carnegie going to show how the Sher-
man law can be successfully applied
to the extinction of the beef trust, as
Stunning for the moment that such
thing is possible? Not so long as 1t
can be applied in the same manner to
the extinction Of the steel trust. NO,
nor so long as the party which he
serves is dependent on the trusts for
the supplies without which it cannot
carry on political campaigns.
When the administration gives evil
dence that it Is willing to have the
tariff taxes, which shield the beef
trust and most of the other trusts, re-
pealed we may be prepared to believe
it is in earnest in its furiously virtu-
GUS onslaught upon the beef trust in
the courts. No evidence Of that has
yet appeared. So far from that Mr..
Roosevelt has distinctly declared him
self opposed to any lowering OF the
duties which shield the extortionate
trusts.
-