The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-02-21
THE POLITICS OF 1T.

me announcement of Attorney General
Knox that he intends to file a bill in
equity against the Northern Securities
company and the other interested per-
sons and corporations may be declared
under all the circumstances to be most
extraordinary. Announced on the eye of
the reconyening of the supreme court,
and while the decision on the appIica-
ton of the attorney general of AGinneso-
ia and the counsel for the 800 railroad
corporation was as yet at least publicly
unknown. and might at any time be an
nounced, there is revealed in the ac-
ton of the federal attorney general the
ear marks of presidential politics.
Should the supreme court decide the
application pending before it favorably
to the applicant, and direct that the pro-
ceedings in such suit should be COM
menced, there will be revealed the re-
markable situation of two actions being
| maintained at the same time, one in the
supreme court and one in a circuit court,
perhaps in this federal district, looking
to the accomplishment of the same erid
It is hard to believe that President
| Roosevelt has lent himself to the politi-
cal trickery that is plainly revealed here.
If the attorney general has taken all
this time to determine the question
| whether the organization of the North
ern Securities company is in violation
Of the Sherman act, he cannot have
given very serious attention to the ques-
tion or else it is a question about which
he must have had much doubt II he
has reached his decision only after hay
ing extra official information as to the
forthcoming action of the supreme court
| on the question now pending before it,
there is revealed in his conduct an abuse
of o1icial knowledge which certainly is
not fitting to have occurred in the Ameri-
can department of justice. In any event,
indecency not to have awaited the deci-
sion of the supreme court in a proceed
ing in which precisely the same issue
is involved which Attorney General Knox
| declares he proposes to have settled
through his bill in equity.
When the attorney for the $500 rail-
road and the representative of the law de-
partment Of the state of Minnesota were
in Washington, it was given out tina. they
were in consultation with the president,
and that he. in turn, had put himself in
communication with the attorney general
of the United States. All the four gentle
men engaged in that interesting combina-
ton are active Republican ponticians.
How did it happen then that they were
propriety of the course now outlined?
''Some time ago." says Attorney General
Knox. He might, with much more at
tachment to strictness of statement have
said, "a long time ago." the president
had asked him for an opinion.
Such an opinion could have been render
ed in half day, and would have been, if
the attorney general believed then what
he now says he believes as to the right
course to pursue. The exigencies of pol
itics are often very pressing; and this is
one Of the cases evidently wnere they
have been found to be such by the attor-
ney general of the United States and GER
tain other Republican lawyers and poll
ticians interested in the campaign against
the Northern Securities company.