Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-08-22
TRUSTSARE IN CONTROL
Bureau of Corporations to Stave
OFF Evil Day For Them.
NOTHING DOING FOB TWO YEARS.

Under the Presidents Direction
''TactfuI" COrteIyOu VIII Be "Or-
ganizing" Until After Election OF
19O4-Then That Wonderful "Pub4
licity'' May Have an Inning.
If President Roosevelt is reelected
next year it will be simply and solely
because a majority of the voters sim
cerely believe that he is helping them
TO fight their battle with the trusts.
So Odious have the hundreds of pro-
tected trusts become, both in the eyes
Of consumers and investors, that no
man who openly favors them can hope
to be elected to any kind of public Of
fee. 1t is not strange, then, that Presi-
dent Roosevelt is seeking 10 have the
public believe that he is an enemy Of
all bad trusts, assuming that there are
some good ones.
But what did the president ever do to
really injure great corporations? Al
though he began political life as a
strenuous free trader, yet he recently,
under pressure from the Protective
Tariff league, Joined the stand patters,
and thus stands opposed to the most
certain way of curbing the trusts and
giving relief to the people-by reducing
the tariff duties. AS governor of New
York, he called an extra session of the
legislature to pass amendments to the
Ford bill to tax the franchises of the
public service corporations. The
amendments We're prepared by the cor
poration attorneys, and were intended
to make the act unconstitutional. The
courts have not yet, after four years of
lost time, fully decided the case. 1t
was the presidents voice that killed
the Littlefield antitrust bill in the last
congress and caused the passage of the
sham antitrust bills, the Elkins anti
rebate bill and the department of COM
merce bill, with its bureau of corpora
tons to give publicity to trusts.
The facts that are slowly coming to
! light in regard to this new bureau
should open the eyes of the voters TO
the real position of the president on the
! trust question. In discussing the
Present Statistical Outlook In Wash
| ington," the correspondent of the New
| York Journal of Commerce and Com
mercial Bulletin said on July % of this
new bureau:
THE work now laid out for this
bureau is of a really thorough type,
and if it is pursued with vigor on the
lines now suggested there will be
good deal of complaint in the near
future when the methods now cOntem-
plated are actually applied. Pressure
of the most strenuous sort will I'M
doubtedly be brought TO bear at the
White House. Just how soon the de-
partment will really begin to show its
hand in the matter of trust investiga-
ton cannot be certainly predicted, but
those who are in position to know say
II will not be until after the next presi-
Dental election. As matter of fact,
good deal of time is needed for the or
ganization of the work and for laying
out special lines of investigation. All
this will consume many months, and
Secretary Cortelyou is too tactful Il
man TO weaken his strategic position
by opening fire in presidential cam
paign If there should be any danger OF
hurting his party thereby. 1t will
therefore be good while before there
are any definite results Of the inquiries
of the bureau of corporations"
Is there anything in this statement
to brighten the trusts? Is it not clear
that this new bureau will give the
trusts two years more leeway-twO
years more license to squeeze the peO-
pie and extract money from their
pOckets-two years at S1.OO0,OO0.0O0 a
year? And what then? Publicity
That's all, and more than all, for it is
entirely optional with the president
whether any of the facts gathered by
this bureau are ever published or not.
But the facts. when published, are in
tended to serve only as a basis for
conservative" antitrust legislation
some time in the dim and distant
| future.
Is President Roosevelt fighting the
trusts? He is their best friend. BE,
as no other living man, knows how
to tickle them and at the same time
make the multitude, who sees his fierce
face and vigorous gestures, believe that
| he is mauling the life out of them
The trusts have great need of just such
man at this juncture to save them
| fro N the wrath of an outraged people.
| 1t is q part of their game that Wall
street and the trusts are to be against
Roosevelt this year. Next year, when
the campaign is on, it will be found
that the G. o. p. is getting financial
support from its old time friends, the
trusts.-Byron w. Holt.