The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-09-01

Western State broke the binding twlne
trust by resorting TO this course for q
shcrt time.
The LAWYERS are the most conservative OF
men in all callings. They are not quick to
propose radical or drastic measures or
radical reforms. The fact that a com
mittee of distinguished lawyers unanl-
mously presented the able report and hat
Its reading was applauded by the mem
bers who heard it is most significant. 1t
| means that the most influential and most
learned of the professions is aroused to
the importance of checking the revolu-
, ton In laws and in business which the
trusts are making. There is no single
influence in the country that en- do so
much TO check monopoly If its member
to the trusts. The lawyers Will find
when they take the lead that the bulk
of the people are behind them. If the
Association commits itself to the policy
outlined in the report of the committee
on Commercial Law it viii be hailed
throughout the country as the greatest
service the bar has ever rendered TO JUS
tice III the history OF the United States.
OF course there was dissent to the re
port. 1t was first voiced by an attorney
of the Southern Railway trust. Fabius
H. Busbee, Esq, of Raleigh. An attorney
of the sugar trust and railroad trust at
- 1900 1-,,.4I Dno af 10~,
said the report filled him with amaze
mcnt, surprise and Indignation OF
course. These trust lawyers have sold
their service to monopolists to create the
illegal combination condemned. Their
speeches were on the key of Demetrius,
the silversmith- by this craft ye have
your wealth. Exactly. If the Bar AS
ISOLATION goes cunning for the trusts, it
goes cunning for lawyers who get big
salaries to tell the trust magnates how
to rob the people illegally and keep out
of jail. An able corporation lawyer IN
J New York recently said: Things have
changed. A few years ago my clients
would say to me I wish to do thus and
50. Can 1 do it legally?' would then give
! my legal opinion. Now they come
| and say, I have done thus and so. See
that 1 am not troubled. Lawyers who
appear for great corporations as for 9th
er clients are as honorable as men who
| appear for the humblest client, but law
! yers who devote their lives to inyenting
| rev evasions for illegal combinations-is
| it any wonder that they object when
great lawyers propose to end illegal com
binations? And is it any wonder that
lawyers getting their bread from trusts,
likewise cry out Great Is Diana of the
Ephesians'' for the space of many hours2
The report of the committee, with their
recommendations, ought to be given the
, widest circulation. We wish that every
, lawyers in America. who does not think
more Of the bread and butter he gets
from trusts than for justice and equality,
would exert his influence to secure the
reforms marked out.
A special from Hot Springs to the
Washington Post throws some additional
! light upon the discussion which the report
precipitated. We quote from it as follows:
CHOSE who have attended every session
of the American Bar Association for years
say they have never seen a warmer de-
+ bate in a convention of the body than was
: precipitated today by the report of the
COMMITTEE on Commercial Law, which de-
~nounced trusts in the most unmeasured
terms. 1t looked at one time as though
the convention would be treated to OK
pressions of personal feeling unseemly in
a deliberative body, to say the least.
THE report was signed by all five mem
bers of the committee, men from various
sections of the country. The committee
was most unsparing in denunciation of III
dustrial combinations, and the remedies
for alleged evils resulting from them were
of the most drastic character. They went
much further than those proposed by
Chief Justice Walter Clarke, of the SUI
preme Court of North Carolina. in the
paper which he read before the Virginia
Bar Association here last week, and which
shocked the more conservative Virginia
lawyers. 1t IS regarded as remarkable,
that at least two of the five members of
the committee which drafted the report
are what are generally known as corpora
ton lawyers.
The manner in which ex-senator
Charles F. Henderson, of Nebraska, began
the fight on the report was undoubtedly
responsible for much of the heat displayed
in the debate which followed. He was in
temperate in the language used in de-
nouncing the report, when he moved to
lay it on the table. He is counsel for the
Northern Pacific
Henry Clews says the recent slump in
stocks shows that the trust-building syn
dicates had overloaded the country with
Watered stock and there had to be a day
OF unloading. He says the stock market
las had forty per cent break in ten
months. Of this he thinks twenty-five
per cent justified as a reaction from an
excessive SIX years imitation and fifteen
per cent due to sandbagging the market.
He predicts a recovery Of the fifteen per
cent.