The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-10
JUST SCHEME
 OF THE TRUSTS New 1heegye Rockefeller
 lss ,legram. e -SON MEANS NO HARM
-SoN MEANS NO HARN
His Publicity. Plan Doesn't
 Frighten the Combines.
Presidents Threat to Call an Extra Session Designed to Hasten
 Action of the Department
 of Commerce Bill.

| farce of referring the Iittleheid House antitrust bill to the Senate Commerce Committee took place today. and so we are one day nearer the final fate or tha' measure and the enactment of the com merce Department law embodying the Nelson provision that the President snail have autocratic powers in respect to puo- | licity as to the business of any one of or all the trusts, thus placing 1t within the Presidential will to at any time call across the trusts for millions of money for partisan or other purposes.
 There seems certain the enactment of a law that will give to the President infi- nitely greater actual power than is pos sessed by any other ruler of Christen- dom, save only the Czar and the worse fear of it all is that the Nelson proposi- | ton is said to be constitutional An Illustration.
 l To bring the issue home to our own people, let it be imagined that the Gov l.ernor of Alabama or any other State were empowered to send his secret agents to ascertain the private business details of | every corporation, financial, mercantile or otherwise, in the State or doing busi- ness in the State, and that, having ob- | tained all the business secrets Of such | corporations, he had the power to With hold to himself or officially publish to the world in part or in whole these secret business facts as he willed, and suppose that at some future time dishonest or an immorally designing man should be chosen Governor. This is precisely the condition in which the whole nation will be placed if the Nelson proposition be- comes law.
 Whether Rockefeller sent the now noto- rious telegrams to Senators pleading in effort against the Nelson substitute for clause six in the House Commerce De- partment bill or whether that was a TO- nance fashioned in the brain of a re- | sponsible or irresponsible supporter of the Presidents plan for his own aggran- dizement, which the Nelson substitute amounts to in plain words is of little real moment.
 Judge Richardson's View.
 Congressman Richardson of Alabama, a member of the House Commerce Com mittee and conferee from the House on the disagreeing votes of the two houses to create the Department of Commerce, | to which the Senate would add the Nelson l substitute, declared tonight that this pro- vision was the ultradilution of antitrust legislation, and that for that reason it is favored by the trusts, and that they are likely to succeed In having it enacted
 For the purpose of deceiving the public and making simpletons of certain mem bers of Congress Judge Richardson says, the trusts. headed by Rockefeller were seeking to create the impression that they were opposed to the Nelson substitute l while in point of fact the trusts were determined to have the Nelson provision 1 enacted as the sole antitrust legisla ton of thep resent Congress
 According to his view, the alleged tele- grams from Rockefeller and the Presi- dents yelled threats of an extra session of Congress were all mere bluffing meant to deceive the public as to the designs of 1 the President and the trusts. With the Nelson plan made law. the trusts. like Dingleyism, will remain in "the hands of their friends and multitudes of the American people will thereby be openly | deceived.
 Colonel Bankhead's Idea. | Congressman Bankhead who has given | the matter the closest and most pains | taking study, declared he had no excuse for doubting that all this fuss and feathers about the trusts opposing the Nelson substitute for Section of the | House Commerce Department bill, which gives the President an autocratic powers and the Presidents constant plea for something real in legislation against the trusts" amounted simply to con- certed plan on the part of the trusts sanctioned by the President to prevent any legislation whatever that would ef- | fectually control the trust evil The ap- parent opposition to the Nelson scheme was all humbug. he said. The trusts and the President alike were engaged In the old time trick of trying to throw dust in the eyes of the people.
 He believes that Nelson plan will be- come law, outrageous law which will place in the hands of the President a power to protect the trusts and to use them for partisan ends that would he dangerous in any country and almost fa- tai in this republic, whose President is necessarily a partisan. no matter whom | he be individually.
 Should Be Compulsory.
 He maintains that publicity of ascer- | tained facts should be made compulsory upon the President.
 Colonel Bankhead looks upon this pros pective legislation as being one of the gravest departures from our principles of | government ever yet undertaken. And it may be stated that these views of the two Alabama Congressmen. one of whom is actively engaged as conferee in try ing to defeat the Nelson plan, are shared by all Democrats in Congress and by the general public here.
 The apparent opposition of the trusts | and the pleadings of the President for real legislation against the trusts are laughed at as constituting one of the most ridiculous and whimsical farces ever played on the national stage
 | Venezuela.
 The fat is in the fire again in the hot kitchen of the Venezuelan question. While Germany's twelfth hour demands seem so unreasonable as not to be grantaB1e, 1t Is beginning to appear that Minister Bowen has to some extent lost | sight of the prime necessity of diplo-