The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-06
LEAVE, ALL
 TRE TfREslDFS1 A. <anding Proposition as to Trusts. IT WILL PROBABLY PASS Nelson Amendment to Com
 merce Bill. By Its Provisions Executive Can Hold a Club Over the Trusts
 and Make Them Contribute
 to Campaign Fund.

W T cU. u.-AopSGldi.J~ LdJ he accepted as of the highest authority that the only antitrust legislation of the present Congress will be this paragraph from Senator Nelsons substitute for Sec merce and Labor bill which provides for a bureau of corporations with a Commis- sioner of Corporations namely:
 "Thelsaid Commissioner shall have pow CT and authority to make, under the di- rection of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. diligent investigation into the organization, conduct and management of the business of any corporation, joint stock company or corporate combination engaged in commerce among the several States and with foreign nations excepting common carriers subject to an act to regulate commerce. approved February 4, 1887, and to gather such information and data as will enable the President of the United States to make recommenda- tions to Congress for legislation for the regulation of such commerce and to re- port such data to the President from time to time as he shall require and the SO ODLhiucu UT dS HluCn tieTe- of as the President may direct shall be made public"
 Of Far-Reaching Effect.
 While this is all the trust legsa ton we are to have from this Congress, yet it is of most far-reaching importance.
 Indeed, 1t may be said to be revolution ary. in view of the tremendous and hith- erto undreamed of power it gives the President. in that 1t leaves at his sole dis cretion the ascertainment and publication of facts of vital public interest regarding the operation and policies of the trusts. It places within the absolute power of the President to hold up the trusts for political or other purposes. Under its terms he might, for example. get millions Of dollars for partisan campaign pur- poses from the Standard Oil Company alone and, all trusts considered. he might easily raise a hundred millions for his party campaign fund. a sum sufficient to defeat the will of three fourths of the American people In a Presidential cleo ton.
 This will not be accepted as even the remotest hint that MT. Roosevelt would make such use of such power. but 1t is meant to call the attention of the people to the vast danger that Is about to be placed over them. The boldness the rev. olutionary audacity of it all, Is beyond mere words to express. The bare men tion of it is sufficient to alarm every American who prizes his freedom, and this is the first newspaper reference to be made to the probability.
 Certainly no Democrat will vote to thus place the yoke of slavery upon the peo- pie. but the Republicans mean to enact this most tyrannical law.
 The Littlefield antitrust bill is dead; and antitrust bills arc dead. This sub stitute for Section of the House com merce and department bill alone comes out of all the fury against the iron shod despotism of the trusts and we had bet ter leave the trusts to rule us.
 There is a note tonight coming as straight as the crack of rife that Sen ator Hanna shows some little signs of hesitation to take this fatal pill com pounded by the Norwegian born Nelson and Insisted upon by the President.
 But this offers no real hope that its passage will be averted. The deadlock between the two houses on the com merce and labor department bill con- tinues. Today the President took the almost unprecedented step of summon ing to the White House for conference one of the opposing party.
 He sent for Congressman Richardson of Alabama. one of the Democratic conferees on the measure Senator Clay being the other.
 Senator Clay informed me tonight that the President had not sent for him and that he had not discussed the subject with the President.
 Congressman Richardson of Alabama naturally refuses to disclose the conver- sation which took place between himself and the President further than to say that the President confided to him his wishes in regard to the bill at issue without asking him for an expression of his views.
 Lucien Julien Walker.