Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1903-09-03
TRUSTSARE IN CONTROL
Bureau Of Corporations to Stave
Off Evil Day For Them.
NOTHING DOING FOR TWO YEARS.

| Under the Presidents Direction
gnnizinE" Untn After Election of
IoO4-Then That Wonderful Cub
lefty" May Have an Inning.
II President Roosevelt Is reelected
next year 1t will be simply and solely
| because n majority of the voters sin
cerely believe that he is helping them
! TO fight their battle with the trusts.
| SO odous have the hundreds of pro
| tcctcd 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
flee. 1t Is not strange, then, that Presi-
dent Roosevelt Is seeking to have the
public believe that he Is an enemy Of
all bad trusts, assuming that there are
some good ones.
really injure great corporationsf 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
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 were 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 Iittefcld 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
mercc 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:
"rhc work now laid out for this
bureau is of really thorough type.
and IL 1t Is pursued with vigor on the
lines now suggested there Will be
good deal of complaint In the near
future when the methods now contcm-
plated are actually applied. Pressure
of the most strenuous sort will I'M
doubleday be brought to bear ut the
White House. Just how soon the de-
partmcnt will really begin to show its
hand In the matter of trust lnvcstiga-
ton cannot be certainly predicted, but
those who are In Il position to know say
II will not be until after the next prcsl-
dental election. As II matter of fact, Il
good deal of time Is needed for the OF
ganizntlon of the work and for laying
out special lines of investigation All
this will consume many months, and
Secretary Cotclyuu Is too tactful a
man to weaken his strategic position
by opening fire IN, presidential cam
paign IL there should be any danger of
hurting his party thereby. 1t VIII
therefore bc Il 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? Ia It not clear
that this new bureau will give the
trusts two years more lcewny two
years more license To squeeze the pco-
pie aud extract money from their
pockets two years ut $l,00o,o0O,oOO Il
year? And what then? Publicity.
That's NIL, and more than NIL, for 1t is
entirely optional with the president
whether any Of the facts gathered Ivy
this bureau are ever published or not
But the facts, when published, are in
tended 70 serve only ms n basis for
conservative" antitrust legislation
some time in the dim and distant
future
IN lNNlNt'hl lNbbNNNtil hbllllIS VIC
trusts? lie is their hest friend He
NJ no other living man, knows how
TO tickle them and ut 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 ut this juncturc 10 save them
4, a
1t is n part OF their game that Wall
street and the trusts are to hr against
Roosevelt this year. Next year when
the campaign is on, II will he found
that the @. a. l.. Is getting financial
support from its old time friends, the
trusts, Byron w. Holt