The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1903-04-02
National Politics.


Especial Correspondence of The Comet)
Washington, ID. c., March 30, 1003.-
The list of 800 trusts recently pub
lished in the Congressional Record by
the Hon. Chas. e. Littletield, of Maine,
the redoubtable trust buster from the
Pine Tree State, and which was COM
piled for him by Claude Bennett, man
ager of the Congressional Information
Bureau of this city, must have hit the
trusts swat on the nose that they felt.
The NewYork Sun, which is the recog-
nized organ of Pierpont Morgan and
the trusts generally, has been letting
out howl about this list that reverber-
ates from Tadmor in the Wilderness to
Yuba Dam. The Sun could not deny
the accuracy of the list and the only
defense 1t could make was to make fun
of the (" butterfly" signature of the
honorable gentleman from Maine. The
list is accurate and is worth having and
preserving. Mr.. Bennett did lot of
work last fall for the Democratic Con-
gressional Committee and | know that
his work is well and cal efully done
Write to him and get copy.
The trusts are beginning to find out
that the people are on to them and
their methods and they are up against
the real thing. The decision of the
Missouri supreme court last week has
attracted much attention here in all
circles and has been the subject of dis
cussion as to it's probable effect on
trusts. 1t seems to be the consensus
of democratic opinion here that while
the Missouri decision shows the earn
estness of the democratic states ID the
matter of curbing the trusts, yet it
shows conclusively that state legisla-
ton can never furnish the remedy for
trust control and for trust extermina-
ton. The members of the beef trust
will simply pay their $4,000 fine to the
state of Missouri and proceed to the
robbery of the people as before. The
democrats here feel that the only way
to control beef combine is to take the
tariff off cattle and then put the clamps
down so that railroad discrimination in
freight rates will be an impossibility.
The railroad trust must be killed be-
fore the beef combine or the oil trust
and lot of other trusts can be handled.
1t is also felt that the democratic con-
tention in the tariff debate in the next
congress, which is sure to come, will
be to remove the tariff from those arti-
Giles controlled by the trusts and not
enter into q general revision of the tar
if, which might disturb The business
conditions of the country. OF course,
those tariff schedules will never be
touched so long as there is republican
congress and republican administra-
ton, but if the people see that the
democrats do not intend to tear things
all to cussed smash, bnt to proceed
conservatively about this business and
swat only those trusts that are gouging
the people the hardest, there will be no
republican congress and no republican
administration after the 4th of March,
1905. 1t is felt here that that is to be
the democratic battle cry in the next
campaign and is going to win
Democratic "harmony" dinners are
coming to be regarded as quite the
proper means of bringing together the
hitherto discordant factions of the par
ty, and uniting them in an effort to pre-
sent a solid front to the political enemy
in the next campaign. The recent
harmony" dinner at the Iroquois Club
in Chicago passed off and was the oc-
casion of several good speeches by men
like Hon. Edward M. Shepard, of New
York, and Hon. David A. DeArmond,
of Missouri, aud an excellent letter
from Hon. William Randolph Hearst,
OF New York. Another rich dinner is
now being arranged for by the Demo
cratic Club of Brooklyn, New York,
and it is said that the wine and the or
atory will be uncorked some time next
month. All the eminent leaders of the
party are expected to be there and lend
their presence in the interest of thar
mony" in the party. These leaders are
not expected to do any of the talking at
this banquet They are expected to do
the listening and the talking will be
done by the younger members of the
party from different sections of the
country and who are prominent in the