The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-03-22
A REsPEcTER OF PERSONS.

eral Knox, Immediately following the
decision in the Northern Securities
case, that the government had no idea
of running amuck" among the trusts
and combinations of the country has
been elaborated and made more explicit
of late. 1t has been found necessary
by the administration to give out fiat
the announcement that the president
and the attorney general ''have no idea
of bringing any further prosecutions at
present"
Mr.. Roosevelt and Mr.. Knox have
chosen upon which horn of the dilemma
they shall be impaled. They have de-
clared up till now that the administra-
ton had gone to the limit of its power.
When asked why they did not proceed
with equal alacrity against other great
combinations, they were ready with the
reply that this would be futile until a
test case had been decided. No other
action need be commenced, they said,
until the courts had determined wheth-
err the government had authority in the
premises under the law. Thus they
obtained credit for the highest inten-
tons in trust-busting, without being
obliged to offend great interests whose
hostility they fear to invite.
04 i, Ioc
changed absolutely the situation. It
has said to the president and the at
torney general ego ahead" In your
hands has been lodged all the power
that the constitution and the laws can
confer. In the regulation and repres-
sion of all corporate action involving
directly or indirectly the limiting Of
competition and the restraint of trade,
you are supreme. Your hands are not
fettered. Every such restraint, under
the Sherman anti trust act, you can
destroy. Even the ownership of prop
erty is contingent upon the avoidance
by it's owner of joint interest in COM
peting concerns. We have not only cut
down the forest, but cleared away the
underbrush and smoothed and rolled
an even path before your feet. Go
forward until the last vestige of the
trust has been swept from the United
States into the sea.
MONA o,,,1aI 4I,o,o +Iic oo11IT
have happened to the administration.
It foresaW at once shipWreck on either
hand. If it proceeded to use the power
which the supreme court had given it
and to follow the directions laid down
in that decision, it would Immediately
throw the business of the country into
condition of frightful chaos. 1t would
render it's own defeat certain. There is
not great railway systematic Penn
sylvania, the New York Central, the
Boston & Maine, the Union Pacific or
any of the Southern systems-that it
would not shatter at a blow and re-
solve into their constituent elements.
The coal trust would vanish like
smoke before it, and every user of an
thracite fuel in this country bless the
day. The great paper trust would fall.
Only month ago the associated pub
fishers of the United States, assembled
in convention in New York city, unani-
mously passed resolution calling upon
the president and the attorney general
to take action against this oppress-
i've combination in accordance with
their declared policy. What ex-
cuse now for deafness or refusal
to obey? The beef combine, that
makes cattle cheap and improbable to
the ranchman and meat expensive to
the consumer, would have to fall. The
Standard Oil company would at last
meet it's master under direct action by
the United States government. There
is strictly no limit to the power to
concern is engaged in interstate COM
nerce and either has the power, or
tends by its operation directly or in
directly to lessen competition and to
restrain trade.
The administration dare not be true
to Its own promises and acts. It shrinks
and covers before the phantom that 1t
itself has evoked. It has no courage to
take up the cudgel placed in its hand
by the supreme court and WELD it
against single real trust or combina-
ton. Having secured a declaration
that a union of interests, which is uni
versally and unanimously agreed to
have been a helpful influence over half
this continent, to have encouraged set
Element, benefited the consumer, in
creased business and created splendid
new markets for our trade, is Illegal, 1t
skulks into a corner and hides it's face
in shaking, cowardIy hands before the
apparition Of the real trusts and mo-
nopolies that dare it to come on.
Before the American people this thing