The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1904-06-21


nual burden of over one hundred mil
lion dollars; and the further accumu-
lation of a surplus which was con-
stantly Withdrawing the money of the
country from circulation has been pre-
vented by the reduction of taxation.
Between the 30th of June, 1900, and
the first of June, 1904, our treasury de-
partment collected in revenues the
enormous sum of So, 203, 000. 900 and ex-
pended $2,02S, 600, 900. leaving us with
surplus of over $170,000,000 after
paying the $50,000.000 for the Panama
canal and loaning S4,600.000 to the st.
Louis exposition. Excluding those two
extraordinary payments, which are in
vestments from past surplus and not
expenditures of current income, the
surplus for this year will be the rea-
sonable amount of about $12,000,000.
AT every election, the regulation of
trusts had been the football of cam
paign oratory and the subject of many
insincere declarations.
Our republican administration has
taken up the subject in a practical,
sensible way as business rather than
a political question, saying what it re-
ally meant, and doing what lay at its
hand to be done to accomplish effect
i've regulation.
The attorney general has gone on In
the same practical way, not to talk
about the trusts, but to proceed against
the trusts by law for their regulation.
In separate suits fourteen of the great
railroads of the country have been re-
strained by injunction from giving IL
legal rebates to the favored shippers,
who by means of them were driving
out the smaller shippers and monopo-
lizing the grain and meat business of
the country. The beef trust was put
under injunction. The officers of the
railroads engaged in the cotton carry
ing pool, affecting all that great in
dustry of the South, were indicted and
have abandoned their combination.
The Northern Securities company
which undertook by combining in one
ownership the capital stocks of the
Northern Pacific and Great Northern
railroads to end traffic competition in
the Northwest, has been destroyed by
vigorous prosecution expedited and
brought to a speedy and effective con-
clusion in the supreme court under the
act of February II, 1903.
The right of the Interstate Com
merce Commission to compel the pro-
duction of books and papers has been
established by the Judgment of the
supreme court in suit against the
lie yiYff5 ha
been brought and other indictments
have been found and other trusts have
been driven back within legal bounds.
No investment in lawful business has
been jeopardiZed, no fair and honest
enterprise has been injured; but 1t is
certain that wherever the constitution
al power of the national government
reaches, trusts are being practically
regulated and curbed within lawful
bounds as they never have been before
and the men of small capital are find
ing In the efficiency and skill of the
national department of justice a pro-
lection they never had before against
the crushing effect of unlawful com
binations.
We have at last reached a point
where the public wealth of farm land
which has seemed so inexhaustible
is nearly gone, and the problem of
utilizing the remainder for the build
ing of new homes has become of vital
Importance.
dealt with this problem vigorously
and effectively. Great areas had been
unlawfully fenced in by men of large
means, and the home-builder had been
excluded. Many of these unlawful ag-
gressors have been compelled to re-
linquish their booty and more than g.
100000 acres of land have been re-
stored to the public. Extensive frauds
in procuring grants of land, not for
'homesteads but for speculation have
been investigated and stopped, and
the perpetrators have been indicted
and are being actively prosecuted.
The postal service has been extend
ed and improved. It's revenues have in
creased from $76,000,000 in 1895 to
$95 100000 in 1899, and $4,000, 900
in 1904. In dealing with these vast
sums, a few cases of peculation, trif-
ling in amount and by subordinate Of
ficers, have occurred there as they oc-
cur in every business. Neither fear
nor favor, nor political or personal
influence has availed to protect the
wrongdoers. Their acts have been de-
tected, investigated, laid bare; they
have been dismissed from their places,
prosecuted criminally, indicted, many
of them tried, and many of them con
victed. The abuses in the carriage of
second-class mail matter have been