Bisbee daily review., 1904-06-22

portation charges, which are the chief means by which the trusts crush ou, their smaller competitors.
 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 reg ulation. In separate suits fourteen of the great railroads of the country have been restrained by injunction from giving illegal rebates to the fla vored shippers. who by means of them were driving out the smaller shippers and monopolizing the grain The beef trust was put under injunc- tion. The officers of the railroads engaged in the cotton carrying pool. affecting all that great industry of the South, were indicted and have abandoned their combination. The Northern Securities Company which undertook by combining in one owner ship the capital stocks of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads. has been destroyed by a wig orous prosecution expedited and brought to a speedy and effective-con- clusion in the Supreme Court under the act of February 11th, 1908. The Attorney General says:
 Here. then. are four phases of the attack on the combinations in re- straint Of trade and commerce-the railroad injunction suits. the cotton pool cases. the beef trust cases, and the Northern Securities case. The first relates to the monopoly produced by secret and preferential rates for railroad transportation; the second to railroad traffic pooling; the third to a combination of independent corpora
 lions to fix and maintain extortionate prices of meats; and the fourth to a corporation to merge into itself the control of parallel and competing lines Of railroad and to eliminate com petition in their rates of transporta- tion.''
 The right of the Interstate Com nerce Commission to compel the pro puction of books and papers has been established by the judgment of the Supreme Court in a suit against the coal carrying roads. Other suits have been brought and other indictments have been found and other trusts have been driven back into legal bounds. No investment in lawful business has been jeOpardized. no fair and honest enterprise has been in- jured; but it is certain that where ever the constitutional power of the government reaches. trusts are being snr nf fr al lot DI s~A in lawful bounds as they never have been before. and the men of small cap ital are finding in the efficiency and skill of the national Department of Justice a protection they never had before against the crushing effect of unlawful combinations.
 We have at last reached a point where the public wealth of the farm land which has seemed so inexhausti pie is nearly gone. and the problem 7f utilizing the remainder for the build ing of new homes has become Of vital importance.
 The present administration has dealt with this proJ;ea vigorously sni effectively. Great areas had been unlawfully fenced ;n by men of large means and the home builder had been excluded Many of these un- lawful aggressors have been compell- ed 10 reliDguish their booty. and more than 2.000,000 acres Of land have been restored 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 in dicted and are now being actively pros ecuted. A competent commission has defective working of the existing laws and to suggest practical legislation to prevent further abuse. This commis- sion has reported, and bills adequate to accomplish the purpose have been framed and are before Congress. The further denundation of forest areas, producing alternate floods and dry ness in our valleys. has been checked by the extension of forest reserves. which have been brought to aggre- gate more than 63.000,000 acres Of land. The reclamation by irrigation Of the vast arid regions forming the chief part of our remaining public dO- main. has been provided for by the National Reclamation Law of June 11th. 1903. The execV ton of ais law. without taxa-ion and by the eD; lica- tion of the proceeds of public land sales alone. will make many millions of acres of fertile lands available for settlement. Over s20,000,000 from these sources have been already re 6e,ved to the credit of the reclama'icu fund. Over 33o0O,O ,O00 acres of pablic lands in fourteen Sta.as and Terri tories have been embra .sj in the siZ- ty-seven projects whi n have %ecu devised and are under examination and and on eight of these the work of actual construction has begun.
 The Postal Service has been ex- tended and improved. Its revenues have increased from 76.000 GOO in 1895 to s95O00. 900 in 1899, and s14i .000. 900 in 1904. In dealing with the vast sums. few cases of specula- tion. trifling in amount and by subordi- nate officers, have occurred there as they occur in every business. Neith- e. fear nor favor. nor political ol personal influence has availed to pro tect the wrongdOers. Their acts have been detected. investigated. laid