The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1905-08-16
WINNING PUBLIC SERVANTS
GREAT CORPORATIONS PICK MEN
TRAINED BY UNCLE SAM.
Attention Is Being Drawn to Large
Number of Government Officials
Bought Away by the Trusts.

Assistant Attorney General w. A.
Day was receiving $1,000 from the
United States, and he resigned that
post to accept the comprehensive of
the Equitable Life Assurance Society,
which did carry a salary of s35, 900,
| and which will doubtless pay him near
ly $4,000. He resigns, too, in the
midst of the governments prosecution
of the beef trust, which was in his spe-~
cial charge. 1t would seem, therefore,
that he had deserted the government
at a critical moment, attracted By
mere lucre," and the question is
rather pertinently raised at Washing
ton whether he does not merit
schathing rebuke as we'll as Engineer
Wallace.
Attention is being drawn by this
case to the large number of govern
ment officials who are being bought
away by trusts and insurance
concerns and similar interests by the
offer of higher salaries, and one of
the Washington dispatches raises the
question whether there is not more or
less method or concert in the move
ment-whether, in fact, the trusts and
combinations of capital are not try
ing to cripple the governments anti
trust efforts. The Panama canal
threatens the transcontinental roads,
and Engineer Wallace is bought off
James NJ. Beck Is active in trust pros
ecutiOns as an assistant attorney gen.
eral of the United States, and left to
take large salary as counsel for one
of the big life insurance companies,
from which position he is now singing
the praises of the rich and of money
getting. Attorney General Knox, who
prosecuted the Northern Securities
case, resigned after a conference with
the Pennsylvania railroad and related
interests, and is now lodged in the
| senate Robert B. Armstrong, as
| sistant secretary of the treasury, after
a contest with the tobacco trust, was
lured away into lucrative office in
another insurance company. Paul
/ Morton 5 is another case mentioned as
being in point, but it seems rather to
make against the theory promulgated,
for surely no trust was looking for
harm from his presence in the cabi~
! net.
The notion advanced is triAe fan
ciful. but the plain fact remains that
the large aggregations of capital are
not hesitating to bid men away from
the government service when they see
anyone there whom they want. And
Secretary Taft's flashing of Wallace
plainly is not having much effect in
preventing gOvernment-salaried Off
Gals from jumping at the better offers
coming from the trusts.
There is nothing for the government
to do under the circumstances except
to go ahead ard fill the places as fast
as vacated. There are plenty of good
men left who are available. Assuredly
the government should not undertake
to compete with the insurance compa-
MES and trusts in the matter of sala-
ries paid. Rather should effort be di-
rected toward correcting those unjust
inequalities in industrial conditions
and opportunities which make possible
these dominating aggregations of cap
ital and enable them to offer such ex-
travagant compensation to lawyers
and others likely to be of value in
keeping them within the letter of tn
law while enabling them, too often, to
transgress this spirit.