The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-07-20

The American public has had no
faith that there was to be any radical
change in the Equitable from the day
that Morton was put at the head. Or
course public opinion will enforce eco
Monies, the wholesale coarse grating
will be stopped, and the old grafters
will be cut off. But-and here is the
secret of the resolve to control it by
the Ryan and kindred infiuences-the
great capital and surplus of the Equit-
able gives power in Wall Street that
without dishonesty is worth millions
to the great interests battling there
for supremacy. Mr.. Morton is the
sort of man who would see nothing
wrong in using the capital and surplus
of the company to back up the great
traction interests just as he saw moth
ing wrong in taking a hand to help
contractors at Charleston and as he
gave rebates when in the railroad
business and threw special favors to
concerns in which his own brothers
were interested. The man whose
moral sense is so obtuse is not the sort
of man to be put in charge of the
sacred funds which men put by TO
keep their wives and children from
want when the bread-winner of the
family is dead. The sort of man for
such a trust is such a man, for eX-
ample, as the late ex-Gov. Pattison, OF
Pennsylvania; the late w. w. Cor
coran, of Washington; the late Jona-
than Worth, of North Carolina-men
who would not permit the use OF
trust funds by any speculative com
great trusts of America. There are
plenty of such men now living. Though
not widely known, the president of
either of the Raleigh banks is the sort
of man needed at the head of the
Equitable.
Mr. Morton admitted that he gave
rebates and MIR. Roosevelt white
washed him because he admitted that
he had violated the law. Since then
some people have come to regard Civ
ing rebates as not very wrong, al
though it is a violation of a plain
bate giving is that it is criminal In
a recent article on the evils of rebates,
after showing that the beef trust and
the oil trust were built up from il
legal and prohibited rebates, Mr.
Charles Edward Russell in a singular
ly able article in the August Every
body's Magazine says:
For every rebate granted to the
beef trust, for every advantage it has
enjoyed, for the discrimination in
rates and facilities that has made it
what it is, some officer of some rail-
road has been responsible. These Off
GERS would not break the law for their
own profit; they must not break the
law for the profit of the corporations
that employ them. If they do, they
must be regarded and treated exactly
like any other criminals. We shall
have to bring about a state of things
in which it will not be possible for
man that has confessed to the granting
of illegal rebates to remain in the
cabinet of the United States any more
than if he had confessed to murder.
We shall have to cease to look upon
rebate-giving as a pleasant indiscre-
ton and observe it in it's true light
as a sneaking, despicable, and intoler-
able crime. We shall have to see that
the rebate giver is far worse enemy
of society than the burglar or the pick
pocket. We shall have to re-adjust
our standards of morality so that there
shall be no condOning of criminality
because the criminal is rich. or is i'm
Office. or is liked in political circles.
We shall have to change things so that
the Interstate Commerce Commission
shall no longer print in its annual re-
Of 1.a,,
officers indicted and never punished.
We shall have to change our methods
so that such men, indicted for rebate
giving, shall not be immune from
prosecution and shall not be able TO
invoke for their protection the mys-
FERROUS influences of Washington, but
shall fare exactly like any other COM
mon thief. Unless we are willing to
do this it will be quite useless to talk
pleasant platitudes about keeping the
country's highways open to all upon
equal terms. The officers of our great
railroads are very charming gentle
men, good fellows, of much personal
worth | cheerfully bear witness to
their ability and efficiency. Many of
them ought to be in the penitentsary,
and until we have them there we shall
see no cessation of the practices that
build trusts"
great evil in the great life insurance
companies as we'll as in the railroad
business. Will Mr.. Morton stop the
cutting and slashing and rebate giving,
and the use of the surplus for traction
interests, or will he continue his OLD
rebate-giving ways? The proper an
swer to that question is more impcr
tant than questions of selling stock
or parading the names of new direc-
tors who stand as high as the OF di-
doctors, the new ones being better only
in that some of them are from smalEl
States where individual responsibility
rests more heavily than it seems to
rest upon the great financiers of the
great cities.
TINT REAL NEWSPAPER.