The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-09-22
IS HE powERLEsss

rhe Kansas City Journal Of recent date says:
 Nothing in recent years has so clearly emphasized the urgent need for a re- country as the packers cases in Chica- go More than three years have elapsed since the first step was taken by the government to prosecute the eeeAsd sst and tn the resnistions of the inter. state commerce statute. And yet the packers have not even been brought to bay. Their cases were set for trial at Chicago yesterday; put % the defsndani,s ,ha,s tactics of delay that they did not trouble themselves even to appear In court. It may be years before these cases reach a nnai adtudication m sne the government win be successful in the lower courts. The packers are more likely to die of old age than to pay any penalty for their outragsSoats Sts upon the American people.
 Is not that a rather pitifui confess sion for a Republican newspaper to make after all the boasts and threats of the President? He poses--or' IS posed by his warm adherents--as the great trust-buster, and, we all know that he has had much to say apout bringing to book the great corporations which have been so long defying law and Justice. And yet. he is quoted as saying very recently that the ma chinery of the Department of Justice has been strained to the utmost"-re- ferring to alleged proceedings against the heef trust Are we to believe that the sherman law cannot be enforced? Are we to look on all Roosevelts threats and promises as glittering generalities or meaningless banalities? If there are no means of enforcing the laws against trusts he should have found it out before delivering himself so loudly and so positively. If the laws can be made effective he and his ofiicials ought to see that 1t Is done or quite talking about 1t.
 If, as The Journal intimates, the ma chinery of justice Is entirely too anti quated and clumsy to protect society, then we agree with that paper that ''the sooner business-like methods are adopted to insure swifter and more certain Justice the better it will be-" That is perhaps true, but have we right to expect better or more effective methods from the party now in power or its officials? These trusts wield immense power in politics. and with all his reputed courage and honesty we all know that the President has more than once been called down by those who control the Republican Party.
 The efforts of The Journal to lay the blame for the failure of the laws on the lawyers who defend the great cor porations are childish. If a lawyer would never take fee unless he knew his client to be right our courts and court trials would be very tame affairs, and many a defendant would be de- prived of the fair trial which constitu- tions and laws assure all alike. Law
 yers have the same right to defend a great corporation that they have to de- fend a prisoner, and if the laws which
 were intended to protect the people are so weak and inefieient that all the powers and resources of the govern
 ment cannot enforce them 1t Is high
 time that the machinery of Justice was
 placed in stronger hands.
 we are often told that Roosevelt is
 "a man who does things" but 1t is diff fcult to find evidence Of 1t In the mat ters under discussion. If he wants to, live up to the reputation his parti- sans give him let him proceed to dc something with the great law.defyins trusts and corporations which are probably laughing at his failures. Lei him do things or enit beasting and posing as the great apostle of law