The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-06-22
ROOSEVELT. IN SHIELDING NOR
TON, MERELY ROBS HIMSELF
OF CONFIDENCE.

1
to characterize many of the President
acts to the end of correcting the
abuses attendant upon special privi-
leges accorded by railroads to certain
favored corporate monopolies, can but
receive a disquieting check from the
attitude assumed by the Chief Execu-
! tive towards Secretary of the Navy
Morton, once in charge of the freight
department of the Atkinson. Topeka
and Santa Fe Railroad and shown &c
J through disobedience of an injunction
issued by the Federal court in per-
hitting the continuance of freight
rebate device in favor of the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company. 1t is the re-
| fusal of men of high station in the
government to prosecute the men In
important positions which not only
encourages the continuance of criml-
nal practices by great corporations
but is responsible, likewise, for the
popular feeling of mistrust that no,
only conviction of any man of wealth
or influence may be had but also that
any such shall even be prosecuted for
wrong doing In honoring men OF
Roosevelt and Cleveland are adding
TO the distrust so prevalent and play
ing into the hands of the very interests
which subsist on the unfair advantages
and the partial favors obtainable by
monied influences
In the press dispatches of today will
be found the correspondence which
took place between Attorney General
Moody, Special Counsel Harmon and
Judson, President Roosevelt and Mr..
that Mr. Morton be prosecuted for
contempt for a violation of the order
of the court in the matter of railroad
rebates. 1t is shown and admitted that
since that injunction went into effect
the railroad of which Mr.. Morton was
largely in control and management has
persistently violated both the letter
and the spirit of the injunction. Spe-
cial Counsel Harmon and Judson, the
former a member of Mr.. Cleveland s
Cabinet and the latter a lawyer OF
high character and wide reputation,
combined in a request to the attorney
general to prosecute Mr.. Morton, OBJ
serving truthtully that crime is per-
sonal and that to fine a corporation
is at the best but feeble punishment
for a contempt The attorney general
was inclined to sit down on the re-
quest, but submitted the papers to
the President and suggested that he
forward them to the judge who is
sued the injunction to ascertain wheth-
er or not he considered that Mr.. Nor
ton was in contempt. The President
did not even avail himself of the Sug
gestion of his attorney general. In
stead he received letter from Mr..
Morton denying that the unlawful acts
were done with his knowledge or con-
sent. approved the course of the attor-
ney. general in refusing to prosecute
the officers of the road and wrote TO
Mr. Morton a letter filled with such
praise of him as man and public Off
Ger and prospective head of the Equit-
able Society that there is but the one
adjective "fulsome" to fit it's tenor.
Actually does the President say in this
that Mr.. Morton testified that he and
other railroad men had been and were
then guilty of repeated and continuing
violations of the laws which induced
the tender to him of the portfolio OF
Secretary of the Navy.
And in the meanwhile, the Special
Counsel employed by the government
for the purpose of investigating the
practice of freight rebates were al
lowed TO resign because their labor5
and disclosures were not considered
by the Department of Justice to be
worthy of official notice.
Whereas the prosecution of men
high in the scale, the application to
their august hides of the soaring prin-
eiple that law is for one and all the
same. Would both have done more b
si.ts,press the fn3lssiee ssict thesEE,Etssis
dent is supposed to be fighting and
more completely have won the enthus-
iasm of the people than any other
course. The way 10 make a corporation
feel is to attack it through its officers
who are capable of approaching pun
ishment; to hold the fishy substance of
the corporation itself in contempt is
an effort so futile as almost TO win
childishness as its proper designation.
While too much weight cannot be
attached to the hasty words of the
President or to his fulsome praise of
q man who by his own statement had
been in the past in the habit of will
fully violating the law--it being known
that the Roosevelt temper is one SO
positive in its likes as we'll as hates
that he is blinded to the faults of
friend-the incident in that it deprives
the country of two able counsel of high
character and merit who have shown
that they were disposed TO go 30 the
bottom of violations of the law with
out fear or favor. is in any light de-