The copper era., 1907-01-17
THEODERE, THE MEDDLER.
His Collisions With Wall Street.

In the back rooms of Wall Street Theodore Roosevelt is known as a meddler.
 MT. Roosevelt is a meddler. It is in his blood. He has been a meddler since boyhood. He has meddled with the predatory elements of life, four legged and two-legged; the crack of his rifle in the West has been no more destructive than the whisk of his official pen in the East.
 HARRIMAN'S HOSTILITY.
 1t is not so many weeks since Ed ward Henry Hartman, president of the Union Pacific Railroad Co.,, and overlord of countless American cor porate combinations representing, literally, a billion of dollars, said privately that President Roosevelt must be got rid of politically at any cost. MT. Hartman is a republican and has secretly. exercised great power in his party.
 But if you put Roosevelt out of power, you will have-t to take Bryan or Hearst. Are you prepared for that?''
 "Yes," said MT. Hartman, passion ately. 'I1l take Bryan or Hearst rather than Roosevelt. We cannot be worse off than we are now with that man in the White House. I'll take any one rather than Roosevelt: for, if it comes to that, we can get at the other crowd.'
 HOW HARRIMAN TEMPTED HILL.
 MT. Hartman is a man of black vindictiveness and remarkable en- ergy. He can fight openly, but his great strokes are delivered in secret. On the day of the great "corner" of Northern Pacific stock, when Wall street staggered under the blows of the contending Hartman and Nor gan forces and thousands of men and women were ruined in a few hours, MT. Hartman sat on a sofa in New York and tempted James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad Co.,, to surrender stock con- trol of she Northern Pacific line, promising to pay for the treachery by making him president of the Union Pacific Railroad Co.
 "Then there will be two railroad men in the country-Cassat in the East and Hill in the Vest" said MT. Hartman, watching the massive countenance of MT. Hill for a sign of weakness.
 That was a critical moment in the history of the country, for upon MT. Hills answer hung the whole future of ftranscontinental traffic in America.
 MT. Hill told Mir. Hartman that the ownership of the Northern Paci- fic line by the Union Pacific interests "a devise to destroy competition was forbidden by law, and declared that the thing could not be done.
 Yet, forgetting that memorable scene, MT. Hill later on, in company with J. Pierpont Morgan, attempted | to unite the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific lines in one owner ship, and when President Roosevelt | interfered with the attempted mono poly and smashed it in the courts, | MT. Hill too, cursed him as meddler, a damagogue, a reckless enemy of private wealth.
 So that today the Harrimans and Hills and Rockefeller and all their like are planning the end of Roose- veltism, and the cry of predatory Wall street is that the President has deserted those who raised him to honor and power and has become a desperate enemy of legitimate busi- ness, a menace to prosperity.
 THE NEW ROOSEVELT.
 The truth IS that there is no new Roosevelt The President who des- troyed the Northern Securities mer ger, forced the meat packers to abandon their abominations, got the Panama Canal work under way, brought about the regulation of rail- road rates by the government, se cured the conviction of two corrupt United States Senators, drove the land thieves of the West and the
  bar of justice, made war on railroad rebaters, forced the Standard Oil barons to account for their crimes in court, and began relentless inves- tigations into the business methods of the mightiest industrial corpora tions in the country, is the same man who, as a cowboy in the Bad Lands, looked in the muzzles of two revolvers and knocked down the ob- scene ruffian who held him, unCarring personal consequences.
 MT. Morgan knows that he can go to the White House today and be as welcome as Chief Stone of the Bro therhood of Locomotive Engineers. but not any more welcome. MT. Rockefeller knows that he can get as fair, but no fairer, hearing from the President than John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers.
 It was not long after MT. Roose- welt took his place in the White House that he discovered the real nature of things in Washington. The great corporations, the mighty cap