The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1907-07-04
WASHINGTON LETTER.

The Capital is preparing to well
come another distinguished Jap
anese visitor. 1t is Admiral Ba-
ron Yanamoto, who is on his way
to this country with five other
distinguished naval officers. They
have been making tour of the
naval countries of Europe, in
arsenals and dOckyards
and gathering statistics of naval
power and ship building capacity
of the various countries. Of
course, this is not their ostensi-
BILE object. They are merely in
forming themselves on modern
practice in ship construction for
the benefit of their home gov
ernment. But it is well under
stood that it is not O0ly technical
information that the japanese
government will reap. The ad-
miral and his party will stay for
some days in Washington and
will include in their visit all the
American navy yards fromBrook-
lyn to Mare Island. This gov
ernment is preparing to make
their stay pleasant for them, and
they will be shown all there is to
see, and then they can go home
and report on the advisability of
surprising the United States with
a naval attack without a declara-
ton of war, as they did Russia.
The Department of Justice has
been watching with unusual in
terest the course of Judge Lands
of Chicago, who has a chance to
impose on the Standard Oil Com
pany the biggest fine in the his
tory of courts and corporations.
The Standard last week tried it's
usual method of debating to the
court what 1t should and should
not do. The charge against the
company is a combination in re-
straint of trade, and there are so
many convictions against it that
if the maximum penalty were
imposed in each case, the aggre-
gate would be the immense sum
of $29,624, 900. Of course it is
not likely that any such huge fine
will be imposed. The Standard
could pay it, of course, and the
chances are that it would not be-
gin to cover the amount the COM
pany has gathered by violations
of law in the past ten years. But
that the fine will be a stiff one is
indicated by the fact that Judge
Lands demanded to know the in
come and resources of the COM
pany before imposing it. He
said in explanation that he al
ways made a point Of doing this
in a case where the amount of
the fine was optional with him.
He did it, he said, as a matter OF
justice both to the public and the
criminal.
The attorneys for the company
coolly refused to give the infor-
nation, whereupon Judge Lands
subpoenaed a number of the prin.
cipal officers of the company, in.
Guiding John D. Rockefeller. The
attorneys have been fuming and
fussing to get him to recall these
subpoenaes, but Judge Lands
said that he knew how to run his
court and did not propose to be
dictated to. The Attorney Gen.
eral approves thoroughly of the
firm stand he has taken, and the
outcome of the contest is await
ed with interest as an object les
son to the legal fraternity anC
corporations in general in theil
dealings with the courts.
The appeal that has been made
to the president to take a hanC
in settling the telegraph strike il
likely to bear fruit. Commits
sioner of Labor Neil, who seemed
to have the thing settled a week
ago, is in communication with
the Chief Justice of the Supreme