Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-06
Widest Rumors Credited.

These decisions are SO general and 50
pronounced that responsible men upon
whom rests the peace Of the financial world.
and In a measure the prosperity OF the
country, seem to have gone crazy. They
are willing to credit the widest kind of
rumors about the President They seem
TO believe that he has started out to crush
all the corporations in the country and
that he Is doing it merely for his own
amusement or for political capital. There
have been reports here that the President
intends to order the interstate commerce
commission to arbitrarily reduce the rates
Of freight and passenger trafhc on all the
railroads in the country in order to make
himself more popular, and thousands OF
people accepted them as true. The news
papers of New York have actually pub
hshed articles asserting that the PRESIDENT
capital stocks of the corporations OF this
country; that he intends to order the inter-
state commerce commission, or somebody,
to cancel and repudiate sufncient numoer
of shares to bring them down to An amount
corresponding with the actual investment.
/ was asked yesterday II 1t were true that
the President was going to recommend
Congress to pass law abolishing private
freight cars and prohibiting one railway
from using the cars of another. 1t was
explained that this action was to remove
the present cause of complaint that some
railways unlawfully detain for their own
use the cars of other roads and thus pre-
vent them from accommodating their ship
pers. There was rumor on the street q
few days ago that the President was going
to order an investigation Of every cor
poration in the country having capital
stock of 81, OO0.OO0 or more.
man who Is worth several millions of
dollars told me the other day that he be-
ueved that President Roosevelt was un-
settled in his mind. and as an evidence OF
il cited the fact that he had placed the
amount of money awarded to him with the
Nobel peace prize in trust to promote mar
mony between capital and labor. That.
my friend asserted, was the most prepos-
ferrous and ridiculous proposition that had
ever been advanced and would do an i'm
mense amount of harm to the country by
making the labor leaders more Independent
and arrogant. He believed the President
was crazy on the subject OF labor and
corporate rights. and he began to think so
when he interfered in the anthracite strike.
How It Looks to the Street.
The New York World illustrated the con-
dition of things on Wall street the other
day in an article which said:
millions. of Theodore Roosevelts are now
dancing around the victim. Phosphores-
cent spectacles CLEAN from every nook and
corner of the stock exchange. The gnash-
ing of presidential teeth Ii heard above
the roar of traffic. The sky is darkened
by big sticks that hang in clouds. There
is no refuge from the terror by day or the
pestilence that walketh in the darkness.
And the worst is yet to come. He Is going
to order a horizontal reduction of 10 per
cent in railroad rates. He Is going to
squeeze all the water out Of railroad stocks.
He is going to prevent the issue Of new
securities. He is going to burn the Con-
stitution at the stake. He Is going to OBJ
iiterate state lines. He is going to investi-
gate everything and sentence everybody
that owns stock in a corporation to life i'm
prisonmept, He Is going to abolish the
Supreme Court. Maybe he will hang Con-
gress. especially the Senate. He Is. going
to indict everybody that has more than 81.
Everything over S11 is a swollen fortune
and must be confiscated." :
There Is just about as much truth In
most Of the rumors that are agitating Wal