The Hawaiian gazette., 1907-08-23


at the coming session OF Congress, but
it may have some influence with him.
The Republican leaders are more
afraid of business depression as a fac
tor in the next Presidential election
than of any other one thing. 1t would
of hard times will deter the President
be a terrible boomerang to the party
that claims to have created prosperity,
when the All Wise one on high could
not have contended with and over
come the calamity tendencies OF q
Democratic administration.
LAW ENTANGLEMENTS.
The President has been very calm
during the agitation over the Standard
Oil fine and the uprising in Southern
States against federal Interference
with laws prescribing passenger fares.
Both have become the important fed
eral questions of the hour for the gov
eminent is piling up indictments
against the Standard Oil Trust, so that
fines aggregating not s2e,OOO.OOO as i'm
posed by District Judge Lands. but
aggregating hundred million dollars
or more are looming up as a possible
ity. Then the right of the federal
courts to interfere and enjoin state
authorities and state courts from en-
forcing low rates of passenger fare in
interstate traffic is bound to become
a very momentous question in connec-
ton with railroad problems.
Attorney General Bonaparte. who is
spending his summer at Lenox. Mass.
has been over to Oyster Bay for con-
fab with the President on legal ques-
tons. The President keeps close tab
on his cabinet officers and gives the
word as to what shall be done in ev-
erything of any Importance. Although
he is not lawyer. this is also true
in legal matters. He has made such
a thorough study of the legal and con-
that he has become very good Judge
of law matters. He has had the ad-
vice for years of some of the keenest
legal minds in the country and natur-
ally has become very well informed.
The President evidently is taking
the side of the railroads and the fed
eral courts, as against the states and
state courts. When Attorney General
Bonaparte left Oyster Bay the other
day he said the situation with refer
ence to the Southern railroad and its
difficulties with Virginia, North Caro-
lima and Alabama authorities had been
gone over carefully and he spoke
sneeringly of the Southern Railways
lack "of stomach for a fight" He said
the Department of Justice had brought
things about so that there was the
opportunity for the railway to make
fight against the state courts, If it
wished, but that the Department of
Justice could not compel the road to
fight
AS a matter of fact the Southern
way systems in the country, permeat-
ting practically every Southern State,
is more in sympathy with the state
courts than'it is with President Roos-
evelt's administration. 1t would rather
patch up a peace with the state au-
thorities than to have war. in which
the federal authorities would be its
allies. The railway officials know that
they must continue to do business in
the South, that the good will of the
thousands of local courts is an invalu-
able asset to the railroad and that the
good will of the Southern people is
also an invaluable asset. With few
exceptions, the Southern Railway sys-
tenn has cooperated with Southern
communities toward the Industrial and
commercial upbuilding of that section.
In comparison with the popular i'll will
toward most railroads, the Southern is
popular among it's millions of con-
stituents.
The prospects increase that the Pres
ident's administration will close in the
unfinished litigation. The cases, grow
ing out of his antitrust crusade, which
must be carried up to the Supreme
Court for final adjudication are in
creasing. The federal courts in many
states are now occupied with them. In
civil and criminal matters the govern
ment has become the greatest litigant
by far that 1t ever was. In st. Louis
the proceedings are under way for a
dissolution of the Standard Oil trust.
1t will be two or three years probably
before the last word is said about that
case. In Chicago the big S2e. 600, 900
fine was imposed and already there is
new agitation there as the attorneys for
the Standard try to get the case be-
fore another federal court, where
Judge Grosscup, an older and a stead
Ter judge than Judge Lands, pre-
sides But the grand jury in Judge
Landis's court is investigating the
railroads for alleged culpability in
giving rebates to the Standard OIL
More indictments, to the number Of
scores, for offenses that cost a maxi
mum of $4,000 when proven, are ex-
pected there. Possibly the Standard
Oil Company will have to face more in
dictments in the United States District
Courts of Chicago.
There are several important matters
OF railroad and antitrust litigation, In
which the government is interested,
pending in New York One of these is
the proceeding to make E. H. Harri-
man answer questions put by the In
terstate Commerce Commission. But
now the United States District Court
for the western district of New York
has indictments -