The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-10
ANOTHER ROOSEVELT FANTASY.


ANOTHER ROOSEVELT FANTASY.
In his st. Louis speech, President
Roosevelt had another happy thought
to express; happy, that is, from his
point of springing it on an unsuspecting
public. He has about reached the con-
clusion that it would be a good thing
to have federal control of corporations
doing an interstate business patterned
somewhat after the system of control
of national banks.
The Chicago Inter Ocean, one of the
old-Iine Republican organs which has
fallen out of sympathy with the ex-
ecutive policy, has taken the trouble
to estimate the number of corporations
which would be brought under the es-
pionage and control of the Washington
authorities if the presidents idea be-
came effective in law, 1t finds that
fully $50, 900 corporations would be sub
jected to this control; and 1t explains
some of the beauties of the plan by
pointing out the powers of the comp
troIler of the currency in national bank
affairs.
For instance, the comptroller may
appoint a receiver for a bank at his
own discretion. and his action is not re-
viewable by any court. 1t is not neces-
sary for his reasons in such action to
be justified by competent legal evil
dence as to the facts on which the ac-
ton is based. The debtors of a ma
tional bank when sued by a receiver
so appointed, may not question the
validity of his appointment; and the
comptroller may appoint a receiver or
make an assessment upon stockholders
without a prior judicial determination
of the necessity for a receiver or of the
existence of the banks liabilities.
Wouldn't, it be a pleasant prospect
for a private corporation. big or little,
to be confronted with such a surveil-
lance of its affairs? Wouldn't it be en-
the possibility that some government
official might walk in and appoint a
receiver at his own discretion when
ever the mood struck him and without
any court review of his action? I'M
agine the tremendous power of an ad-
ministration armed with authority to
take such measures at any time with
any. one of 10000 corporations in any
one of the states or territories. Pic
ture the pleasant picking for political
appointees endowed with unrestricted
authority to hold up the business of
any corporation at any hour without
let or hindrance from courts.
If that. scheme isn't Capitalization
and paternalism gone mad, then there
is no sanity left in the country. II
portends autocracy of the worst type,
because unrestrained by the obliga-
tions which attend even the greatest
of the autocrats: and it would. if car
ried out, degrade commercial enterprise
to a political subserviency hitherto un-
dreamed of in this country. Beside such
A scheme the socialists utopian. plan
for government ownership of every
means of production and transporta-
ton. is a mild form of economic de-
lirium.
With all his eccentricities and vaga-
ries. his surprises and misdirected en-
thusiasms, the president has never pro-
pounded anything half so weird and
fantastic. 1t is about the ultimate of
even his astounding versatility in the
origtnation of plans for the disturb
ance of commercial life in this country.
Henry Cabot Lodge, unmindful of the
fate of Standard Oil MOffet. made
nhnrnoS of cnrrnnfiOn against the BOS.