The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-09-08

until Mir Roosevelt quickened it into life. Mr.Cleyeland reguarded 1t with Indifference; Mir Olney. his attorney General. treated 1t with open contempt. Then came MT Mckinley, with Mark Hanna brazenly selling to corporations the privilege of violating the law in exchange for campaign contributions. There is no more shameful chapter in American history.
 It is surprising that financiers and trust managers came to regard the sherman law as rather disreputapIe Joke3 lf-tne United States Government showed no respect for its own statute, how could individuals be expected to volunteer such respect? The relief was generally established in financial circles that the Antitrust Act was only a convenient deeree for filling campaign chests, and that the purchase or i'm munity was a sacred outy winch every manager of a great corporation owed to his stockholders. The United States Government winked at and connived at violations of it's own laws, and this ract deserves 10 be considered in the prosecution of long-past offences.
 It remained for Mir Roosevelt to end this scandal although he himselraSene- fitted politically by immense contriout- ions rom men like Hartman. ne himself committed grave public sca1daI by taking MT CUrtslyou from Ishe supervisorship and control of all c1r- porations and making him chairuian of the Republican national committse. personally to receive campaign tribute from Wall street. Not content with this. MT Roosevelt aggravated the scandal by raising MT Cortelyou the receiver of Wall streets campaign funds, first to be Postmaster Gen eral and next to be Secretary of the Treasurury.
 Mir Roosevelt knew the scandal of Hannas- corruption Iund in 1896. He knew 1t in 1900 when he himself was a candidate for Vice President. He knew by his own admissions of the Hartman contribution in 1904. and yet he held his peace until he was safely elected President in his own right, while staint- ed money was reaching out To control the Government.
 To this extent Mir Roosevelt, like his immediate predecessors. encouraged the belief that Federal laws regulating great corporations were not to be taken too seriously. For what he has done to neforce these laws The World gladly gives him most generous credit. 1t will not withdraw one word of the unstinted praise 1t has betowed upon him, but at the present moment Mir Roosevelt by his erratic and vacillat- ing course, his lack of moderation and judgment. his refusal to weigh his words or consider their consequences, Is in danger of doing almost as much injury to legitimate as to inegitimate business interests.
 The World believes in the enforce ment of the sherman law and the anti rebate laws It would like to see E. H. Harrinsan sent to jail for his swfndling railroad operations If legal evidence could be obtained to convict him. 1t would like to see John D. Rockefeller personally punished for offences com mitted by the Standard oil Company It would like to see at least one great trust manager who deliberately violated the Federal statutes sent to jail to encourage the others. It believes Mir Roosevelt should exert all his power to send at least one powerful and wealthy criminal to the penitentiary
 If this were Mir Rooseveltss policy and purpose The World would have no complaint. and legitimate business interests could have no complaint, but if Mir Roosevelt has, fixed and consis- tent policy and purpose we do not know what it Is.