The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1907-08-17
FINES OF no AVAIL
INADEQUATE PUNISHMENT FOR
ILLEGAL COMBINATIONS.
Term in the ~Penitentiary for Head Of
Trust Would Make for Genuine
Reform-President VIII
sons Views.

All the national trust-busting and
railroad regulation has not reduced
the price of trust goods, or of railroad
transportation, although the admins
tration takes credit for being the
great corporation regulator. So much
so that Secretary Root, and President
Roosevelt himself, seem to wish to
monopolize the management and con-
troll of corporations by the federal
government. The railroad magnates
have very promptly fallen in with this
plan, for they no doubt think 1t is
easier and less expensive to deal with
a Republican congress than with 45
separate state legislatures. But the
people seem to view the matter in a
different light and have insisted that
the legislatures of their states pass
stringent legislation to control and
punish the corporations which are
plundering them, and the legislators
have responded to the demand and
lower railroad rates and imprison-
ment for trust magnates have re-
suited.
Filming a trust or corporation, even
a comparatively large sum, has
proven quite inadequate a punishment
to prevent the repetition of their IL
legal doings, and in the end the Gus
toners of the corporations-which is
really everyone-have to pay the fines
by Increased prices for their products.
30 the national legislation has proven
people are concerned. So surely has
this lack of real punishment for ex-
orbitant charges and illegal combina,
tons been exhibited in interstate
commerce that 1t has been a constant
wonder that our boastful adninstra-
ton has ignored or refused TO exc
cute the criminal section of the anti
trust law.
In a recent address by President
Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton uni
versity, he called attention to the
lack of enforcement Of the criminal
law against the law breakers when
he declared: Zone really responsible
man in jail, one real originator of the
schemes and transactions which are
contrary to the public interest legally
lodged in the ~penitentiary, would be
worth more than a thousand corpora
tons mulcted in fines, If the reform
is to be genuine and permanent" DR..
Wilson is an o%ld-fashioned Democrat,
which accounts for his desire to see
the law enforced impartially and not
the continuation of the travesty upon
| justice which the president OF the
United States seems to think is all
that is necessary to make the people
believe they are being protected and
to allow him to boast that everyone is
| getting a square deal.
If Rockefeller and Rogers, the
Standard Oil magnates, and Baer of
the coal trust, and Frick of the steel
| trust, and Havemeyer the sugar king,
and Armour and Swift of the beef
trust, and Duke o. the tobacco trust,
not to mention the hundreds of 9th.
| ers, were in stripes for a term com
mensurate with their illegal plumber
ing of a patient people, does anyone
| believe they and others would con.
tinue to extort their present high
prices or maintain an illegal monopoly
with the constant fear of like further
punishment?
Then if the tariff was revised to q
revenue basis, sc that competition
would compel reasonable prices, there
would not be such extraordinary pros.
perity of the trusts, but there would
be more joyous faces and thrift
amongst the people generally.