The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-12
DfF DAVIS WIELDS HIS AK
  Arkansas Senator Makes
 Speech. TkUNTS THE REPUBLICANS Nothing Has Been Done to Control Trusts. scutherner Exceeds Mir. TiiImnn In shattering Traditions of Senate by His Plain Speech on
 the Floor.

Washington, Dec. 11x-Senator Jeffer- | son Davis, of Arkansas, went to the l Capitol today carrying a large dress
 suit case filled with documents he
 wished to have on his desk for refer
 ence during his speech on trusts. When Senator Davis secured the floor | and began his address. all of the Sem ators both Republicans and Demo- | crats. were in their seats and they gave strict attention to his remarks. The | galleries were filled with spectators.
 Senator Davis delivered a passionate address. After declaring that hts bill. vigorously enforced, would kill the | trusts, with dramatic effect he cha1- | lenged any Senator to step forward and contest the issue with him. As he proceeded he showed great | emotion and his voice trembIed. His l words rang with resounding effect throughout the chamber. Speaking of | the annual appropriations for the ex- l penses of the government, amounting l to S900.000,000, he turned to Senator | Beveridge and added: Pile 1t upon | this floor and let my good looking | young friend, the Senator from h. diana. start to count it. He would be | as old as Methuselah before he could count half of 1t"
 The Senator detailed appropriations made for maintaining the White House. Acorns and Persimmons.
 And yet" he continued, President Roosevelt has but five children at ! home" The inadvertence of speech brought laughter from all parts of the | chamber Everything" declared Sem ator Davis. "is in a trust except acorns and persimmons."
 Holy writ" he said, "admonishes us to go into the vineyard and work. have found nothing in the good book \. .rxE <t..s- ss.A. kA vineyard to corner all the grapes. The President" he said 'has taken off the dollar the words Tn God We Trust It's time to-take 1t off. won der what the grand fold party Is going to put on the dollar7
 This panic was started by these trust magnates and stock gamblers in order that they might take from the cotton producers half of their proper- r"I am for the under dog. Senator McLaurin," he said. addressing the Sem ator from Mississippi who sat before him. Whenever you hear of a dog fight. just say 'Jeff Davis is for the under dog" -s
 He read some statistics on the Standard oil and stepped out into the center aisle stamped his foot and said: "The Standard oil is the oldest trust of the country. It is the trust that has all the paraphernalia and the ear. marks of a trust. dislike Standard Oil. I hate the smell of coal oil. Petroleum makes me sick, Oh sir. something might be done to curtail the great power of this monster trust John D. Rockefeller Trust the great Standard oil Trust"
 Senator Davis declared that 1t was not his purpose to retain his seat in the. Senate until his hair shall have grown grey before taking up his work actively in that body. He proposed to present quickly. fearlessly and as in- telligently as he might some of the living, burning questions before the American people. It was TOT thal reason he had determined to speak upon his bill to suppress trusts. pools, combinations and conspiracies.
 To Wipe Out Trusts.
 q undertake to say" he continued, 'that if this bill is enacted into a law and faithfully and honestly executed. trusts will be, wiped from the face of the earth and no longer will we feel their grinding and destroying grip on the arteries of trade and commerce"
 domestic corporation found fixing the price of any article would, by his bill he said. have it's charter forfeited and a foreign corporation guilty, of such ain act would not be allowed to do business in the United States.
 "The trust evil,' said Senator Davis, ifs a cancerons sore upon the human body. The only remedy, the only sue cessful treatment, Is the surgeons knife. Cut it out by the root. destroy the virus before the whole body polite is affected and destroyed.
 "Consress should not hesitate in its work of destroying the trusts because of any fear of unsettling business" he continued
 He spoke of the sherman Antitrust I,r affanfttaIcp ha asked. Has 1t destroyed a single trust? Have they not grown strong, defiant and arrogant? Almost seven teen years the sherman Antitrust law has been upon our statute books, more than four times as long as 1t took the North to wear out the South upon the bloody fields of battle. Nearly seven years of MT. Roosevelts strenuous term has passed with all the machin- cry of the government at his back. with the great power of the chief exec utive in his hands. yet ask will some Republican Senator on this floor tell me one trust that he has even tanned, much less destroyed? . "As. MT. President. it was stated by the metropolitan press before I ent- cred this august body, hippantly. too, that before l had been In the Senate six months the trust magnates would have me feeding out of their hands. T.
 
 I say to you today by every God in the Calendar. that l never shall eat from the hands of Mammon.
 An Age of Money.
 "I want to say to you, sir. and to | the members of this Senate, that YOU need not lose any sleep about a corpor- ation getting its rights. You need not lose any sleep about unjust discrim- ination against them. They will take care of themselves But rather should our solicitude be for the man who bears the burden of the Government. This is an age when men have gone mad in their frenzied efforts for the dollar. This is an age when money is placed above man, where gold is placed before | God. When we, would sell our souls, | our Government. our all for one bright | smile from the god of Mammon. What | is money. MT. President, that 1t is held | so priceless? You cannot eat it. you cannot receive it for admission into the | golden gates.