The Hawaiian gazette., 1907-09-06
PRESIDENT
ALARMED
(Mail Special to the Advertiser J


velt s two administrations the country
has not been shaken so much by condi-
tions and by rumors as during the last
seven days. There has been outward
calm at Oyster Bay, although peculiar
reports have emanated as the result
Of a cabinet meeting there Tuesday
Washington, too, has been calm al
though the trip of Secretary of War
Taft here and the visit of Speaker
Cannon at the same time caused a DO.
litical ferment. New York has been a
scene of even more unusual activity and
it seemed as though the business world
there was trying to turn somersault.
The upheaval appears traeeable to
the ''attacks on corporations. That
is about the phrase one hears most fire.
quently to describe the rage with which
the fines on the Standard Oil trust and
the announcement of Attorney General
Bonaparte that he proposed trying to
get trust magnate behind the bars
have been received. John D. Rockefeller
gave out an interview, declaring that
the confidence of the business world had
been destroyed by the administration s
repeated attacks on corporations. Not
long afterward Wall Street proceeded
to have fit. Stocks began to sink
lower and lower and the prophets say
are going lower yet. Money has been
Tightening everywhere. A few failures
of some Importance have been recorded.
The financial, rather than the bust
ness, conditions are bad. Men are grow
ing uneasy about them, notwithstanding
the fact that the country is full of
money. Whether the situation is really
portentous or not, conservative men
hesitate to say.
THE PRESIDENT ALARMED.
1t has been widely printed that the
President is alarmed and that he called
several members of his cabinet-Secre-
taries Root and Taft and Postmaster
General Meyer-to Oyster Bay to talk
over the financial outlook and to see
whether he could do anything to ease
the situation. That report has never
been verified. 1t was printed by a
newspaper that is notoriously unfriend-
ly to the President. Its proprietor
bears Secretary Root an ancient
grudge. The latter was reported to
have conferred with bankers and fnan-
ciers in New York before he went to
Oyster Bay, although he denied that
in the most emphatic terms. AT the
same time there was a report that the
President was aweary of Secretary
Root IS affiliations with corporations and
preferred that he should get out of the
cabinet, taking Assistant Secretary of
State Robert Bacon, who was class
mate of the President at Harvard, with
him. This, too, was denied by Secre-
tary Loeb at Oyster Bay and by Secre-
tary Root in person at New York.
In spite of denials the report has
been persistent and those who want to
believe only the truth are at loss
just what to think. Unfortunately de-
mails of an emphatic character in cur
rent administration affairs have not
always proven entirely truthful. Some
of the most emphatic denials in Wash
ington for years were made only week
or two before the order for sending the
battleships to the Pacific ocean was
formally made public. There have been
other instances of like character.
Standard Oil officials in New York
have had the report about Root s resig-
nation for two or three weeks. 1t is
conceded that that trust has excellent
facilities for securing inside inferma-
tion. 1t has agents who can find out
what is doing, even if the admins
tration be exceedingly hostile to the
corporation. At the same time it ap-
pears that the Standard Oil Company
is conducting systematic warfare
against the administration, has only be-
gun, and proposes to undo the Presi-
dent if that be possible.
For business and political reasons
Secretary Root would be doing only
the natural thing were he to leave the
cabinet. He has secured all the official
honors possible for him and he could
make great deal of money practising
law. Perhaps the relations between
him and the President are not as cor
dial as they once were, but it is not
credible that there is friction between
them. The remark credited to the
| President in a conversation with Secre-
tary Root that he might as well leave
the cabinet and take Mr.. Bacon with
him, as the latter was all too intimate
with the firm of J. P. Morgan 6 Com
pany, was undoubtedly gross exag
geration, if it had any foundation at
all.
BUSINESS EXCITEMENT.
Attorney General Bonaparte recent