St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1908-02-08
SAME LAWS FOR ALL.

| colleges where their young men are
taught, to preach and to practice thai
there is one law for the rich and an
other for the poor. The amount o1
money the representatives of certain
great monied interests are willing tt
spend can be gagged by their recent
publication broadcast throughout the
papers of this country, from the Al
lantic to the Pacific, of huge adver-
tisements attacking with envenomed
bitterness the administrations policy
of warning against successful dishon-
esty, and by their circulation of pam
phlets and books prepared with the
same object; while they likewise push
the circulation of the writings and
speeches of men who, whether it is
because they are misled or because,
seeing the light, they are yet willing
ing to sin against the light, serve
these their masters of great wealth
to the cost Of the plain people. The
books and pamphlets, the controlled
newspapers, the speeches by public or
private men to which | refer, are usu-
ally and especially in the interest of
the Standard Oil Trust and of certain
notorious railroad combinations, but
they also defend other individuals and
corporations of great wealth that haye
been guilty of wrong-doing. 1t is only
rarely that the men responsible for
the wrong doing themselves speak or
write. Normally they hire others to
do their bidding, or find others to do
it. without hire. From the railroad
rate law to the pure food law, every
measure for honesty in business that
has been passed during the last six
years has been opposed by these men
on its passage and in its administra-
tion with every resource that bitter
and unscrupulous craft could suggest
and the command of almost unlimited
money secure. But for the last year
the attack has been made with most
bitterness upon the actual administra-
ton of the law, especially through the
Department of Justice, but also
through the Interstate Commerce
Commission and the Bureau of Cor
porations.
The extraordinary violence Of the
assaults upon our policy contained in
these speeches, editorials, articles,
advertisements and pamphlets, and
the enormous sums of money spent in
these various ways, give a fairly ac-
curate measure of the anger and ter
ror which our public actions have
caused the corrupt men of vast wealth
10 feel IN the marrow of their being.
The attack is sometimes made openly
against US for enforcing the law, and
'ometi mes with a certain cunning, for
lot trying to be practical. One of the
savori.te methods of the latter class
If ast ;ailants is to attack the admins
trait on for not procuring the impris-
onm ant instead of the fine of offend
RS nder these antitrust laws. The
nan, making this assault is usu-
allyt either prominent lawyer or an
editor who takes his policy from the
irAan ciers and his arguments from
heir attorneys. If the former, he has
defended and advised many wealthy
and he knows we'll that,
thanks to the advice of lawyers like
a certain kind of modern cor
poration has been turned into an ad-
instrument by which to rem
der it well nigh impossible to get at
the head of the corporation, at the
man who is really most guilty. When
we are able to put the real wrong
doer in prison, this is what we strive
to do; this is what we have actually
done with some very wealthy crimi-
nails, who, moreover, represented that
most I3aneful Of all alliances, the al
lance between the corruption of or
ganize ID politics and the corruption Of
high nance. This is what we have
done in the Gaynor and Green case,
IN thu ,. case of the misapplication of
fund in connection with great banks
IN c hicago, in the land fraud cases,
Whf ire, as in other cases likewise,
nei ther the highest political position
nc the possession of great wealth has
a. Isiled to save the offenders from
r rison. The Federal government does
scourge sin; it does bid sinners fear;
for it has put behind the bars with
impartial severity the powerful fnan-
cier, the powerful politician, the rich
land thief, the rich contractor all, nc
matter how high their station, against
whom criminal misdeeds can be
proved. All their wealth and power
cannot protect them. But it often
happens that the effort to imprison q
given defendant is certain to be futile,
while it is possible to fine him or te
fine the corporation of which he is
head; so that, in other words, the only
way TO punish the wrong is by finine
the corporation, unless we are content
to proceed personally against the
minole agents. The corporation law.
yers to whom I refer and their EN-.
ploy ers are the men mainly RESPONSE
bic for this state of things, and theil