Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1908-09-29

will Immediately proceed against
them. Until the do iolate the law
they will be treated precisely as any
other corporation, great or small,
which obeys the law, is treated.
I treat each man and each corpora
ton with view solely to whether he
or it is acting rightly on given occa-
sion. Let me give you an example.
have proceeded against the corpora
tions of which E. H. Hartman is the
head on certain points where | be-
lieve they have violated the law, but
when in connection with the break
ing Of the Salton sea dam, one of the
Hartman corporations repaired the
dam, last winter did everything
could to have congress reimburse Mr..
Hartman for so much of the obliga-
ton as l felt ought to come upon the
United States. would hold myself
unfit to be president if because I
prosecuted Mt. Hartman when I
thought he had broken the law l yet
hesitated to do him justice where
thought he had broken the law, I yet
I,tice should be done IN. In exactly
the same way l have acted and shalt
act DIS rSSdTuS Iu0 Sl6Sl' COIpOTdllOU.
A Single Instance.
"You ask me to name a single Off
oial connected with lawdefying cor
poration who has declared or will de-
| clare that he is supporting you. In a
ST. Louis paper which reaches me at
| the same time that the papers con-
tanning this published letter of yours.
l find statement from Judge Henry
! S. Priest attorney for the Walters
l.
| sidiary or representative of the Stand
ard Oil company, in which he an
nounces that he is for Bryan and
states that Wall street believes that
! Bryan will be elected. In response to
the question as to whether he could
quote any of the Standard Oil mag
nate as feeling that way, he answered.
I did not say | saw any of the Of
| fcials of the Standai Oil company.
! am giving you what I found was the
drift Of opinion among well posted poll
! tiC.ans as well as bankers. l
guess Governor Haskell is all right.
| They have not proved anything on him,
have they?"
THE newspapers clipping goes on to
say that Judge Priest was one of the
| lawyers who fought Attorney General
Hadley in the states custer suit
against the Waters Pierce and Repub-
lie Oil company. His legal practice is
chiefly with the big corporations and
his firm is counsel for the United Rail-
way company and the North American
interests in ST. Louis. Judge Priest is
credited with originating the phrase:
Bribery is conventional offense.
which is used in an argument at the
trial of r. N. Snyder, the Kansas City
millionaire, now dead.
Trusts Support Puzzle.
"You say that the trust magnates
know their own interests and are sup
porting Judge Taft. SO far as their in.
terests are Simply interests of the bus
mess community, and especially of the
wage workers, 1 believe they will sup
port Taft. So far as they have spec
ial interests which are to them more
important than the general business
welfare, believe they will support you
base this belief upon what happened
In 1896. Your success then would. II
NV belief. have been a calamity for tht
country from the standpoint of tht
welfare of the business men, farmer.
and working men, just as, in my belle
your success now would be a calamit!
to the country both from the stand
point Of business (and especially of thu
: interest of the wage workers) and from
: the standpoint of morals.
"One Of your supporters, the New
York World in February last, printed
funds Of 1896. containing the names o
individuals and corporations owning
silver mines who made contributions t.
the aggregate amount of S2SS,000, on
of these contributions being of $159,0O
and another of s45,0G0, etc, etc. Nov
all the great financial magnates VIII
then contributed to your campaign
fund would have preferred bushes
, prosperity to- business adversely, othe
things being equal; but they woul
rather have had the immense prof
that would have accrued to them from
the free coinage Of the fifty cent dol
lar than the small profit which woul'
have accrued to them merely from tn
; general industrial prosperity.
Because Of the personal interests an
against the interest of the communit;
at large those trust magnates the1
. supported you My belief is, and tn
statement of Judge Priest quoted abov
and the attitude of many men Of larg
financial interest warrant me in ex
pressing the belief that those trus
magnates whose fear Of being prose
greater than their fear of genera
, business adversely under you, wi
, support you and not Mr.. Taft.
AS to Hughes Support.
"I now come to what you have t
say as to contributions, and here yo
furnish your own answer. You stat
that it appears from the publishe
statement of the contribution to Nj
Hughes campaign for governor tw
years ago that various men of wealtF
some of them connected with big cor
porations, whom you name, to tn
number of nine. contributed from $40.
900 to $500 apiece You ask 'Woul
the fact that these gentlemen contri
> buted to his campaign fund strengthe
, or weaken his testimony against til
2 reasonableness of our anti-trus
remedy? and later you continue
asking: Are you willing to say tha
" any public interest was served in 100
. by concealing until after election til
: contributions made to the republica
3 campaign committee by Mr. Hartman
and those collected by him for others
Z Are you willing to say that the publ
:, cation before election of the contribu
+ tions then made would have had no e1
) feet on the election?'
D You then propose to publish tt
g names Of contributors before electio
e and ask us to DO the same.
"The amounts you mention as cor
+ tributed to Mr.. Hughes are utteri
!, trivial compared to the amounts l hay
VI IL.