The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1908-10-20

the interests Of the people demand.
would the number Of trusts have null
tpltcd so rapidly? Not only would
the trusts doing business have been
put ont Of business. but men would
not have put money into new trusts
If they had believed that the law
against trusts and against persons
guilty of combining would be vigorous
~ enforced.
I submit that by the test OF punish.
Ing lawbreakers and deterring others
from violating the law--the eternal
and true, test 4the executor of the
anti-trpst laws by the federal govern.
ment is a failure and TINT the exist
once and fiotirfsbjng condition of the
very trusts you have prosecuted con.
vlnces the people that the trusts arc
superior TO law, or as Woodrow vii.
son. president Of Princeton university,
said last week: |..t E,
THE most striking fact about the
actual organization of modern society
is that the most conspicuous, the most
readily welded, and the most formida,
Dle power Is not the power of the gov
crnmont, but the power of capital. Men
of our day In England and America
have almost forgotten what 1t Is to
fear the government but have found
out what 1t is TO fear the power or
capital, to watch it with jealousy and
suspicion, and trace TO it the source
Vt every open or hidden wrong"
| submit that the collection OF fines
from trusts aggregatng u million dol
lars, If You bad collected so much,
which has not been done. would be no
punishment worth the name of pun
ishmcnt to the 2ST trusts with an ag-
gregate capitalization of SG,972, 49,
SoLOO. The fning process In trust
prosecution Is analogous to those fines
Imposed by n police Justice upon per-
sons keeping illegal resorts I'm towns.
These INES often operate as a sliding
scale of license laN--so may dollars
whenever the aroused moral sense OF
the community will no longer be silent
while the lawlesS dive dcbauches the
people. What the people wish to know
is mis-; How many trusts have you
compelled TO dissOlve-in truth. and
not merely TO officially dissolve, and
thea continue 10 fix The price. as the
dissolved paper trust has done? The
meat trust paid fine and soon put up
the prices OF all that men must cat by
some w-you-sec.it-and.no now -you-don't
slelght of hand that seems 10 escape
further prosecution while continuing 10
levy a tax upon all the people. No
prosecution of the trusts Is effective
that Is not felt by the public I'm re-
lievlng them of trust imposition in
what they buy. Your department saws
the paper trust was prosecuted and
dissolved, but the publishers know that
the mills in the trust have comblna-
tiOn now rs injurious to them as before
your prosecution. You say YOU have
prosecuted the tobacco trust. but that
trust has put up the price of the manu-
factured product il sells and nut down
nt will TIE price or the raw material
II buys from the farmer. You do not
claim, | believe. to have ever even in.
stitutcd proceedings against the steel
trust, and only last year, in the teeth
OF the law, your department acqulcsced
in the complete monopoly of that giant
OF trusts when It took over the only
largo company able to compete with
1t In any line OF production.
lf your department I'm seven years
has prosecuted nineteen civil and
, twenty-five criminal cases. in which
no trust official has been Jailed aud no
trust robbing the people has been com.
PEELED to take its grasp from the throat
OF free competition while 223 new
trusts have been born during the Nc
kinley and Roosevelt Republican ad.
ministrations, how long at this rate or
progress will IL take the Republican
administration TO stop the extortion of
2S1 trusts that fatten by taxing the
people? That is the question that the
voters are propoundlng and It is n
question which the department of jus
tiCe should answer.
am, sir
Yours very respectfully,
tSlGncdl