The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-13
Attorney General BOnaparte Talks of Dangers to COun-
 ty from Trusts
CARDS ALWAYS STACKED
 AGAINST THE POOR MAN
MT. Bonaparte Suggests That Anti Trust Laws May Be Improved By Giving More Power to Ad-
 ministratve Officers.

NewYorlx, December 12--(Speci Reply- ing to the toast. ''The Bar of the Country end the Cause of Federal Justice" Attor- ney General Bonaparte, at the banquet of the Pennsylvania society of New York, tonight, analysed the so-called antitrust law and made suggestions for it's better ment He declared that Americans are a judge ruled'' people, and that the dic- tun of Talleyrand that the characteristic traits of Americans were a great love of liberty and a great thirst for wealth, is ias true today as when uttered. MT. Bon aparte then reviewed the conditions that bad made pecessary the enactment of the antitrust laws.
 .Within the memory of this genera ton" said he, 'the American people slow ly awaneked to a consciousness that all Americans did not then get square oeal as they tried to gain wealth ine grleV- arce lay i1 thas oness very rich men could. and some of them did, make 1t tarder than nature, and fortune had made if for poor men who wanted to grow rich just as they themselves had grown ricn'
 .grhe cards were stacked, the dice are loaded against the humber players; the smaller and weaker among the racers were crossed ir their gallop and crowdeo off the track by the. big ones
 .sThis free American citizen was told ne must get out of business because the trust wanted his trade; that free American cit izen who would buy of another as free was told his neighbor dared not sell him, 1 because the trust forbade
 Tt was made plain to thousands of Americans that their commercial liberties were in danger; that the poor man was losing his right to get rich if he could, and tp n there arose murmurs of diseon- tegA and soon demands that the evils be N nledied and the answer of Congress had been given in the antitrust laws
 The attorney general was of the opin- ion that the antitrust laws might be im- proved by entrusting administrative of fcers with duties similar to those exer- cised by the Secretary of War in mat trs of obstruction of navigable waters
 Under proper safeguards, he said, these officers would be given power to act m matters ob obstruction of commerce and cold take steps to prevent combinations in restraint of trade or tending to create nonopolies.
 Justice Mitchell sail
 'sFor the cure of evils, temporarily prominent it is impatiently advocated that the combined powers of the government be centralized in the executive.
 '"rhe only safety for all is obedience to law as it is written, not to strained and distorted construction, to make 1t mean what it does no, and never was inended to mean, but honestly and fear lessIy to carry out the real meaning of its makers
 The only just criticism of judges law must come from court which knows the law and has jurisdiction to declare it. Dissent from his views based on ill., diyidual opinion of what the law ought to be. whether it comes from an ex- ecutive or hoodlum, leads directly and by short steps ~to anarchy-the assertion of individual will against the settled law. The very phrases as prominently put forward of judges who have Jagged behind the times and judges who hold to a twentieth century economic phil osophy,' betrays not only ignorance, but a deplorable imcapacity to comprehend the fundamental principles of the Amer ican government. If the law as declared by the constitutional tribunal Is not what the people want 1t to be, then let 1t be changed, but let it never be lost sight of that the authority to change it is legislative, not judicial, still less ex- ecutive."