The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1908-02-01


merce commission should be provided,
with the means to make physical
valuation Of any road as to which it
deems this valuation necessary Irl
this connection l desire to repeat my
recommendation that railways be per-
mitted to form traffic associations for
the purpose of comforting about and
agreeing upon rates, regulations and
practices affecting interstate business
In which the members of the associa-
ton are mutually interested. This
does not mean that they should be
given the right to pool their earnings
or their traffic.
Strengthen Antitrust Law.
In reference to the Sherman anti.
trust law l repeat the recommended
lions made in my message at the open
Ing of the present congress, as we'll as
IN my message to the previous con-
gress. The attempt in this law to
provide in sweeping terms against all
combinations of whatever character, if
technically in restraint of trade as
such restraint has been defined by
the courts, must necessarily be either
futile or mischievous and sometimes
both. The present law makes some
combinations illegal, although they
may be useful to the country. On the
other hand, as to some huge combina
lions which are both noxious and il
legal, even if the actin undertaken
against them under the law by the
government is successful, the result
may be to work but minimum bene-
fit to the public. Even though the
combination be broken up and a small
measure of reform thereby produced
the real good aimed at can not be OBJ
tanned, for such real good can come
only by E: thorough and continuing
supervision over the acts of the COM
bination in all it's parts so as to pre-
vent stock watering, improper forms
| of competition and, in short, wrong
doing generally. The law should cor
rect that portion of the Sherman act
which prohibits all combinations of
the character above described,
whether they be reasonable or unrea-
sOnable; but this should be done only
| as part of a general scheme to pro.
vide for this effective and thorough
going supervision by the national gov
eminent of all the operations of the
big Interstate business concerns.
l do not know whether it is posi-
BILE, put if possible it is certainly de-
sirable, that in connection with meas
ures to restrain stock watering and
overcapitaliZatiOn there should be
! measures taken to prevent at least
the grosser forms of gambling in Sc
| curities and commodities, such as
making large sales of what men do not
possess and "cornering" the market.
Legitimate purchases of commodities
and of stocks and securities for in
vestment have no connection whatever
With purchases of stocks or other Sc
curities or commodities on a margin
for speculative and gambling pur-
poses. There is no moral difference
between gambling at cards or in lot
teries or on the racetrack and gam
bling in tile stock market. One method
is just as pernicious to the body poll
tic as the other in kind and in degree
the evil worked is far greater. But it
IS a far more difficult subject with
which to deal. If it is possible to de-
wise a way to deal with it the effort
| should be made, even if only in eau
tious and tentative way. 1t would
seem that the federal government
could at least act by forbidding the
use of the mails, telegraph and tele-
phone wires for mere gambling in
stocks and futures just as it does in
lottery transactions.
Bitter and Persistent "knocking."
The attack by the great corpora.
! lions on the administration actions
have been given a wide circulation
! throughout the country, in the news
| papers and otherwise, by those writer's
and speakers who, consciously or un-
consciously, act as the representatives
of predatory Wealth-of the wealth
forms of iniquity, ranging from the
! oppression of wage workers to unfair
and unwholes ONE methods of crushing
| out competition, and to defrauding
the public by stock jobbing and the
manipulation of securities. The adj
ministration and those who support
it's views are not only not engaged in
an assault on property, but are siren
Nous upholders of the rights of prop
erty. The books and pamphlets, the
controlled newspapers, the speeches
| by public or private men to which !
refer, are usually and especially in
! the interest of the Standard Oil trust
! and of certain notorious railroad COM
binations, but they also defend other
| individuals and corporations of great
| wealth that have been guilty of wrong
| doing. 1t is only rarely that the men
responsible for the wrongdoing them
| selves speak or write. Normally they
hire others to do their bidding or find
| others who will do it without hire
| From the railroad rate law to the
pure food law every measure for hon
| esty in business that has been passed
| during the last six years has been op-
| posed by these men on it's passage
and in its administration with every
source that bitter and INSCRIPTIONS
! 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 administration of the law, espe-
| cially through the department of JUS
! L.