Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-02-04
Questions Presidents Motive

Questions Presidents Motive
Representative Sherwood (Dem..
Chio), in following Mr.. Townsend, de-
clared his ideas of the presidents mes
sage, and particularly addressing him
self to its labor feature, said:
For what reason did the president
express his views so fully? Was it In
the interest OF the candidacy of the
secretary of war? Is 1t a spectacular
and sensational appeal to divert the
attention of the public from the secre-
tary's record? The president, like the
secretary of war, has a labor record or
ais own that is in need of patching"
Mr.. Sherwood took up the report OF
the Goldfield labor commission made
70 the president in December and just
submitted to congress, and said that
the report itself showed that the send
ing of troops to Goldfield was clearly
against the statute in that no state or
insurrection existed; that the troops
were placed at the disposal Of the
mine owners at the behest or SENATOR
Simon Guggenheim and other mine
owners in Nevada who wined ana
dined Governor Sparks.
Speaking of the Moyer-H Haywood
Pettibone case, Mr.. Sherwood said
that when writs of habeas corpus had
been unlustly issued to take them from
Colorado to idaho the president old
not interfere.
HE was as silent as the oysters in
Oyster bay"
Bourke Cochran Replies
Bourke Cochran also replied to Mr.:
Townsend. He denied the accuracy of
Mr.. Tnwnsend's statement and said
that sirce the beginning of the re-
public there had not been single
policy prominently Incorporated into
law that was not of Democratic origin.
Coming to more recent issues, Mr..
Cochran said:
1.-THE message which the president
sent here Friday raises question
which goes tn the very existence ana
growth of civi government. The f1rst
part of the message contains COM
plants.
After we pass that portion we come
TO the part which we all applauded,
and that wa5 the paragraph that re-
lated to charges that business distress
was brought on by the government,
and that the knife should be used
freely in cutting out rottenness."
Mr.. Cochran grew vftriolic in his de-
nunciation of bank presidents and cor
poration officials who had been guilty
of illegal actions.
DepraVity IN Hi9h Places
He first referred to the insurance in
vestigation and in speaking of the re-
cent financial crisis said it had been
caused by revelations of depravity in
high places in the financial world.
"Was the president responsible Tor
that?" he inquired. 1.-THE whole trouble
grew out of a quarrel of the plunderers
of insurance companies over the distri-
button of the spoils. So deeply had the
public conscience become appalled, by
the spectacle OF unpublished crime that
never did it seem to dawn on any one
publicist or journalist or prosecuting
officer, or even politician, that Instead
of certain corporation heads being suf-
fered to do some house cleaning in the
corporations they had pillaged, they
ought to be sent to do some cell clean
ing in the penitentiary.
"These gentlement," he said, when
their rapacities had exhausted the sup
ply and there was nothing left to steal
did not even surrender control Of the
corporations they wronged"
They do not, he continued. flee from
Justice, fearing its sword, but they
60 into a court of Justice and obtain
its protection to obtain further author
ity over the very trusts they had be-
trayed."
Banks Ruined by Crime
Regarding recent bank failures in
New York, Mr. Cochran said that not
one of them failed through error of
Judgment. Every one of them," he
|, said, twas ruined by crime"
He charged that the officers who
were being pursued before grand juries
and criminal courts actually had set
themselves to work to raise funds to
reopen the concerns and induce depos-
| itors to sanction delay in the payment
of their money, land" he said, they
are treated as saviors of society be-
cause they had not blown up the build
| ing i'm addition to pilfering the banks. :"
ut had been asked" continued Mr..
Cochran. "why doesn't the president
prosecute these gentlemen" but he
said he noticed at was always pro-
pounded by those who, If they thought
there was any idea of prosecution.
would not engage in public discussion
(Continued ON page twel