Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1909-02-22
USURPEDAUTHORITY
COMMITTEEOf SENATE GOESAfTER
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.
Senator'S Find Tennessee Coal r1eraer
Was Illegal, and Presidents Act
'!na"tt n"i7c" Report Creates
, Consideration In Capital. a Sly
Trick CT Steel Trust.


Clearly intimating that the United
States Steel Corporation forced the
owners of the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company to sell out their holdings;
that the object was to secure con-
troll OF its greatest existing COM
petitOr in the iron and steel busi-
ness; that the means employed were
, the forcing of money payments on
loans by banks, at time when the
Tennessee owners, although wealthy,
could not procure cash; that as a
result the steel corporation for a
comparatively small sum, secured
possession of vastly valuable prop
erty, and declaring the combination
so effected, constitutes a monopoly
in restraint of trade; that President
Roosevelt did, in effect promise Of
ficials of the steel corporation, immu-
nifty from prosecution for violation
of the law; and that in doing so, the
president cited without authority of
law, the subcommittee of the senate
judiciary committee which has been
Investigating the merger of the Ten
nessee company with the steel cor
pOration today made its report.
At the meeting of the subcommit-
tee late this afternoon the report was
n n6 hxv yCtn Nf rs II
three making up the majority were
Senators Charles A. CulbersOn, De-
mocrat, Of Texas; Lee S. Overman,
Democrat, of North Carolina and AL
fred Kitteridge, Republican, of South
Dakota. The minority consisted of
Senators Clarence D. Clark, Republi-
can, Of Wyoming, and William P.
Dillingham;, Republican,, of Vermont.
1t was determined by the senate
committee to present the report for
the consideration of the full commit
tee at its regular meeting Monday
next.
The report further finds that the
steel corporation purchased $30,375,-
S25 of the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company's stock, being all but $22,-
160 outstanding. Little cash was
pasesd in the exchange, it is alleged
the larger part of the payments being
made in steel stock.
The subcommittee holds that when
the president wrote to the attorney
general that he had told the steel
officials he did not feel it his duty
to interpose any objection to the pro-
posed merger, this was, in effect, a
direction to the general not
to Interfere.
AS for the presidents assertion
that his reason for his noninterfer-
ence was that certain firm of New
York was likely to fail if help was
not given, and that among it's assets
was a majority of securities of the
Tennessee company, the subcommit-
tee declares that the firm in question
was that of and quotes
from the testimony of Grant B.
Schley, a member of the firm, to show
that it did not hold as assets at that
time any portion whatever of the
Tennessee company's stock.
1t had outstanding loans on about
$6,000,000 of those securities, how
ever, and had borrowed much larger
amounts on other securities; and the
report describes how the firm was
bounded and how the Trustee Com
pany of America, of which Oakleigh
Thorne, it's president and a member
of the Tennessee syndicate, was near
ly attacked during the panic, the in
ference being that special drive
was being made at that time against
the Tennessee company to compel it
to sell out.
The subcommittee report takes
the ground that the president has no
authority to annul or suspend law
or to direct it's nonenforcement in any
particular case. No discretion is
lodged in him as to whether or not
he shall see that laws are faithfully
executed.
Giving a statement collected from
various sources as to the enormous
resources Of the Tennessee company,
the report says that 1t was only Sec
ond to the steel corporation itself in
wealth Of raw material for the manu-
facture Of iron and steel, and the sub
committee charges that the effect and
purpose Of the merger was to mono