The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1910-10-06
MEAT TRUST INDICTMENTS.

The Public: Read the indictments
of the federal grand jury at Chicago
against the meat trust mem. Og-
den Armour, Edward Morris, Louis
F. Swift, Edward Tilden, and others
of lesser note. 1t is no innocuous
breach of statute that those indict-
ments charge against these men.
They charge crime in the moral
as we'll as the statutory sense.
Lawyers assign legal crime to two
categories. One includes crimes
which in technical phrase are only
"mala prohibita, and the other
those that are "mala in se" The
first are criminal only because they
are prohibited by the law-making
power the smuggling of clothing,
for instance. . The others are crimi-
nails in themselves, simply because
they are morally wrong-theft, for
instance. Now, it is generally I'M
derstood that the meat trust conspir-
ators, if guilty at all, are guilty of
crimes known to lawyers as 'mala
prohibita," and that no stigma should
attach; that Mr.. Roosevelt, for il
lustration, might properly dine with
or be politically or socially received
by any of them, not only after in
dictment, but even after conviction.
But this is not true. eve don't
mean that it is not true of Mr. Roose-
welt, for no man can tell who might
or might not be persona grata to
him at any given, dinner or receipt
ion.) What we mean is that it is
not true that the offense of the ac-
cused beef trust men is only what
lawyers call 'mala prohibita not
if the indictments set forth the facts
truly. No statute was necessary to
make their acts criminal, as that in
dictment narrates them. The ne
cessity for the statute under which
they are indicted is to give juris-
diction to the federal courts. The
acts charged are "mala in Sc" Grim
inal in themselves, criminal under
legislatures or courts would reach
the moral law-whether the laws of
legislatures or courts would reach
them or not.
If the indictment truly describes
their offenses, those men are thieves
morally if not legally. We use the
term in no mere denunciatory way.
AS Mr.. Roosevelt would say, if his
spirit moved him to say anything,
we are using it scientifically and
descriptively and because no other
terms express the facts with the nee
essary precision" The acts with
which those indicted men are charg-
ed are but subtle forms of theft
not so very subtle either, except in
the ingenuity of their secrecy. Let
there be no Misrepresentation as to
the terpitude Of the acts with which
Armour, Morris, Swift, Tilden ct al.
are charged. They are entitled to
fair trial, and to the benefit of
every reasonable doubt; but is con-
victed they will not be victims of a
mere arbitrary statute. Irrespective
of the mild penalties of this statute,
irrespective of the Indifference with
which they and others of their ma
rauding class may regard of their
conviction, their conviction will be
of offenses against the just property
rights of other persons as truly as
is. the pickpocket's, the burglars or
the counterfeiter's Though the
statute regarding their offenses be
mild in its penalties, though they
be legally amenable only to that
statute, yet if they are guilty as
charged, the essence of their offense
is within those terms of the Ten
Commandments which read. "Thou
shalt not steal"