The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1911-08-26
Roosevelt
Testifies
Before the Investigating Committee
He Speaks Out Boldly.

ihOilo DSiOlc tIle COilSTcSSlOlldl
committee investigating vhe steel
corporation said:
In the fall of 1907 there were
severe business disturbances and
financial stringency eliminating in
panic which arose in New York
and spread over the country The
damage actually done was great and
damage threatened was incalculable.
Thanks largely to the action of the
government the panic was stopped
before it became frightful and ma
tion wide calamity, disaster
fraught with untold misery and woe
to all our people.
One morning while at breakfast,
was informed that Frick and Gary
were waiting in my office. / sent
a message asking the secretary of
state, Mr.. Root, to join us, which he
did. Before the close of the inter
view, and in the presence of the
three gentlemen named, | dictated
a note to Attorney General Bona
parte, setting forth exactly what
Frick and Gary had proposed and
exactly what | had answered-so
that there might be no possibility of
misunderstanding.
Mr.. Bonaparte received this note
in about an hour and said that my
answer was the only proper answer
that could have been made, having
regard both to the law and to the
needs of the situations he declared
that the legal situation had been in
no way changed, and that no suf-
ficient ground existed for prosecut-
ing the steel corporation.
But | wish it distinctly under
stood that / acted purely on my own
initiative and that the responsibility
for the act was solely mine.
The steel corporations securities
were Immediately marketable, their
great value being known and admit
ted all over the world, as the event
showed. The proposal of Messrs.
Frick and Gary was that the steel
corporation should at once acquire
the Tennessee Coal and Iron COM
pany, and thereby substitute, among
the assets of an institution which,
by the way, they did not name to
me, and which was threatened with
failure, securities of great and i'm
mediate values, for securities which
at the moment were of no value.
1T was necessary for me to de-
eide on the instant, before the stock
exchange opened, for the situation
in New York was such that any hour
might be vital and failure to act for
even an hour might make all subse-
quent effort to act utterly useless.
From the best information at my
disposal | believed land believe)
that the addition of the Tennessee
Coal and Iron company property
would only increase the proportion
OF the steel company's holdings by
about 4 per cent, making them about
62 per cent instead of about 90 per
cent of the total value in the coun-
try, an addition which by itself, in
my judgment (concurred in, may
add, not only by the attorney gem
eral but by every competent lawyer
with whom / talked) didn't change
the legal status of the'steel corpora
ton.
Furthermore, believed that the
action was emphatically for the gen.
eral good, that it offered the only
chance for arresting the panic, and
that it would probably arrest the
panic, as it did.
L answered Messrs. Frick and
Gary to the effect that | did not
deem it my duty to interfere that
is. to forbid the action which more