The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-08-06
EX-PRES|DENT
POUNDED TABLE.
Col. Roosevelt on the Witness Stand
Before the Stanley steel Trust
Investigation Com
mlttee.
Y TO PREVENT PANIC
Gave His Sanction to the Merger Be-
cause He Thought It Would
Stop Financial
Crash.

LGate City Leased Wire Servicel
NEW YORK, Aug. 5.-Well salts
fled with their heckling of Col. Roose-
velt, the Stanley steel investigating
committee returned to Washington to-
night, convinced that Judge Ebert
HI. Gary and Henry G. Frick are the
pivots upon which they must turn
their case as to the absorption of the
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company,
by the steel trust.
Col. Roosevelt told the committee
he believed, when he gave the trust
permission to purchase T. c. & l., in
the terrible days of the 1907 panic,
the merger, would add only four per
cent to the output of the big corpora
ton All of this information came
from Gary and Frick, who visited him
at the white house to tell him that
unless they absorbed the Tennessee
concern, the panic would develop into
country wide calamity
Testimony already given by half a
score of witnesses has convinced the
committee that the addition of the
Tennessee company to the properties
Of the trust gave the corporation six
1 ty or seventy per cent more control
of the iron and steel industry of the
country.
The former president, with. his old
fighting face in evidence, told the
] Stanley committee that:
Everything did, every action
\ took in allowing this merger, was alb.
solutely wise, absolutely necessary
according to my information at that
time, and the information have OBJ
tanned since.
Il would have been criminal in my
capacity if l had not acted as
did"
4 IF you had known that by this
i purchase the steel trust was adding
some 60 or 70 per cent to it's contro
of the industry would you have sane
toned it?' asked Stanley.
! THAT is a purely hypothetical ques
tion. 1t involves facts of which
have no knowledge. | could no
answer epaded Roosevelt Through
4 out the investigation Roosevelt, Stan
lev and Representative Littleton tool
the attitude that Roosevelt as presi
dent sanctioned the T. C. & l. dea
only because he had no knowledge
of the real conditions surrounding it
They reviewed the testimony of wit
nesses who said the only firm involve,
in difficulties through T. G. & l., wa
the brokerage concerns of Moore (
: Schley, and that in their enormou
loans only small percentage wa
founded On the Tennessee stock. Roose
welt declared, however, that he kney
nothing of these conditions.
Did Frick and Gary tell you,' ash
ed Stanley, that the persons to b
saved by this purchase were Kesslel
a wine agent, and Schley, a stoc
iobber, who had been gambling in tn
free stock of the T. c, & I. Co., Will
the big block of stock-the control
was held by multi-millinaires in thei
strong boxes, and was in no danger.
4 "I was never told anything abou
. that responded Roosevelt. Bu
! banker after banker from New Yor
: had told me that Tennessee Coal
: Iron stock was valueless."
did they tell you that the secon
2 mortgage bonds of the steel trus
which were exchanged for the T.
e. l.. were founded on absolutely n
actual value, that before they wei
, issued the steel company's bonds r
, port represented more than its re;
, value, and that Tennessee Coal
, Iron stock represented an actual va
, ue of s15o,0OO.OO0 or 100000, O,ooo?"
mo, never heard of that admi
: ted Roosevelt, "but knew that ste
, bonds could be converted into cas-
, readily in those days, and that T.
& l., could not be converted into an
: thing valuable"
Roosevelt in long statement e
= planned in detail his connection wit
= the T. C. & I deal, and kept the COZ
' mittee busy following him through Il
= maze of words He barred his tee
= in the famous Roosevelt grin, al
= pounded the table before him vigc
= ously as he emphasized his conte
: tions. He discussed trust control
' the abstract with Stanley and agree
with him in many particulars.
Taken in connection with the stocl
: testimony before the committee Roos
= velt's story of the Tennessee de