The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-21

hateful fortress that was despotism in. | carnate, round which clung 10000 out rages and countless miseries. Thus the savage mob that destroyed the Bastlc was made virtuous in the eye of history and the blood that day shed was libation l on the altars of liberty.
 l We have no lettres de cachet to seize the person of the citizen, but this great government is prostituted in another and I scarce less odious method-it may seaues- ter his property and bankrupt the citizen l by an order issued by an executive de- jartment at Washington. and that is what It did in the case of E. G. Lewis of St. Louis, Mo
 This man is as great a wizard as Edi- 1 son, and his schemes as beneicent in kind if not as universal in extent He is genius, Napoleonic in conception and in execution. He is a greater Hartman. and what is better. there is no evil in his enterprises. In a few short years, q less period than single lustrum, he rose l from penury to opulence but the United States postoffice department put forth it's heavy hand, touched him and he with cred. As the sun rose that day he was twice millionaire; when it set he was a pauper.
 l This man Lewis created a publishing company that promised to be the greatest and most extensive in the world issuing periodicals daily, weekly and monthly. that soon would have had the widest cir culation in the world. He created a city. suburb of St. Louis, that was the most desirable residential section of that me- tropolis. He established bank, designed 10 give banking facilities to all the idle capital in America, estimated at the gi- gantic sum of s2.0000o0,0O0 Had he not been disturbed 1t Is within the bounds or probability that the Peoples United States bank would have become the bie- gest and most prosperous financial con cern in this country, with the possible exception of the United States treasury It was designed to make a financial panic like those of 1893 and 1907 impossible; but he would have sorey crippled and ulti- malely put out of business the Adams Express company, the American Express company, the Southern Express company, ana the Wells-Fargo Express company. This mans banking scheme was a long step in the direction of benefcent social ism It was designed to distribute wealth equtaby among the common people and l II would have made many family now | thriftless thrifty.
 l It is not state socialism that all of us 1 rear, but virtual business co-partner- 1 ship embracing millions of families in the nrm I cannot go into particulars Send to the committee on expenditures l in the postoffice department of the House 1 of Representatives for the testimony in 1 the Lewis case, and if you have the cu- riosity and the patience to go through that voluminous record you will be very apt to come to the conclusion I have ar- rived at touching tho Lewis case
 The French ask: Who is the woman in 1 the case?" We ask. "Who got tbe nioney"' Without warning a clap oi thunder from serene sky, the postoffico l department took charge of all Lewis stupcndous enterprises, issued fraud or ders against them wound up his banl,
 annihilated his publishing company. ant l made him a beggar, and that over t;lt 1 protest of the best and most opulan | business men of St. Louis as well q. | against the wishes and welfare Of mll
 lions of citizens throughout the countr,
 from Maine to California The stronees
 banking institutions in America acted a
 agents for Lewis-the Park National ban,
 Of New York, the third strongest fnancla
 institution of that city: the First Nation
 al bank of Chicago the Hibernia Trus
 company of New Orleans the Bank O
 California, the Scandinavian IT, America
 bank of Seattle and the National Bank O
 Commerce of St. Louis cleared" for tn
 Lewis bank.
 ? Whether the express companies chlpne, l Tn when 5ffarriman, was making that boo l dies fund to keep in power the part Of Great Moral Ideas I do not know. pu
 right here shall for the first time maj,
 rcquisltion upon that odious and wretcne
 Gallictsm this way, ''it goes without say
 ing that they did. It was millions {
 the express Companies to ruin Lewis
 Cortelyou issued the order that destroVe
 him. But Cortelyou saw what a storm Q
 indignation he had conjured anon
 Lewis friends. and he saw Lewis in Ney
 York and offered some sorts of amends He was then candidate for Preslden,
 you see, and would have got the noinina
 tion if his master in the White House la
 not scratched his name.
 Well, they indicted Lewis, but kept put
 ting of the trial. Finally they chos their strongest. casc--the bank The fur
 was empaneed and sworn, the evidenc , heard and the United States judge re
 fused to allow the Jury to make verdic
 and discharged Lewis because there wa
 no evidence against him to warrant con
 siction. The United States district atsor
 ney who prosecuted was so glad that h
 jumped across the table and huage
 Lewis In an ecstasy of congratulati ton, an , tthc jury crowded about shim saying thei verdict woul have been mol guilty" }l But what of that? The ruin had bee 2 brought. the sman was a begGar. his busi | ness annihiiated, the express companie { triumphant and secure in their extra div ! idends of s25 ,0a0,000 annually.
 {l l have merely glanced at this grea ] case, the strangcst in all commercial {Enefcantile and financial history Ii is }ltherie for Balzac. Dic'.ens could hay made more of it than "A Tale of Tw : Cities" Every intelliEents citizen olIs