The Sentinel=record., 1911-08-06

 DON'T WAIT
STEEL TRUST COM MlTTEE BY APPEARING SUD-
 DENLY BEFORE IT.
Tells Members He Did Right and Not to Have Done So Would Have Been Criminal Under
 Circumstances.
E!AT@sStA z

New York, Aug. 5.-Theodore Roosevelt stalked boldly before the house of representatives committee of inquiry into the United States Steel Corporation here today and voluntarily told how his action in lconsenting to the absorption of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company by the stel corporation in 1907, had ayerted disastrous panic.
 The former chief executives ac- ton in submitting to a congression- l al review of acts of his own admin istration was almost unprecedented in the history of the United States and was thoroughly kooseveltian. lie arrived unheralded at the city hall, vigorously shook hands with me>> bers of the committee, declared nim = self delighted to see 'Sxerybody and got down to business.
 First and foremost he placed up- on himself responsibility for approv- ling the absorption to save a perilous financial disaster in Wall Street and condemned any man who would be so weak as not to act as he did in that crisis. Not to have done as ne did, he said, would have been crim- inal.
 | Probably nothing in the vigorous life history of Theodore Roosevelt was more dramatic than his public appearance today at Tie cl sis of the investigation of the transaction which has been recorded in hundreds oi pages of congressional inquiry. The chapter he contributed not on- | ly dealt with his part in the moment ous events of that threatening time, but he gave the committee some Interesting opinions on the trust ques- tion that loomed up in their import even more than his recital of facts in the Tennessee Coal and Iron tran sactlon. Alter declaring that his oD- ject in approving the sale of tne Tennessee company was to restore confidence, the former president, in response to inquiries by Representa- tive Littleton relating to the case as presented to him by Judge Gary and H. c. Prick at the memorable White House conference in November 1907, said:
 The situation was so critica, that it was liable to break at any moment until the action was taken and the instant it was taken an enormous improvement occurred and as said in the poem of MT. Emerson, with wh1c..s. You are all so well acquainted:
 ''lf the red slayer uhInKs ne says, Or if the slain thing he is slain, 1t matters not. '"
 l Then MT. Roosevelt launched into |
 a discussion with Chairman Stanley of the general trust question, saying the United States had something to learn from Germany.
 | MT. Stanley" MT. Roosevelt broke in, switching the line of inquiry in progress, may 1 say in connection with what has been said on the gen eral trust question and of this par tieuIar corporation, the steel corpor- ation, that 1 know you will not ac- cept silence on my part as indicat- ing anything as to my attitude on the geneEal trust question as you know it.
 "I have stated again and again while l was president, in messages to congress, which were not always received with as much enthusiasm as they were written and since then IT articles and speeches, just what have felt the attitude of congress towards these great corporations should be and as you know, 1 believe in far more drastic and far more Thorough going supervision and con Itrol over them by the national gov ernment than we have yet achieved Ixxxx
 "On another occasion sSJulc lnave been very glad to have spoken with you on trus. remedies. l am sur, you will not achieve your purpose Dy splitting up the big corporations, al II have stated again and again fl messages 70 congress.
 While something can De done aioni that line, in addition. and to my minl lmainly the work must be done by ou