The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1912-05-03
big BUSINESS"
CONTROLS MR.. TAFT
SAYS Senator BriStOw--- Standard Oil Got
"What It Wanted

Enthusiastically Rockefeller Was
complacent as to Election of 1908.
Washington, April 1S.-That the Taft
administration has entered into an I'M
Outstanding with the great business
combinations of the country and that
the relations between those combina-
tons and the administration now are
harmonious and directed toward COM
mon end is the profound belief of Sen
ator Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas, one
of the foremost leaders of the progress
sive movement in the United States.
''If you take for text the speech de-
livered in Philadelphia not long ago by
President Taft, in which he declared
himself progressive along with the
rejoinder thereto delivered by Colonel
Roosevelt at Louisville and attach to
these speeches the reasonable knowl-
edge of known facts and events, you
cannot escape the conclusion at which
1 have arrived" said Senator Bristow
in talk on what might be called the
case against the Taft administration"
"Said Colonel Roosevelt:
Taft's "Proeressivism."
"Four years ago the progressives sup
ported Mr. Taft for president, and he was
opposed by such representatives OF spe-
cial privileges as Mr.. Penrose of Pennsyl-
vania, Mr.. Aldrich Of Rhode Island and
Mr.. Gallinger of New Hampshire, as
nrtp Cannon
of Illinois, and he was opposed by prac-
tically all of the men of the stamp OF
Messrs. Guggenheimer and Evans OF Col
orado and Mr.. Patrick Calhoun OF san
Francisco. These men were not progress
sives then, and they are not progressives
now; but, unlike the president, they know
who is a progressive and who Is not
Their judgment in the matter is good
After three and half years of associa-
ton with and knowledge of the president
these and their fellows are now the pres
idents chief supporters, and they and the
men who feel and act as they do in busi-
ness and in politics give him the great
bulk of his strength. The president says
he is a. progressive. These men know him
well and have studied his actions for three
years, and they regard him as being pre-
cisely the kind of progressive they ap-
prove.
Study that extract from Colonel
Roosevelts speech, if you please. Get
at its meaning. Why does the crimi-
nal on trial 8Dr his liberty or his Ill
gotten property seek to select judge
by asking a change of venue? Why
does he discriminate so closely in the
selection of the jury which is to try
him? The law provides these expedi-
IL. Ar,AG 1, 81 ItTCf fgns
but, being guilty, he does not resort to
these expedients to secure justice, but
to avoid it, When the great combina-
tons which have piled up enormous
aggregations Of money by illegal and
criminal means select and stand for a
candidate for president they have
motive, a motive that it seems to me
ought to be plain to all men.
John D. Was Informed.
LET me next call your attention to
the interview which John D. Rookie
Teller gave out at the Standard OIL Of
fees in New York, Oct. 80. 1908, few
days before the election in which Mr..
Taft first ran for the presidency. Mr..
fees for several years, and when he
appeared there for the express purpose
of making public in the most effective
and farreaching way this interview,
Colonel Roosevelt and all the other
progressives were of the opinion that 1t
was done for the purpose of hurting
Mr.. Taft. But l have changed my
mind about that since that time.
have become convinced that Mr.. Rock
efeller then had information about the
complacence of Mr.. Taft regarding
big Business that the progressives
did not have.
"As one indication of this. l have
been advised that not so very long be-
fore the Rockefeller interview the sug
ar trust approached Mr.. Taft through
Mr.. Charles B. Warren of Michigan,
the personal representative of the sug-
ar trust In the beet sugar industry in
Michigan, on matters vital TO that ini-
quitous combination. That the confer
ence was eminently satisfactory to the
sugar trust was Immediately shown by
the fact that Mr.. Warren and his as
sociates were for Taft and have been
for him ever since. Indeed, on this
point | have only to recall to you that
Mr.. Warren was accredited in the
press reports of a few days ago with
being the person who at midnight
placed fifty huskies from the Michigan
beet sugar factories in the hall where
the Michigan Republican state conven-
ton was to be held in order that the
hall might be controlled in the interest
of Mr.. Taft and against Colonel Roose-
Welt the next day
Oil Octopus In Touch.
siNow. If, such conference could
make the sugar interests the devoted
supporter OF Mr.. Taft the question nat
urally arises why something of the
same kind might not have Influenced
Mr.. Rockefeller There are not the accu-
rate data in regard to the Standard OIL
company that there are relative to the
meeting with the sugar trust, but there
is some interesting collateral evidence
tending to show that somewhere and
somehow the oil octopus got in touch
with the influences that controlled the
then candidate for president. You VIII