The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-04-25

inclined to believe that it is as Mr..
| Perkins stated. a purely technical legal
question.
las the principle of fair dealing and
good policy involved, I also concur en-
! phatically with the attitude of the COM
pany. 1t is certainly true that this COM
pany has been most open with the
bureau.
Furthermore, the attitude of the
Morgan interests generally, which CON
/ troll this company, has been one of
| active cooperation IN the inveStl-
| CATION of the steel industry, the Unit
| ed States steel corporation has already
spent thousands of dollars in compil-
and intimate information as to the
| business, and its officers have gone
to immense trouble and loss of time
to facilitate in every way our works.
This case raises the question in
cluded in what the president has call
ed good and bad trusts the question
whether combinations as such shall be
prohibited; whether the government
is going to try to forbid all comblna-
lions regardless of their methods or
it is going to pursue the policy, fire.
quently stated by the president, of
regulation and control, rather than of
prohibition.
Finally the case against the COM
pany is a civil. not criminal one
Delay will not affect the case through
any statute of limitation. II there IS
good, equitable case against TN
company it will be in thousand fold
better shape for trial after the inves-
tigation by the bureau than now.
THE considerations explain and JUS
tify the attitude taken by the Interna-
tional Harvester company. which at
titude represents. I believe, that of a
majority of the financial interests OF
the country
Commissioner Smiths letter to Pres
ident Roosevelt was accompanied by
a letter of Endorsement from Oscar
Straus. then secretary of commerce
and labor.
The sending of the correspondence
to the senate was not without senSa-
tional incidents. Only few weeks ago
Attorney General Wickersham flatly
refused to send it in response to re-
quest by Senator Lea (Tenn.) Senator
Johnston (Ala) called upon the at
torney general for the correspondence
and within two hours it was in hand.
Bonaparte's Version of 1t.
Baltimore, April 25.-Respecting
President Roosevelt letter to Attorney
General Bonaparte directing the lat-
ter to withhold the antitrust suit
against the International Harvester
company contained in the correspon-
dence sent to the senate yesterday by
the department of justice, Mr.. Bona
parte said the action was Wlthneld
pending the result of an investigator
reau of corporations being made at
the instance of the senate. Former
Attorney General Bonaparte said:
The letter in question was written
while I was absent from washington
and while an investigation by the de-
partment of justice was in progress in
regard to the affairs of the Harvester
trust before any report had been made
to the department or any decision
reached by it.
later after
partment had received full report
from it's representative, a Mr.. Town
send, l announced to the president
that I was ready to institute suit
for the dissolution of the Harvester
trust.
bureau of corporations had not yet
completed its investigation of the same
harvester trust (Which it was conduct
ing by direction of a resolution of the
senate) and the matter being submit
ted to the cabinet it was decided that
the suit should await the conclusion of
Mr.. Herbert Knox Smiths inquiry.
TT was supposed then that this would
cause but short delay. The inquiry
lasted, however not only during the re-
naming year of Mr.. Roosevelt's admin
istration but during some three years
of Mr.. Taft's. and so far as l know, IS
not yet finished.
THE presidents letter of August,
1907, did not in any wise delay or affect
the action of the department of justice,
and when I told him T. thought the suit
should be undertaken which was prob
ably five six months later, he imme-
diately acquiesced. The only impedi-
Smiths inquiry still was unfinished
and his (Mr. Smith's) statement that
he could not complete it if the suit
should be brought