Graham guardian., 1912-02-02
NEW LEGAL AUTHORITY
FORMER PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
PLACED ON A PEDESTAL.
Lawyers Of the Harvester Trust SHOW
Recognition Of the Profundlty Of
the Mind Of the Distinguished
Republican Statesman.

Bench and bar alike will be delight
ed to know that Theodore Roosevelt
has been cited as a legal authority
He may not rank with Coke and
Blackstone, Marshall or Story or
Cooley, but he answered the purpose
of the lawyers OF the Harvester trust
when they applied to the supreme
court of Missouri for remission OF
the fine recently imposed upon that
combination.
The particular profundity to which
the courts attention 10 asked relates
to the well-known subject OF good
trusts and bad trusts. Chancellor
Roosevelt insists along with Jack
Bunsby that an honest trust II inno-
cent and praiseworthy, no matter how
big II may be, and. necessarily, that q
dishonest trust. even though small.
cannot fail to be bad one. BY I'M
plication. We suppose. the Harvester
trust asks to be classified az both
good and big.
II It becomes fashionable to cite
the learned jurisconsult of Oyster Bay
in our highest courts there is no
telling where the practice will end.
He can be quoted on all sides OF most
questions and not much research Will
be needed to md in his speeches and
writings judgments that are calculat-
ed to put courts and lawyers out OF
business entirely,
It was the sapient Roosevelt who
referred to the Supreme court OF the
United States as made up OF Judges
perfectly honest but of fossilized
mind" 1t was he who suspended the
antitrust law for the benefit OF the
steel trust 1t was he who said Of
HIS lawless seizure Of the isthmus:
II took It and let congress talk after
wards" It was he who frst laid
down the doctrine that '.the law must
be efiicient and therefore 1t must be
administered by executive officers and
not by lawsuits In the courts"
The surprising thing is that nobody
has appealed to this celebrated lead
or of Jurisprudence before this. Law
court records need only frequent ex-
tracts from his judicial and judicious
writings to make them as sensational
and incongruous as the yellow press.
Magistrates and lawyers toiling dill
gently to determine and apply the law
may gain knowledge and inspiration
from him at first hands. His caprice
has always been his law. His oppo-
nents have always been mollycoddles
or malefactors His friends have al
ways been good trusts and just men
armed.
When the Harvester people quote
Counselor Roosevelt 1t must be that
the Mosaic. common and statute law
has been exhausted in their behalf.
It must be, furthermore, that he is
a friend Of the trust, He never did
anything to hurt 1t when he was pres
ident. Perhaps so much cannot be
said Of him as q legal authority. for
judges are only human and they may
resent citations from the utterancesi
Of man who has held himself above
law and superior to courts.
II the trusts wish to array despotic
maxims on their side why do they not
cite the remark Of Napoleon Bona
parte that when 1t comes to conspi-
racy everything Is permissible" Or
the worldly philosophy Of Benjamin
Franklin. who may have foreseen the
troubles of present-day lawbreakers:
'''Why is man reasonable being II
he cannot find reasons for what he
wants to do?" These are almost
Rooseveltian.--St Louis Republic.