The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1914-05-18
OPPOSES new HAVEN.
RAILROAD PROBE.
Attorney General McReynolds Pro
tests Against Examinations Of Wit
nesses- Says It Gives Immunity.
MELLEN COULD END L00TING
Phosphorus Bill, At First Fought
Against, Proves Boon to Match
Manufacturers-Better Results,

by congressman T.. II. TaYenner.
Washington, May 18.-The sympa-
thy of the country in the clash be-
tween the Interstate Commerce COM
mission and Attorney General Nc
Reynolds over the testimony of the
New Haven railroad officials will be
with the commission.
Somewhere in the financial Jug
glery of New Haven affairs $4,000
900 vanished. The rich captains of
industry who got away with this loot
are just plain thieves. The fact that
they stole the money through appar-
emily legal forms does not mitigate
the essential criminal nature of the
otfense. The facts were brought out
months ago. The attorney general
has been given ample opportunity to
start criminal prosecutions
But he has not done so as yet. He
has not even submitted any of the
disgraceful facts to a grand jury.
And now, because the commission,
acting in response to a senate reso-
luton, is beginning a probe of the
steal, Mr.. McReynolds protests
against the examination of witnesses
on the ground that it will give them
immunity in some vague proceedings
which Mr.. McReynolds is thinking IF
starting.
No one doubts that those guilty of
looting the New Haven ought to he
sent to the penitentiary. But the
question of the greatest good has been
before the commission-wheth the
public. will be better served by send
ing these men to Jail (Which would
probably not happen anyway and
thus burying forever what may lie
the most important details of the gi-
gantic theft, or by granting the i'm
munity the guilty witnesses may be
able to receive by revealing the COM
plete conspiracy and thus enable
congress to pass laws which will pro-
hibit such crimes in the future.
Mellen, the late president of the
road, will tell much more as a volun-
tary witness before the commission
than he would as a defendant in
court. He may escape punishment,
but he blocks the way to all future
looting of railroads.
The attorney general has been very
slow in acting in the New Haven
case.
Phosphorus Bill Is Boon to Match
Manufacturers.
AS it often happens after manu-
facturers have fought remedial indus
trial legislation for years, only to
lose in the end, the law when in
operation, works so much to the sat
isfaction of the manufacturers that
they would not go back to the old
conditions if they could. -..-.
This is identieally what has hap
pened to the match manufacturers
who for years fought legislation pro-
hibiting the use of white phosphorus,
which causes among match workers
the dread disease 'phossy jaw" In
its annual report this year the Dia-
mond Match company said: 1T had
formerly been considered impossible
to continuously use substitutes for
white phosphorus with satisfactory
results. This, however, has been
satisfactorily accomplished, and we
produced throughout the year non
poisonous matches that were not only
entirely satisfactory to the trade, but
are greatly superior to the old-fash-
toned parlor match"