NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering ATHOROUGH house-cleaning in the customs service was begun last week. The discovery that the sugar trust had been stealing from the government to the extent of millions of...
...It is reported that Collector Loeb conferred with Secretary MacVeagh as to the advisability of pushing the investigation of fraud until the government had secured the indictment of "men higher up...
...He said at first Mr...
...The scene which ensued when the news of their rescue became known was indescribable...
...Water they secured by digging until moisture appeared...
...Mitchell created wild enthusiasm among the delegates by declaring that he would continue to bestow his patronage where he chose and to continue to exercise his constitutional right of free speech...
...Gompers Re-elected By a unanimous vote on the 20th the American Federation of Labor at Toronto re-elected Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell and Frank Morrison to their respective offices...
...Whether or not this will prevent the collection of the full amount is a question now being earnestly discussed...
...Thousands crowded about as the men were brought to the surface and it was with difficulty that the militia prevented the crowd from seriously hampering the work of rescue...
...That the railroads be allowed to unite in the fixing of rates under certain restrictions...
...Paul mine at Cherry, Illinois, for a week, the shaft was opened on the 20th and the work of bringing the dead miners to the surface was begun...
...The men were very weak...
...On the 17th Henry Corsa, formerly an assistant sampler on the docks of the sugar trust, who asserts he was kicked out of the service because he reported grave frauds to Appraiser Wilbur P. Wakeman, gave out an interview in which he stated that the facts about the crimes of the trust were made known to the then Secretary of the Treasury Gage and later to his successor, Leslie M. Shaw, but that no action was taken...
...On the 16th Edwin I. Anderson, a former superintendent of the docks for the American Sugar Refining Company, stated publicly that he has for the past two years been engaged in furnishing evidence to the government of the criminality of the sugar trust...
...News Notes The National Grange Association, meeting at Des Moines, on the 15th passed a resolution favoring equal suffrage...
...The bribe is said to have been put bluntly and to have been offered as a contribution to the Republican campaign fund...
...In a speech at Kansas City on the 19th, Attorney General Wickersham suggested the following changes in the regulation of railways...
...Uncovering Graft in Chicago Graft sensations continued to multiply rapidly in Chicago last week and some novel discoveries were made regarding the purchasing of supplies for the city...
...After forty-eight dead bodies had been brought up, the workers heard men's voices and discovered twenty-one of the miners alive behind a sheltering wall they had built when they saw that escape from the mine was cut off...
...Among the charges which served to make the week lively in Chicago administrative quarters, were the following: That the civil service commission awarded the contract for printing its annual report after advertising for bids and getting but one response, and that the company which secured the contract had no printing plant and had to sublet the contract, at a profit to itself and to another firm which actually did the work...
...The case will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court...
...He had a careful investigation made and this resulted in the dismissal of more than a hundred suspected employees...
...That all of the stocks acqiured by the Standard Oil Company were acquired in pursuance of an illegal conspiracy, and are unlawfully held...
...Electric Trust also in Lime Light On the 20th a despatch to the Chicago Record-Herald stated that the official records in the Department of Justice at Washington show that in July, 1908, the electrical trust offered the government a bribe of a million dollars if all investigation of the corporations alleged to be involved were to be stopped...
...He also took occasion to express himself concerning the insurgents and characterized Champ Clark as "a Chautauqua expert...
...On the 21st Secretary Knox issued a statement in which he said that if the facts are as represented, the United States will demand reparation for the death of the two men...
...The Merriam Commission has asked for an additional appropriation of fifty thousand dollars, in order that it may make a mere thorough research into the affairs of the city...
...Bonaparte, characterizing the man who made the offer as a "scoundrel" and stating that the investigation "shall go to the bottom...
...That no railroad company may issue additional stock or bonds without the approval of the commission...
...A dispatch of the 21st from Enid, Oklahoma, states that more than fifty state banks have applied for national charters within a short time, in this way avoiding responsibility under the guaranty law...
...Americans Shot in Nicaragua Leonard Grace and Leroy Cannon, two Americans captured while serving with the revolutionist army in Nicaragua, were executed by order of President Zelaya on the 18th...
...He says he has positive proof that the government was being defrauded of $500,000 a year at the single refinery where he had been employed...
...It will be remembered that a short time ago the government accepted $2,000,000 as settlement of this account...
...Among the important points made by the court are the following: That Congress has full power to regulate and control all contracts and forms of doing business, in so far as it is necessary to do so in order to prevent restraint in trade and to prevent monopoly...
...Loeb states that it was through the determination and influence of Theodore Roosevelt that the investigation and prosecution of these sugar frauds were begun...
...On the 20th the Circuit Court of Appeals at St...
...Paul decided that the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the backbone of the trust, is an illegal corporation in restraint of trade and ordered it dissolved within thirty days...
...On the 19th news despatches stated that the companies involved in the new combination have been under investigation by the government, and that records are on file which indicate that the investigators are convinced that the American company is a monster trust working in open violation of law and in conjunction with the General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric Company, and that the three had close affiliations with what is now popularly called the "water power trust...
...Up to the 21st no other survivors were found, but a number of the dead were brought to the surface...
...That the methods employed by the Standard Oil Company clearly showed that it had effectually throttled competition and had created a monoply...
...It has been estimated that the amount stolen from the government by the sugar trust runs up to $30,000,000...
...On the 17th Mr...
...Big Combination Formed On the 16th announcement was made that the Western Union Telegraph Company had passed into the control of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company which already has a virtual monopoly in the Bell telephone companies...
...The offer aroused the wrath of President Roosevelt, who wrote a letter to Mr...
...Oil Trust Ordered to Dissolve The oil trust, too, is in trouble...
...That in determining whether or not a corporation be in restraint of trade, the courts will assume that where a corporation has the power to restrain trade and to secure a monopoly it will do so...
...It is also reported that the investigation will extend to other cities than New York...
...Speaker Cannon in a speech delivered in Chicago on the 18th, vigorously defended himself, the House rules and the tariff...
...Representative Mann of Chicago arrived in Washington on the 19th and stated in an interview that there had been no "deal" with the New York democrats for the re-election of Cannon but that these Tammany democrats "voted as they did from conviction as to what they believed was the best for the orderly transaction of the business of the House...
...This consolidation is regarded as a significant step in the direction of a complete monopoly of the telephone and telegraph business in the United States...
...During the week, Senator Aldrich spoke in Milwaukee and also in Detroit on monetary reform and repeated his assertion that he would be in favor of a central bank only because of a conviction that that would be the best measure for the improvement of our financial system...
...It is charged that by ordering supplies in quantities not to exceed $500, the engineering department was enabled to evade the law requiring bids for such material and to let the contracts to favored concerns at much higher prices than should have been paid...
...He stated that the Sherman anti-trust law was sufficiently comprehensive for all needed regulation of corporations, and suggested that Congress pass a law authorizing the formation of corporations under the supervision of the federal government...
...That a special tribunal to be known as the Commerce Court be established which shall have power to hear all apeals from the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...That the combination of several corporations into one by an exchange of stock is a most potent method of restraining competition, as it makes the power represented by all the combined monopolies the easier to exercise...
...It seems likely that the next Congress will make provision for a complete investigation...
...On the 18th it was announced that the court had granted a stay until November 29 for Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison to surrender themselves to serve their jail sentences...
...If this tribunal upholds the decision, it is believed this will be the severest blow yet dealt to the oil trust...
...It is pointed out, however, that if the government is successful in bringing to justice the men responsible for the frauds, the moral effect of punishing the "men higher up" will more than offset the financial loss...
...Gage denied that these irregularities had been brought to his attention...
...Shaw promised to reinstate him, but failed to do so, saying that "his hands were tied...
...That the commission be empowered to review classifications, both as to item and grouping...
...For seven days they had but a few scraps of food to sustain life...
...On the 21st another despatch stated that the investigation of the electrical trust was stopped in the summer of 1908...
...Miners Found Alive After fighting the fire in the St...
...The rescuers worked feverishly in the hope of saving others who might be imprisoned in the shaft...
...The discovery that the sugar trust had been stealing from the government to the extent of millions of dollars, through false sampling, "fixed" weighing machines, and through bribing government employees, roused Collector William Loeb, Jr., of the New York customs house to action...
...On the 17th, President Taft had a conference with the tariff board and is reported to have plans for the broadening of the scope of its work to the fullest extent...
Vol. 1 • November 1909 • No. 47
