NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering WORLD-WIDE UNREST is becoming acute. The food riots in France; the complications in Morocco; the disturbances in China; the imposition of martial law in Vienna to put down...
...Foreigners appear not to be in danger...
...It is Peter S. Grosscup of the circuit court of appeals for the ninth district...
...I desire no office—-expect never again to hold office—but I desire greater freedom than the bench gives, to do my part in this court of public opinion...
...The world politically is trying to catch up with the world's radically changed economic conditions...
...There is no escape...
...In Wales 200 rail makers employed in one of the largest firms in the United Kingdom struck for an increase in weekly wages from $3.60 to $6.48...
...On the 20th the United States gun boat "Helena" sailed up the Yang-tsi River to protect the lives and property of Americans...
...New* Notes — Obediah Gardner, a Democrat of Rockland, Maine, was appointed United States Senator on the 23rd to succeed the late William Pierce Frye...
...Later returns will doubtless increase the Borden majority by several members...
...A statement was issued that a sweeping reorganization of the company must be effected before the government will agree to abandon its threatened proceedings for alleged violations of the Anti-trust law With regard to the United States Steel Company, the dispatches state that if this great trust does not consent to dissolve voluntarily the government will bring suit under the Sherman Anti-Trust law...
...On September 20th the Amalgamated order of Railway Servants resolved that unless the railway companies cease dismissing and penalizing employees for refusing to handle freight consigned by firms whose employees are on strike, and unless they reinstate all such discharged men without penalizing, the committee will authorize all railway men to stop work...
...and with the suits brought against the Standard Wood Company—the so-called "kindling wood trust"—and the suit against the Du Pont Powder Company and its subsidiary concerns,—the "powder trust"— last week's news featured prominently a troublesome situation for a few of the big industrial combinations that have grown up in spite of the Sherman Antitrust law...
...It is further positively stated that several informal conferences have been held between representatives of the Steel Trust and Attorney General Wickersham which were said "to have been entirely friendly, prompted mainly by the Supreme Court's decisions in the Standard Oil and Anti-tobacco cases...
...It is now a valuable Government asset and instrument...
...And at Peoria, Illinois, President Taft said: "I was sorry to hear that in Canada they do not care to have closer commercial relations with us...
...Strike in Ireland Railways in Ireland are tied up with a strike of railway employees...
...Significantly enough, the press reports suggest that these disturbances on the stock exchange are caused by uncertainty as to what the government is going to do with the great industrial trusts...
...Tested and brought into practical and beneficial use by 20 years of litigation and construction by the highest court, why should we imperil its usefulness by experiments...
...Newspapers report that missionaries and other refugees are meeting with good treatment while traveling to places of safety...
...And indirectly any person who buys shoes must pay tribute to this Boston corporation...
...Early in the week a general strike of working-men was threatened but later reports make it appear that this was an exaggeration...
...Under these conditions, I am entirely opposed to an amendment of the antitrust law...
...Now, I would like to ask Mr...
...But I guess we can get along...
...So wide-spread and intense is the disaffection in Spain that Lloyds, the greatest betting concern in the world, is wagering four to one that the Government of King Alphonso will be overthrown...
...Constitutional guarantees have been suspended and martial law imposed...
...He also criticizes Congress for passing the cotton and free list bills...
...The bear raid against steel stock extended to other stocks, notably, railroad...
...Stock market disturbances caused momentary excitement on Wall street last week when steel declined...
...Bryan or any of the other publicists and jurists who have been denouncing this opinion as the surrender of the rights of the people and a usurpation of judicial power to tell the public what particular contract or restraint of interstate trade he would condemn which would not be condemned within this definition of the court...
...Sir Wilfred Laurier and his Liberal ministry now give way to Robert L. Borden, leader of the Conservative party, and a Conservative ministry...
...Trusts Face Reorganization With the report that the International Harvester Company has submitted to the federal government a plan of organizing its business to conform with the Sherman Anti-Trust law as amended by the Supreme Court in the Standard Oil case...
...The trial of the United Shoe Machinery Company officers will not take place until some time during the coming winter...
...Canadian newspapers had no pecuniary interest in the outcome...
...Two indictments were rendered, alleging the maintenance of an unlawful combination and conspiracy in restraint of trade on the part of President Sydney W. Winslow, Vice-Presidents Edward P. Hurd, George W. Brown and William Barbour, Counsel Elmer P. Howe, and James J. Storrow...
...At a national municipal congress held in Chicago last week experts declared that what the city needs in the United States is a larger measure of home rule and a shorter list of elected officials...
...The settlement for the future will come, not through the courts of law, but through the court of public opinion...
...The Attorney General should find out if this corporation is a trust operating illegally in restraint of trade...
...It was he who in 1894 crushed down with an iron hand the railway strike in Chicago led by Debs...
...Next year's presidential election, I believe, will be the last one on the old lines...
...The decision which brought him more recently into the public eye was his reversal of the $29,000,000 fine imposed by Judge Landis upon the Standard Oil Company...
...That article was concluded with the following words, "Here is a matter that should claim the immediate attention of the Administration...
...with the indictment of six officers of the United Shoe Machinery Company...
...Six prominent men connected with this company were indicted on September 19, for alleged violation of the Sherman Anti-trust law...
...and, if so, bring prosecution immediately...
...The President promises that when the reports of his board are submitted, showing the cost of production abroad and in this country of textile fabrics and giving a basis upon which a proper reduction can be made in either schedule, "it will be my duty and my pleasure to recommend to Congress such a reduction...
...Taft Defends His Policies President Taft continued his cross-continent talking tour last week without a hitch...
...This gives Maine two Democratic Senators...
...The President, in contending against strengthening of the Sherman Anti-trust law, as amended by the Supreme Court declared, "If Congress shall continue needed appropriations, every trust of any size that violates the statute will, before the end of this administration in 1913, be brought into court to meet and acquiesce in a degree of disintegration by which competition between its parts shall be restored and preserved under the persuasive and restrictive influence of a permanent and continuing injunction...
...Over in Russia the Jewish people have found it necessary to flee in large numbers from Kiev since the assassination of Premier Stolypin...
...The operations of this company were described in La Follette's for June 3, 1911, in an article entitled "Do We Pay Tribute to Monopoly When We Buy Our Shoes...
...Canada Rejects Reciprocity •Canadian voters, in a popular election, overwhelmingly rejected the Taft-Laurier "reciprocity" agreement...
...With five constituencies still to be heard from, the Borden anti-reciprocity party on the 22d holds 132 seats in the next Parliament, while the government as now constituted holds but 84...
...Professor Charles E. Merriam of the University of Chicago, who presided, prophesied that either the commission plan of city government or some simple form of the ballot in which the voter passes on only a few conspicuous officials will soon be in use in all cities...
...Emperor Nicholas made known his imperial will that order be preserved in Kiev and His Majesty's visit to South Russia not again clouded...
...They divided, therefore, on the issue and presented arguments and facts both for and against the agreement for public enlightenment...
...It takes two to make a bargain and if Canada declines, we can still go on doing business at the old stand...
...Hundreds of persons suspected of taking part in this uprising have been cast into prison and more arrests are being made daily...
...Upon hearing of Canadian rejection of the agreement, President Taft said: "For me it is a great disappointment...
...Will he...
...Investigations into the elements that may be involved in the assassination of Stolypin are being conducted personally by the Minister of Justice...
...The Steel attorneys virtually asked the government to indicate some line of procedure which would bring the corporation into conformity with the law...
...The election means that not only does the President's much cherished tariff arrangement with Canada fail of consummation, but also that the Laurier government is overturned...
...the fear of the iron hand of persecution in Russia following the assassination of Premier Stolypin, all these were overshadowed last week in a threatened Spanish Revolution...
...He defends his tariff board and its tariff work but came out for a permanent non-partisan commission...
...Recognizing that the disorders throughout his kingdom are much more serious than a movement merely for the betterment of working conditions and is in reality an attack on the monarchy, the Government has taken the most severe action to quell the uprising...
...The plan for reorganization submitted by the International Harvester Company is now in the Department of Justice, but what disposal will be made of it has not been made known...
...He defends his tariff vetoes and criticizes the Democrats and Progressive Republicans for passing the bill revising downward the woolen duties...
...The Acting Premier through a representative informed a deputation of the Jewish aristocracy that the Jews themselves created alarm through their "cowardice" but there was nothing in his representations that carried assurances of protection against continued persecution...
...Among his important declarations of purposes and politics were the following: He opposes any change in the Sherman Anti-Trust law, declaring that, under the new interpretation of the Supreme Court, competition is now assured...
...The 'formative' period is approaching...
...It was shown in that article that every man or firm in the country who goes into the business of making boots and shoes must do so with machinery owned and controlled by this combination...
...with the announcement that the steel trust is facing suits by the government to compel its reorganization...
...the imposition of martial law in Vienna to put down the uprising of the hungry...
...The difficulty with the literal construction of the statute is that it would denounce a great many minor or incidental restraints of trade, which made the statute ridiculous and weakened its effect and lent support to the criticisms and contemptuous treatment of the statute by those who were opposed to its passage and enforcement...
...He said: Grosscup to Resign THIS FEDERAL JUDGE announces his intention of resigning from his position on the bench in order to be free to "do my part in the court of public opinion...
...New York newspapers report that scenes in the stock market compared in many respects with those of 1907...
...a number on other men employed by the same firm went out on a sympathetic strike and altogether some 900 men quit work...
...He must pay tribute to monopoly...
...Judge Grosscup has long been a familiar figure on the bench...
...The campaign was one of the most bitterly contested in Canadian history...
...In his public statement he says: "The reason for my resignation at all is that I desire more freedom, not only as an individual but as a citizen...
...If reciprocity had been adopted, we could have gotten our agricultural implements into Canada at a substantial decrease...
...The President issued a challenge to William Jennings Bryan...
...In China the movement against the railway loan policy appears to be taking on increasingly a revolutionary character...
...Action has already been begun against the Shoe Machinery trust of Boston...
...Confidence was quickly restored however, when it became apparent that big bank interests had thrown their support to the steel stock...
Vol. 3 • September 1911 • No. 39
