Administration To Move Against Steel Trust

Following the successful prosecution of the cases against Standard Oil and the Tobacco Trust in the Supreme Court last month, it is looking increasingly likely that the Taft administration will move against the Steel Trust next. According to an article in today's Bisbee Daily Review, the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Corporations are finishing up their investigations into possible Sherman anti-trust law violations by the steel trust and could send the report to Taft within ten days. Attorney General Wickersham and the head of the Bureau of Corporations, Herbert Smith, have already visited the President to explain the substance of the report, but Taft is unlikely to take action, such as sending the report on to the Stanley Committee in the House.

In this matter, the Republican White House and the Democratic House seem to be in accord on taking action against U.S. Steel. The Stanley Committee has also been investigating the allegations that the Steel Trust has violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and have so far heard testimony from two executives on the board, Elbert Gary and John Gates. Elbert Gary is one of the key founders of U.S. Steel, along with J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles Schwab.

The report from the Justice Department was held back in order to incorporate lessons learned from the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trust cases. The decisions in those cases were delivered last month, and both the Justice Department and the White House have been reading the decision carefully. The federal government in the case of Standard Oil succeeded in having the trust declared an unlawful monopoly, and the Supreme Court ordered the company to be broken up and dissolved within six months. However, the Supreme Court also inserted a "rule of reason" into their decision, declaring that the intent of the Sherman Law was to go after unreasonable monopolies, opening up a subjective element into future cases prosecuted under the anti-trust act.  A similar decision was handed out against the American Tobacco Company.

There is one potential hitch in the government's case. During testimony given to the Stanley committee on June 2, Gary testified that U.S. Steel and then President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Elijah Root had a "gentleman's agreement" regarding the formation of the current massive monopoly. During the banking crisis of 1907, U.S. Steel agreed, at the behest of J. P. Morgan, to buy the Tennessee Coal & Iron Company at a price higher than it was worth in order to stop a growing financial meltdown. Roosevelt consented to the purchase, even though it would make U.S. Steel a virtual monopoly, in order to save the United States financial system. He also stated that the American Iron&Steel Institute was attempting to steer a course between the "archaic" Sherman anti-trust law and "the old-time method of destructive competition, in order to operate for the public welfare."

Link: Three Forces Move Against the Combines [The Bisbee Daily Review]
Link: Sensational Roosevelt Exposure by Gary [The Bisbee Daily Review]

Hand and Glove

The hand in glove relationship between the capitalists and the government has been made blatantly clear today. According to the Bisbee Daily Review Elbert Gary of the U.S. Steal Trust recently testified in public saying that the Office of the President approved the acquisition of Tennessee Coal and Iron by U.S. Steal in a move to ensure the survival of economy. By approving of this acquisition President Roosevelt made it blatantly clear that the well being of the capitalists, those who would lose most in a market crash, is more important than so called fair competition. More over by ensuring the survival of a strong pro-capitalist economy Roosevelt was ensuring that there was no chance of a socialist revolution during the difficult times that might have happened.

Mr. Gary went on to make some interesting pro-socialist comments about how all production needs to be controlled by the government. While on the surface this might appear to be good for the workers cause nothing could be further from the truth. What Mr. Gary is purposing is not a true socialist revolution. He want production to be controlled by the present capitalist government. This would if anything make life more difficult for the workers. The halls of government require the availability of copious amounts of wealth. This is how one gets into government. Even if a poor person was to attempt to gain access their campaign and ultimate success would be financed by a capitalist, meaning they would be compromised. This is the problem with government. This is why while there is a state there can be no true workers revolution.

To this end comrades I urge you to resist the "socialists" such as Gary and instead focus on bringing anarchism. For it is through anarchism that our true freedom will develop. It is through anarchism that true socialism will flow. It is through anarchism that we build a better world, one devoid of Gods and Masters!

Sensational Roosevelt Exposure By Gary [Bisbee Daily Review]

Roosevelt Attacks Successor's Foreign Policies

In this week's issue of Outlook Magazine, former President Theodore Roosevelt attacked his successor's plan to sign a general arbitration treaty with Great Britain (and France). The treaty would submit to arbitration any future disputes between the two nations, which Roosevelt argues restricts to harshly the sovereign rights of the United States. What follows is a excerpt from Roosevelt's article:

Hypocrisy never pays in the long run. Even if the indifference of the majority of the nation should permit such a specific agreement to arbitrate such vital questions, that same majority would promptly and quite properly repudiate the agreement the moment that it became necessary to enforce it.

No self-respecting nation, no nation worth calling a nation, would ever in actual practice consent to surrender its rights in such matters.

Take this very case of the agreement between Great Britain and ourselves. Thank heaven, it is now impossible-and I use the word literally-that there shall never be war between the English-speaking peoples.

If Great Britain now started to exercise the right of search as she exercised it 100 years ago, with its incidents of killing peaceful fishermen within the limits of New York Harbor, this country would fight at the drop of the hat, and any man who proposed to arbitrate such a matter would be tossed contemptuously out of the popular path.

We should be very cautious of entering into a treaty with any nation, however closely knit to us, the form of which it would be impossible to follow in making treaties with other great civilized and friendly nations.

In this case [the killing and injuring of Americans on this side of the border due to fighting in Mexico] we have chosen to submit to such invasion, as is our right and privilege if we so desire. But it would be absolutely intolerable to bind ourselves to arbitrate the questions raised by such invasions.

If, for instance, instead of its being Mexican troops firing into our inland towns and killing our citizens, it happened to be an English or a German or a Japanese fleet which not once, but again, fired into our coast towns, killing and wounding our citizens, this nation would immediately demand not arbitration, but either atonement or war.

In the same way, if a dispute arose between us and another nation as to whether we should receive enormous masses of immigrants whom we did not desire from that nation, no one who knows anything of the temper of the American people would dream that they would for one moment consent to arbitrate the matter. In such a case we should say that our honor, our independence, our integrity, and our very national existence were involved, and that we could not submit such a question to arbitration.

The treaty should make no explicit declaration of a kind which would brand us with cowardice if we live up to it, and with hypocrisy and bad faith if we did not live up to it. Also, it is well to remember that as there is not the slightest conceivable danger of war between Great Britain and the United States, the arbitration treaty would have no effect whatever upon the armaments of either country.

In other news, Robert T. Lincoln, the only living son of Abraham Lincoln, resigned yesterday as the president of the powerful Pullman Company. He will now take up the newly created position of chairman of the company's board of directors.

In Mexico, 3,000 rebels under Madero are in Vera Cruz to prevent a landing by General Bernardo Reyes, who is thought to be taking up the War Minister position following the pending resignation of President Diaz. Reyes is deeply unpopular among the Madero's revolutionaries and believe that with Reyes in a cabinet, de la Berra will be interim president in name only, and Reyes will actually be pulling the strings.  President Diaz is expected to resign on May 24 or 25.

New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson was in Portland, Oregon yesterday to give an address at the Portland Commercial Club. Gov. Wilson praised the "Oregon system" of primary elections but he pointed out that he was against the ability for voters to recall judges. He said that during his stay he will be studying the "Oregon system" and he may introduce some of its good measures in New Jersey when he returns. On whether he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1912, Wilson replied, "I certainly have not the audacity to seek the nomination, but no man is too big to refuse it."

Link: Roosevelt Hits President's Plan [The Washington Herald]
Link: Lincoln Resigns [The Washington Herald]
Link: Rebels Demand Head of Reyes to Bring Peace [The Washington Herald]
Link: General Madero will go to Mexico City to Confer with de la Berra [The Bisbee Daily Review]
Link: Wilson objects to Judges' Recall [The Washington Herald]
Link: Gov. Wilson not a Radical [The Bisbee Daily Review]

Link: The Arbitration Treaty With Great Britain by Theodore Roosevelt [The Outlook]

Roosevelt Not Considering Another Run

At a speech given to the Commercial Club in Spokane, Washington, former President Theodore Roosevelt told the assembled luncheon that he was not running for the presidency in 1912 against his former vice-president and now President, William Taft. He said:

I am not an aspirant for anything because I have had everything. No other man alive has had--I don't know whether I out to use that simile in the presence of a chaplain, but I am going to take chances--no other man alive has had such a good run for his money.

While many have speculated that his current national tour, started shortly after his return from his African safari last year, was to drum up support for a Presidential run in 1912, he stated that the tour had no other purpose than to thank the American people for electing him to the Presidency. His stops in his tour of the west and south have included Washington, DC, where he spoke at the Press Club about his African adventure, Atlanta, Arkansas, Arizona Territory, where he dedicated a dam on the Salt River named in his honor, and now Washington state.

He told the Spokane luncheon that he was not there to see their votes and that the only thing he wished of them was their "respect and good will." He did state that he wished to continue to help those assembled in the progressive cause, "for the good of the common country."

He felt that that wealthy business men in New York disliked him, even though they read nothing of what he says or about what he says. However, he feels that the vast majority are "honest men who are absolutely hindered by their environment."

Whether Roosevelt will remain honest about this desire not to run next year remains to be seen. His row with the current occupant of the Oval Office and his national tour have made it appear that he is considering a run, despite the fact that Taft was essentially his hand-picked successor.

Link: Presidency Doesn't Tempt Roosevelt [The New York Tribune]