talists who held positions as directors openly robbed the stockholders out of many millions of dollars. In 1903 that railroad system had liabilities of $94,000,000, and more than 22,000 people put their savings into it in the form of stock at $240 a share, which paid annual dividends of 8 and 10 per cent every year. These trust magnates began to plunder it, and after raking in fabulous fortunes through methods that ought to lead them direct into the northeast corner of a penitentiary, the railroad system in 1913 had the enormous liability of $415,000,000, and its stock pays no dividend at all; but the once splendid system is now a financial wreck, a sad monument to the rascality of big business. This is just one little case I am calling to mind.

Nearly all of the great railroad systems of this country have been robbed in the same way. It is made possible through the interlocking directorate. If the big bankers who have the handling of other people's money are permitted to own and control the directors of railroads and steamship lines, as well as other public utilities, the people are going to suffer. Many of these big bankers have demonstrated that they will do shady tricks to get a few extra millions of dollars. The men who compose the many trusts seem to think all the people of the United States are mere slaves, to work to add increased millions to the greedy coffers of the avaricious money kings. Right now these railroad corporations are before the Interstate Commerce Commission endeavoring to be allowed to raise their freight rates. The captains of industry have been quite successful under the Sherman antitrust law in robbing these railroads, and they now have the gall to come up to the Capitol and ask that the servants of the people give them legal permission to rob the people through high freight rates. The American people are not going to stand this much longer. They have demanded relief through legislation, and this Congress must give it to them. The men who toil with their hands, the farmers and the artisans and tradesmen, have turned their eyes toward this Capitol and they are going to watch till relief comes or they will place men in these seats who will express their sentiments into law. The people know that no man could get to be worth $800,000,000 in 50 years if the laws were not so fixed that the few can prey on the many. They demand that we correct that evil, and unless I am badly fooled I believe this Congress has done much to correct it. If we pass these antitrust laws properly, I am certain that many millions of our population will see the dawn of a brighter day. If the money power continues to dominate this Government as it did before the Democracy came into power, the signs of a revolution would soon be seen on our national horizon, and it would not be a bloodless one, either. The great amalgamation of capital and the greed that seems to animate the powerful men in control of the great wealth of this Republic is a reason for the foundations of our Government to begin to shake. How have these financial kings, many of them common thieves, filling high places, operated for the last few years?

Here is what one of them testified to in Washington City on the 23d day of May, 1914, just one week ago last Saturday: Mr. Charles S. Mellen, ex-president of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, being on the witness stand, said Prof. Weyman, of Harvard, got $10,000 a year from the New Haven Railroad for " 'fanning" fires of sentiment in the railroad's favor; his brother $25 a day and his father $50 a day.

Do

Lawyer Wardell got $12,000 and Lawyer Innes $15,000. Many other names were mentioned in this connection. Gentlemen, the idea of such a proposition-the officers of that railroad stealing the stockholders' money to hire a college professor and a few lawyers to fool the people. Listen. Mr. Mellen swore that more than 1,000 newspapers received various sums from the railroad. That is not all. One E. D. Robbins, a lawyer of Hartford, got $100,000 for the purpose of molding public sentiment in Connecticut in 1907 over a charter." Gentlemen, that is the kind of business many of the captains of industry have been engaged in in all branches of big business. Immense fortunes are spent in spreading propaganda to fool the people, and then the people are robbed threefold to pay it back with big profits. These same henchmen of big money have contributed $50,000 and $100,000 to campaign funds with the nonchalance of a drummer buying a cigar. They did not give that money away, but they gave it with the intention of having a "friend at court," and it seems they never failed to have a friend at court till Democracy put a President in the White House. you believe that any honest business man in this country would object to this bill if he understands what it means? We are trying to help the honest and legitimate business of this country, and this law will help. I want to put the criminals in business in the penitentiary and free the American people from the shackles they have been forced to wear all these years. The law ought to give the little man in business the same show that it gives the big, strong financial magnate. The law we are fixing to pass will land the big fellow behind the bars if he wrongfully destroys the business of his little competitor. The powerful trusts of this country have not only held up the public and forced them to pay an exorbitant price for all the necessities of life, but they have been able to hold the produce of the farm down to the minimum price. They have forced the farmers to pay big prices for what they buy and compelled them to accept small prices for what they raise on their farms. This greed of organized wealth has held the wages of the poor men, women, and children in factories and mines down to the lowest scale, and the tills of the powerful have been filled with dollars coined out of this poor, human labor.

Gentlemen, can any man who has a heart that throbs with sympathy and justice oppose the amendments to protect the farmers and the laboring people? I am going to stand by them on every vote. [Applause.]

TO COMPEL FEDERAL JUDGES TO ALLOW JURIES IN CONTEMPT CASES.

June 2, 1914.

Mr. QUIN. Mr. Chairman, at least to my conception of law, justice, and right, this section, which gives a trial by jury in contempt cases, is writing into the statute laws of this land enlightened thought. It shows the spirit of the age-that we are moving away from the old archaic idea that all wisdom and all justice is within the cranium and heart of one man, that of a judge appointed for a term lasting until he is dead.

Gentlemen, that has been one of the prerogatives that the courts of this country have possessed since the Constitution was first adopted. It has been more abused than any other right

that the courts have had, and I am proud to have the opportunity to vote for a bill that takes that right away from the courts. Not that the judge himself is not honest, but some judges get so far removed from the people that they can not feel for the man who is down in life. [Applause.]

I know from personal experience something of contempt cases, where a Federal court issued a sweeping injunction in a strike that covered every man in the community that was indirectly or remotely involved; and, regardless of what he did, he was amenable to that court under contempt proceedings, and no jury could he have.

I believe that this bill will give the people of the country more confidence in the courts. It will give them more respect for the courts, and it will give the courts to understand that the people have rights, and that those rights can be passed upon by their peers.

Mr. GARDNER, Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Mississippi yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts?

Mr. QUIN. I do.

Mr. GARDNER. Is it not the gentleman's opinion that one of the great causes of attacks upon the courts of this country is the fact that they have had imposed on them, or have assume 1, the duty of trying persons without a jury for the violation of restraining orders issued in labor cases?

Mr. QUIN. I think the gentleman from Massachusetts is correct. However, I believe myself that some of the courts of the country have brought themselves into the contempt of the people because of that right being frequently abused by autocratic judges.

Mr. GARDNER. The gentleman ought not to understand

Mr. QUIN. The American people ought to love the courts, but instead of doing that the usurped and assumed power by the courts has made them, in a measure, the object of contempt. Mr. GARDNER. I hope the gentleman will not imbibe from my remarks the idea that I am blaming the courts. I am blaming the law or the practice which imposes on the courts the duty of trying without a jury those cases of contempt of court in the matter of labor injunctions. I do not blame the courts, however, for doing what they believed to be their duty. Fortunately it will no longer be their duty after this law shall have been passed.

Mr. QUIN. The gentleman is correct. But the long following of that rule leads the judge to entertain the idea that he is allpowerful, and sometimes he gets to be a tyrant. That is what the people of America complain of.

If the judge knew he would be on the bench only for a few years, and that his reappointment depended on his method of trying cases, it is very likely that he would always try to be in harmony with the people and the law. A judge can make mistakes as well as any other person.

And the judicial tyranny of this country is to-day written through the decisions. If you will read those decisions, you can see tyranny there that is equaled nowhere on earth except by the Czar of Russia or, perhaps, the ruling of some military court; and there is not a man in the United States who could ever have any respect for the ruling of a court-martial. I say that the courts of this country have had a power that they

ought not to have had under the constitution of a republic. Some of them have used it properly, but others have used it improperly. It has been a method of oppression, a tool with which to oppress the people. [Applausė.]

It has been too easy for the great and powerful corporations to be either directly or indirectly instrumental in naming the Federal judges of this country. In many instances the judge has spent his life as the retained attorney of the special interests, and it matters not how honest he may be, he sees the law from a different viewpoint as distinguished from the ordinary citizen. The great corporate interests believe in the Federal courts, and the sweeping injunction is the weapon which they can always use in an unfair and unjust manner.

Every intelligent citizen knows that many judges have abused the right to adjudge a citizen to be in contempt of the court, and the same judge try and sentence him. In late years the freedom of the press has been abridged by some autocratic judges.

The United States is a Government of the people, and the original framers of our Constitution never intended that the courts should usurp any authority or infringe upon the liberties of the people. The privilege of a Federal judge to deny the right of trial by juries in contempt cases has grown to be one of the greatest abuses in our scheme of government. I do not believe any judge ought to hold his position for life, as there is too much danger of him growing to be an autocrat and intolerant of the views and the rights of others. This section in the antitrust bill which allows the persons charged with contempt to be tried by a jury is one good step in the right direction. Yet there is nothing in the bill to prevent the judge from charging the jury orally and from his seat of power tell the jury that he thinks the individual accused is guilty. He may not do it in so many words, but he will give the jury to understand that he thinks the fellow ought to be convicted. Gentlemen, that is the next evil Congress will be called on to correct. These Federal judges ought not to hold office over a certain term of years. The Constitution should be amended making the term of office of Federal judges for a period of four years, and if any judge holds longer it would be necessary for him to be reselected. I regard life tenure in any functionary position of the Government as indefensible. What good reason can there be assigned for making any man a judge on the bench for life? I am happy to vote to force the courts to grant the jury in contempt cases, and I will be still happier in voting to bar life appointments of judges. The people of this country can never rule in reality as long as the judges hold for life. The laws we are passing this week constitute a real bill of rights, a veritable Magna Charta in which the American citizenship can see hope for the future.

49724-13580

о

THE TRADE COMMISSION BILL

"A private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable."

In obedience to this declaration of policy, in the effort in part to carry out this pledge, this trades-commission bill is proposed.

SPEECH

OF

HON. WILLARD SAULSBURY

OF DELAWARE

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JULY 3, 1914

WASHINGTON
1914