FAMOUS LAWYERS IN THE STANDARD OIL CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT of corporation control will, after all, be that which the corporations learn to apply to themselves in the ordinary conduct of their business. Thus "good corporations" treat their stockholders fairly, while the inner clique of "bad corporations" is always trying to swindle the stockholders by one method or another. Good corporations have some conscience as to their relations to decent people engaged in the same line of business; bad corporations are prepared to play any sort of indecent trick upon their competitors. Good corporations know that fair treatment of the general public is a necessary condition of desirable success; bad corporations are always trying to get the better of the public. cessive Congresses. But there has been a growing disposition in the Republican party to insist upon organized authority as against the traditional freedom of conscience, action, and speech that has always belonged to Republicanism in its best periods. Even Mr. Taft, and he perhaps more than any one else, has come under the delusion of this idea of party authority. He is constantly talking of party pledges, by which he means that forgotten chain of resolutions adopted in the convention at Chicago nearly two years ago. It is not convincing to assert that any man's conscience and intellect, as respects a pending public question, must be held subject to a party platform which most people would not even know where to find in print. What the country wants is to have questions dealt with upon their merits at the present moment, rather than upon lines laid down in campaign platforms. The only salvation for the Republican party lies in tolerating insurgency, so called, and proclaiming full freedom of opinion and speech. 66 66 "Uncle line in the November elections. Joe" Cannon is a gentleman whose personal popularity is not likely to vanish; but the country has grown disaffected toward the masterfulness of the ruling clique in each House of Congress. The opposition to what is called Cannonism" and Aldrichism" in the country at large is not so much due to things in particular as to a state of mind." The rules of the House give an enormous power to the Speaker, but along with his authority goes also great responsibility. It must be remembered that the very focusing of power tends to check both recklessness and misconduct in the exercise of that power. One of the principal agencies through which the House conducts its business is the Committee on Rules. Under the system that has existed for a good many years the Speaker himself is chairman of the Rules Committee. Mr. Cannon's associates on that committee in the present Congress have been Mr. Dalzell, of Pennsylvania; Mr. Smith, of Iowa; Mr. Clark, of Missouri (leader of the Democratic minority), and Mr. Fitzgerald, of New York (Tammany Democrat). For a year or two the insurgents in the House have been fighting against the existing rules. The chief fight was not last month, but a year ago. What happened last month was merely a dramatic certain rules of the House as to the calendar. situation and a victory for the opponents of Mr. Crumpacker took the ground that since the present rules at an unexpected moment. the census is mandatory under the ConstituThose who would like to refresh their memories by reading a thoroughgoing discussion of the questions involved should turn back to the REVIEW OF REVIEWS for the month of April, 1909, just one year ago. The attack upon the rules in that number was made by ex-Governor Swanson, of Virginia, for a long time a Democratic member of the House. The article explaining and defending the existing rules was written for us by Mr. Stevens, of Minnesota, one of the real ornaments of the House of Representatives, who was assisted in preparing his article by the highest parliamentary authorities in Washington. Copyright, 1909, by Harris & Ewing HON. JOSEPH G. CANNON, OF ILLINOIS (Deprived of Membership in the Rules Committee, but still Speaker of the House of Representatives) tion his motion relating to it was one of privilege and therefore superior to the rules. Mr. Crumpacker's point was sustained, after a protracted debate showing ample ability. Meanwhile the insurgents had been so much persecuted in one way and another that they had been especially restless for some time, and had won a small victory or two. With the aid of the Democrats, for example, they had refused to allow an appropriation for the maintenance of the Speaker's automobile. Mr. Norris, of Nebraska, a well-known insurgent, rose in his place and,-in answer to the Speaker's inquiry for what purpose he asked recognition, he stated that he had a resolution involving a point of constitutional The thing that happened last privilege. The Speaker's fatal step was in month can be stated in a few recognizing Mr. Norris. When the resolusentences. Mr. Crumpacker, of tion was read it turned out to be one demandIndiana, chairman of the Committee on the ing a new Committee on Rules, much larger Census, asked unanimous consent to bring than the present one, to be elected in a someforward a small amendment to the census what elaborate way by the majority and law against which there could be no opposi- minority members of the House, with the distion. The technical question arose whether tinct proviso that the Speaker should not be a Mr. Crumpacker was in order by reason of member. The issue could not be side-tracked. What Happened Copyright, 1910, by Harris & Ewing REPRESENTATIVE GEORGE W. NORRIS, OF NEBRASKA ness. But the election of a Speaker is a wholly different matter. The insurgent Republicans could not act with the Democrats in the choice of a Speaker, as against the great body of Republican members, without losing their party standing. Mr. Mr. Cannon had already been elected Speaker for the lifetime. of the present Congress. Nothing had happened to justify his retirement or removal at the present time. The rules fight was a different affair, because every one has known that an actual majority of the membership of the House has for a good while been prepared to change the rules at any moment when it could seize upon the chance to make the proper parliamentary play. Naturally Mr. Cannon, after the vote had gone against him on the Norris resolution, offered to entertain then or at any time a motion vacating the Speakership. Such a motion was actually made by a Democratic member, and of course the Democrats pro forma voted in favor of it. But only a little group, rather less than a quarter, of the Republican insurgents allowed them (Leader of the Republican "insurgents" in the selves to be counted in favor of deposing Mr. parliamentary battle which resulted in the removal of the Speaker from the Rules Committee) The Dramatic Judge Norris' motion was made on Thursday afternoon, and it Contest resulted in a parliamentary battle that raged nearly all that night. The parliamentary day of Thursday was continued through Friday, and the question finally came to a vote Saturday afternoon. Thirty-five Republicans voted with the entire body of Democrats, with the result that the Norris resolution in a simpler form was adopted. Mr. Cannon's fight was a very plucky one, while that of the insurgents was resolute and entitled to respect. It seems to have been thought that to exclude Mr. Cannon from the Rules Committee would lead inevitably to his immediate retirement from the Speakership. This, however, did not follow. A change in the Speakership at this stage in the work of the session would be followed by great embarrassment, if not by legislative chaos. A coalition of Democrats and insurgents to change the rules was permissible, because the rules of the House cannot be called Republican or Democratic, since they involve nothing but the judgment of the membership of a parliamentary body as to the manner in which it will carry on its busi Cannon. Four successive terms is a very long time for a Speaker to bear up under the strain of the position Mr. Cannon holds. He ought not to be a candidate for the Speakership of the Sixty-Second Congress, and it is not supposed by his friends that he has any intention of that kind. It was expected that the members of the new Committee on Rules, which is to be composed of six Republicans and four Democrats, would be selected and set at work about the first of April. The chances were that Mr. Dalzell, who has been ranking member of the old committee, might become chairman of the new one. Business It has been pointed out that in future under this new arrangement the chairman of the Committee on Rules would become a personage of a good deal of authority, and that there might at times be some strain between the Speaker and the head of the Rules Committee in the exercise of general control over the business processes of the House. There are 391 members of the House of Representatives, and the number of bills introduced. in a session sometimes reaches thirty thousand. Each member of this large body is naturally anxious to get his bills reported from com mittees and brought under consideration. The line between the Speaker's arbitrary authority and a chaotic freedom on the part of individual members is not an easy one to draw. Insurgents and regulars alike were at pains to declare that they were not fighting the President or his policies, and that they desired to accomplish a reasonable amount of constructive legislation before adjournment. At Washington as at Albany this blowing off of political steam early in the year is fortunate for the Republican party, inasmuch as it gives some time for reconciliation before the campaign begins, and also makes it possible to say that certain issues have already been met and disposed of. The regulars will now not be too eager to invade the States and districts of the insurgents, while the insurgents will not be so militant against the regulars. Everybody will be anxious to complete the session at Washington and get into close touch with the voters at home. It is likely, therefore, that adjournment may be reached about the first of June. It is expected that the railway bill in some form will be passed; but it is not likely that ship subsidies will be voted in face of the fall elections. Corporations and Strikes In one respect corporations have not yet learned the lesson of their proper duty to the public. They should not be allowed to indulge in protracted quarrels with their employees. This dictum in particular should apply to all public service corporations, particularly those engaged in transportation. However ingeniously it may state the case, there is usually something wrong with the street railway company that subjects a prosperous city to inconvenience by getting into a predicament with its employees and subjecting itself to a strike and a tie-up of traffic. In the matter of street railways the public interest is superior to that of the corporation on the one hand or the employees on the other. In cities like Philadelphia and New York enormous fortunes have been made by individuals enjoying exclusive franchises for carrying passengers in street cars. The people controlling such franchises owe it to the communities they serve to employ skillful and welltrained motormen and conductors and to treat these men in such a way that they could have no provocation for a general strike. The State ought to provide some system for dealing conclusively with labor disputes. Evils of the Strike in Philadelphia February was a month of general This great strike in Philadelphia and the traction companies tried to play one has been so wasteful and miser- off against the other. In the negotiations for able an affair from many stand- a settlement of the strike the companies' points that it ought to stimulate thoughtful recognition of the Keystone Association of people in every State of the Union to make employees, whose members did not strike, advance provision against similar failures of was one of the chief stumbling-blocks. The civilization in their own cities. The public dominance of politics in the situation was authorities of Pennsylvania have been at made manifest when Senator Penrose actively fault in not making better provision for the intervened and forced from the street-car solution of labor difficulties. They have had managers large concessions to the strikers; so much misery in that State from industrial yet even these concessions were insufficient to warfare in years past that they ought to have bring about a settlement. learned peaceful ways to adjust labor disputes. Both State and city have had heavy bills to pay in their attempts to protect life and property. The street railroad company will have lost much more than it can ever have gained through its failure to deal with its own men in such a way as to keep their loyalty. But trade-unionism, on the other hand, will also have lost a great deal through its reckless resort to the sympathetic strike. The attempt to punish everybody, in a great variety of different ways, as a means of bringing the street railway company to terms, is not merely reckless, but it is also stupid. It must turn many a friend of organized labor into an implacable enemy. In Philadelphia two unions were involved CLARENCE 0. PRATT (The labor leader who led the Philadelphia car strike) Labor and the Railroads unrest among the employees of the transportation lines. While the serious strike on its street car lines disturbed Philadelphia, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. came to the verge of a break with its conductors and trainmen. At the last moment, President Willard called in the good offices of Commissioner of Labor Neill, who succeeded, by offering concessions to each side from the other, in bringing about a peaceful settlement. The Pennsylvania Railroad, the New York Central, and the New Haven were, in the latter part of the month, still arguing with their men and the public. The stock market, which had paid no attention to the troubles in Philadelphia, and which is not in the habit of turning bearish on the news of labor troubles, felt a shiver at the further news that 25,000 firemen, on forty-nine railroads, were on the point of striking with the avowed purpose of tying up practically all the important lines west of the Mississippi. In the middle. of the month, when the general managers of the affected roads had failed to meet their men on certain questions of conditions of labor as well as increases of pay, the situation had become so acute that Chairman Knapp, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and Commissioner of Labor Neill went to Chicago as intermediaries. Their efforts seemed at first to promise a settlement of the trouble, but repeated conferences failed to secure even a working basis of agreement. The railroads were not alone in their labor troubles in February; the coal miners of the Middle West made demands for increased pay, which were flatly refused by the operators, and President T. L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers of America, answered the refusal with a promise to shut down every coal mine in America unless the demands of the men were met. |