A Source of Anarchy

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 5, 1906

A Source of Anarchy

How much longer can men of wealth and power who depend for their prosperity upon the popular respect for law in this country, continue to themselves show disrespect and defiance of law, before reaping the harvest of their seed sowing? That something must be done to prevent such an example from bearing its legitimate fruit, seems to be realized by some statesmen of the day, and they are giving the men who run the law-breaking corporations some words of admonition and warning. The N. Y. Times relates the following, bearing on this point:—

A conversation at the Waldorf-Astoria, in which Senator Bailey, of Texas, participated a few evenings ago, has created a great deal of comment among the persons involved and those to whom they related it, and leaked out yesterday.

Mr. Bailey, who had made a flying trip to New York, was seated at a table at the Waldorf-Astoria with some friends, when several persons prominent in corporation affairs came up. Some of them were officials of the Standard Oil Company. . . .

They sat down, and the conversation naturally turned on the recent events at Washington, the determination evident there to make things unpleasant for corporations, and in particular the passage of the railway-rate bill, with the stringent amendments added in the Senate.

Mr. Bailey did not say much at this stage of the conversation. He listened to the Standard Oil men, who gradually became stronger in their expressions.

They complained bitterly at the disposition evident in Washington to make things unpleasant for them, and sharply attacked the railway-rate bill and the Senate amendments. Presently Mr. Bailey, who had been listening patiently, struck into the conversation in an emphatic and menacing tone.

“You gentlemen who run these corporations,” said he, “must obey the law. If you had obeyed it in the first place, you would not have this new legislation to complain of. All your properties are held by virtue of the popular respect for law, and yet you are the very men who are doing most by your acts to break down this respect for law.

“Every time Congress passes a law, you violate it. You have violated every law we have given you. We gave you the Interstate Commerce act; you violated that. We gave you the Sherman anti-trust law; you violated that. Then we gave you the Elkins law, and you violated that. Now we give you a new one. If you violate that, we will give you another that will have iron teeth.”

A pause ensued after this declaration of Senator Bailey's. After a while one of the corporation officials present asked, “What do you mean, Senator, by a law with iron teeth?”

“I mean a law that will send every one of you to the penitentiary.”

After this, very little was said by the others present about the unfairness of Congress' attitude toward corporations. The conversation, however, continued along the same subject for a while, and presently Mr. Bailey said:—

“The ownership of competing corporations by the same hands can not go on. This Pennsylvania Railroad combination is one that will have to be broken up, and will be.”

Afterward, in speaking of the same subject to others, Senator Bailey said:—

“These corporation officials who violate the law, who break every law that Congress enacts, are doing more to create anarchists and socialists than all the propaganda that those people can put into operation from now till doom's day.”