OCR Text |
Show Bell and Pan-Electric. Having gotten into Congress as well as into the courts the Pan-Electric scandal, like a bad shilling, is bound to be turning turn-ing up for an indefinite period. The fight will be aided insidiously by the great Bell telephone monopoly, with its collateral collat-eral interests. .This concern, there is reason to believe, is fraudulently in the enjoyment of immense profits. It is charged that their patent, protecting the telephone device to the exclusion of substantially sub-stantially all other instruments of later invention,- was obtained by collusion whereby they haye filched the fruit of the study and ingenuity of another, and in the legal contest which, under the ruling of the Secretary of the Interior, will now be made, with the government conducting conduct-ing the assault the Bell interest will have its hands full. .If it were conscious of perfect rectitudeit might await the result with confidence but it chooses to make an . assault upon the character and motivesof the -men in the Administration Admin-istration '.responsible for submitting the question of. its right to a legal test. Its ! activity is disclosed in newspaper organs, which, under what appears to be its inspiration, in-spiration, are making an aggressive, not a defensive campaign. Unfortunately, color is given to its assaults as-saults by reason of the undisputed fact that the Attorney-General, Mr. Garland, and several other officers of the Government Govern-ment own stock in a company called the Pan-Electric, which would be benefited, as all other rival companies would be aided, by the breaking down of the Bell monopoly. Personal interest is declared to be the reason for official action in this matter. The Bell interest makes the mistake of charging too much. It was not the Attorney-General, a large owner of the Pan-Electric stock, who ordered the inquiry into the matter. This he declined to do. The ruling is by the Secretary of the Interior, who is not a shareholder and whose decision in this matter deepens and broadens the general impression of his integrity. As a bald matter of legal right, Mr. Garland's ownership in this stock cannot be questioned, ques-tioned, but morally he made a grave mistake in having accepted it, since he is subject to the temptation to use official place to promote his personal, gain and ought, as a measure of justice to. an administration ad-ministration Btriving to conduct an administration ad-ministration that shall be not only practically prac-tically but also sentimentally honest. ! Congress has ordered an inquiry, which will hardly be able to develop facta not ! already-known. , |