Show ITHE THE SENATE AND STEEL TRUST The senate report on the he presidents action in permitting the absorption of or orthe the Tennessee Coal Iron company b by bythe the steel trust Is one of the curiosities of tortuous reasoning Seven members of the committee on Judiciary signed the report declaring that he had no author authority authorIty authorIty ity tb to sanction such a deal but the committees views were not an o report representing only Individual opinions The lack ot ai t a full tull report was due to the illness of Senator Bacon I who was against the president During the panic of 1907 Mr Gary G ry president of o the steel trust consulted the president about the absorption rep representing representing representing resenting it as necessary necessary to stay the panic and save sae a big New Xe York bank which held eld the Tennessee com ans securities As a matter maher of fact the trust had engineered the squeeze which w caught its rival and was only taking advantage of its helplessness Mr Ir Roosevelt said he saw no objection and the greatest rival of the trust trust passed into its control Only one question was involved in the tho senates review of the case cast The president president president dent V either had the right to approve the trusts action or he had not The law was plain enough and it was equal equally ly plain that the president had hall no rio n power or right to suspend the operation of or a law Jaw The conclusion should have been b en simple and direct that the president president dent not riot only assumed wrongly an arbi arbitrary arbitrary power but he tacitly sanctioned a II violation of the law Behind the te th report is the proposal to prosecute the steel trust for violation of the antitrust law Jaw and that may ma ac Sc account account count for the committees tenderness tender The steel trust and its president were conspicuously influential In behalf of ot the incoming administration and the Republican party part during the last cam campaign camp campaign p It is the one trust that lisa lias suf no hint of prosecution at the hands of Mr Roosevelt That is all nil that need be said about it In explanation explanation tion of its immunity from molestation |