resources are exhausted, if necessary, to comply promptly with any such request." The New York Herald, it should be observed, has generally been favorable to Mr. Peabody and the Standard Oil faction in the Mutual controversy. Indeed, its articles on the insurance issues, written by its Wall-street bureau are commonly reported to be shaped in Mr. Harriman's office before being published. There is, therefore, no reason to question the accuracy of this journal's report of Mr. Peabody's words. Yet it is difficult to conceive as possible such ignorance of friction existing in the committee, which everyone but the president of the Mutual seems to have been perfectly cognizant of and which had long been the subject of newspaper reports and editorial comment no less than of general discussions in Wall street and among the banking interests; and quite as difficult is it to reconcile the statement that every request made by the Truesdale committee had been promptly complied with, in view of President Peabody's letter dated February 13th and referring to the requisition made December 26th on the acting president of the company. The letter read in part as follows: "Referring to the letter of December 26, 1905, from the Special Committee of which you are Chairman, addressed to Frederic Cromwell, and handed to me, as his successor in office, by him for attention, and following the lines suggested in the several interviews with you and the other members of your Committee on this subject, I beg to submit the following views: As to these, it is of course practicable for me to conduct such an investigation as is contemplated, and if it becomes necessary I shall not hesitate to do so. I submit, however, to your consideration the suggestion that it can result in no good purpose as to a very large percentage of the whole number, and to throw such a disturbing influence into such a large force, which is already to a certain extent disorganized, when all that you are seeking can be readily obtained without such an unfortunate consequence as I should anticipate, ought not to be done if any other way of accomplishing the desired purpose can be found.” If every request of the committee had been promptly complied with, as Mr. Peabody sought to have the public believe, how did he come to write on February 13th, or three days later than the publication of his positive statement in the Herald, a letter relating to the requisition made December 26th and arguing against the wisdom of complying with the mandatory communication which the committee had felt necessary if an honest and thorough investigation was to be made? And why did he so positively intimate that he would decline to comply with that part of the communication relating to interrogating the trustees ? Whether or not, as intimated by the Herald, any pressure had been brought to bear upon the committee to compel the members to change front, the action of Messrs. Truesdale and Auchincloss at the meeting held February 15th, at which the letter of President Peabody was read, was precisely what it would have been if such pressure had been brought to bear upon the President of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and his fellow committeeman; while the subsequent action of the Standard Oil forces in their war against Mr. Fish, who refused to violate his sacred pledge to the public and the policy-holders and do as "Second, the employés of the Company. Mr. Rogers and his associates desired, First, the members of the Board of Trustees. As to these I do not feel that I am called upon, or indeed have any right to conduct such an inquiry as you ask me to make. leaves little room for doubt but what, had Mr. Truesdale failed to comply with the wishes of the element that shrank from an honest investigation, he would have been relieved of his imposing position in the business world as head of an important railroad. At this meeting, after discussing the Peabody letter, Mr. Fish offered a resolution which was voted down by Messrs. Truesdale and Auchincloss and which provided for the requisition to be sent to each member of the board of trustees together with Mr. Peabody's letter, and requesting the individual trustee named in the letter to answer the questions set forth in the communication of December 26th. Later in the same meeting Mr. Fish offered the following resolution: VII. THE AFTERMATH. The action of the majority of the committee in yielding to the opposition, after going so bravely forward for a time, has puzzled some people. If, however, we bear in mind the multitudinous influences exerted by the master-minds among Wall street high financiers, to which I have before referred-the power of friendship and association, the dependence of the smaller men on their more powerful associates, the power and the disposition of the great corporations and their chiefs to crush those who refuse to be otherwise subdued—we may find the clue to the change of front after Mr. Rogers and his associates secured the election of Mr. Peabody to the presidency of the company. In the action against Mr. Fish we have another concrete illustration of the methods of the Standard Oil Company and other ill-famed corporations of like character. No sooner had it become apparent that Mr. Fish was going to fight to the finish for honesty and the prosecution of the criminal rich, no sooner was it settled that he could not be bullied, bought or otherwise silenced, than the ukase went forth that he must be driven from his position of honor and power in the financial world. For years he had served as President of the Illinois Central Railroad and had built up a powerful railway system. It was his realm, so to speak. He had refused to become a Wall-street gam This was also voted down by Messrs. bler. He had shrunk from the methods Truesdale and Auchincloss. With the defeat of Mr. Fish in the committee it became clear that no comprehensive, honest and thorough investigation, such as had been promised when Mr. Fish accepted the position on the committee, was longer desired or to be permitted. The Standard Oil influence had triumphed. The lid was to be put on and kept on. There was therefore nothing left for Stuyvesant Fish but to resign and let the world know the facts. This he did. of the railway wreckers and gamesters of the Street. Now it was determined to punish him by driving him from the presidency of the Illinois Central. Harriman, the chief railway man of the Standard Oil group, was selected to carry for ward the campaign, and the war was on. How it will end we do not know; but while there can be no doubt but what the vast resources of the Standard Oil will be brought to bear against the man who would not betray his trust and sell his manhood; while it is certain that covert as well as overt action will mark every The issue involved is far greater than step in the conflict, and that every weapon is at first apparent. It is in fact merely known to unscrupulous and corrupt one battle in a nation-wide war between wealth will doubtless be called into requi- the forces of honesty and dishonesty; sition, Mr. Fish will have with him the between the people and the aggressions moral sentiment of the nation, and it is a of the criminal rich; between the Repubfavorable sign of a changing order in pub- lic and the despotism of a conscienceless, lic sentiment that the vast majority of the lawless, rapacious and insolent oligarchy great and influential daily, weekly and that must be overthrown if the Republic monthly journals of the country are out- is to be preserved. spoken champions of the intrepid friend ALBERT BRANDT. of common honesty in this great battle against criminal wealth. Trenton, N. J. THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE IN COLORADO.* II. DOMINANT TRUSTS AND CORPORATIONS (Continued.) BY HON. J. WARNER MILLS. The Pageant of the Throne-Powers-The duce operate his own train to distant roads. markets. If aërial navigation is ever safe, then the last word upon railroad made cheap and easy and reasonably monopoly will be quickly and effectively spoken, even though the transportation magnates, like the magnates of the telegraph with wireless telegraphy,—buy up the patents and prepare to exploit the high-arched vault of the heavens as avariciously as they have exploited the rotund earth. But we must not linger longer on the future, for the present holds us us in chains. We do not so much need the last word as we need some word-any true word, even though old and oft-repeated-that will help railroad question and to realize its farcomprehend the present magnitude of the reaching, vital connection with the social, moral and economic life of the people. Who shall say the last word about the railroads? Certainly not a soul now living. Probably long before the last word shall be spoken, new or improved inventions will shape the word. It is more than probable that electricity may supplant steam, and it is among the possibilities that compressed air, or some other form of power, may supplant both. Through some power cheap and effective every farmer may yet make an auto" of his wagon, and loaded with his pro- road question that is not appalling from 66 The first of this series of articles appeared in the July, 1905, number of THE ARENA. STARTLING FACTS. There seems to be no phase of the rail the magnitude of its figures. Edward |