For more than a decade trust organizers had been confronted with a national law decreeing fine or imprisonment or both upon conviction for engaging in any act in restraint of trade. None had gone to prison, nor controlling the entire functions of government, as they did, was there any prospect of the visitation of such a punishment. But the imprisonment clause was a constant irritant; why have it on the statute books when it could easily be obliterated? And why not also have a specific declaration of immunity? A solitary provision calling for fine in case of conviction, the magnates did not mind at all. It would give an appearance of deferring to public sentiment and, at the same time, could be well regarded jocularly by those at whom it was directed. When trust magnates were gathering in immense sums from illicit acts, what did a fine of a few thousand dollars matter? It was too trivial to bother over. Besides, even if the fine, by some extraordinary possibility were made heavy, it could be assessed, in turn, upon the con

sumer.

COMPLETE IMMUNITY FOR THE MAGNATES.

That annoying imprisonment clause, however, had to be thrown out of the laws, and it deviously was by an act passed by Congress in 1903. Concurrently, the same act reasserted and amplified the principle of granting immunity to trust officers. No matter how much or how often they violated the anti-trust laws, they were now absolutely secure from any possibility of prison sentence.

The Government might examine them with the greatest pretended inquisitiveness, and in the process draw out the most self-incriminating admissions, but this evidence as testimony could not, by the act of 1923, be used

against them in the trial of any criminal proceeding. Not only was the individual exempted; the corporation itself was distinctly relieved from prosecution for any penalty or forfeiture.

The triumph of the trusts was now intrinsically complete.

CHAPTER XI

MORGAN AT HIS ZENITH

By the end of the year 1902 J. Pierpont Morgan, reckoning by appearances, seemed to outrank every other American magnate; scarcely a day passed that the newspapers did not report some new achievement of his, or obsequiously render tribute to his ever-expanding power. In the public appraisement he bulked as a supervitally preponderant man, a figure standing out with an immense and peculiar distinction, eclipsing the most obtrusive political and industrial functionaries.

Contrasted with him, ostensible political rulers were innocuous ephemeral personages. For a time they might vociferously command attention, but their encumbency was dependent upon the will of the magnates, and they were pushed up or pulled down as suited the policy and purposes of the great propertied interests. A long array of "eminent statesmen " had shuffled into solemn view, and for a while had been the cynosure of the nation, and then, like exploded rockets, had dissappeared into obscurity, or into a state akin to it. Yet, in an>ther aspect, brief and borrowed as was their power, heirs was not the portion of oblivion; conventional hisory, which accepts the apparent as the real, documents and often perpetuates their names, ignorant of the fact that they were only the servers or servitors of particular impelling forces and interests.

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Behind the nominal political masters stood the real the great magnates.

masters

HISTORICAL OMISSIONS AND MISJUDGMENTS.

Seeing that this is so, what vitally boots it whether this or that individual happened to fill the so-called great elective or appointive offices? In stereotyped historical textbooks and narratives the names of J. Pierpont Morgan and his like do not enter; not even a cursory glimpse is given of their deeds. Yet, in large part, these are the significant things that fundamentally have made actual history. Rulers have been allowed to make formal declaration of wars, but capitalists have commanded them. When it pleases the interests of capital to have peace, titular rulers are ordered to arrange it. Should rulers be so obtuse or stubborn as to stand in the way of capitalist interests, revolution follows. If, in a parliamentary country laws are somehow enacted contrary to the interests of the dominant capitalist class, those laws are effectively voided. All of which proves that, although presidents, kings and emperors may mightily pose as the "creators of policies," yet after all they are only the sounding-board creatures of money forces unnoticed by orthodox histories.

An overbearingly potent and heroic "great man Roosevelt appeared; many a descriptive work has been written of him; and doubtless, in the curious nature of things, we are likewise fated to see many a statue of him. For what? If history tells the tale aright it will tell how he begged campaign funds from the very trust magnates whom he pretended to flout; how, in a critical moment in the national election of 1904, he so despaired of success

that he was forced to appeal to Morgan, Harriman and their fellow magnates for a fresh and immediate infusion of funds. The world does not revere a loser, unless he be a great one, and for a great cause. In considerable degree, Roosevelt fought the fight of a rapidly-decaying cause, that of the middle-class, a cause doomed to fall ignobly, and rightly so. On the surface he seemed the "big man" of the day; in point of fact, he was vanquished by such magnates as Morgan, Harriman and Rockefeller. They, to all appearances mere private individuals, defeated every move of him who was supposed to be invested with even greater powers than many po

tentates.

The irresistible progress of the trust movement and the all-comprehending power of the magnates, can be better estimated when it is recalled that it was during Roosevelt's administration that the most antagonistic campaign thus far essayed against the trusts was carried on.1 At least it seemed so if invective and suits at law counted. But, at basis, Roosevelt, despite his pretenses, was an instrument of the trust magnates, which fact was connoted anew by the circumstance that he was the President who signed the act striking out the imprisonment clause from the anti-rebating act assuring magnates and corporations full immunity from criminal prosecu

tion.2

1 That is, against the "bad trusts. How even the outward acts of officialdom were being made to conform to the interests of the ruling class was shown by the growing tendency to accept some trusts as good," and so arraign others as "bad," although all trusts subsisted in violation of statute law.

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2" Courage, honesty and the saving grace of common sense, according to Mr. Roosevelt, are the three things that will make men great, wrote A. Maurice Low in "The Independent," issue of October 30, 1902. While thus humbly imploring the magnates for funds with which to finance his campaign, and relieving them by law from imprisonment, Roosevelt took spe