"TRUST BUSTING"

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 64, 17 March 1913, Page 3

"TRUST BUSTING"

A DYING WITNESS ' WILLIAM ROCKEFELLER OCEAN TRADE MONOPOLY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, 16th Feb. Dramatic, indeed, was the scene enacted before the "Money Trust 1 ' Investigating Committee when it visited Sans Souci, the isolated island owned by an. exclusive millionaire club, and there attempted to take the testimony of William Rockefeller, the plutocrat, who is only less wealthy than his more famous brother, John D. Rockefeller. For six months or more the attaches of Congress endeavoured to subpoena William Rockefeller, but, although his house in New York was practically besieged for a g6qd part of that, time, it was not until his lawyer agreed to accept tho subpoena that any success was achieved. Rockefeller is believed to be possessed of most valuable facts bearing upon the acts of the ring of capitalists that it is alleged controls the wealth and credit of the country. The committee, therefore, visited San Souci in high hopes. They found there a trembling, nervous old man, scarcely able to articulate a word. After giving whispered answers to four questions, the witness collapsed, and a strangling, Whistling cough shook his frame. The examination 'was absolutely without result of any value. The committee was cautioned by Rockefeller's physicians that any attempt to question him at length would endanger his life. Now the committee is under fire in Congress for having expended a large sum of , money in the 1 resultless pursuit of the multi-millionaire. Originally £5000 was appropriated for the expenses of tiie committee, but in all it has disbursed £12,000. William Rockefeller, the once active head of a powerful group of bankers, handed to the committee a paper on which was written a request that as he he had lost his voice he be permitted to whisper his answers to the official stenographer, who would read them aloud. In replying to the few formal questions propounded, he bent close to the ear of the reporter, and with strained Mace made answer to a question ihtimating that it was reported the witness had played golf and indulged in sports of that kind. Rockefeller, with contorted face, said injthe- ear of the stenographer : "I have never played a game of golf in my life ; I try to take open-air exercise every day. That is the extent of my amusement, taking open-air exercise." A little later the witness lell back in his chair, and seemed in a state of strangulation. His physician swore that to continue the examination would endanger the capitalist's life, and the committee abandoned the attempt to question him. The investigation and attacking of trusts and combines of all kinds was never more actively in progress than in these last days of the Taft Administration. Amongst the alleged monopolies under fire at the present moment are the telegraph and telephone, companies, shoe machinery makers, the Moving Picture Trust, owners of ship-, ping crossing the Atlantic, and the western railways, There is a special committee of Congress taking evidence concerning the Steamship Trust, and it has been testified that practically ,all lines to, Europe from American ports operate under what is known as the Westbound North > Atlantic Conference, which agrees upon minimum rates and conditions of service/ One witness, a New York importer, informed the committee that his concern had entered into a contract with a company which is in the combine and was receiving from it a. 10 per cent, rebate on coffee freights from Brazil in consideration of its not patronising, any competing line. The United States Government has had great success whenever it has resolutely attacked a domestic monopoly, but how it can cope with an international Trust, which is what this shipping combine is if it exists at all, is a problem that has never before been faced. The most practical suggestion yet made is itt the form of a Bill introduced in Congress barring from the Panama Canal all American or foreign vessels in "combines and conferences." That rates are so regulated as • to prevent competition is admitted by the officials of steamship companies appearing before the committee, but' it is argued that this is done in order to prevent "indiscriminate competition that would retard commerce and throw the steamship companies into bankruptcy." The Government of the United States, which is now engaged in investigating the marine monopoly, is said to itself engage in the very practices it reprehends. For instance, as ownei; of the Panama Railroad, the Government, according to one witness, participated in a rate conference with the Atlas line, which forms part of the combination, and which operates on the Panama coast." >