ITEMS OF INTEREST July 23, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

A special federal grand jury has been empaneled by Judge K. M. Landis in the United States district court at Chicago, to hear evidence in regard to the alleged violations of the antitrust law by the National Packing Company and subsidiary companies. The jury was cautioned by Judge Landis in his charge to allow their actions to be wholly free from the influence of the often-heard argument that law enforcement will unsettle business. "You may safely assume," said he, "that no legitimate enterprise needs governmental acquiescence in the commission of crime. You will treat the statute to which I have referred as being just as much in force as are the laws against stealing letters and counterfeiting coins. If your investigation discloses the use of an alias, do not indict a mere alias, but follow the trail, wherever it may lead, until you have located, identified, and pointed out the real offenders."

"The country," says James R. Garfield, Roosevelt's secretary of the interior, "owes a debt of gratitude to the insurgents in Congress who made the fight against the domination of special interests and who placed the common good above party regularity." He would have the party in Ohio pledge itself to enact the following legislation: The recall, with special application to judges; state control of public utilities; a workman's compensation act; the short ballot; a provision permitting cities to adopt the commission form of government; the conservation policy; reorganization of the state department of agriculture to encourage practical instruction in farming; the development of the state canals.

Reports from all over the country indicate that the wide-spread demand for a sane Fourth has reduced the holiday slaughter almost by half, only twenty-eight deaths from fireworks being listed this year against forty-four on July 4, 1909. The whole number injured by fireworks and celebration explosions last year was 2,361, while this year it was but 1,785. The estimate of loss through all fires on the Fourth of July this year it was fires on the Fourth of July this year in New York city was $3,726, as against $20,000 the year previous, for fires directly attributed to fireworks.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"THE LIVING WAY OF LIFE."