Above the Law by David Burnham

Author:David Burnham
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497696853
Publisher: Open Road Distribution

TEDDY TRIES TO TAKE A DIVE

One fascinating story that illuminates such a failed corporate attempt began on August 8, 1908. That was the day that A. J. Fowler, an assistant attorney general, dispatched a confidential letter to the Alphaduct Company of Jersey City, New Jersey, asking the company to provide him with information about the patents and commercial agreements it had obtained or entered into concerning the manufacture of a product described as a “non-metallic flexible conduit.” Although Fowler’s letter did not say so, the inquiry was part of a much broader Justice Department investigation of price-fixing by a large number of companies then in the electrical supply business.27

Within a very short time span, perhaps in less than a day, a copy of Fowler’s inquiry somehow reached the influential hands of W. L. Ward, the Republican national committeeman of New York. Ward instantly fired off a complaining note about the Justice Department inquiry to President Theodore Roosevelt, the man ultimately in charge of both the Justice Department and the Republican Party. Ward, observing that the national political campaign was not running “very smoothly,” was extremely unhappy about the Justice Department investigation. The inquiry, he said bitterly, “appears to me to be nothing more nor less than a dragnet plan put out for the purpose of getting hold of some agreement that will make a basis for prosecution. It does seem to me that it is most important that there should be nothing of this kind done for the present.”

Theodore Roosevelt, who the newspapers of the day occasionally referred to as a “trust buster,” did not take Ward’s complaint lightly, perhaps because the Republican committeeman had characterized the investigation as a “dragnet,” perhaps because of his own political calculations. In fact, within a matter of only a few hours, the president responded to Ward’s letter by dispatching his own message to Charles Bonaparte, his attorney general. Roosevelt’s letter shows that the president was only interested in the politics of the case. The possible price-fixing that had triggered the investigation of the electrical equipment business was of very little concern. “I do not know anything about the matter,” Roosevelt said, “but of course I feel very strongly that the less activity there is during the Presidential election, unless it is necessary, the better it will be.”

The entire transaction, from the mailing of Fowler’s initial query on August 8 to the dispatch of Roosevelt’s slightly hedged request for the immediate suspension of a Justice Department antitrust investigation, had taken only four days. It is hard to say whether the speed of this particular round-robin should be regarded as a tribute to the influence of this particular industry or to a harder working postal service.

Bonaparte, who then was vacationing in a resort hotel in western Massachusetts, responded to Roosevelt’s request on August 14. The attorney general, an elegant Baltimorean and the grand nephew of the second emperor bearing his name, was not at all cowed by his president. He began by asserting the propriety

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.