"My opinion is that the advance in prices is the general exercise of a greed prompted by the dealers who took the initiative. In most cases a local trust exists, but it is impossible now to find evidence that the trusts of various towns are directly related to each other however much their relationship may be suspected." Wachenheimer sees in the almost vicious hostility of public sentiment against the ice dealers the exercise of a spirit that may develop into socialism of the rankest character unless placated. "I feel that the law should be enforced against the ice men" says Wachenheimer, "because in this as in other instances the people look to the courts for relief and if they do not find it there very acute and alarming conditions may arise and the very interests now fighting the operation of the law will stand the most in need of its protection."

The various methods adopted by the public to get relief from the alleged iniquitous practices of the ice dealers form an interesting study in present-day industrial politics. The following comparison of proceedings in various cities prominent in the ice war will afford an idea of the tactics of the people in their campaign against the alleged trusts: Baltimore, Maryland, dealers indicted; Toledo, Ohio, dealers convicted and out on bond pending a hearing in superior courts; Washington, dealers indicted charged with a conspiracy to increase the price of ice; Indianapolis, grand jury investigation of alleged ice combine; Jacksonville, Florida, one ice man goes to jail in order to test the law under which dealers were indicted by a hearing in habeas corpus; Cleveland, Ohio, dealers indicted and acquitted by a jury; Detroit, an investigation preliminary to grand jury action; St. Louis, Missouri, state to annul charters and collect penalties from dealers eharged with conspiring to fix ice prices; Kansas City, petitions filed to revoke charters of alleged members of ice trust; Yonkers, New York, movement to furnish citizens municipal ice at cost; Cincinnati, Ohio, dealers indicted under Valentine law; Mt. Vernon, New York, mayor plans to organize a company to manufacture ice and compete with alleged trust; Philadelphia, officers of alleged ice combine subpoenaed to appear before grand jury; Great Neck, Long Island, residents build

ing ice plant of their own; Ashtabula, Ohio, indictment resulted in dissolution of City Ice Delivery Company; Austin, Texas, city council considering legislation fixing maximum price of ice per one hundred pounds at thirty cents; Schenectady, New York, investigation of alleged ice combine by committee of council; Hartford, Connecticut, petitions to revoke charters; Columbus, Ohio, indictments returned against dealers; Newark, Ohio, indictments returned; Troy, New York, prosecuting attorney investigating. In numerous other cities the agitation against alleged ice trusts has taken no definite form as yet, but a struggle between the authorities and the ice dealers is imminent.

The present status of the fight between Lyman W. Wachenheimer and the Toledo ice trust rages around points of law which have absolutely nothing to do with the original question involved. In the present controversy in the courts the unusual and remarkable spectacle is afforded in which men who have confessed their guilt in open court, knowing the penalty provided for the crimes they admit as their own, seek to escape the penalty provided by law for the crime they have committed.

Why men should plead guilty to a crime to escape the statutory penalty for that crime is not apparent to the ordinary observer, but the history of the Toledo ice trust prosecution reveals the reason and indicates clearly the attitude of capital toward the court in some instances.

After one Toledo ice man was found guilty by a jury, four others came in and withdrew their pleas of not guilty and entered pleas of guilty. The cases against the other indicted men were nollied, as the state had no evidence that they were directly connected with the trust, and the criminal cases against the companies will be nollied and suits brought to oust them from their corporate franchises. The Valentine law under which the prosecutions were conducted was passed by the general assembly of Ohio in 1898 and prohibits a conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce. The real object of the law is to preserve competition. The five Toledo ice men, having stood before the court either proven or

admittedly guilty, became eligible for sentence. The maximum under the Valentine law is a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for one year. Judge R. R. Kinkade, of the court of common pleas, before whom the cases were tried, imposed the maximum penalty. He, however, stated that he would hear a motion to modify the sentence at a later date, saying at the time that he always considered it as an extenuating circumstance if a thief returned the plunder to his victim.

The ice men were taken to the county jail by the sheriff, there to lie until committed to the workhouse. For the first time of record men convicted under an anti-trust law had been sentenced to prison and were actually in jail.

Acting upon the veiled suggestion of Kinkade when he spoke about extenuating circumstances, the attorneys for the imprisoned ice men reappeared in court the next day and presented motions to modify the sentence. They exhibited a statement issued by the ice men to consumers in which the price of ice was reduced from fifty cents per one hundred pounds to thirty-six cents per hundred, and they agreed to rebate all they had previously collected for ice in excess of thirty-six cents per hundred pounds. Judge Kinkade thought the circumstance somewhat extenuating and he modified his original sentence to $2,500 fine and six months' imprisonment in every case. He also stated that the fine would be permitted to work no hardship upon any defendant not able to pay it. The workhouse, however, would not be eliminated.

Then, under ordinary circumstances, the ice trust prosecution would have. been ended, but not so in this case. The next few days saw a consolidation of counsel formerly each for his individual client, the addition of one of the biggest corporation law firms in the state of Ohio and proceedings the like of which had not before been written upon the records of an Ohio court.

Motions on behalf of the ice men who had pleaded guilty were offered to Judge Kinkade, asking that leave be granted for the withdrawal of the plea of guilty. Misconduct of the trial judge was alleged, it being charged that he had promised the defendants that he would not impose a workhouse sentence and had done so for

the sole purpose of procuring a plea of guilty and that they had pleaded guilty only to suffer hardship when they had been led to expect leniency.

Terming the motions "false as hell itself," Kinkade struck them from the files and sentenced two of the lawyers to jail for contempt of court. Subsequently the attorneys took the contempt-of-court matter into circuit court and were there discharged upon a technicality. They presented their allegations of a promise of leniency and secured the suspension of execution of the sentence passed upon the ice men, pending a hearing in circuit court. Thus one day in the circuit court saw five ice men and two lawyers delivered from the jail to which the common pleas court had sentenced them. At the time he struck the motions from the files Kinkade suggested in a remarkable public utterance that all interests represented by counsel were not in court by any manner of means. Prosecutor Wachenheimer did not hesitate to express a belief that corporate interests, perhaps kindred, but infinitely larger than the Toledo ice trust, were back of the new and startling development in the case. There is no other way of getting a case out of common pleas court after pleas of guilty have been offered than to impugn the conduct of the trial judge, and it immediately suggests itself that the vast amount of capital invested in bridge iron manufactories and in Standard Oil is endangered by indictments recently returned against almost every bridge company and officer in the state by the grand jury of Lucas County and the filing of an ouster suit against the Standard Oil Company and its subsidiary companies by Wachenheimer.

The immediate consequence of the successful prosecution of the ouster suit against the Standard Oil is criminal proceedings under the Valentine law. Whatever the motives or influences may be which have prompted the sudden and unprecedented activity of counsel in behalf of the ice men, they now have admittedly one object-the overthrow of the Valentine law. They declare it to be unconstitutional and expect to show it to be so. They have maintained in argument before the court that a combination of capital is lawful, that competition is a dead letter and out of place in the present-day busi

ness world. They declare that the dawn of a new business era is here and that.combination is to be its feature.

The question of the constitutionality of the Valentine law was not pressed until after sentence had been passed. Then it was that counsel first apparently realized the requirements of the situation if their clients were to be saved from a prison sentence and if they were to combat a precedent in prosecutions under the anti-trust laws which struck terror to many corporations and financiers already in the meshes of the law.

The behavior of counsel after alleging misconduct on the part of the trial court justified and in fact created a belief that they had but little on which to base such a startling charge. After filing the motions they pursued tactics tending only to delay the actual hearing of the motions, even after Kinkade had restored the motions to the files for hearing for the sole purpose of vindicating his honor, and they thus gave rise to a suspicion that

their charges were set up for the purpose of regaining a hold upon matters which they had voluntarily allowed to get beyond their grasp.

Wachenheimer declares that he will pursue the Toledo trust to the court of last resort and will enforce the workhouse sentence. He declares that competition in every line of trade shall prevail in Lucas County so long as he has strength of mind and body to fight the battle and the Valentine law is not cut out from under him. He declares competition is the secret of a fair market.

The experiences of Lyman W. Wachenheimer and the Toledo ice trust evidence that members of corporations do not object to being termed and treated as extraordinary criminals. They have no compunction about being found guilty of or confessing to the violation of certain laws enacted to restrain their practices. But they object most strenuously to the imposition of the usual penalty for "ordinary" crime-imprisonment.

S a sufferer from disease naturally turns to the remedy which has cured or benefited others similarly afflicted, so the representative people and newspapers of many graft-burdened, boss-ridden cities throughout the United States are interesting themselves in the commission form of government for municipalities, which has done so much toward exterminating the cancer of political corruption in places where it has been given a trial. So far the plan is confined to but three states outside of the District of Columbia, where the theory on which it is based had its genesis. It has brought about remarkable results, and its adoption elsewhere is highly probable.

Gal

To those who know that Texas was the pioneer in the effective application of the railroad commission idea, now so much in the public eye as a result of the passage of the rate bill, it is perhaps not surprising that that state was the first to bring about really practical reforms through the adoption of the commission system in municipal government. veston, its largest seaport, has operated most successfully under that system since a short time after the storm of September 8, 1900. Houston, its largest city, took up the same form of government less than a year ago and gratifying progress toward ideal conditions has already been made. Dallas decided to do likewise at an election held last spring. Citizens of San Antonio and the press of that city are urging that the system be installed there and one of Fort Worth's leading

papers said recently that "a strong sentiment almost an overwhelming demand - for government by commission" had developed at that place.

Des

But it is not only in Texas that the method finds favor. Nashville, Tennessee, has made use of a modified form of government by commission for years. Moines, Iowa, some time ago sent Mr. James G. Berryhill, one of its leading citizens, to Houston and Galveston to investigate the new scheme, and Norfolk, Virginia, is now governed by a commission, which was elected a few weeks ago. The Civic Improvement League of St. Louis is studying the situation in the Texas towns with a possible view to urging the adoption of the innovation in the Missouri metropolis, and requests for information regarding the workings of the plan have been received in Houston and Galveston from many other cities.

While the general idea for this form of government was borrowed from the District of Columbia, it is obvious that exactly the same system which prevails. there could not be applied elsewhere. Citizens of the District are disfranchised, politics touches their administrative board remotely, if at all, and peculiar conditions, which could not exist in an ordinary city, result from the coöperation of the local and federal authorities. But the basic principle is adaptable to any municipality, as has been demonstrated in Texas. Houston and Galveston each elect a board of five commissioners only, the power to appoint all subordinate officials being vested in those boards. It might be objected that this would tend to a dangerous centralization of authority, but the experiences of the two cities show such an objection to be no better founded than it would be in the case of a railroad whose directors, rather than whose stockholders, are in direct control. A majority of each board rules and the chairman, or mayor, has no veto power. Each commissioner has certain of the city departments under his supervision, but legislation affecting those departments must be enacted by the whole board.

The opinion that the commission plan abridges any of the rights and privileges of the people, or tends to the elimination. of the party lines which are usually so essential to good government, is erro

The

neous. On the contrary, the power of the individual voter is increased and the boss and his ability and opportunity to graft are disposed of more effectively than by any other system yet worked out. Even an honest mayor can make little progress toward reform if a majority of his aldermen, councilmen or assemblymen, as the case may be, are against him. In more than one instance the forces which have placed such a mayor in office have been powerless to prevent the election of dishonest or incompetent minor officials, or of a majority of the legislative body from districts or wards which are still in control of corrupt politicians. Under the commission plan such a miscarriage of the people's will is well nigh impossible. Ward or district lines are abolished and the commissioners are all elected from the city at large, with the result that the ward heeler and the district leader are either shorn of much of their power for evil or are destroyed completely. usual combinations and trades are difficult or not possible of accomplishment. The necessity of electing a board the members of which will give to the affairs of the city the same careful and honest attention they would bestow on those of any ordinary corporation of which they were the directors, brings business men to the front as candidates. Representative men who would not consent to stand for aldermanic positions, knowing that, if successful at the polls, they might subsequently be rendered impotent by a corrupt majority in council, have been found to be willing to announce themselves for commissionerships. The idea of hand. ag a city in a business way appeals to the business element. Good citizens who fail in their duty by being apathetic in ordinary elections, because of the apparent hopelessness of beating accomplished and dishonest politicians at their own game, become interested in the election of other good citizens under the commission system. A corrupt or inefficient commission could work as much injury to a community as an unfit board of aldermen, perhaps, but its election is much less likely. At least, that has been the experience in Texas, and it is not plain that the results achieved there can not be successfully duplicated elsewhere.

Galveston at first attempted to copy the

District of Columbia plan very closely. Under usual circumstances any suggestion of disfranchisement would have provoked an irresistible storm of protest, but when the people awakened to the seriousness of the condition of their town and its finances after the great storm they were not only willing, but, apparently, anxious, to forego the right of suffrage in order that the necessary steps toward the rehabilitation of the stricken community might be made possible. Such steps could not be taken under the old aldermanic form of government, with its attendant disturbing elections, its cheap and disreputable politics and its large opportunities for graft and waste. A change was necessary. A strictly busiA strictly business administration was imperative. Out of the serious consideration of these facts by the public-spirited men of the place the idea of turning affairs over to a commission, to be appointed by the governor of the state, came into being.

The state legislature was requested to enact a law.providing for the installation. of the new system. Some of its members, however, refused to support any bill divesting the city's voters of the right to select their own officials, even though the voters themselves were willing to relinquish that right as a matter of public. policy. Ultimately a compromise was effected by which it was stipulated that the proposed commission should be made up of three men appointed by the governor and two elected by the people. Such a board took charge and continued in control for some eighteen months. Then the State Court of Criminal Appeals, in disposing of a police case carried up to it, declared by a bare majority that the new form of government was unconstitutional because of the presence of the appointive members on the board. The legislature was in session at the time and a new law, providing for the election of all the commissioners, was rushed through. Less than a month later the supreme court of the state, which is the tribunal of last resort only in civil cases, handed down a unanimous decision that the original arrangement was in thorough consonance with the basic law. There was no way of reconciling the difference between the two courts, and so the matter stands to this day, the people of Galves

ton preferring to abandon the appointive feature rather than run the risk of having all their police laws and regulations nullified through appeals to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Nothing was lost through this action, however, since the conditions which at first seemed to make the appointment of the commissioners necessary no longer existed. The commissioners, all good and representative men, stood for reëlection and were put back into office by back into office by an overwhelming majority. Not a single dollar was expended in their behalf.

The results they have achieved mark a new era in the recent history of American municipalities. Under the old system the city, devastated as it was by the storm, would doubtless have been plunged deeper into debt. The commission brought about an exactly opposite condition of affairs. When it took hold Galveston's floating debt was upward of $156,000. In approximately three years this was wiped out, and in the meantime more than $10,000 had been expended in satisfying old claims and judgments, and nearly as much more in the liquidation of interest charges. Street improvements to the value of more than $100,000 had been made and about a third as much had been spent on other municipal betterments. Reductions in interest rates had been obtained from holders of the city's bonds. Material additions had been made. to the sinking fund.

All this was accomplished without the issuance of a dollar's worth of new bonds. It was made possible by the collection of all taxes due, without political favor; the complete elimination of all graft and waste, and a wise, honest and businesslike administration of affairs generally. The commissioners were confronted with questions of much graver import than officials of a town of similar size are called on to handle ordinarily, but they stuck to business principles and scored at every turn. Above all else, perhaps, they gained and retained the confidence and esteem of the people. Now their work has long since ceased to be experimental, and the commission system is apparently a fixture in Galveston.

The tax rate there is now $1.72, of which amount 70 cents are applied on the general fund, 82 cents on the bonded in