[Illustration: “HE WAS DEAF TO ALL WARNINGS, AND AT LENGTH HIS OWN TURN CAME.”]
The hand of the law will get old John D. himself yet.
The press of this country and England view the matter in the same light. The Brooklyn _Eagle_, in discussing the matter, says, “We can only deplore this very able man’s loss. We can only hope that his sacrifice may result in no further disregard of the precautions that would have averted it, had those precautions been observed. Until that time,” continues the _Eagle_, “we may expect preventable ‘accidents’ which wear every quality of murder except its intent.” _The Pall Mall Gazette_, of London, founded by W. T. Stead, expresses the hope that Mr. Spencer’s death “will arouse those responsible for the management of American railroads to a feeling that it is desirable to make them safer.” The statistics of accidental deaths in America, says _The Gazette_, “are appalling to the English mind, but seem to have little effect in America. But the inclusion of directors among the victims is almost proverbial as the surest route to reform.”
In spite of these solemn warnings another fatal rear-end collision occurred on the Southern within ten days, a short distance from the scene of the former accident.
Mr. Spencer has been succeeded, as President of the Southern, by Mr. W. W. Finley, formerly second vice-president of the road.
The most definite and concrete form which the agitation against trusts and combines has ever assumed in this country, and the most interesting legal step the government has taken in a generation, was the filing of a bill in equity, by United States Attorney General Moody, on Nov. 15, in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, in St. Louis, Mo., against the Standard Oil Company, of New Jersey, and seventy of its subsidiary corporations and limited partnerships, as well as against seven of the leading officers and directors of the big trust, to have the combination dissolved under the Sherman Anti-Trust law, as being in restraint of trade and commerce. The government, for nearly two years, has been gathering information on which to base some such action. But last June the attorney general appointed two assistants, Messrs. F. B. Kellogg and C. B. Morrison, to act with Assistant Attorney General Purdy in gathering information as to the transgressions of the Oil Trust in the business of refining, transporting, distributing and selling oil throughout the United States.