Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-01-26
INTERSTATE COMMERCE.

Argument OF Judge Loomis. of Ohio, Be-
fore the Interstate Commerce Commits.
sion Against Discrimination in Freight
Rates Accorded the Standard Oil Com
pany Against the Smaller Concerns.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 19.-Judge LOOMS,
of Ohio, yesterday made the closing argu.
ment before the Inter State Commerce
Commission in the Geo. Rice complaint
against Southern and Southwestern rail.
roads for discriminating against him and
in favor of the Standard Oil Company, in
the matter of freight rates on petroleum
oil. When he concluded. the commission
took the case under adyisement. Judge
Loomis, who appeared as counsel
for Mr.. Rice, after disposing
of some matters of detail in
the testimony, entered at once upon the
merits OF the case, and INDUCED in some
criticism of monopolies in general. As
one of compliments counsel, he said,
they were here to contend only for equality
of rates, and this he insisted was only In
accord with the spirit of legislation
which created the honorable tribunal
he addressed-the Interstate Commerce
Commission. The Inter Sta Com
merce law, he said, was the
result of popular demand, bas sd upon
an evil that had become an incubus upon
all the manufacturing interests of the
country, the great determinations in
freight rates. Success in business de-
pended mainly on equality Of freight
rates; but the railroads had come to dis
regard the true position and had forgot
ten that they were common and not
private carriers. Railroads, he said,
should remember that they are creatures
of the State, and that they are but the
trustees of the great highways
only of their stockholders, but
of the public. The roads in
volved in this case, he insisted,
could not discriminate between the tank
car and the barrel method of shipping oil
as they We're obviously doing, in order to
give a great monopoly like the Standard
Oil Company an advantage over other
shippers. I'VE are willing" said Judge
LOOMS, sto concede to the Standard Oil
Company all the legitimate advantages
it may have. If by superior skill, large
capital, better location Of refineries, ETC.,
it can ma nufacture and get into the mar
ket cheaper than other refiners,
let it do so, but we want the op-
portunity to compete with it on these
points without being straneIed by lis
elimination in freights large enough to
keep out of the markets of the country.
We contend that the great highways of the
land operated by the divers railroad COM
panies shall be open alike to the small and
the great operator, leaving them free to
compete on other grounds. The Standard
Oil Company, with one hundred and fifty
millions of capital distributed over the
country, so that it can say to any
railroad company: take our freight on
our terms or not at all, holds all the trans
portation facilities of the country at its
command. We demand that this high
tribunal, created by and to administer a
law for the express purpose of securing
equality of rates, shall rebuke, by proper
Judgment, these determinations, ranging
from ten to PSI per cent, as shown by the
testimony in these cases, and place these
railroad corporations in their proper rela-
tions to the public, as servants and not
sovereigns of the people,"