The times., 1899-06-18

Pennsylvania Railroad and the Standard
Oil Company. to bring into court the set
tlement sheets showing their settlements
for the transportation of oil. Some of
these sheets showed that there had been
rebates paid to the Standard Oil Company
to the amount of $l.10 per barrel. ="
Pennsylvania Legislative Action.
Testimony bearing out these facts and
given before various bodies was quoted
by the witness. He also recounted action
before the Legislature OF Pennsylvania,
and in the courts on the oil industry.
In 1875 n. said, THE producers of
petroleum had all that Anglo-Saxon con-
fidence in the justice of the courts and in
the power and the omnipotence OF the law,
If we could get law enacted by Congress
prohibiting railway determinations, then
we would have no more railway discrimi-
nations and no more trouble. We paid
81 900 to a retired railroad attorney OF
great ability to draft an anti -discrimina-
/ tion bill. The conditions were that it
should be bill that when enacted into
law the railway companies could not drive
train of cars through. Judge Reagan, OF
Texas, took charge of that bill, and we
( spent eight long years circulating petit
tions. getting men to petition Congress to
pass that bill. You all know what mag
nificent fight Reagan and the friends OF
| that measure made in Congress for its
passage.
I'VE all thought that that bill was al
| most ruined by the column amendments
in the Senate; but, however, after many
weary years of waiting and working, the
measure was passed and we had the inter-
state commerce law, but do you know that
these great railway combines and monopo-
D l..
more for that law than though it was not
I upon the statute books? BY every subter-
/ fuge they evade and violate 1t. II this great
/ monopolistic power can control the ap-
pointment of Supreme Court judges and
{ Attorneys General, they don't care what
/ the law is. They are becoming bigger than
/ the law, aye. bigger than the Government
itself. They dare to threaten the Inter-
state Commerce Commission and ignore its
orders, and this Commission of this great
( Government seems powerless TO perform
the duties provided for it in the law that
! created it.
-Four or five years ago the Atchison,
Topeka. and Santa Fe Railroad went into
, the hands of a receiver, and about the first
thing that that receiver found out was that
the officials of that road in a short time
prior-two or three years-had paid out to
monopolies, trust-favored shippers, over
seven millions of dollars in rebate, and
while this was a States prison offence,
there seemed no disposition on the part
of the Attorney General to bring these
great criminals to judgment. These great
railway and monopolistic combines seem to
overshadow the Government and dictate
and control the action OF its officials Be
hind the power of railway discrimination,
the Big Four beef combine the Sugar
Trust the steel combine, the Standard
Oil Company, and the rest Of these trust
combinations feel so secure in their power
to throttle competition and plunder the
producers and consumers of America that
the stock Of these companies. some OF
them from so to 80 per cent water are
selling from 200 to 400 cents on the dollar
George Rice's Great Fight.
"Mr Chairman, the greatest battle in the
record of time has been fought by Mr.
George Rice of Marietta Ohio for the
right to GO business In this free land for
the right to do the business of his choice
What is the record in that case? In the
latter part of the seventies the railway
managers, to cripple Rice In the interest.
of the Standard oil Company people. RAISED
and doubled the rateson oil out of Marietta