The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-03-28
MIR. sNnEY's PLEA FOR PARDON
He Didn't Know There Was an Anti
Trust Law in Kansas.

The first important pardon case
Governor Hoch has had to Wrestle
with was the application of E. J.
Smiley for a pardon from serving his
9O-day Jail sentence in Rush county
for violating the antitrust law. The
governor put in most of the afternoon
listening to the case.
Mr.. Smiley was represented by H.
Whiteside, of Hutchinson, and the
pardon was resisted by County Attor-
ney Mccormick of Rush county, who
prosecuted Mr.. Smiley.
Judge Whiteside went over the
ground that Mr.. Smiley did not know
about the antitrust law of 1897, but
thought the law of 1887 was the only
one he might be violating, and that,
he had been told by his attorneys, was
unconstitutional
Governor Hoch, in asking questions,
laid considerable stress on whether
Smiley knew about the antitrust law
at the time he was violating it. Mr..
Smiley said he did not know there
was such a law on the statute books
until he was summoned to testify in
a. case in Reno county about a month
before he was arrested in Rush cOun-
fused to testify concerning the work.
ings of the grain dealers association,
for which he was cOnstructively COM
mitted to jail by Judge Simpson for
contempt of court.
did you stop violating even the
letter of the law when you found
there was such statute % asked the
governor.
81 certainly did" said Mr.. Smiley.
Judge Whiteside gave the governor
a printed copy of the record in the
case as presented to the United States
supreme court. He laid emphasis on
the fact that Mr.. Smiley was never in
the town of Bison, where the combi-
nation was effected for which Smiley
was prosecuted, but the one time when
the. pooling arrangement was formed,
that these things had all been
threshed over at the time Smiley was
tried, and he did not think they en-
tered into the case. He explained that
Smiley went to Bison, where there
were four grain dealers bidding
against one another for the farmers
grain, and got them together one
night and proposed to them to sign
purchased more than his share of
grain he was TO pay to the other
dealers 3 cents bushel Each of
the dealers gave Mr.. Smiley a GER
tined check for 800 as evidence that
he would stand by the agreement.
This, Mr.. Mccormick said. was a COM
bination to stif1e competition. even
though prices for grain were not men
the dealers did not bid against one
another because each knew that he
would get his share of the profits
anyway if the other dealers did more
business than he did. The dealers re-
ported each night to Smiley how
much grain they had purchased and
at stated times Mr.. Smiley adjusted
their differences in grain. He acted
as their clearing house.
Judge Whiteside said that Mr.
Smiley had no financial interest in
the arrangement at all, that he simply
suggested the arrangement because
they complained to him of the fierce
competition between them.
Mr.. Smiley intimated that the
prosecution was commenced in order
to enable another concern to get hold
of an elevator in La Crosse-just how
he did not state-and he said that Mr.
Mccormick is now one of the com
petitOrs of the regulars at La Crosse,
as he is the secretary of the farmers
elevator association there.