Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-27
SUGAR TRUST IS FINED
Must Pay $4,000 for Accept
ing s26, 900 Rebates.
MOTION FOR new TRIAL
Sixty Days Stay Given Counsel to Per-
feet an Appeal.
INTERPRETATION OF THE LAW
Court Ruled That Only Under Fraud,
Dishonesty or Deceit Was Re-
bate Illegal and Dishonest.
INTERPRETATION OF THE LAW
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, November e7.-Judge Holt
in the United States circuit court. Grim
inal branch. today imposed on the Ameri-
can Sugar Refining Company fine of $1S,-
OC0 for receiving rebates amounting to
about $4,000 from the New York Central
and Hudson River railroad. For giving
these rebates on shipments of sugar from
New York to Cleveland the railroad COM
pany was last week mu.cted for fine
identical in amount with that imposed on
the sugar trust.
After Judge Hollis ruling of last week.
when the New York Central came up for
sentence counsel for the American Sugar
Refining Company evidently thought that
they could not succeed in convincing the
court that Judgment should be deferred or
in warding of the imposition Of fine. At
any rate. neither John E. Parsons, head of
the firm of Parsons. Classon & McIlvane,
general counsel for the sugar company, nor
former Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals
Alton B. Parker who had been especially
retained to defend the sugar company in the
trial of the rebate cases. vas In court. They
left the argument on the motion for new
trial and on that for an arrest of judgment
to Tompkins X. McIlvane, junior member
of the sugar companys counsel.
Phrase in Elkins Act.
After imposing the fine of $4,000 Judge
Holt granted Mr.. McIlvain's motion of a
sxty-day stay to give the sugar COM
pany's counsel due time to perfect an APP
peal from the courts sentence.
t,;a f0,,
an arrest of judgment, Mr.. McIlvaine again
brought up the question of the proper IN
depreciation of the phrase, "Shall be trans
ported in the ETkins act.
Judge Holt, however. had no hesitation
in reaffsrming his opinion expressed many
times during the rebate trials that the
Retrospective" character of the language
had no real Importance in the case. so
long as Il was clearly shown that the $2S-
900 in rebates had been paid and accepted
after February IS, 10, the date on which
the Elkins act became law.
But, your honor. your Interpretation of
the language of the act practically meant
that you gave the jury to understand that
the rebate is itself the crime" said Mr. Nc
Ilvaine.
II cannot recall that / have in any in
stance given that ruling" replied the court.
1T is not denied that there is such thing
as an honest rebate"
When Dishonest.
The judge then said that only when fraud,
dishonesty or deceit had been used in the
giving or taking of the rebates. making the
law practically ineffective and powerless,
and amounting to real discrimination In IA
vor of a certain shipper or shippers, was a
rebate dishonest and illegal.
AS to Mr.. McIlvaines' question as to the
validity of the Elkins act. Judge Holt said
1t was not nearly as loose in its wording or
legal structure some others. The whole
nut of the matter was the decision Of the
question whether the defendant had been
proved guilty of receiving rebates in VIOLA
ton of the Elkfns act, which became for
NAL law of the country in February. 1903.
Congress, he said, In making this law, had
been especially careful in indicating its in
tention that corporations themselves should
be subjected to punishment, just as in for
mer laws on the subject it had seen fit to
omit to state the punishment.