The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-05-17

l only the shipment of oil from Whiting to points in Illinois, but the shipments of many other lines of goods to similar 1 points.
 Several years ago the railroads covered | the matter more specifically by filing with the interstate commerce commission. so-called application sheets providing l that any rate named from Chicago to a l point in Illinois or beyond down to a minimum of cents per 100 pounds in carloads would apply from all points in I Illinois or Indiana within the Chicago switching limits
 WaybiIling.
 with the method of waybilling which | is purely an accounting matter between l the railroad agents and the railroad audi tor, the shipper necessarily has nothing 1 to do. Commissioner Garfield insisted that l the Standard oil company must have known of the method of manifesting un- l til it was pointed out to him with ex- treme cane that the Chicago East St. l Louis roads hauling the traffic, did not reach Whiting and that the cars were | switched to them by a Chicago switch l ing road All the Standard oil company | knows of this transaction is that it de- l livered cars to the switching road at Whiting. consigned to East St. Louis, and l that the carrying roads collected freight | from the Standard Oil company at the I regular rate of cents per 100 pounds. 1 There was no secrecy about it.
 While dwelling upon what he considers
 low rate used by the Standard from Whiting to East St. Louis, Mir. Gar 1 field fails to mention that in 1896 and 1 after the same rate on oil was in force 1 by the Illinois Central railroad from
 Kankakee, H., to East St. Louis, for the l benefit of plant located at Kankakee, l and in which the Standard was in no way | interested. The same road made rate l for the same shipper of 11a cents per 100 | pounds from Kankakee to Chicago a distance of fifty-six miles. During the l time the competitive plant was in oper-
 ation at Kankakee, the roads running l west and northwest from Chicago ab-
 sorbed on shipments destined to points on l their lines sS per car of the rate from
 Kankakee to Chicago, and as the rate was
 only 11s cents per 100 pounds, it resulted l in the application of Chicago rates from
 Kankakee, the same as were applied from l Whiting. st6 In Kansas.
 "In this section of the report the only
 reference to Kansas is that there are | some unfair open rates a matter too | vague to answer. and the statement that a more important discrimination lies in the arbitrary weights fixed by the rail- | fOaQS on cruue ana Iuel OH. AS knOWn l to every shipper of oil in the United | States, it has been the general custom | of the railroads to assess the weights of | all the liquid products of petroleum at an estimated average of six and four l tenth pounds per gallon and 1t Is so ex- | pressed in the tariffs. This includes fuel 1 oil, which weighs more than nine and 1 four-tenths pounds per gallon. and gaso- | line and naphthas which weigh less. Ev- | cry refiner in the United States makes interstate shipments under there condi- | tions An exception however. to this general rule was made by the roads run
 ming out of Kansas. Shortly after oil was produced in large quantities In Kan sas, the Kansas railroads decided that since the producers of crude oil had no light products-gasolines, naphthas-to of- fer that would go towards constituting an average they would pay the actual | weight on the individual product that | they offered for transportation. On the
 theory that crude oil was not included in the general average of six and four tenths pounds. the Kansas railroads ap- | piled a weight of seven and four-tenths | pounds to crude oil The Standard oil l company, as explained to MT Garfield, objected to the advanced weight on crude oil, but it's objection was unheeded by
 the railroads, and yet. notwithstanding the foregoing explanation, the commits
  in the list of things making for favorit-
 ism from the railroads to the Standard oil company.
 In California.
 'In California the comm ssioner charges that rebates as well as discriminations by secret rates have been given on oil. This refers to state rates not within the Jurisdiction of the federal authori- ties. Here 1t is no question of the Stand ard Oil company alone, but of many pro ducers and consumers of oil.
 "There is no law in California requiring the railroads to file tariffs. When. there
 fore, the problem was presented of haul ing a new and large production of oil,
 used to large extent for fuel, they quoted rates to shippers according to the conditions existing from time to time. No class rates were applied to these ship ments. hence overcharges were inevitable. and when made were refunded to make
 the freight charges correspond with the
 rates quoted. The same rates quoted to
 the Standard were quoted to others. and
 in many cases the rates were obtained and used by others before the Standard
 knew of their existence.
 MT. Garfield mentions certain Califor-
 mia state rates used in connection with
 interstate shipments In reply it may be said that where the state rates were
 used from any point in California in com nection with interstate rates from some Arizona. it was necessary because no true rates were in force from the point of shipment to destination"