Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1906-05-24
DUTY OF ATTORNEY
GENERAL IS CLEAR
da Tarbell Says Moody Must
Prosecute Standard
Oil.
IS CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY
To Regulate the Transportation Prob
lem Is to Draw the Fargs of the
Oil Trust and Permit OF
Competition.

Philadelphia, May l,.--Idn Tarbell,
whose disclosures concerning the
Standard Oil company have been con-
tirmed in the recent repor of Commits
sioner Garfield and the message OF
President Roosevelt, declares that the
transportation problem would pave the
way for competition With the Standard
and would solve many of he problems
confronting the public. Miss Tarbell in
SistS that the Standard Oil company is
a~nlcnable to prosecution under the pro-
visions u he Sherman antitrust law.
for engaging in a criminal conspiracy
i'll restraint of trade.
In the course of an interview she
gave expression to her views as fol-
lows:
In my history of the Standard I
have frequently been accused of over
stating the facts with a view 30 making
a good story but since this govern
mental report became public l have
been proved to be Il very conservative
aid fair sort of person.
A Criminal Conspiracy.
The additional facts which Mr.. Car
field dug up ave made me more than
eyer convinced that the Standard Oil
company is conducting Il crimina con-
spiracy in restraint of trade. and that
II is the evident duty of the attorney
general of the United States to prose-
cute the corporation, not only for en-
tering into arrangements with the rail-
roads for illegal rebates, but for lola
ton of the Sherman antitrust law.
1t IS my belief that this question is
now the greatest problem before the
American people. 1t should be made
n political issue. If l were asked to
define the paramount political needs
of our country today l should state
them in this order:
problem, so that every man would be
treated alike on the railroads. just as
men are treated alike in the streets. l
mean by this an equitable arrangement
I'm passenger transportation, as we'll as
in freight transportation.
Second. reform of the tariff so that
no body of mel can make themselves
rich at the expense of the people.
Third. control of all municipal fran
chises by the cities themselves. 50 that
the rights conveyed by those fran
chises may be exercised by the people,
and not by IL small coterie of capital
lists who obtain special privileges by
bribery and trickery.
"A solution of the first problem
would draw the fangs from the Stand
ard Oil company. Given equal trans
portation facilities and a fair market,
do away with all this cut-throat mar
ket business, and independent inter-
eSts can grow up.
cot course. it would he slow work in
the oil fields, for the Standard. through
1 'til anu VI w De:t'tS. llS bribery
ard its lobbying. has attained Il ire
fiendous hold which only years OF
honest competition could break.
But it can be broken. Witness what
the Pure Oil company has done. That
company, by the way, was an cmana-
tior from the brain of my friend. Mr..
Emery. His was the first thought that
made the Pure Oil company's enter
prise possible.
ITO get back to COMMISSIONS Gar
Am. -:
stances of rcbating mentioned by him
were not new to me, and We're given
In my history. For instance, had
called attention to the refusal of the
New York. New Haven and Hartford
and other New England roads to pro-
rate for independent companies. and 1
also mentioned the discrimination
against independent points in favor of
points fed by the Standard at Whiting,
Ind. The Whiting matter was brought
out first by the Interstate Commerce
commission five or six years ago.
Mr.. Garfield has gone further than
could go. Where l had to ask for
information. he demanded it,. l had a
magazine behind me. and he had the
government. All the agents that he
needed were at his disposal, and when
he wanted to look into any particular
phase of the question il was only ncc-
essary for him to go to headquarters
and say, Show me-
Then. too, Mr.. Garfield wrote a re-
port. and l wrote history. l was be-
ginning at the beginning and telling
the facts. For me it was n case to be
proved and. in reality. it was the
Standard Oil company which wrote
my history. not I. Their own acts. laid
down in court records. attested by le-
gal documents and sworn evidence and
merely transcribed and arranged by
mo. proved the Standard dishonest and
unfair