The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-05-18

l that perhaps the New England roads and not the Standard Oil company, are | blamable.'
 As shown in chapter of the report, the Standard oil company for years has enormously benefited by the refusal of | New England roads to prorate and 1 representative of the New York, New i Haven and Hartford system states that the Standard oil company wanted the road not to prorate.'
 Messrs. Rogers and Archbold are quoted as saying regarding the Whiting-St. Louis rate:
 | "'It Is quite true that having our oil | at Whiting and desiring to transport it | to points in the interior of Illinois we used the state rtes.'
 "As shown in chapter of the report all shipments from Whiting. Ind, into | Illinois are interstate The mere inclu- 1 sion of Whiting into the Chicago switch ing district by an application sheet does | not make Whiting an Illinois shipping point. As shown in the report the Stand ard Oil company has used the location | of Whiting for the purpose of claiming the right to use either Indiana state rates or Illinois state rates, as best suit ed it's convenience. The railroad bills | show that the Standard Oil company di- rected that hundreds of the cars billed from Whiting to East St. Louis should go to St. Louis without unloading and | the railroad records show that hundreds more went on without unloading to many parts of the southwest, which fact the | Standard Oil company necessarily knew.
 Rate to Birmingham.
 "Furthermore it is an interesting fact 1 that in 1901 in response to request from industrial commission for information as I to the freight rates to certain points in the south. Mr. Archbold wrote the commission and gave the rate from Whit l ing to Little Rock Ark. as 301a cents, | whereas at that time and until the secret. rates were discovered by the bu- reau of corporations the Standard Oil company was shipping traffic on the fol- | lowing rates:
 Prom Whiting to Birmingham, by way of Grand Junction, 2912; from Whiting to | Memphis by the same route 15 cents; | from Whiting to Little Rock, by way of East St. Louis, 26 cents. These facts are all set forth In full in chapter and ! | of the report.''
 The report of Mir Garfield Is compre- hensive one and covers 500 printed pages. In support of the various allegations made by him he prints boldly in the re port copies of waybills, letters of rail- road officials bearing on transactions with agent of the Standard Oil and indepen- dent oil companies. special oil tariffs of various railroads, bills of lading, blind bills of lading and secret understandings and agreements of the several railroad companies named. with the Standard Oil company. In many instances, according | to the copies of the waybills, the rate paid by the Standard Oil company was only 8 1-S per cent of the amount stated in the | bill.
 Concealment of Rates.
 The testimony of employees of railroads | is given in confirmation of the bureau s | charge that there was concealment of rates granted to the Standard Oil com pany. Although 1t is alleged in the case of the Chicago and Alton railroad, the general tariff officers admit the existence of a secret rate and the purpose was to conceal it from other railroads and not | from the shippers. one of the leading | freight clerks of the Alton is quoted as | tetisfyng, that the secret rate was in dard Oil company, and that had any other | shipper inquired for rates he would not l have been given the low rate accorded the | Standard oil company.
 The report further shows the establish | ment of through rates from small incon- | sequenta1 and in many instances obscure points near large shipping centers. and | the filing of the tariffs with the inter- l state commerce commission as evidence l that the rates were not secret. But MT. l Garfield maintains that by this arrange ment the rates were effectively kept | secret. as shippers other than the Stan dard Oil company in applying for rates were given the published rates from other | places in the vicinity of the small points l referred to. which in every case were l considerably higher. He declares that the railroads recognized the irregularity of the Arrangement and that they were designed | to hide the rate from all shippers except the Standard oil company