The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1906-05-11
WASHINGTON.
Legislative and Gem
eral Topics from
the Capital.
MAY 5, 100


Official circles as the result of
Commits Toner GarfeId's report
on the st ndard Oil Company,
has not been known in Washing
ton for long time. There was
little commentator for the report
of the Bureau of Corporations in
the Beef Trust case, and VIII It
little there was negatived by the
now famous immunity decision of
Judge Humphrey. But the Stand
ard Oil report is only little
less notable than the message
with which the President sends
it to Congress.
The report in itself is an ar
raignment of the oil company
that is perhaps not as entertain
ing reading as Miss Tarbell's
history of the Standard Oil Com
pany, but it contains much tue
same facts, told in IA more official
way, and it is the most severe
arraignment of corporation that
has ever been known from ch
a high official source. 1t charges
specifically that the Standard
Oil Company has the practical
monopoly OF the oil business of
the United States. 1t retines
and handles $4,000, 900 out of the
26 600, 900 barrels of oil produced
III this country each year. The
few refiners that are outside of
the control of the trust are those
who are in close touch with an
oil producing territory and who
can supply limited area around
their refner;e'. This supremacy
of the Standard Oil Company,
the report says, has been gained
by all sorts of unlawful practices.
1t has receive rebates in direct
defiance of the law until it was
found out when it quickly dis
continued the practice. 1t has
Ju9gled the railroad tariffs and
while i'll some cases kept inside,
OF the strict letter of the la
it has taken all sorts of advan-
tages that the law never contem-
plated. 1t h S stuck to the State
tariffs on oil carrying and pieced
them together so that the oil
seemingly for State consumption
only was really carried over the
Interstate routes. In various
ways it has made IA direct profit
OF 500, 900 a year out of this
unjust, and in many cases, abso-
lutely illegal railway discrimina.
tlon. But the total of tle case
IN which this sort of profit was
made. the report does not profess
to have discovered. At the same
time the profit out of the railway
rates was IA mere bagatelle to the
amount that the Standard Oil
Company was able to make out
of choking off competition and
mulcting the public of outrageous
prices for oil. The report states
that half a cent a gallon is ac-
cepted by the trade as a fair
profit on refined. Instead of
this 1t was found that the price
charged by the Standard Com
pany in territory where it had
succeeded in killing competition
was from three 10 five cents
higher than in the territory
where it had to compete with the
few independent compa Ii g S.
Handling $4,000 600 barrels of oil
a Year, as it was shown to do
this made a tidy profit for the
hard working corporation.
The officers of the company
claimed that they had merely
taken advantage of natural con.
ditiOns and that it was the hard
work and foresight of the CON
pany to which it owed it's SUI
premacy in the oil field. The
pipe line method of transporta-
ton was cited as one instance of
this. But the report shows that
the pipe line idea, aside from not
being an invention of the Stand.
ard Company, was bought up
and controlled by the enormous
power of money behind the com.
pany and that instead of being
a natural advantage, it like many
other of the so called natural
advantages, was simply the re-
suit of cruel and killing competi
ton on the part of the great
company.
The report cites particular in
stances where the law has been
openly or secretly violated, Civ
ing names, dates and places that
brings the grand total of the
railroad determinations alone up
to three fourthS OF a million of
dollars "a year. Mr.. Garfield says
III this connections: Il have called
attention to these specific in
stances merely to show the meth
DDS by which discrimination was
attained and the devices which
If legal are still merely devices
to obtain exactly the same re-