The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1907-06-14

VIII further disturb values and, while
he viii talk little during the SUM
mer about corporations. he Il likely 60
heed these requests. n Hartman will
not answer certain questions put TO
him By the Commission the President
proposes to put him In Jail for con-
tempt, provided he can ao Il. The
Federal Court in New York Is 10 be
asked soon TO make Hartman reply.
But II IL far different thing to pro.
coed against Hartman personally I'm
such case than II II 70 proceed
against the many thousands OF miles
or railroad he controls For there are
thousand OF innocent stockholders and
furthermore any legal proceedings that
affects the hundreds of millions of
money invested In those properties will
affect general business conditions.
FEARS HARD TIMES.
The President, as has been said here
tofore, is still much afraid lest there
be waning of prosperity before he
goes out of the White House. He is
more afraid of that than of any other
occurrence. Some business men of
good judgment say there is warrant
in their private predictions that times
VIII be harder six months from now
IMAM they have been since the panic of
1893 and that the hard times will cover
period of a year or two before there
Is any quickening again. The reports
from the West of poor crops is likely
to aggraVate any conditions under the
surface that are making for less pros
perity. Again a cessation of good
times-for none of the calamity pro-
phets says there is going to be a panic
would be laid at the door of the party
in power and especially at the door of
Theodore Roosevelt.
1t may be well, however, TO accept all
such prophecies with caution for men
of the largest business transactions are
sometimes mistaken. There have been
prophecies in high quarters heretofore
of a recession of prosperity which have
not come true.
MUST MAKE GOOD.
Prosperity or no prosperity, it is diff
ficult to see how the President can long
escape from prosecution of Hartman
and his roads. If he was warranted
in prosecuting the Northern Pacific
and dissolving the combination between
those two enormous properties, there is
much more warrant for proceeding
against the iniquitous combinations
that Hartman has built up in the
west. The government won it's suit in
the Northern Securities litigation, al.
though by divided court with a mar
gin none too wide for comfort. The
nf he 10 rr.iy,,
several times greater than the opera
lions of j. j. Hill with the Northern
Pacific and Great Northern.
The Presidents unwilingness to do
anything with the Hartman cases for
the next six months is obvious The
Interstate Commerce Commission has
been investigating Hartman for six
months. but no steps to prosecute him
for combinations in violation of the
sherman Antitrust law have yet been
taken. The Federal courts all adj
journ in June and will not be in session
again till October If suits are to be
instituted they will not be reached for
a year or in time to be under way when
the next Presidential campaign is un-
der way, so that the Republicans can
point with pride to what they are doing
at that particular stage and insist that
there shall be no change of adminis-
tration lest it be interpreted as a re-
Duke for the party in power, so enter.
prising in good works
STANDARD OIL COMPANY.
Meanwhile as the Interstate Com
merce Commission dallies along with
the greatest work it has undertaken SO
as to comply with the political plans
of the President, there appears second
instalment of the report of the Bureau
of Corporations on the Standard Oil
Company, whose chief devils are well
understood to be in league with Harri-
man. The big feature of this report
Is that the railroad rate law, as far as
its provisions making pipe lines be-
tween states common carriers is a dead
letter. Neither the President nor the
Commission is doing anything to make
the Standard comply with the rate law.
The owners of Standard lines, compris-
ing about 10000 miles of pipe, have
filed some tariffs for the transportation
of oil but the tariffs are filed in such a
way as to be a mockery of the law.
They are not practical working tariffs,
Commissioner of Corporations Herbert
Knox Smith says. The few tariffs the
Standard lines have filed. he adds, are
between points where no owners of
petroleum want to ship it. Rates have
not been filed for routes between the
fields and cities where refineries ex-
list, or if filed have been with impos-
sible restrictions, such as that there
should be $4,000 barrels in a single
shipment to secure the rate or even
100000 barrels. Mr.. Smiths report also
details the predatory tactics" followed
by the Standard in preventing the con-
struction of independent pipe lines. II
has frustrated efforts to secure rights
of way, has purchased stock in these
rival companies at eXorbitant prices for
the purpose of gaining control has en-
ployed railroads as its tools in these
campaigns, the railroads raising and
lowering freight rates for the purpose
of embarrassing the new enterprises
and the patrons of independent pipe
lines
While asserting that the control of
pipe lines is one of the big factors in
the Standards monopoly, now that rail-
road determinations have been checked
hN nrnEagntipna b..