Bisbee daily review., 1907-08-04
COURT SAYS STANDARD
 \ THIEF Imposes Fine of $29, ,240, 900 and Boasts Methods of
 Oil Octopus. THE REAL DEFENDANT
Big Company Hides Behind Little One to Commit Crime,
 Declares LandiS.
BAD AS coUNTERFEITlNG
Case Appealed by Combine and Will Be Heard Next
 January, Probably.

January, Probably.
 CHICAGO. Aug. 3.-Judge KenesaH NJ. Landis today in the United States District court fined the Standard Oi Company of Indiana s29 ,240,000. fol violations of the law against accepting rebates from the railroads.
 The fine is the largest ever assessed against any individual or any corpora tion in the history of American crim inai jurisprudence, and is slightly more than 131 times as great as the amount received by the company through its relating operations. The case will be carried to the higher courts by the defendant company. The penalty imposed upon the company is the maximum permitted under the law and it was announced at the end of a long opinion, in which method: and practices of the Standard Oi company were merciiessly scored. The judge, in fact, declared that In his opinion the officials of the Standard Oil Company who were responsible for the practices of which the corpora tion was found guilty, were no better than colnterfeiters and thieves, his exact language being:
 we may as well look at this situa, tion squareIy. Men who thus delfber. ately violate the law wound society more deeply than does he who count. erfeits coin or steals letters from the mail. Nominally the defendant is the Standard oil Company of Indiana, a million dollar corporation. The Stand saf vhne capital is s10o GOO. 600, is the real de fendant This Is for the reason that if a body of men organize a large state for the purpose of carrying or business throughout the United States and for the accomplishment of that purpose absorb stock of other corpora tions. such corporations so absorbed have thenceforth but a nominal exist ence. They can not initiate or execute any inherent business policy. Theil elimination in the respect being tho prime consideration for their absorp tion. so that after the process has taken place. and crime is committed in the name of much smaller corpora tions, the law will not consider that the larger corporation Is the real of
 
 motive of crime is the enhancement o' dividends. and the only punishment authorized is a fine, great caution must be exercised by the court lest the fixing of a small amount encourage the defendant to further violations, by esteeming the penalty to be in the na nature of licence.
 The defendant argues that to holt it for ,z62 offenses would be in yio lstion of the constitutional prohibition against the imposition of excessive fines; and it is urged that congress could never have intended to confer upon the court such power. It is the view of the court that for the law tc take from one of it corporate creature: as a penalty for the commission of 2 dividend producing crime less thar one-third of it's net revenues, accrued during the period of violation, falls fal short of the imposition of an excessive fine; and surely to do this would noi be the exercise of as much real power as is employed when sentence is i'm posed taking from human being one day of his liberty In this connection it may be observed that figures ex hibiting the net earnings of the Stand ard Oil Company of New Jersey dur ing the period covered by this indict ment are exceedingly instructive oi the peculiarly intimate relations be tween the character of the crime and the revenues of she offenders.
 @The law prohibiting preferential railroad rates was passed twenty years ago. and it's adoption was pre- ceeded by vigorous opposition inter posed by those who had been the beneficiaries of the vicious practices its enactment was designed to abolish Immediately therafter these persons set about to devise means for its eva, sion The records of courts and of the Interstate Commerce Commission show the employment of 8 large va, riety of schemes to accomplish this result
 During the period since 1887. con- gress has repeatedly endeavcred to ef- fectively amend the law with a view to accomplishment of it's great object. Finally in 1908 the Eikins law was passed. The court recalls that at this time earnest hope was very generally entertained that at last means had been devised that would put an end to preferential rates. And yet a few months thereafter the Standard oil Company procured 1900 carloads of property to be shipped at unlawful secret rebates and for this offense the Eikins' law authorizes the pun ishment only by a fine, an obvious de feet, remedied however. by the pres ent law, which prescribes imprison- ment in the penitentiary for Ike of.