The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-08-20
OIL TRUST
BITTER in
PAMPHLET
Directors Issue Statement
Connecting Big Fire With
''Yindictiye Politics"

NEW YORK, Aug. 20.-The directors
of the Standard OIL Company today is
sued a pamphlet to it's employees and
stockholders relative to the fine of
500, 240, 900 imposed on the company.
The pamphlet contains a statement
from President Moffett, president of
the STANDARD Oil Company of Indiana
and a number of editorial articles
favorable to the company, taken from
various American newspapers. The es-
pecially noteworthy feature of the
pamphlet is it's Introductory statement,
which is as follows:
The directors Of the Standard oil Com
pany in printing this pamphlet desire to
emphasize for he half million people
directly interested in its welfare the as
surance of the company's absolute inno-
ccnce of wrong doing in any OF the prose-
cutions lately instituted against it in the
Federal courts.
Particularly is his so in the present Chi
cago and Alton Railroad case, made no.
torious by the sensational fine of 500, 100000
imposed on the STANDARD OIL Company of
Indiana.
II should be known as widely Is possible
that this is no case of rebate or diserim-
nation. but simply of the legality of q
freight rate. 1t should be known that
the NeTulcT WIS ODlGlliltu ny III
mpnt upon the most hair-splitting tech
nicality. aided by h rigorous exclusion
of evidence that would have removed all
Of guilt.
n the iudgmenf in question be allowed to
stand the company will be forced to pay
500, 600 Chat is. fifty times the value OF the
oiD for ever carload carried over the Alton
road during two years at an open scent
rate-a rate used over three competing
railroads for from ten to fourteen years.
trial Judge refused to allow proof that
the 6-cent rate had been filed by the Chi
Gag and Eastern Illinois and was, there
fore. a legal rate He refused to allow
proof that linseed oil, for instance, was
carried at s cer1s and other bulk commodi-
ties as low as 8 cents. He insisted that 10
cents was the only legal rate for oil when
no one had ever paid II and when 1t was
authoritatively sworn that it did not apply
to oil.
the higher courts, to which We mus look
for that claim iudment which will rescue
the rights Of the citizen from the field OF
public clamor and from the domain of
Vindictive politics.
So persistent and adroit has been the
warfare waged with all the overpowering
authority of the Federal administrators
against the Standard OIL that
it has been manifestly difficult to get a
fair hearing before the public or in a
large portion of the press, the latter, 10
its great harm, swayed alike by socialistlc
cutlery from below and political pressure
AS proof of the latter 1t may be noted
that in the Presidents message OF May =,
1906. attack was made on the S.andard IN
Company for the purpo of forcing the
passage. of the bill remltting the duty on
alcohol measure In which the
company was interested. On May u, lsoo,
the issue Of Commissioner Garfield's report
On petroleum transportation, a tissue OF
old Misrepresentation. was timed to In
Tue 1Senee the ID Hep SaT 81 rate 1a siii w Thfa 1 2adge
Lands had still under consideration the
Judgment in the Chicago and Alton case