Arizona republican., 1907-08-04

Chicago. Aug. 3.-Judge Kenesaw NJ. Landis today in the United States dis trict court. fined the Standard Oil company of Indiana s29,24O,000 for violations of the law against the ac- cepting of rebates from the railroads. The fine is the largest ever assessed against any corporation in the history of criminal jurisprudence in America 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 long opinion in which the methods and practices of the Standard oil compa- ny were mercilessly scored.
 The judge in fact. declared that in his opinion. the officials of the Stand ard oil company who were responsi- ble for the practices of which the cor poration was found guilty were mo better than counteYfeiters and thieves. his exact language being: "We may as well look at the situation squarely. Men who thus deliberately violate this law. wound society more deeply than does he who commercials coin or steals letters from the mail.
 "The nominal defendant is the Stand ard oil company of Indiana. a million dollar corporation. The Standard oil CO. of New Jersey. whose capital is a hundred million dollars. is the real de- fendant. This is for the reason that ii a body of men organize a large corpo- ration under the laws of one state for the purpose of carrying on business throughout the United States and for the accomplishment of that purpose, absorb the stock of other corporations. such corporations so absorbed, have thenceforward but a nominal exist ence. They cannot initiate or execute any inherent business policy. their elimination in this respect being the prime consideration for their absorption, so that after this process has taken place. and crime is committed in the name of such smaller corporations. the law will not consider that the larger cor pOration is the real offender. Where the only possible motive of crime is the enhancement of 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 nature of a license
 The defendant argues that tine inn position of the maximum fine for each of the 1.146 Offenses would be violation of the constitutional prohibition against the imposition of excessive fines. and it is urged that congress could never have intended to confer upon a cour, such power It is the view of the court that for the law to take from one of its corporate creatures as a pen alty for the commission of a dividend producing crime. less than third of its net revenues accrued during the period of violation, falls far short oi the imposition of an excessive fine. and surely to do this would not be the ex- ercise of as much real power as is em- ployed when sentence is imposed taking from a human being one day oi his liberty.
 Tn this connection it may be observ- ed that the figures exhibiting the net earnings of the Standard oil companN of New Jersey during the period cov- cred by this indictment are exceed ingly instructive by the peculiarly in- timate relations between the charac- ter of the crime and the revenues of the offender.