The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-27
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE STANDARD OIL FINE. MT. filling Points Out Ad- ditional Acts of
 Injustice.
Edltor of Journal and Courler:

Another feature of the case against the Standard Oil company of Indiana, deserves careful consideration The Oil company had been shipping oil from Whitney, Ind, to East St Louis for about fifteen years by various rail- road lines. at six cents per hundred weight The shipper became crimin- ally liable for accepting rebates, etc, only by and since the Elllins act of 1903. The prosecution covered a pe- riod of three years since the Elkins act The new thing found out was not the open rate of six cents per hundred, but the fact that the Chicago & Alton had not sufficiently filed it's rate with the interstate commerce commission at Washington. There had been continuous shipments for pe- riod of three years. since the Elkins' act
 The Federal statute does not define how much shall constitute the oflense does not say that hundred weight, or carload or a trainload shall con stitute the offense, and so its construc- ton is to be governed by general rules. A fundamental principle of con struction of criminal law, is that the crime must be defined with certainty, and any reasonable doubt must be re- solved in favor of the accused. For arbitrariness in the State, is of the es- sence of despotism
 I once had considerable practice in criminal law. As I recollect in eases of a. continuous offense, not otherwise specifically defined in the statute, the prosecutor must regard all that is prl- or to an indictment and subsequent to prior indictment if any, as but single offense.
 This claim was made by the Oil company but over-ruled by the court The oil company further claimed that the writ of the offense must be the shipment, and the writ of the ship ment must be determined by the con- tracts. These contracts, three in num- her. provided for continuous ship ments, each for a year and so the oll company contended there were but three offenses. This was oVer-ruled by the court.
 The Oil company further claimed, that as settlements and payments, were made each month each months shipments, thirty-six in number, con stituted the writ of offense, and this was also overruled.
 The government arbitrarily took the carload some 1,500 in number as the init of offence for the yearly con~ in some trains It made no differ ence.
 It would have been more logical to have taken the hundred weight, as the unit of offencef TO the yearly con tracts were for rate per hundred weight.
 Moreover and this is controlling consideration, among the first ten amendments of the constitution of the United States, sometimes called its 'sBill of Rights" the imposition of eX- cessive fines or penalties is prohibited, and of course a Federal court ought not to construe a Federal criminal sta ute by implication, so as to multiply offenses and thereby impose excessive fines.
 It is not the law, nor good sense that the government should make bS arbitrary construction of a statute, a' many units of ofense, out of continu ous acts, as is possible, for the pur- pose of whacking the offender.
 The selection of the "carload" wa not made by the statute, nor by the parties in their contracts, or by theil dealings under the contracts and the "carload" as the unit of measurement of the business cut no figure.
 The lear load" was the selection 0 the Roosevelt administration. In thi celebrated case, the units of offense were some forty times the number which, by any process of reasoning they should have been, and the fine imposed were the full maximum fo each and every lear load" offense, o twenty times the minimum, whicl could have been imposed and amount ed to twenty-nine times the entir capital stock of the Standard oil Go of Indiana, the only defendant and t three times the value of all it's assets, The total value of the oil shippe was about half million of dollars The fine was at least fifty times th value of all the oil shipped,
 The freight for the car load iron Whiting, Ind, to East St. Louis, prob ably could not have exceeded $20 pc car. The fine was 1000 times tn amount of the freight If this iudicia fine is not a violation of the constltu tiona1 provision against excessive fines there can be no such violation, and clearly and unmistagably comes withl the prohibition of the constitution
 No such monstrous fine was ever i'm posed by court for a statutory mis demeanor. You have to go back for precedent to bills of attainder, in Eng land, under which lives were forfeited and estates confiscated, but only fC treason. So helnous were these proceed ings that they are prohibited by con stitutional provisions in the Unite States.
 But surely the administration is hysterics, if It fancies that misde meanor should be punished as if were treason.
 No such outrageous abuse of crimin al procedure or of the rights of prop ertv, has ever been perpetrated in thi country, although President Rooseve was quoted in the press, as sayin "de-light-ed."
 The judgment will not stand the tes of the appellate courts, and howeve delighted the President may be wit offoo+ of +t,ir