The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-04
PRESIDENT MOFFET TALKS.
Says His Company is Victimised by
 Government,

Says His Company is victimised by
 Government.
 New York, Aug. 3.-President James A. Moffet. of the Standard oil Company of Indiana. made the following state ment today in reference to the judg- ment by Judge Landis pronounced in Chicago.
 The court having pronounced its Judgment in the case of the United States versus Standard Oil Company of Indiana. there can now be no impro- priety in stating our position to the American people.
 The facts in this case are simple and easily understood. The Standard Oil Company, of Indiana, was convicted of receiving what the government claimed was a concession from the Chi cago and Alton in the shipment from It's refinery at Whiting. Ind, to East St. Louis. Ill. The contention of the gov- ernment was that the lawful rate was IS cents per 100 pounds between these two points. The defendant claims:
 First, that the lawful rate was 6 cents. and secondly. if cents was not the lawful rate. it was the rate issued to the Standard by the Alton as the lawful rate and the Standard was jus tified in believing from its own investi- gation and from the information re- CelNeQ ITOII tu6 iaiih ouN SSAHfe'1 N'~~ six cents was the lawful rate.
 The IS cent rate was class and not commodity rate. and the chair man of the Chicago and St. Louis Traf- fic Association, the association Issuing the 1s-cent class rate, under oath tes- tifed that it was never applied and was never intended to apply to oil.
 Thousands of tons of freight have beeh shipped from these points during the past fifteen years under the same circumstances as the Standard ship mcnts, and if the Standard Is guilty in this case, so Is practically every other shipper in this great manufacturing territory. Is there purpose in select ing the Standard as the victim?
 "The Standard oil Company shipped about one third of all the oil that went from Whiting to East St. Louis over the Eastern Illinois. the other two- thirds going over the Alton and the Burlington. On the trial of the case, the defendant offered to show by wit nesses who were on the stand that not only during the period covered by the indictment but continuously from 1895, .he Eastern Illinois had a lawful pub lshed and filed rate between Whiting and East St. Louis on oil Of cents per 100 pounds and that the Standard oil Company shipped at such rate over the Eastern Illinois more than 2,O00 cars or oil each year during said period. To this offer the government. through US attorneys. strenuously objected and the court sustained their objection. The defendant contended, and still does contend, that this proof would have conclusively shown that the Standard oil Company had no possible motive in shipping over the Alton and thereby violating the law, when 1t might just as readily and conveniently have ship ned all of it's oil over the Eastern llll- nois and not have violated any law
 Analyxes The Evidence.
 "The defendant also offered 10 prove that backing house products, during tha came neriod of time, were carried between the same points. un5er com modity' rate for ten cents. malt seven cents. brick five cents, corn meal seven cents: rosin six and one-half cents: starch eight cents; peas. beans and pop-corn eight cents; linseed oil in tank cars. eight cents; glycerlne SIX cents. The court again sustained tht objections of the government counsei and the judge again prohibited us from showing the jury how absurd was the povernment's claim that the rate, for example, on linceed oil, was eight cents while on petroleum oil it was eighteen cents. -
 Under such circumstances and Tn view of the fact that petroleum had been openly carried over three roads from Whiting to East St. Louis Tor from ten 10 fourteen years Tor SIX cents. what a draft 1t is on human credulity for the prosecution to assert that eighteen cents was the only pos- sible lawful rate.
 ''The uncontradicted evidence showed the Stadard oil Company was advised hy the rate clerk of the Chicago and Alton that this six cent rate was flled with the interstate commerce com mission. Court however, instructed the jury that the shipper must know not only what the rate was. but also that such rate was actually filed Wlth the interstate commerce commission that is to say the view of the court was that shipper must know absolutely what was the legal rate at the FISK of the suffering enormous penalties In the event either that he was mis- informed by the railroad company or in the event that he did not exercise as much diligence as in the judgmen, of the court he should have exercised in assertaining what the rate really was
 If this is the law, every shipper oi freight is in danger of the penitentiary or confiscation of his property by way