The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-06-06

money invested in those properties will
affect general business conditions.
FEARS HARD TINES
The President, as has been said here
tofore, is still much afraid lest there
, be a waning of prosperity before he
goes out OF the White House He is
more afraid of that than of any other
occurrence. Some business men of
good judgment say there is warrant
for uneasiness. They may be mistaken
in their private predictions that times
will be harder six months from now
than they have been since the panic of
1898 and that the hard times will cover
a period of a year or two before there
is any quickening again. The reports
from the West of poor crops is likely
to aggravate any conditions under the
surface that are making for less pros
perity Again a cessation of good
times-for none of the calamity pro-
phets says there is going TO be a panic
would be laid at the door of the party
in power and especially at the door of
| Theodore Roosevelt.
| It may be WELL however, to accept all
| such prophecies with caution for men
of the largest business transactions are
sometimes mistaken. There have been
| prophecies in high quarters heretofore
| Of a recession of prosperity which have
not come true.
MUST MAKE GOOD.
| Prosperity or no prosperity, it is diff
| ficult to see how the President can long
| escape from a prosecution of Hartman
and his roads. If he was warranted
| in prosecuting the Northern Pacific
and dissolving the combination between
| those two enormous properties, there is
| much more warrant for proceeding
against the iniquitOus combinations
that Hartman has built up in the
West. The government won its suit in
the Northern Securities litigation, al
though by a divided court with mar
gin none too wide for comfort The
scope of the Hartman operations is
several times greater than the opera
tions of J. J. Hill with the Northern
Pacific and Great Northern.
The Presidents unwillingness to do
anything with the Hartman cases for
the next six months is obvious The
Interstate Commerce Commission has
been investigating Hartman for six
months, but no steps to prosecute him
for combinations in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust law have yet been
taken. The Federal courts all ad-
journ in June and will not be in session
again till october. If suits are to be
instituted they will not be reached for
year or in time to be under way when
the next Presidential campaign is un,
der way, so that the Republicans can
int ys-ifb do to hot tbnxy ~
at that particular stage and insist that
there shall be no change of admins
tration lest it be interpreted as a re-
buke for the party in power. SO enter
prising in good works.
STANDARD OIL COMPANY.
Meanwhile as the Interstate Com |
merce Commission dallies along with |
the grea test work it has undertaken SO
as to comply with the political plans |
Of the President, there appears second
instrument of the report of the Bureau !
of Corporations on the Standard Oil
Company, whose chief devils are well |
understood to be in league with Harri- |
man. The big feature of this report |
is that the railroad rate law, as far as
it's provisions making pipe lines be- /
tween states common carriers is a dead
letter. Neither the President nor the |
Commission is doing anything to make
the Standard comply with the rate law. |
The owners of Standard lines, compris- |
ing about 10000 miles of pipe, have
filed some tariffs for the transportation
of oil but the tariffs are filed in such a
way as to be a mockery of the law. |
They are not practical working tariffs, |
ftf1a -
Knox Smith says The few tariffs the
Standard lines have filed, he adds, are !
between points where no owners of
petroleum want to ship it, Rates have
not been filed for routes between the
fields and cities where refineries ex-
ist or if filed have been with impos-
sible restrictions, such as that there
should be $4,000 barrels in single
shipment to secure the rate, or even
100000 barrels. Mr.. Smiths report also
details the predatory tactics followed
by the Standard in preventing the con-
struction of independent pipe lines. 1t
has frustrated efforts to secure rights
of way, has purchased stock in these
rival companies at exorbitant prices for |
the purpose of gaining control, has en-
ployed railroads as it's tools in these
campaigns, the railroads raising and
lowering freight rates for the purpose
of embarrassing the new enterprises
and the patrons of Independent pipe
lines.
While asserting that the control of
pipe lines is one of the big factors in
the Standards monopoly, now that rail-
road determinations have been checked
by prosecutions under the Ellxins anti
rebate LAWS probably the most inn
portant factor according to Mr.. Smiths
report-he nevertheless shows that the
Standard has not been materially af-
fected by the Independent pipe lines
thus far constructed. There is, in
fact only one of any magnitude-the
Pure Oil Company-which has a line
stretching from the Appalachian field
to the seaboard. Two other independ-
ent lines are being built from Indian
Territory to the Gulf Of Mexico and
promise to be of great use in breaking
the Standards monopoly in that part
| of the country.
I