The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1907-08-10
FINED limit AMOUNT
lands ASSESSES STANDARD OIL
$29,24O,O00.

Y6S9S7V9VVVs
Says Fine is Not Excessive, Being
But Third of Dividends During
Period of Crime-Great Mo.
nopoly No Better than Coun>
terfeiters or Mail Robbers.
Chicago, Aug. 5.-Judge Kenesaw
M. Lands, Saturday, in the United
States district court fined the Stand
ard Oil Company of Indiana $29, $40,
600 for violation of the law against
accepting rebates from railroads. The
fine is the largest ever assessed against
any individual or any corporation in
the history of American Jurisprudence:
The case will be carried to the higher
courts by the defendant company.
The penalty imposed on the compa-
ny 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 Company we're mercilessly scored.
The judge, in fact, declared in his
opinion that the officials Of the Stand
ard Oil Company who we're responsible
for the practices of which the corpo-
ration was found guilty, were no bet
ter than counterfeiters and thieves,
his exact language being:
"We may as we'll look at the situa-
ton squarely. The men who thus de-
,liberately violated this law wound
society more deeply than does he who
counterfeits coin or steals letters from
the mail. The nominal defendant is
the Standard Oil Company of Indiana,
a million dollar corporation. The
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey,
whose capital is 800, 900, 600, is the
real defendant. This is for the reason
that, if body Of men organize large
corporation 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 cor
porations. such corporations so alb.
sorbed have thenceforth but a nominal
existence. They cannot initiate OF
execute any inherent business policy,
their elimination in this respect being
a prime consideration of their absorb.
tion. So, when aft.r this process has
taken place, crime is committed in
the name of such smaller corporation,
the law will not consider that the lat.
ter corporation is the real offender.
And where the only possible motive Of
the crime is the enhancement of divi
dends and the only punishment author
lied is a fine. great caution must be ex
ercised lest the fixing of a small
amount encourage the defendant te
further violations by esteeming the
penalty to be in the nature of Ii
cense.
Maximum Fine Not Excessive
''The defendant argues that to hole
it for 1862 offenses would be viola.
tion of the constitutional prohibition
against the imposition of excessive
fines, and it is urged that congress
could never have intended to confer
such power. 1t is the view of the
court that for the law to take from
one of it's corporate creatures as q
penalty for the commission of divi
dend paying crime less than one-third
of the net revenues accrued during
that period Of violation falls far short
of the imposition Of an excessive fine,
and surely to do this would not be the
exercise of as much real power as il
employed when sentence is imposed
taking from human being one day Of
his liberty.
''The law prohibiting preferential
railroad rates was passed twenty years
ago. Its adoption was preceded by
vigorous opposition interposed by
those who had been the peneficiaries
of the vicious practices it's enactment
was designed to abolish. Immediately
thereafter these persons set about tc
devise means for its evasion. The rec.
ords of the court and of the interstate
commerce commission show the EN-.
ployment of large variety of schemes
to accomplish this result. During the
period since 1887 congress has repeat.
eddy endeavored to effectively amend
this law with aview to the accomplish.
ment Of it's great object.
Finally, in 1908, the Elkins law
was passed. The court recalls that at
that time the earnest hope was very
generally entertained that at last q
means had been devised that would
put an end to preferential rates, and
yet a'few months thereafter the Stand
ard Oil Company procured 1900 car
loads of property to be shipped at an
unlawful secret rate. And for this
ofense the Elkins law authorizes pun
ishment only by f1ne-an obvious de-
feet, remedied, however, by the pres
ent law, which prescribes imprison-
ment in the penitentiary for like
offense. However. it is the business
Of judge to administer the law as he
finds it rather than expatiate on the
inadequacy Of punishment authorized
! by its infraction.