Los Angeles herald., 1907-12-08

DuI n rev OF tDe most Important OF inc
'half truths expounded by Mr.. Arch
bold. Most of these viii be readily dis
cerned by the average reader of intelli-
gence, especially If he has lived long in
this oil producing region of Southern
California. But there are a few of
these statements to which it will be
better. perhaps, to direct attention
while the story is fresh.
In the first of the paragraphs quoted
by The Herald Mr.. Archbold declares
that producers have owed their assured
and profitable market to the prompt
energy and enterprise of the company
in providing pipe lines and storage
facilities" He does not relate how
many pipe lines suilt by independent
producers and shippers 1t has secured
by devious methods, nor how much
more profitable the market might have
become to local producers if Standard
had not employed every possible expe-
dent to force them from direct contact
with the markets.
He does not say, in the second para
graph, that the reduction in transporta-
ton charges actually paid has been
brought about not only through Stand
ards ownership of cargo vessels, but
through the millions upon millions Of
dollars of secret railroad rebates it'has
forced transportation companies to
extend to it, while either compelling
competitors to pay the advertised rate
or, after having secured special rates,
driving them from the field from which
such rate applied. This comment may
be applied, in a general way, to the
third and fourth paragraphs quoted.
AS to the statement in the fifth para
graph, it is too utterly false to require
anything more than reprinting. 1t is
notorious, and abundantly proven, that
the oil trust has studied long and effec-
lively not how to conform to the laws,
but how best to evade them.
Paragraph six is a contemplate plea
of ignorance. 1t is unbelievable that
so magnificently an organized legal
department as that maintained by the
Standard should not understand the
general terms Qegal terms) on which
1t may conduct it's business in the
country at large or in any particular
state thereof.
1.-THE company has been a prominent
purchaser, custodian and carrier for
the various producing territories" 1t
has, and still is. But how did it become
SO? How did it purchase" the once
independent oil producing companies
and individuals? AS rule, and this is
susceptible of complete proof, by first
making it impossible for these competi-
tors to transact business in the terri
tory they had started to develop, largely
because of the fact that for transport
ing its product Standard criminally
secured rates so far below those of it's
competitors that the latter were COM
PEELED either to sell out at the Stand
ards figure or be ruined.
The eighth paragraph must be pecu-
liarly exasperating to an intelligent
observer. The assertion that the COM
pany tries to be "fair and LIBERAL in
it's relations to the producers is so
remote from the truth, as every pro-
ducer in California knows, many of
them to their great cost, that it requires
no discussion. Neither do the obvi-
ously false assertions contained in the
three succeeding paragraphs.
The climax in this ridiculous attempt
to deceiW the public is found in the
twelfth and thirteenth paragraphs.
After years of unremitting efforts on
the part of Standard Oil to keep from
the people the truth regarding it's oper-
ations, Mr.. Archbold now comes for
ward with the assertion that this con-
Germ ais neither a mystery nor a mo-
nopoly." After having been convicted
and fined nearly $sO,oOO,OoO for having
been a party to the giving of rebates,
upon the testimony of officials of the
railroad which gave such rebates, the
Standard is to be commiserated upon
having as it's "acting head" a man who
possesses the contumacy and temerity
interstate commerce law "the company
has not received railroad rebates on its
interstate oil shipments"
The Archbold style Of argument is
not convincing. The statements he has
dared to make are not even superficially
fair. The writer has laid himself and
the company of which he is the acting
head liable to the jibes and sneers of
millions of enlightened men for having
deliberately set about, through the me-
dunn of a publication of great circula-
ton, to deceive them.
1.-THE Standard Oil Company: Some
Facts and Figures" will go home to
roost.