The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1908-01-28
Commissioner Smith VS.. The Standard Oil Co.
From The RaiJavay World, Ta1suary s., 1908

tory had been guilty. Considering the fact
that these shippers included the packers and
elevator men Of Chicago the action of the
grand jury in calling upon President Moffett
to furnish evidence of their wrong-doing may
be Interpreted as 4 demand for an elabora-
tion of the obvious; but the fact that rate
book containing these freight rates for other
shippers was offered in evidence during the
trial and ruled out by Judge Landis was
kept out Of sight. President Moffett would
not, of course, accept the invitation of the
grand jury although he might have been
pardoned If he haA referred them to various
official Investigations by tie Interstate Com
merce Commission and other departments of
the Government
We come back, therefore, to the conclusion
of the whole matter, which Is that the Stand
ard Oil Company of Indiana was fined an
amount equal to seven or eight times the
value of its entire property, because its traffic
department did not verify the statement of
the Alton rate clerk, that the six-cent COM
modify rate on OIL had been properly filed
with the Interstate Commerce Commission
There is no evidence, and none was intro
duced at the trial, that any shipper Of oil
from Chicago territory had been interfered
with by the eighteen-cent rate nor that the
failure of the Alton to file its six-cent rate
had resulted in any discrimination against
any Independent shipper,--we must take this
on the word of the Commissioner of Cor
porations and of Judge Landis Neither is 1t
denied even by Mr. Smith that the indie
pendent" shipper of oil, whom he pictures as
being driven out of business by this discrin-
ination of the Alton, could have shipped all
the oil he desired to ship from Whiting via
Dolton over the lines Of the Chicago and
Eastern Illinois to East st. Louis. In short,
President Moffett's defence is still good, and
we predict will be declared SO by the higher
court.
The Standard OIL Company has been
charged with all manner of crimes and mis-
demeanors. Beginning with the famous Rice
Of Marietta, passing down to that apostle OF
popular liberties, Henry Demarest Lloyd,
with his Wealth Against the Commonwealth,
descending by easy stages to Miss Tarbells
neither depths of unfair and baseless mis-
representation in the report of the Commits
sioner Of Corporations. The Standard has
been charged with every form Of commercial
piracy and with most Of the crimes on the
corporation calendar. After long years of
strenuous attack, under the leadership of the
President of the United States, the corpora
ton is at last dragged to the bar Of justice to
answer for its misdoings. The whole strength
of the Government Is directed against it, and
at last, we are told, the Standard Oil Com
pany is to pay the penalty of its crimes, and
It is finally convicted of having failed to
verify the statement of a rate clerk and is
forthwith fined a prodigious sum, measured
by the car. Under the old criminal law, the
theft of property worth more than shilling
was punishable by death. Under the inter-
probation of the Interstate Commerce law
by Theodore Roosevelt and Judge Kenesaw
Lands, technical error of traffic official
is made the excuse for the confscation of a
vast amount of property