The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-24

ident Moffett to produce before the grand jury evidence of the alleged illegal acts of which tho Standard oil official said that other large ship pers in the territory had been guilty. Consid- ering the fact that these shippers included the packers and elevator men of Chicago. the acr tion of the grand jury in calling upon President Moffett to furnish evidence of their wrong-l doing may be interpreted as a demand for arS elaboration of the obvious; but the fact that al 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 Mofett would not, of course accept the invitation of the grand jury, although he might have been par doned if he had referred them to various oh1- cal Investigations by the Interstate Commerce Commission and other departments of the Gov. ernment
 We come back, therefore, 70 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 it's entire property because it's traffic depart- ment did not verify the statement of the Alton rate clerk that the six-cent commodity rate on oil had been properly filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission. There is no evidence, and none was introduced 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 it's six-cent
 
 any independent shipper-we must take this on the word of the Commissioner of Corporations and of Judge Landis Neither is it denied even by MT. Smith that the independent" shipper of oil. whom he pictures being driven out of business by this discrimination 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 predict will be so declared by the higher court.
 The Standard oil Company has been charged with all manner of crimes and misdemeanors Beginning with the famous Rice of Marietta, passing down to that apostle of popular fiber ties. Henry Demarest Lloyd with his Wealth Against the Commonwealth descending by easy stages to Miss Tarbells offensive personalities, we finally reach the neither depths of unfair and baseless misrepresentation in the report of the Commissioner of Corporations The Stand ard has been charged with every form of com mercia 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 corporation is at last draggeo the bar of justice to an- swer for it's nlisdongs. The whole strength of the Government is directed against it, and at last we are told the Standard Oil Company is to pay the penalty of its crimes and 1t is finally convicted of having failed to verify the state. ment of rate clerk and is forthwith fined . 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 interpretation Of the Interstate Com merce law by Theodore Roosevelt and Judge Kenesaw Landis a technical error of a traffic official is made the excuse tor the confiscation of a vast amount of propertF