The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-21
Commissioner Smith vS. tlle Standard Oil Co.

these shippers included the packers and ele- vator men of Chicago the action of the grand jury in calling upon President Motett to tur- nish evidence of their wrong-doing may be interpreted as a demand for elaboration of the obvious but the fact that rate book containing these freight rates for other snip pers was offered in evidence during the trial and ruled out by Judge Landis was kept out of sight. President Moffett would not or course accept the invitation of the grand jury although he might have been parooneo If he had referred them to various official investigations by the Interstate Commerce Commission and other departments of the Government.
 We come back therefore, to the conclusion of the whole matter, which is that the Stan dard Oil Company of Indiana was fined an amount equal to seven or eight times the value of its entire property because its traf- fic department 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 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 shpper,=we must take this the word of the Commissioner of Corpo- rations and of Judge Landis Neither is it denied even by MT. Smith that the 'inde- pendent" shipper of oil, whom he pictures as being driven out of business by this discrimi- nation of the Alton, could have shipped all the oil he desired to ship from Whiting via DOltOn over the lines or the CnlCa&O ana Eastern Illinois to East St. Louis. In short, President Moffett's defence is still good and we predict will be declared 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 apos- tie of popular liberties, Henry Demarest Lloyd with his Wealth Against the Common wealth, descending by easy stages to Miss Tarbelrs offensive personalities, we finally reach the neither depths of unfair and base less misrepresentation in the report of the dard 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 corporation is at last dragged to the bar of justice to answer for it's misdo- ings 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 it fs finally con victed of having failed to verify the state ment 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 a shilling punishable by death Under the interpretation of the Interstate Commerce law by Theodore Roose- error of a traffic official is made the excuse for the confiscation of a vast amount of property.