The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1908-01-18

ritory 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 inter
preted as demand for an elaboration Of the
obvious; but the fact that ratebook contain-
ing these freight rates for other shippers was
offered in evidence during the trial and ruled
out by Judge Lands 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 had referred
them to various official Investigations by the
Interstate Commerce Commission and other de-
partments of the Government.
We come back. therefore, to the conclusion OF
the whole matter. which is that the Standard
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 commodity rate on oil
had been properly filed with the Interstate Com
merce Commission. There is no evidence and
none was introduced at the trial, that any ship
per of oil from Chicago territory had been inter
fcred with by the eightecn-ccnt rate nor that
the failure of the Alton to file its sx-cent rate
had resulted in any discrimination against any
independent shipper-we must take this on the
word of the Commissioner of Corporations and
OF Judge Lan0lS Neither is TX Qcflie0 even Dy
Mr.. Smith that the independent" shipper Of oil,
whom he pictures as being driven out of business
by this discrimination of the Alton, could have
shipped all the oil he desired to ship from Whit
ing 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 so declared By the higher court.
The Standard Oil Company has been charged
with all manner of crimes and misdcmeanors
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 Tarbels offensive personalities, we finally
reach the neither depths OF unfair and baselcss
misrepresentation 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 corporation is at last dragged
to the bar of justice to answer for its 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 is finally convicted of having
failed to verify the statement of rate clerk
and is forthwith fined prodigious sum, meas
ured by the car Under the old criminal law,
the theft of property worth more than shilling
was punishable by death Under the interprcta-
ton of the Interstate Commerce law by Thco-
dore Roosevelt and Judge Kencsaw Lands, a
technical error OF traffic official is made the
excuse for the confscation of vast amount Of
property III