Los Angeles herald., 1908-02-18
CLEAR, CRISP AND CLEAN
STANDARD OIL CAMPAIGN
AGAINST PRESIDENT

III I is not often that newspaper finds
itself called upon to criticise edi-
Il torially anything which appears in
its advertising columns. The Herald
feels, however, that it would not be dis
charging its duty, as a fearless and
honest journal, to its constituents if it
permitted to pass without criticism the
advertisement which appeared upon
page 3 of it's issue of yesterday, under
the caption of Commissioner Smith vs..
the Standard Oil company.
This advertisement has appeared in
most of the leading newspapers of the
country including such weeklies as
Golfers and the Saturday Evening
Post and many of the leading dailies.
1t is upon it's face an effort on the
part of the Standard OIL company to
criticise the judgment against that COM
pany arrived at in the court of United
States Judge Lands, based upon the
verdict of jury, on which that judge
levied the enormous fine of over $29,-
100000 against that company.
1t is probably not necessary, in order
to expose the misleading and untrue
statements contained in this advertise
ment, to oriticise it at length. One in
stance will probably serve.
In summing up the situation the adj
vertisement says: I'VE come back,
therefore. to the conclusion Of the whole
matter, which is that tbs Standard Oil
company of Indior.a was fined an
amount equal to ~seven or eight times
the value of SIS entire property, be-
cause it's traffic department did not
verify the statement of the Alton rate
clerk Tat the 6-cent commodity rate
on oil had been properly filed with the
ireelstate commerce commission" etc.
That the 6-cent rate at which the
Standard paid, for these shipments was
never filed with the commission was
shown upon the trial before Judge
Lands. In addition to that the fol-
lowing were shown to be the facts:
For the freight which the Standard
pretended to have shipped under the g.
cent rate waybills were made out by
the railroad company for Is cents per
barrel during portion of the time, and
for 10 cents per barrel during a portion
of the time. These waybills were for
warded to the auditors office. and the
auditor collected on the rate of 1S
cents, or 10 cents charged onithe way
bills, but 6 cents.
To say that the Standard did not
know of this juggling with it's way
bills is, of course, ridiculous, and is
something that nobody would believe
il the Standard made such claim, and,
of course, such knowledge on the part
of the Standard would indicate conclu-
siveIy to any reasonable man the fact
as found by the jury of Judge lands
court which tried the case, to wit, that
the whole scheme of issuing waybills
at 10 and Is cents, upon which after
ward only cents was collected by the
railroad company issuing them, was a
carefully conceived and carried out
plan to give the Standard Oil company
a secret rate.
These facts were brought out plainly
on the trial. The jury found the Stand
ard OIL company guilty of accepting a
secret rate upon these facts, and 1t is
very evident that no other conclusion
could have been arrived at by any
honest and sensible jury.
The Standard Oil people. who are
spending their money in misleading ad-
vertisements for the purpose OF de-
ceiving the public as to the correctness
OF the result arrived at in Judge Ian
dis court would appear to go upon one
Of two assumptions--either that the
readers of the public journals OF the
United States are lacking in ordinary
intelligence or that the public journals
Of the country, for the price which they
receive for running this advertisement.
viii deliberately make themselves a
party to suppressing and. distorting the
truth.
The Herald is not such jour
nal, and it desires its READERS
as well as its ADVERTISERS
no understand this fact.