The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1908-01-30
Commissioner Smith VS.. The Standard Oil Go.
From the Railway World, January ,, 1905

Chicago. They terminate at Dolton, from which
point entrance is made over the Belt Line. Whit
ing, where the oil freight originates, is not on
the lines of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois,
which receives its Whiting freight from the Belt
Line at BOLTON. The former practice, now dis
continued, in filing tariffs was to make them
read from a point on the line of the filing road,
and it was also general to state OH the same
sheet, that the tariff would apply to other points,
e. G., Whiting. The Chicago and Eastern Illinois
followed this practice in filing its rate from Dol
ton, and making a note on the sheet that is ap-
Piled to Whiting. This was in 1896 when this
method of filing tariffs was in common use.
Now let us see in what way the intending
shipper of oil could be misled and deceived by
the fact that the Chicago and Eastern Illinois
had not filed a rate reading from Whiting.
Commissioner Smith contends that "concealment
is the only motive for such a circuitous arrange
ment," i. c., that this method of filing the rate
was intended to mislead intending competitors
of the Standard Oil Company. Suppose such a
prospective oil refner had applied to the Inter-
state Commerce Commission for the rate from
Chicago to East St. Louis over the Chicago and
Eastern Illinois, he would have been informed
that the only rate filed with the commission by
this company was Of cents from BOLTON, and
he would have been further informed, II indeed
he did not know this already, that this rate ap-
piled throughout Chicago territory. So that
whether he wished to locate his plant at Whit
ing, or anywhere else about Chicago, under IN
arrangement OF long standing, and which applies
to all the industrial towns i'll the neighborhood
of Chicago, he could have his freight delivered
over the Belt Line to the Chicago and Eastern
Illinois at BOLTON and transported y East St.
Louis at a rate of oH cents. Where then is the
concealment which the Commissioner of Corpo-
rations makes so much of? Any rate-from
Dolton on the Eastern Illinois or Chappell on
the Alton, or Harvey on the Illinois Central, or
Blue Island on the Rock Island, applies through
out Chicago territory to shipments from Whit
ing, as to shipments from any other point in the
district. So far from the Eastern Illinois filing
its rate from Dolton in order to deceive the
shipper, it is the COMMISSIONS of Corporations
who either betrays his gross ignorance of trans
portation customs in Chicago territory or relies
on the public ignorance of these customs to
deceive the public too apt TO accept unquestion-
ingly every statement made by a Government
official as necessarily true, although, as in the
present instance, a careful examination shows
these statements to be false.
The final point made by President Moffett that
other commodities of a character similar to oil
were carried at much lower rates than Is cents,
the Commissioner of Corporations discusses only
with the remark that the reasonableness' of
this rate is not in question. The question is
whether this rate constituted a discrimination
as against other shippers of oil" and he also
makes much of the failure of President Moffett
to produce before the grand jury evidence of the
alleged illegal acts of which the Standard Oil
official said that other large shippers in the ter