The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-20
STANDARD OIL' $ BRIEF IS FILED Answer Is Made to Charges
 of Relating CONTENTION UPON RATES Brief of Standard oil Antagonizes the Position Taken By the Govern
 ment In Trying to Collect
 the Big Fine.
CONTENTION UPON RATES

Washington, December 19. - The Standard oil companys brief in the proceeding of the United States against that company on the charge of ac- cepting rebates from the Chicago and Alton railroad in which the United States district court for the Northern district of Illinois imposed fine of l S29,240,000 was today filed in the su- preme court of the United States.
 The case comes before the court on a petition by the government for writ of certiorari bringing it up for review of the decision of the United States circuit court of appeals for the Seventh circuit, by which court the district courts decision was reversed The brief antagonizes the petition and this opposition is based princi- pally on the ground that the law "does not authorize a review by the supreme court on an application of the government on a judgment of the cir cult court of appeals in a criminal case by which a writ of error of the de- fendant is sustained and disposed of by reversing the judgment and sentence of
 
 the trial court"
 It is contended that in case of this character a writ of certiorari is equiv alent to a writ of error, and that the policy of the law is against the re- view of a judgment in favor of the accused in a criminal case at the ln- stance of the government"
 Much of the brief is technical in charactS, but there are occasional pas sages which depart from that charac- terization. It is pointed out that cents was the lawful rate on petroleum for all shipments from Chicago to East St. Louis except from the stations at East Chicago, Hammond. Ind. Indiana Harbor, and Whiting, or other suburban switching points in Indiana. From these points the government contends that the railroad was required to charge IS cents per hundred, or three times the Chicago rate, and that, therefore the Stnadard company. which shipped from the suburb of Whiting at the Chicago rate, was properly mulcted by the district court in the sum of S29,- 240,000, flor not shipping at and pay ing a prohibitiye rate of three times as much as the Chicago rate"
 Continuing, the brief says:
 "Counsel as we'll as the trial court have overlooked the obvious consider ation that the controlling purpose of the acts to regulate commerce Is to promote and facilitate commerce and not to hamper or destroy it. If shippers were required to carry on business un- der such rule as the government in- terprets the Ellxins law to mean as to diligence on the equivalent of knowl- edge at the risk of criminal prosecu- tion and severe pentalties, interstate commerce would be greatly restrained and diminished, if not destroyed"
 Referring to the governments con- tention that the district courts as- sessment of penalty was in the proper exercise of the personal discretion of it's presiding judge (Mr. Landis), the brief declares, that this is a discovery which has been left to the learned counsel for the government to make at a very late date in the history of our jurisprudence.
 "This view that the trial judge ex- ercised "a personal power and discre- ton was apparently shared by the learned district judge himself, and the record and judgment of the trial court affords a striking demonstration of the wisdom of the rugged barons who wrested the magma charta from King John and of our ancestors in imbedding it's sanctions in the bill of rights in our constitution"
 In Conclusion it Is urged that the i granting of the writ would not be ! justified.