The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-02-23
GOVERNMENT
 RETRYING THE STANDARD OIL
Case Involving the $2s,OoO,oOO Fine Will
 be Again Heard by a Jury.
United States Attorney Will Claim Con. viction on l l,462 Separate Offenses.
Work of Selecting the Jnry Begun This Morning at Chicago, Judge Anderson Presiding History of Now Famous Rebate Case - Trial Likely to be a Long One.
Special from Unified press |,

| l Chicago, Feb. 23.-The second grea1 l struggle between the Standard Oi Company and the government began il l the United States District Court here l to-day with the examination of venire- | men for the selection of a jury to re-
 try the famous $29, 100000 case. Judge Anderson is presiding. The names ot 150 residents of northern Illinois were selected last week to comprise the pan- el from which the jury will be chosen United States District Attorney Sims
 assisted by Special Prosecutor James W1lkerSOn, and Assistant District At torney Harry Parkin represent the government and Attorneys John S. Miller, Moritz Rosenthal and A. D. Ed
 dy, the Oil Trust.
 That the government will again at
 tempt to have an enormous fine assess
 ed became known last week when Sims
 notified the attorneys for the defen-
 dant company that he expected tC
 prove 1,461 separate offenses of rebat-
 ing in violation of the Elkins Anti
 Trust Law. If he succeeds he will
 ask that the court should be convict ed
 on all these counts would be only $72O,-
 OOO
 The original Standard Oil Case was '.
 Landis and the trial began March 4, 1907. The oil company had been in
 dicted by two special Federal Grand Juries on GAPS counts charging viola
 tions of the Elkins Antitrust Law
 which prohibits the granting or ac- cepting of rebates on oil or other pro- ducts. The trial began March 4, 1907 and lasted six weeks. The specific indictments upon which the United
 States authorities elected to make their fight numbered 1,462 and charg- ed the acceptance of rebates from the Chicago & Alton Railroad aggregat- ing S223,0O0 on shipments of six thou sand cars of oil from Whiting to East St. Louis, III.
 After a trial full of sensational de- velopments the jury returned a yer dict of guilty on each indictment and on each separate count in each indict- nent. The Standard Company imme- diateiy took the case to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals on a writ of error. Last July the appellate court handed down decision on this writ of error petition reversing the trial court and remanding the case to Judge Landis for re-trial. This de- cision by Judge Grosscup contained what was called the most remarkable excoriation on one court by another, in the history of the American bench
 oII August l4 ldSG, D1SIT1CC Attorney Sims filed a petition for a re-hearing of the case before the Appellate Court alleging that the Circuit Court had and misquoted the rul- ings of the trial judge and charging further that the Circuit Courts ruling if sustained would make of the Inter- state Commerce Act "A mere will-o- the-wisp of legislation, a phantom statute''
 The Appellate Court declined to re- verse it's former decision and Attorney General Bonaparte then applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for 8 writ of certiorari, hoping thus to get the case before the nations highest tri- bunal ith the $29, ,24O,O00 fine attached The Supreme Court refused to grant he writ on the ground that no great question of public moment was involv- ed.
 As soon as court convened John H. Miller, chief counsel for the Standard oil Company sprung a sensation by that the entire benire of 15O names be quashed. He objected on the ground that the panel had not been properly drawn, had hot been with sufficient conditions to make it impartial and had too large proportion of farmers.