Las Vegas optic. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1908-1921, 1914-06-22
BEFORE CONGRESS FOR YEARS
MANY AMENDMENTS INVOLVED
IN GAME OF BATTL EDooR
AND sHuTTLEcocK
fight OF COMMERCE COURT
OIL MoNoPoLlEs OPPOSE THE
MEASURE TO THE LAST
DITCH

Washington, June 22.-sThs supreme
court today upheld the pipe line
act of 1906, placing all interstate Gil
pipe lines under Interstate commerce
commission regulations. as constiiu-
tional but is not applicable 10 the
Uncle Sam Oil company.
Chief Justice White dissented, hold
ing the Uncle Sam company should
have been held to come under the
law. Justice McKenna also dissented,
saying the act transcribed the power
OF congress.
The majorityof the court held that
the Uncle Sam company was exempt
from the act because 1t mere
ly carried oil across one state line for
its own use. The court held all the
other pipe lines were virtually COM
mon carriers in all but name.
The pipe line amendment to the
Hepburn rate law of 1906 was the re-
suit of investigation by the bureau OF
corporations into the affairs of the
Standard Oil company. When the bu-
reau through President Roosevelt in
formed congress that the Standards s
control of pipe lines in the United
States was one of its chief sources
OF power as monopoly, Senator
Lodge moved to amend the rate law,
then before congress, so as to place
pipe lines under the regulation of the
interstate commerce commission.
Senator Foraker of Ohio began a
fight against the Lodge amendment,
contending it would be unconstitul
tional unless it placed under the COM
mission only those lines which held
themselves out as common carriers
The amendment as finally passed
read:
THAT the provisions of this act
shall apply to any corporation or any
person or persons engaged in the
transportation of oil or other com
modify, except water and except nat
ural or artificial gas, by means of
pipe lines. or partly by pipe lines and
partly by railroad or partly by pipe
lines and partly by water-who shall
be considered and held to be common
Carriers within the meaning and pur-
pose of this act" .
When the interstate commerce COM
mission began to enforce the law I'll
called upon the pipe line companies
to file rates. OF the 2S principal pipe
lines in the United States, six re-
fused to comply. Those were the
Ohio OH company, the Standard Oil
company, the Standard Oil Company
of Louisiana, the Prairie Oil and Gas
company, the Uncle Sam Oil COM
pany and the Tidewater Pipe COM
pany, limited. carrying oil from the
Appalachian field. covering New York,
EenuSyifhuits WEST thS Sihi", ANA
lucky and Tennessee; the nlinois-ln-
diana Ohio field; the mid-continent
lfieIdsscovering Kansas and Oklahoma.
and the gulf field, covering Louis
lana and Texas.
The six hostile companies applied
to the commerce court and it enjoin-
ed the enforcement of the order, on
the ground that the amendment was
demonstrations The court held that
there was not the real and substan-
tial relation between the avowed OBJ
jects OF the legislation and the means
devised for attaining those objects to
make the law constitutional
| Before the supreme court the gov
ernment took euare issue with the
commerce court about the relation OF
the objects and the means used. The
government insisted that the object
Of the legislation was to make it i'm
possible to organize another oil mo
nopoly. such as had been struck down
by the court in the Standard Oil de-
cisioil in 1871 Il contended that mo