Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-06-23
PIPE LINES ARE COMN0N CARRIERS They are Subject to l. c. c. Except Under Cert ain.
 Conditions.
A BLOW AT MONOPOLY
Supreme Court Decision Hit Standard Oil and Those Companies Which Have Been Buying at Wells at
 Their Own Prices.

Washington June 22.-That all pipe lines other than those transporting oil from their own wells to their own refineries are common carriers under the act of June 20, 1906, and subject to supervision and control by the in- terstate commerce commission, was the decision today of the supreme court
 The Standard Oil company, the Standard oil company of Luisiana, the Prairie Oil X Gas company, the Tide water Pipe company the Ohio Oil company and the Uncle Sam Oil com pany forced the decision in an appeal from rulings of the commission. The Uncle Sam Oil company is the only one coming within the exempted class, since at the time the litigation was brought in, it transported only oil it. produced to it's own refineries
 Justice Holmes delivered the courts opinion. Justice McKenna dissented, save in the Uncle Sam oil exemption.
 Contention of the oil interests was that q pipe line company not organiz- ed for the purpose of public career could not be made to carry in com- mon.
 Justice Holmes pointed out that availing itself of the monopoly of the means of transportation, the Standard refused to carry any oil unless 1t was sold to it on terms dictated by itself. It thereby made itself master of a given field producing oil. The lines. the court added, carry everybody's oil to the market but compel outsiders to sell it before taking it into the pipes. The law js not that they may give up the business, but they must not re- quirs sale to themselves before car rying the oil that they now receive. The court declared the transporta- ton of oil is commerce between the tsates and the fact that oil being transported is the property of the pipe line owners does not lessen the fact. The Standard of Louisiana, operat- ing a pipe line from the Arkansas Oklanoma state line through Arkansas and Louisiana to the Standards refin- cry, was organized since passage of the law. The suit against 1t was to break up the monopoly of the New
 Jersey Standard Oil company, the owner.
 The court says this applies to it.. It
 purchases oil from the Prairie Oil &
 Gas company.
 'LOng and Short Haul" Sustained.
 Washington, June 22 - Shipping 1 points in the Middle West, the Rocky
 mountains and the Pacific coast won
 a substantial victory over the sixteen railroads entering that territory in a supreme court decision today sustain ling the Hong and short haul" clause
 of the interstate commerce commits
 sion to enforce that law in the re-ad- Ijustment of rates based on such hauls. 1 The railroads, fighting this action. secured from the commerce. courts re-
 straining injunctions against orders directing the adoption of reduced
 rates for inter-mountain carriage. Il Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court, ordered the dis
 missal of the injunctions and of the
 case for want of authority.
 |. The supreme court held that the in- terstate commerce act places the au- thority to suspend the rule regarding the Hong and short haul" primarily in
 the commission instead of in the rail- roads. It was held that the railroad. themselves, have no right to charge less for the long haul than for the short unless they are given authority ' by the commission. The right of the Icommission to establish zones for the regulation of freight rates IS upheld ) and the short and long haul is declar- ed constitutional in every respect. Decision Affects Curb Prices.
 New York. June 22.--The curb mar : ket had closed prior to the handing down of the supreme court decision declaring pipe lines to be common , carriers and under the jurdiction or !. the interstate commerce commission. , but small sales in the Standard OH 1, shares were made at declining prices. Prairie Oil & Gas dropped $11 share
 and Ohio Oil g share. Standara lOil of New Jersey closed at $405, put l@ho hid and asked nricoS for 1t after