THE PRESIDENT AND THE TRUSTS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12497, 7 May 1906, Page 7

THE PRESIDENT AND THE TRUSTS.

FEDERAL CONTROL ADVISED. United Presa Association—By Electrio Tei«grn.ph—Copyright. NEW YORK, May 5. President Roosevelt, in. a message to Congress states that Mr Garfield's report shows that the Standard Oil Trust hafl benefited enormously by un- ■ lawful secret railway rates. The President advises entrusting the Federal Government with power to control interstate commerce, curb monopolies, and prevent railways from making concessions to powerful trusts, which the railways are powerless to contiol. [To create a central control over railway rates is ono of President Roosevelt's j great ambitions. A Rates Bill has pat-wed the House of Representatives by a large majority, and tho President has been doing his utinc&b to induce t'ne Senate to agree to it also. It has, of oouree, long boon known that tho Standard OU Trust owes most of its success to railway rebates. As far back as 1870 Rockefelier and his friends gained from tho railway magnate--} a 50 per cent, rebate in oil freights, which enI a hied them to overwhelm all other oom- ' petition. In two years Rockefeller was practically the only refiner in Cleveland. When the nature of the contracts with ! tho railways became known there was such a storm of indignation t'nat the railways, so says a historian of Standard Oil, s.grtd ajrreemewts with the ojlpioducws io abolish the rebate system for ever. Two States made the practice illegal. Yet though the sweeping concession obtained by Rockefeller wjjs not i continued, he still made secret terms, and in time gained, on all the oil-carry-ing lino?, a rebate on all hm own shipment* and a drawback an the Oil* freights of competitors.) I