FIGHTING CROESUS. THE STANDARD OIL TRUST.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 12

FIGHTING CROESUS.

THE STANDARD OIL TRUST.

AN INTERESTING ARTICLE. Last month the United States Court of appeal granted an application for a writ of error in connection with the Standard OH Trust case wherein the trust was fined close on thirty mi! lion dollars for accepting illegal rebates from the Chicago-Alton Railroad Company The_. result of tho application means that tho ' court gives authority to revei'is, alter or vary tho judgment of Judga Landis, and is interprsted in the United States to mean an effort to check for years the collection of the fines. Under tho heading "The Standard Oil Company's Troubles," the New Ycrk Evening Poet recently published the ' following article: — "Gentlemen," said Matthew Arnold, when he appeared before the Income Tax Commissioners who had assessed his profits from literature at £5000 a year - — "gentlemen, you see before you what you have often heard of, an unpopular author," It is a plea ad nii^eiicordiam which tho Standard Oil Company might well make. Fined 29,000,G00 dollars on Saturday, on Monday it is buffeted by another Government report, showing once more that IT IS AN OPPRESSIVE UONO«?LY forcing the people to pay exorbitant prices for a necessary of life. One gcod newspaper friend of the Standard ia6tenea to allege that it could not pay a fine of 29,000,000 dollars and "continue to_ do business." Tho unfeeling Commissioner of Corporations, however, produces figures, to provs that it had made net earnings of "at least ' v< ?90,00Q 000 dollars iv the last twenty>four years, 'and possibly much more.' Quite a comfortaole margin for incidental fines! Yet fines and adverse reports are not leally so significant as tha general re joicing with which all such attacks uwn the Standard are received. 'Gentlemen, you see before you a highly unpopular Trust. 1 " This fact, of course, makes it fcoth caay and popular to attack the Standard. To take a kick at it has, for years, been the safe cpurage of insin :ere politicians. And now that a more rerious legal pursuit of the Oil Trust is attempted, it is but fair to reeoguise the fact that judges and executives liiay be unconsciously swayed by the popular applause which . they know will follow their efforts. If Judge Landis had not been fully aware that his decision on Saturday would at once REVERBERATE AROUND THE WORLD carrying his name with it, and thai, grateful plaudits would arise from his countrymen, it is quite possible that he would have clipped a little the wings of his extra-judicial rhetoric. But such are tha inevitable penalties of tha unpopularty which the Standard Oil Company has richly merited. It would bu & thousand pities,' however, if the 'act that the Standard is now v, dog at which any one may throw a stone with impunity, should lead to ths slightest warping of 'legal process against it. A too severe decision set aside on appeal j only leaves us worse off than before. We cannot presume to say whether the Standard will win in the higher courts, but certain remarks about * the decision of Judge Landis are; obvious. The proceedings against the Standard were brought under: tho Elkins Act of 1903. Roosevelt's 1905 hook for the snout of leviathan wao not used. This can but strengthen tho position 'of such lawyers as Senator Foraker and Representative M'Call. They contendtd from the first that tho Elkins law was fuily adequate to reach all cases of railway, rebating, or the securing of UNLAWFUL RATES BY FAVOURED CORPORATIONS. and that the Roosevelt measure vas both confused and superfluous. Foraker has several times asserted that not a single prosecution had been brought under the Act which the President moved heaven and earth to secure. The Ohio Senator has declared that the Elkins law is the only on that has 'teeth. 1 He may aow point to the 29,000,000 dollar fine as evidence that he was right. Qranting that the verdict of the jury against the Standard was well and ti uly found ; that no vitiating error was com-, mitted in tho trial of the case, there cannot bs two minds, it seems to us, about the justice of applying the mttxi mum -penalty known to the law. 'I ho amount of THE FINE IS TREMENDOUS, but it is inflicted upon a trumendous offender. It is no exaggeration to say, as Secretory Garfield is reported as saying, that the Standard has for yenr<conducted itself as if it wero ?bove tho aw. It has snapped its fingers at the punishments laid down in the statutes. They wore for the little fellows, iho law would think twice beforo damping a corporation with such untold millions at command. Now, to have men of thai kind of arrogance brought up with a. round turn, is undoubtedly a good thing. It makes for social Justice, and so for social content. It heip* peopie to believe that the law is, after all, equal. Sensible men will beJiere that it is, in intent at least, even if Judge Landis should be reversed for error ; though, -qf course,'' his reversal now would embitter many o gainst the courts. MUCH STUDY REQUIRED. As for the report of the Commissioner of Corporations, it contains a mass of statistics which require . much study. Hasty interferences from the figvies should De avoided. Even the Standard Oil Company is entitled to its day in ths newspapers, and on the stump as well as in court. It seems somewhat unfair, for example, to point to the increase in tho price of oil since 1900 as a sufficiont proof of the actioD of a monopoly. Tho price of all commodities has notoriously advanced during that period. Oil prices should be taken with the rest. Much stronger is the case for thg large and heightened "margin" between the cost of crude oil and refined, as detailed by the commissioner. If he is correct in his figures, the excessive profit due to monopoly is clearly established.

The men who are experimenting witha view to curing sleeping sickness and other terrors of the Tropics, of which good news from time to time comes homo, are not always (sn>s St. James's Budget), the best friends of tho missionaries. Tho euro makes the body wholo, but its effects upon the soul may bo unexpectedly perplexing. One lady, herself missionary as well as doctor, had a curious experience of this in Burmah, where, upon her arrival, sbe found a village community dying oi. : like flies with cholera. She made a house-to-house inspection, administered a specific, and, having broken tho back of Iho malady, left behind hor so.vonil bottles of the medicine to bo used during her absence. Upon^her return the headman cheered her heart by tho greeting : "Teacher, we hiivo come over to your side ; tho modieine did us so much good that we have acrepied your God." He led her to his house, and into tho apartment o.icred to his worship. There, arrayed upon t ho sliclf, wie tho inodioino bottbs. and he, with all his household, intitaiilly bowed down and prayed to them with thankful hearts^