Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1907 — Press Opinions on Standard Oil Fine [ARTICLE]

Press Opinions on Standard Oil Fine

The one object of the law under which this fine is levied is to secure justice and the protection of equal rights in transportation.—Philadelphia Press. There is at present no visible golden lining to the cldud which seems to have darkened the horizon of the Standard Oil Company.—Cleveland Plain Dealer.* Whether or not the Supreme Court sustains the decision of Judge Landis in the suit against the Standard Oil Company, there can be no doubt that public opinion will sustain it. —Chicago Post. The case was plainly one in which, if the law was to be upheld and punishment for its violation made deterrent, it seemed necessary to resort to extreme penalties.—Chicago Inter Ocean. The Standard Oil Company, with its practical monopoly of the market, has only to raise the price of its commodity a few cents a gallon, and the consumers will pay. the fine. —Detroit Free Press. The people, intolerant of punishing by a method which inevitably reacts upon themselves, will speedily see to it that the individual criminals are punished by incarceration.- —St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The fine levied by Judge Landis will have a valuable and far-reaching effect in demonstrating the supremacy of the iaw vover TiowerfuL and defiant aggregations of lawless wealth —Chicago News. The fact that the Standard Oil Com“pany'finds itself face= to face with‘aJaAsuflieient to stagger any corporation must have a sobering and cleansing effect upon the world of big business and “high finance.” —Cleveland Leader. The most obvious comment on the bumper fine imposed by Judge Landis on the Standard Oil Company of Indiana is that if the company deserves this maximum penalty of the law, then there are some of its officials or agents who de-

serve to be in the penitentiary.—St Louis Republic. If the Supreme Court should sustain the decision of Judge Landis we may confidently expect an advance in the price of oil. The oil trust will not pay fines out of its coffers when it can force the people to open their pocketbooks.—Baltimore Sun. Judge Landis’ action should prove a sharp rebuke to much incendiary talk that has lately been heard about the use of the federal courts as a shield for corporate oppression. Mr. Rockefeller, at least, will not to-day share that delusion. —New York World. If great corporations were as eager and industrious in observing the statutes in letter and in spirit as they often seem to be in skirting and straining them there would be little occasion for those corporations to complain that they are being unfairly treated by juries and little fear of their facing a monumental cash forfeiture like that now hanging over the Standard Oil Coaspnny of Indiana.—New York Tribura.