The Standard Oil Decision
By Editor
Some recent work done by the Government in Rochester, New York, has brought new emphasis to the fact that much of the stuff that is sold for whisky in many of the saloons and other places where strong drink is dispensed is made from a concoction of poisons that give stupefying, intoxicating effects similar to whisky, but are much more deadly. The police report cases where "drunks" have been brought in who remained in an unconscious state for hours after drinking this poison that has been sold for whisky. "Bottled in bond" was the pretentious inscription on many of the bottles that were filled with this stuff that is still more poisonous than the whisky itself. The term "bottled in bond" is supposed to give the guarantee of the Government that the article is truly what it is represented to be. But the bottles that contained this Government guarantee were refilled with the privately manufactured "power-house whisky," as the poisonous drug-made stuff was called. The best of whisky is a poison that will limit and finally destroy the usefulness of any one who indulges in it. How much worse then is this other stuff that you are more than likely to get any time you take a drink, for it is so much cheaper and the barroom can make so much more from it. The only safe and sane course is total abstinence, and it is the only truly happy course as well. The Standard Oil Decision.
The Standard Oil Company has been before the country in the courts for the last four or five years. In fact there has not been much of the time since the company got well under way in its eventful career, that it has not been in the courts in some part of the nation. But it has been on trial for its very existence especially during the last four or five years. Judge Landis imposed a fine on the company of $29,240,000, but his decision was set aside by the Supreme Court. But now the Supreme Court has ordered the company to be dissolved, and gives them six months in which to wind up their work. This means, according to the general opinion at this writing, that the big New Jersey head to the company will be dissolved, but the hundred or more subsidiary companies will go right on doing business just the same as they have been doing. And while there will be a change in the outward appearance of the company, there will in reality be no change at all. And, furthermore, it is generally believed that this decision really destroys the Sherman anti-trust law. But whatever may be the outcome of it, the matter is perfectly apparent that this decision of the Supreme Court is another one of the mighty evidences that show how strongly the big combines of capital have entrenched themselves, and the problem that results from it is one of the greatest difficulties that has confronted this or any other age.