The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-02-09

The trust has been given little trouble
by an opposition combination established
about year ago. There are eight oppo'
sition mills, of which five are at present
in operation.
The present executive committee of
the trust are J. M. Flagler, recently of
Boston, now of New York, and one of
the Standard Oil men, President M. K.
Fairbanks, Chicago, and ]. 0. Moss, for
merly of sandusky, now of New York,
Vice Presidents. These are, all three,
men of wealth. They succeeded John
V. Lewis, of Chicago; W. II. Burnett,
of Chicago; J. W. Cochran, of Mem.
phis, and Lyman Klapp, of Providence.
Attorney General Cunningham, on be-
half of the State of Louisiana, in April
last began suit against the Cotton Seed
Trust to drive the monopoly out of ex-
istence The sworn complaint in the
suit declares that the trust is gigantic
monopoly formed for the purpose of &C.
quiring and controlling the various cot
ton seed oil mills of the South; that cot
ton seed had deprecated seven dollars to
eight dollars per ton by the fraudulent
acts of the company; that fictitious stock
has been issued to the extent of over
ts34,0OO,OOO, based upon less than slO,.
100000 worth of property; that the trust
is net chartered institution that it has
no legal existence or domicile; that it
was formed, among other things, for the
purpose of escaping taxation upon its
property in that and other States, and
that the trust is an illegal, invalid, i'm
moral and corrupt association, the object
and aims of which are in contravention
of the Constitution and laws of the State,
and its existence should be suppressed
and destroyed.
Frederick Oliver, OF Charlotte, N. c.,
is one of many Southern millers who
complained of the high handed manner
in which the trustees have administered
the affairs of the concern. "We owned
two mills at Charlotte and at Columbia,
and turned our corporate stock over to
the trust" said Mr.. Oliver, recently,
'sapd we received trust certificates in ex.
change. But when we tried to find out
something about the business of the con.
Germ whose paper we held we could learn
absolutely nothing. The business is en-
tirely in the hands of the trustees, who
manage everything to suit themselves.
They are at liberty to vote themselves
aoy salaries they please, sell themselves
seed if they wish and absorb all the prof,
its of the business if they so incline. In
addition we discovered that there was an
immense issue of trust certificates, repre-
seuting now, I believe, about $50, 100000.
James F. Hudson, in his book, "The
Railways and the Republic" begins
sketch of the Standard Oil Trust in these
striking sentences:
"Victor Hugo tells the story of the
betrayal of popular rights and of the
erection of an absolute, corrupt and syco.
phantic empire on the ruins of represen-
tative government, and calls it The His
tory of Crime.' In describing an as.
sault on commercial liberty as successful
as that of Louis Napoleon upon political
liberty, prosecuted by methods as unscru-
pulous as his, and the establishment on
the ruins of independent industries of
commercial absolutism rs merciless and
corrupt as was the political absolutism of
the Second Empire, it seems peculiarly
appropriate, adopting Hugo's phrase, to
entitle the account of The History of
Commercial Crime
"The Standard Oil Company, indeed,
embodies the commercial crimes of the
past decade. It's vast wealth has been
accumulated in less than fifteen years by
speculative manipulations, by bribing
legislators and by distorting law to deny
to one man tue privileges given to an.
other. Its history illustrates, step by
step, the extent to which the greed for
wealth can corrupt commercial morality,
pervert law and hetray the interests en-
trusted to its protection. The methods
by which this company acquired and ex-
ercises its power show the baneful results
of permitting the exclusive control of
great commercial interest to be vested in
monopoly which can oppress the pro-
ducer and consumer alike.
The Standard Oil Trust was started in
Cleveland, Ohio. One of the originators
was poor bookkeeper on small salary;
the other was porter ia produce com.
mission house.
The bookkeeper is now President of
the richest, most powerful and dangerous
monopoly in the world, and is worth a
score of millions of dollars.
The porter is.no longer connected with
the company, but he is millionaire
many times over and lives in palace
that cost $5O0,OO0 to build.
John D. Rockefeller, President of the
Standard Trust, has two magnificent
houses in Cleveland, and palace on
Fifth avenue in this city. He came
originally from some little town in cen.
trail New York, where his father was a
struggling country doctor The family
moved West and settled in Cleveland iu
1868, when John D. was fourteen.
He went to school for two or three
years, and afterward became bookkeeper
for small produce house in Cleveland.
When he was nineteen, in 1867, he and a
man named NJ. B. Clark-now wealthy
Cevelander-went into the produce bus.
mess on their own account The part
1ors