The age-herald., 1898-02-15
 THE PIPE TRUST GETS A BLACK EYE By the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. THE TRADE WAS DIVIDED In Territories Known as Free" and 'Pay" by an Association of Six Companies, h. cluding the Howard Harr-
 son of Bessemer.

Cincinnati, Feb. 14.-The United States circuit court Of appeals for the fifth circuit today decided a cast iron pipe. trust case Justice Harlan and Circuit Judges Taft and Burton composed the court. Judge Taft delivered the opinion.
 The suit was begun in the United States circuit court at Chattanooga by bill in equity filed by the attorney general of the United States against six cast pipe com panies, the Addiston company, of Cincin nati;, Dnnis, Long & Co.,, of Louisville; Chattanooga Pipe Works, of Chattanooga; The South Pittsburg Pipe Works, of South Pittsburg, Tenn; the Anniston Pipe Works, of Anniston, Ala, and the Howard-Harri- son Co.,, of Bessemer, Ala, to enjoin them from continuing to do business under con- tract of association, which the bill charged was violation of the federal antitrust act of 1890 because it was in restraint of interstate trade in cast iron pipe and an attempted monopoly of the same.
 The circuit court dismissed the bill and the United States appealed By the con- tract the defendants divided the country into free and pay territory. Free ter- ritory embraced New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and all states north and east of them. Pay territory embraced the rest of the United States. In free territory the associates were permitted to sell pipe at any price they saw fit.
 All orders received from pay territory had to be submitted to central board, which fixed the price and then assigned the job to one of the associates, which would agree to pay to the others the highest bonus. Certain large cities were reserved to par ticular members and on orders received from them the price and bonus were both fixed by the board. Though the aggregat- ing tonnage capacity of the associates was only 30 per cent. of the total tonnage ca- pacity of all the mills in the country, it was over 60 per cent of the tonnage capa- city of competing mills in pay territory. By the custom of the trade all contracts were made to include delivery by the seller at the home of the buyer.
 The court of appeals held first that the contract of the association even the prices fixed under it were reasonable and its only purpose was to prevent ruinous com petition as claimed by defendants was nevertheless void at common law because restraint of trade and an attempted mo- nopoly; second, that the prices were not reasonable and the purpose was an att tempted monopoly; third, that trade re- strained by the contract of association was the negotiation and sale of pipe to be de- livered across state lines from the state of manufacture to the state of sale and that this was under all the decisions of the supreme court interstate; and, fourth, as conclusion from these premises, that the contract of association was restraint and burden on interstate commerce and violation of the federal antitrust act and should be enjoined.
 The court distinguished this case from the sugar trust case on the ground that the contract sought to be enjoined under the federal antitrust act in that case was a contract of association for the manufac- ture of sugar, and did not involve as the of in go 10 n sales of merchandise to be delivered across state lines
 The judgment of the circuit court of ap- peals the decree of the circuit court and instructed that court to enter decree en- joining the six defendants from continuing to do business under contract of associa- ton from in any way maintaining the same.