Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-10-25
4 NEW BLOW AT TRUSTS.


Louisville Courier-Journal.
A very important decision was rendered
by the Supreme Court Of Illinois last week.
In brief, the decision forb:ds the transfer
of the American Glucose Company's plant
at Peoria to the Glucose Sugar Refining
Company. one of the most conspicuous
and successful of the modern industrial
combinations popularity known as trusts"
The American Glucose Company's plant
is very large and expensive one, and
was sold to the Glucose Sugar Refining
Company for over $2.0000 e0. The trust has
a capital of S4O,0600 600 and was Incorporated
August 8, 1897, at Trenton, N. ]. Ii bought
up six concerns, including the American
Glucose Company's plant, which is the
largest of ALL The Chicago Real Estate
and Trust Company. which owned $780,
900 of the stock in the Peoria plant,
brought suit to prevent its transfer to the
trust, and the Supreme Court has just
decided in favor of the petitioners.
The court decided that under the Illinois
law the trust was an illegal combina ton
and the parties who organized it were
guilty of a conspiracy to defraud. The
counsel for the trust claimed that stock
holder had no right TO complain of the
sale of a factory because a monopoly was
to be created if he got his share of the
price. The court ruled as TO this that the
stockholders did have a right to retain
their investments as they saw fit. The
court also maintained that it had juris-
diction over a New Jersey corporation
which came into the State of Illinois.
Finally, the court dealt with the character
of the contract under which the Peoria
company sold out, saying:
THE evidence shows that the manufac-
ture of glucose and grape sugar and their
products is confined to a certain corn belt,
where corn is raised. and that THIS district
is embraced within the territory specified
within the contract of August IL, 1897;
that is to say, within a radius of 1850
miles of Chicago.
"As the evidence in the record tends to
show that glucose can only be manufae-
tured successfully within this radius, the
agreement not to manufacture and sell it
therein amounted in effect to an agree
ment in total or general restraint of
trade; hence the agreement was void and
stamps the transaction of which it was a
part as illegal"
The point of this decision is that in the
State of Illinois at least no corporation can
buy out corporate assets in restraint OF
any person or a corporation, which is an
artificial person, can buy all the corporate
assets for which he or it can pay. This is
in the line of decisions in other States,
notably New Jersey. The Illinois decision,
SO far as we are informed, is the first to
the contrary. If it should be sustained, it
would mean that no trusts could operate in
the State of Illinois. It's significance is
very great, for it strikes at the root of
the modern trust, which is nothing but
gigantic corporation, organized to buy up
other corporations in the same line of
business. The American Sugar Company,
the Continental and American Tobacco
Company, the Federal Steel, and all the
other big trusts have been formed in this
manner. and a blow at one is thus a blow
at all. The attorney for the Glucose Sugar
Company says that the litigation is just
in its infancy.
The common stock of the Glucose trust,
which has been receiving 4 per cent div-
dends and has been well supported in the
New York and Chicago stock markets,
closed at As Saturday, decline of II to 20
points from the high figures of last spring
and of 5 to 10 points since news of the de-
cision came out.
The decision is one of the many danger
signals to trusts which are now flying on
the commercial and financial hilltops.
They are threatened In every direction,
and already have been largely deserted, at
least temporarily, by the spectators, the
class for whom they were organized. Soon
they may no longer be menace.