Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1902-05-09
COMBINE ANSWERS
STATEMENT FILED BY NORTHERN
SECURITIES COMPANY.
The Reply Is Divided Into Two Parts. the
FIRST Of Which Denies the Charge Of Con.
spiracy - Second Section Gives Reasons
for the Purchase Of the Burlington Lines
and Covers Other Points.

st. Paul, May IAN enterprise in
aid of great competitive interstate
and international commerce is the
description of the Northern Securities
Company given in the answer filed by
the attorneys for that corporation in
the suit brought by Attorney General
Knox on behalf of the United States
to enjoin the so-called merger of the
Northern Pacific and the Great North
ern railways. This answer was field in
the United States circuit court in this
city, and at the same time individual
answers were fled by ]. j. Hill, ]. P.
Morgan and other individuals. The
papers are all on similar lines.
The answer of the Northern Securi-
ties Company is divided into two
parts. The first is largely denial of
the petition respecting any charge of
conspiracy, and respecting the purposes
OF the organization of the Securities
Company. Instead of owning a ma
jority of the shares of the Great North
ern or Northern Pacific Companies, it
is stated that those who are interested
in the organization company do not
own within $26, 100000 of majority
of the Great Northern shares, and lit
tie more than one-quarter of the North
ern Pacific. 1t is stated that the Sc
curities Company has acquired by
transfer on the Great Northern books
about five-twelfths of that company's
stock, has negotiated for about four
twelfths of the total of such stock,
which has not been transferred, and as
to which it has at present no voting
power, and has laid on account of
Great Northern and Northern Pacific
shares purchased over 100000, 900 in
cash; that many stockholders have not
sold, and may not sell shares, and that
neither company, by any act or sugges-
tion, has solicited shareholders to sell
to the Securities Company.
In the second part of the answer
the purchase of the Chicago, Burling-
ton & Quincy Railway Company is
taken up, the reasons for such pur-
chase having been, it is alleged, erron-
eously stated in the petition. Atten-
tion is called to the sparsely settled
or unsettled nature of the country
through which the Great Northern lines
pass, the abundance of raw materials
to be hauled at low mileage rate;
the great timber wealth of the Pacific
Northwest, and the necessity of re-
turn load for the cars taking this tim
Der to the prairie states; the develop
ment of trade with Eastern Asia as
means of securing such return loads,
and the establishment of connecting
steamship line for that purpose.
1t is stated that in the interstate and
international commerce which the
Great Northern Company has thus
built up, it competes both in this co,in-
try and on the ocean with other trans
continental lines, including the Cana
dian Pacific, and at the Oriental ports
it competes for the commerce of the
world. Its rates are and must be made
in competition with the rates of ocean
carriers by way of the Suez canal. The
policy thus followed by the Great
Northern Company in building up an
international, and thereby an inter-
state, CONNER ce has been followed by
the Northern Pacific Company since
its reorganization in 1896.
1t is said that both roads were placed
at a disadvantage with other transcon-
tinental roads, as we'll as with Euro
pean competitors, by the want of
sufficient direct connection with the
territory offering the best markets for
the products of the country along their
lines, and with the places OF pro-
duction and great centers of distribu-
ton from which their traffic must be
supplied. The lines of the Burlington,
better than those of any other COM
pany, fulfilled the requirements of
both roads in respect to markets for
eastbound freight and westbound traffic.