The age-herald., 1902-03-11
J. 5. ID STOP
 THE MERGER Bill Filed Against Northern Se- curitiGS CO, in Minnesota ORDER OF ATTORNEY GENERAL After Setting Out the IlIesality of the Combination the Bill Prays That
 Both Companies Be En-
 joined.
ORDER OF ATTORNEY GENERAL

Washington, March 10-By direction of the attorney-general of the United States. bill was filed at St Paul today in the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Minnesota in the case of the United States, complainant against the Northern Securities Company, the Great Northern Railroad Company, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company and others. defendants, to test the legality of the alleged combination or merger of the two roads and others named in the bill. | The action is brought under the act of July g. 1890, known as the Sherman anti trust act
 After reciting the fact that the North | ern Securities Company Is corporation organized under the laws of the state of New Jersey; the Great Northern Rail- road under the laws of Minnesota. and the Northern Pacific Railroad under the | laws of Wisconsin, and that the two last named companies are common carriers doing an interstate business, and that these companies formerly owned and op- erated two independent, parallel and competing lines of railway aggregating over 5500 miles in length, the petition says they were the only transcontinental lines of railway extending across the northern tier of states west of the Great Lakes, from the Great Lakes and the Mississip- pl river to the Pacific ocean, and were then engaged in active competition with one another for freight and passenger traffic, among the several states of the United States and between such states and foreign countries.
 Formed a Combination.
 Early in the year 1901 the defendants, the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad Companies. in contemplation of the ultimate placing of rne Great North ern and Northern Pacific systems under common source of control, united in the purchase of the total capital stock of the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company of Illinois, system about 5000 miles in length. giving the joint bonds of the Great Northern and Northern Pa cifc Railroad Companies.
 | James :. Hill and the majority of his associate stockholders of the Great North | ern and the defendants, J. Pierpont Nor gan and the majority of his associates owning controlling a majority of the stock of the Northern Pacific Company, entered into an unlawful combination or conspiracy to effect a virtual consolida- tion of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern systems and to place restraints upon all competitive inter-tate and for eign trade or commerce carried on by them, by forming a holding corporation, called the Northern Securities Company, under the laws ol New Jersey with cap ital stock of $400. 900 to which, in ex- change for it's own capital stock upon a certain basis and at a certain rate, was to be turned over and transferred the capital stock. or a controlling inter est in the capital stock of each the de- fendant railway companies.
 Individuals to Be Eliminated.
 "In this manner the individual stock holders of these two independent and competing railway companies were to be eliminated and a single common stock holder, the Northern Securities Compa- ny, was to be substituted. Thus the holding corporation having the power and duty to pursue policy which would promote the interests when not one sys- tenn at the expense of the other but | of both at the expense of the public all 1 inducement for competition between the two systems was to be removed, a virtual | consolidation effected, and a monopoly l of the interstate and foreign comm cree | formerly carried on by the two systems On or about the fourteenth of November 1901, the Northern Securities Company was organized by the election of a board of directors and the election of a presi- dent, James J. Hill and other officers who with their associate stockholders of the Great Northern railroad, transferred to the Northern Securities Company a controlling interest in the capital stock or the Great Northern railway upon the agreed basis of exchange of S1S0 par value of the capital stock of the Northern Se- curities Company for each share of the capital stock of the Great Northern Rail way Company and the defendants, J. P. | Morgan and his associate stockholders of