The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1906-11-16
GOVERNMENT FILES A PETITION
IN UNITED STATES CIRCUIT
COURT AT ST. LOUIS.
STATEMENT BY ATTORNEY GENERAL
TELLS OF CONDITIONS FOUND TO
EXIST BY SPECIAL COUNSEL
EMPLOYED BY HIM.

General Moody, through the resident
United States district attorney, has
instituted proceedings against the
Standard Oil company Of New Jer-
sey under the Sherman antitrust act
by filing in the United States circuit
court at St. Louis a petition in equity
against it and its seventy constituent
corporations and partnerships and sew
en- individual defendants asking that
the combination be declared unlawful
and in the future enjoined from en-
tering into any contract or combina-
ton in restraint of trade, etc. The
following statement has been prepar-
ed and made public by Attorney Cen
eral Moody:
In June last, by direction of the
president, Messrs. Kellogg and Nor
rison were appointed by me special
assistant attorneys general to act with
Assistant to the Attorney General
Purdy to make an investigation of the
relations of the Standard Oil compa-
ny of New Jersey to the business of
refining, transporting, distributing and
selling oil throughout the United
States; to ascertain all the facts and
report whether or not in their opinion
there has been a violation of the Sher-
man antitrust law by the Standard
Oil company of New Jersey or the per-
sons or corporations associated with
or managing it. The counsel have
completed that duty and the report
Of their investigation has received
careful consideration by the president
and his cabinet.
"The information available to the
department tends to show that the
various corporations, the limited part
nerships under the control, in the
manner hereinafter stated, of the
Standard Oil company of New Jersey,
produce, transport and sell about
Ninety Per Cent of the Refined Oil
produced, transported and sold in the
United States for domestic use and
about the same proportion of refined
oil exported from the United States;
that this share of the business has
been procured by course of action
which, beginning in 1870, has cont1n-
ued under the direction of the same
persons, In the main, down to the
present time; that these persons now
surviving are John D. Rockefeller,
William Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers,
Henry NJ. Flagler, John D. Archbold,
Oliver H. Payne and Charles M. Pratt;
that the design throughout of the per-
sons having control of the enterprise
has been to suppress competition in
the production, transportation and sale
of refined oil, and to obtain, as far
as possible, a monopoly therein; that
between 1870 and 1882 the design was
affected through agreements made be-
tween many persons and corporations
engaged in this business; that in 1882
the result aimed at was made more
certain by vesting in nine trustees Gin
GLIDING five Of the above named per-
sons) sufficient stock in the thirty
nine corporations concerned to enable
the trustees to control their operations
in such a way that competition be-
tween them was suppressed; that this
plan was acted upon until it was de-
clared unlawful by the supreme court
of Ohio in an action against the Stand
ard Oil company Of Ohio, one Of said
corporations, in 1892; that during the
seven years following the same indi-
vidual defendants, as majority of
the liquidating trustees, were pretend
Ing to liquidate the trust, but as
matter of fact were managing all of
the corporations in the same way and
exercising the same control over them;
that the individual defendants, in 1899,
increased the stock of the Standard
OIL company of New Jersey from $780,
100000 to $110,000,000; that said CON-
pany was then producing and selling
corporation and they
Added to Its Corporate Powers
the power of purchasing stock in other
companies and practically all of the
powers exercised by the trustees I'm
der the unlawful trust agreement OF
1882; that the Standard OIL company
OF New Jersey, then taking the place
OF the trustees, acquired all of the
stock Of the corporations heretofore
held and controlled by the trustees,
paying therefor by the issue of its
own shares in exchange; that the
president Of the board of trustees be-
came the president of the Standard
OIL company of New Jersey and the
same persons (the individual defend
ants) who had directed the business
OF the Standard Oil company of New
Jersey and ever since continued It,;
that the purpose and effect of the
use of the Standard Oil company of
New Jersey Is holding company
was precisely the same as the pur.
pose and effect of the appointment OF
the trustees hereinbefore referred to
namely, to suppress competition be
tween the corporations and limited
partnerships, whose stock was first
held by the trustees and then by the
Standard Oil company of New Jersey;
that by the foregoing methods, aided
by the establishment of railroad rates
for transportation which Disseminated
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