Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-20
ICE TRUST IN COURT
Action in New York Supreme
Court Against Combine.
SERIOUS CHARGES MADE
Maine Harvest Reduced in Order to
Raise Prices.
STARTED A FAMINE SCARE
Attorney General Declares the Ameri-
can Company Declined Supplies
When Offered.
STARTED A FAMINE SCARE

ALBANY, N. Y, December 20-Attorney
General julius Mayer, in the name of the
people of the state of New York, today be-
gan an action against the American Ice
Company in the supreme court of New York
county for the dissolution of the so-called
lice trust" summons and complaint is
sued here last night was forwarded to the
New York city representatives of the attor-
ney general for service today upon the
proper officials of the company.
The complaint alleges as a principal fea-
ture of the scheme and arrangement by
which the company secured a practical mo-
nopoly of the natural and artificial ice out
put and distribution especially in greater
New York and the communities in that vi
entity. that it secured control of the Maine
ice field and caused a reduction there last
year of the usual harvest from million
and half tons to one-third of that amount.
The other sources of supply are alleged to
be similarly controlled.
The key to the ice situation in New York
city is pointed out as lying in the companys
control of the lice bridges" or landing de-
pots, by which means, it is alleged, the
company is enabled to fix the price of Ice,
resulting last summer In an Increase from
$1.20 a ton at the bridges to SO and So
ton to the independent dealers, who are al
legged to be controlled by the company, and
who supply the retail trade.
1t is said that by the time the ice reached
the poorer customers it cost them at the
rate of from SO to S14 ton.
Ice Was Plentiful.
Correspondence of the company with its
agents and others Is quoted to show that at
the very time when the company was urg-
ing its customers to be careful in their pur-
chase and consumption of ice, owing to
the shortage of supply, it was informing it's
agents that the ice situation from the COM
pany'S standpoint was satisfactory and that
offers were being received from various
sources, especially from Maine independent
producers of ample supplies, and the COM
pany was at that time refusing to accept
these offers on any terms. 1t IS contended
that the efforts of the company were de-
signed to create a popular impression that
an ice famine was impending in order to
foreStall public ClamOr against a contem-
plated enormous increase in the price to
consumers which increase did, in fact, take
place.
1t is declared by the Attorney General
that on the Hudson river the American
Ice Company owns all but seventeen of the
141 ice houses, and that it contracted with
the Mountain Ice Company, operating in
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, to restrict
Its sales in Brooklyn, whereby the free
pursuit of the ice business in that borough
was prevented; that 1t had like agreements
with various independent concerns along
the Hudson river and elsewhere to prevent
their entering the field of competition in
production or distribution of either natural
or manufactured ice.
The methods alleged to have been pur-
sued by the company include purchase,
lease, traffic agreements, control of the
capital stock and other devices to restrict
output of both kinds of ice and Limitation
Of distribution and sale.