Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-11-16
STANDARD OIL
MUST FIGHT.
Attorney General Acting Under
ROOseveIfs Orders, Attacks
GreatestO of All Trusts.

MI. ~
eral Moody, acting through h resi-
dent United States district attorney,
instituted proceedings against the
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey
under the Sherman antitrust act by
filing in the United States circuit court
at st. Louis a petition III equity
against 1T and its seventy constituent
corporations and partnerships and
seven individual defendants, asking
that the combination be declared un
lawful and in the future enjoined from
entering into any contract or combina-
ton in restraint of trade, etc.
Frank ID. Kellogg of st. Paul, MIMI,
special counsel for the government,
formally placed the petition with the
| court.
It names John d. Rockefeller, Will
liam Rockefeller, Henry ii. Rogers,
Henry NJ. Flagler, John ID. Archbold,
oliver II. Payne and Charles Nj. Pratt
as individual defendants.
The following statement, prepared by
Attorney General Moody, explains Ii
action:
I'm June last, by direction of the
president, Messrs. Kellogg and Morri-
son were appointed by me special as
sistant attorneys general to act with
Assistant to the Attorney General Pur-
dy to make an investigation of the re-
~lations of the Standard Oil Company of
New Jersey to the business of refining,
transporting, distributing and selling
oil throughout the United States. to rs
certain all the facts and report whether
or not in their opinion there has been n
violation of the Sherman antitrust law
by the Standard Oil Company of New
Jersey or the persons 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.
1.-THE information available to the de-
partment tends to show that the vari-
GUS corporations and limited partner
ships under the control, in the name
hereinafter stated. of the Standard Oil
Company of New Jersey produce, trans
port and sell about 90 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 a course of ac-
ton which. beginning in 1870. has on
tinued under the direction of the same
persons, in the main, down to the pres
ent time; that these persons now SUR
are John ID. Rockefeller. Will
liam Rockefeller, Henry II. Rogers,
NJ. Flagler. John d. Archbold,
H. Payne and Charles NJ. Pratt;
that the design throughout of the per
having control Of the enterprise
has been to suppress competition in the
production, transportation and sale of
oil and to obtain, as far as pos
sible, a monopoly therein.
That between 1870 and 1889 the de-
sign was effected through agreements
made between many persons and cor
porations engaged in this business; that
in 1882 the result aimed at was made
more certain by vesting in nine trus-
Q%ncluding five Of the above named
persons) sufficient stock in the thirty
nine corporations concerned to enable
the trustees to control their operation
in such a way that competition be-
tween them was supposed.
THAT this plan was acted upon until
it was declared unlawful by the SUI
preme court of Ohio in an action
against the Standard Oil Company Of
Ohio, one of said corporations, in 1892;
that during the seven years following
the same individual defendants, as a
majority of the l%iquidating trustees,
were pretending to llquidate the trust,
but as Il matter of fact were managing
all of the corporations in the same way
and exercising the same control over
them.
ut is believed that these facts, to-
with others contained in the re-
port of the special counsel, justify
and require action by the United
States in the courts"