Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-11-15
MOODY BEGINS
SUIT AGAINST
STANDARD OIL
Attorney General Files an Act
ion In the Federal Court at
st. Louis
ISSUES A NOTABLE STATEMENT
Declares That President and Cabinet
Have Thoroughly Disested the Re.
port of Special Counsel That lnves
tisateH company-BeIieve Law is
Violated.

Washington, Nov. 15.-Attorney
General Moody today. acting thru the
resident United States district attor-
ney, instituted proceedings against the
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.
under the Sherman anti-trust act, by
filing in the United States circuit
court at st. Louis, petition in equity
against it, and it's seventy constituent
corporations and partnerships. and
seven individual defendants, asking
that the combination be declared un-
lawful, and in the future be enjoined
from entering into any contract or
combination in restraint of trade, etc.
The following statement was prepar-
ed and made public by Moody today:
In June last, by the direction Of
the president, Messrs. Kellogg and
Morrison appointed by me special as
sistant attorneys general to act with
Assistant Attorney General Purdy to
make an investigation of the relations
of the Standard Oil Company, of New
Jersey, to business of refining. trans
porting, distributing and selling oil.
thruout the United States; to ascer-
tain all the facts, report whether or not
In their opinion there has been a yio-
lation of the Sherman anti-t trust law
by the Standard Oil Company, of New
Jersey, or persons, or corporations, as
sociated With, or managing it. Coun-
sci have completed that duty, and the
report of their investigation has re-
ceived careful consideration by the
president and his cabinet.
Information available to the depart.
ment tends to show various corpora
tions limited partnerships under con-
troll, in manner herinafter stated. Of
the Standard Oil Company, of New
Jersey produce, transport and sell
about ninety per cent of the oil pro-
duced, transported and sold in the I'm
tied States for domestic and about
the same proportion of the refined oil
exported from the United States. That
this share of the business has been
procured by course of action which,
beginning in 1S70 has continued un-
der directions of the same persons, in
the main down to the present time;
that these persons now surviving are:
John d. Rockefeller, William Rookie
feller, Henry H. Rogers, Henry M.
Flagler, John d. Archbold, Oh
liver H. Payne, Charles NJ.
Pratt; that the design thruout
OF the persons having control Of the
enterprise has been to suppress COM
petition in production, transportation,
and sale of refined oil, and to obtain,
as far as possible, monopoly therein:
that between 1870 and 1882 the design
was effected thru 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 Gn-
Guiding five of the above named per-
sons) sufficient stock In 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 STAN
dard Oil Company of Ohio, one of the
said corporations in 1902; that during
the seven years following the same in
dividual defendants, as a majority of
the liquidating trustees, were pretend
ing to liquidate the trust, but as a mat
ter Of fact, were managing all the corr
porations in the same way, exercising
the same control over them, and that
the individual defendants in 1899, in
creased the stock of the Standard Oil
Company of New Jersey, from $10,-
100000, to s110,000,0oO; that said COM
pany was then a producing and selling
corporation and they added to it's cor
porate powers the power of purchasing
stock in other companies and practi-
cally all the powers exercised by the
trustees under an unlawful trust
agreement of 1882; that the Standard
Oil Company of New Jersey, then talk
ing the place Of the trustees, acquired
all the stock of the corporations,
trustees, paying therefore by issue of
its own shares in exchanges; that the
president of the board of trustees be-
came president of the Standard Oil
Company of New Jersey, and that the
same persons, (the individual defend
ants), who had directed the business
of the trust, then assumed direction of
the business of the Standard Oil
Company of New Jersey, and ever since
has continued it; that the purpose and
effect of the use of the Standard Oil
Company of New Jersey as a holding
company. was precisely the same as
the purpose and effect of the appoint
ment of trustees ,hereinbefore referred
to, namely: to suppress competition
between the corporations and limite1
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