Los Angeles herald., 1909-04-08
LAUDS
OIL MONOPOLY
MILBURN TELLS OF GREAT
UNHEARD-0F VIRTUES
"DlsMANTLE TRUoT," HE SAYS,
land YOU KILL 1T"
Attorney Hired by Rockefeller Pays
Glowing Tribute to Beneficence
of Octopus-Ridlcule
Ida Tarbell
tBy Associated Press.l

TBy Associated Press
sT T,OIJIS. April 7.-"Miss Ida Tar
bell Is entitled to a patent on the al
legged Standard OIL conspiracy OF 1872
declared Lawyer M. b. Milburn, the
Standard Oil companys chief OF coun
sci, today during his argument peIore
the United States circuit court IN the
Governments suit to dissolve the Stan
derd as a violation of the Sherman act
And" he added, turning toward
Federal Attorney Frank y. kellogg,
"the government here is trying to de-
prive her of 1t"
Mr.. Milburn compared the Standard
to the human body, with its many
ramifications corresponding to the
blood and it's pipe lines to the veins
and arteries.
"To dismantle this corporation" he
said. "would be to strike it dead. 1t is
like the organism of the human frame.
Every part of it is so related TO the
others that to separate them would be
to dismember and destroy 1t.
Instead of being a menace to the in
dependent refiners, Mr.. Miljburn de-
clared, the Standard had always leo
the way and blazed the trail In the oil
world and the independents had TO 1ol-
low as they had always done.
ment tomorrow.
1t is Mr. Milburn's contention that
the Standard has been a greatly ma
ligned corporation, whereas, as mat
ter Of fact it had been the nations
greatest developer of not only local
but foreign commerce.
Having told yesterday of John d.
Rockefeller's introduction in the oil
business through the acquisition of a
refinery in Cleveland in 1865, today
the New York attorney continued his
recital. He told of refineries through
out the country prior and subsequent
to 1870 Mr.. Milburn said these in
vestments had been very prosperous
at first, but later as a result of over
construction there had followed a de-
cline in profits.
Discusses Progress
The rise and general development or
the Standard prior to the trust agree
ment of 1882 was next taken up and
it's acquisition of properties, including
pipe lines down to 1875, explained as
necessary to the development of the
corporations growing business.
Mr.. Milburn next explained the Or
ganization and extension of the oil
marketing business after 1875. The
lubricating field was then invaded, ac-
cording to Mr.. Milburn, feature
which the lawyer explained with great
care, especially as the acquisition of
81 per cent of the countrys railway
fabrication by Standard subsidiary
company, the Galena Signal Oil COM
pany, through the alleged weight of
Rockefeller money in the railway di-
rectorates, had been one of the gov
ernment's principal charges against the
defendants as showing a tendency to-
ward monopolization.
The defendants chief counsel told
of the establishment of marketing sta
tions for the lubricating business and
its causes and effects.
Mr.. Mtlburn discussed the facts sur
rounding the Standards acquisition of
various miscellaneous properties which
he said were only incidental to the cor
poration's general expansion, and then
took up the properties prior to the trust
agreement, narrating just how and I'M
der what circumstances each concern
was purchased or founded by Stand
ard Oil money.
This is one of, if not the most impor-
tant, features of the defendants case
as it will insist that the properties
coming into the trust agreement were
In no sense competing companies and
from the start were companies pos
sessing distinctly a separate field in
the oil world and therefore not COM
petitive.
Careful Economics
Mr.. Milburn told of the care with
which the firm of Rockefeller & Co.,
even in it's earliest days, studied the
economics of the oil business, estab-
fishing warehouse and lighterage IA
cilities in New York that they might
be Independent of local conditions.
GAS early as 1862" said Mr.. Milburn,
"the young firm made it's own barrels
at $1.5O each instead of paying $3.50 in
the market. This care OF detail gave
the bankers confidence in them and en-
abled the young oil merchants to bor-
row capital"
Telling then of the fight made against
Cleveland as a refining center by the
Pennsylvania railroad in an endeavor
to dominate the oil world, Mr. Milburn,
pausing dramatically with uplifted
hands, exclaimed:
Instead of sitting in the night burn
ing the midnight oil and connecting
this so-called conspiracy about which
we have heard so much, Mr.. Rockefel-
Ter and his associates were at that
very moment fighting for their own
lives and commercial existence"
The Standards lawyer denied that
Mr. Rockefeller was one of the organ
izers of the famous South Improve
ment company of Pennsylvania. In
stead, he said the embryo oil king an
nounced the plan as problematical. Mr..
Rockefeller and his assistants saw at
that time that self-preservation existed
only in STRENGTHENING their business.
'Mr. Rockefeller had faith in the oil
business then greater than any other
man on earth had There are stock
holders now in the Standard Oil who
from its earliest days have never in
creased their holdings single dollar.
Gwen when these defendants ac-
quired a refinery in Cleveland that
brought Oliver H. Payne into the
Standard Oil company many merchants
of that city subscribed for stock, but
allowed their confidence to ooze out
and declined to accept the stock
S@S