Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1909-04-05
FINAL FIGHT ON
STANDARD OIL
Opens at St. Louis
After Two Years
Preparation
TRUST BUSTER IN CHARGE
Frank B. Kellog Argues Why
Corporation Should Be
Dissolved.

tcrney General of the United States.
today filed brief with the clerk of
the United States court and com
laenced argument after two years Of
evidence taking in the government
suit to dissolve the Standard Oil cor
poration of New Jersey for alleged vio-
lations of the Sherman antitrust law.
The argument was heard by the full
circuit court bench and Judges San
born, Vandeyenter, Nook and Adams.
He told of the combination effected
Gy John ID. Rockefeller, William Rock
efeller and Henry NJ Flager, in 1879,
conceived, he declared, to effect a
monopoly in the petroleum trade. 1t
was at that moment, he declared the
illegal conspiracy was conceived.
The Governments Brief.
The brief reviews the history of
the company, and declares the testi-
mony shows that the various defend
ants have pursued system of unfair
competition whereby the independent
companies selling and marketing Pc
troleum have either been driven out
CT business or so restricted that the
Standard has practically controlled
the prices and monopolized commerce
in petroleum products.
This system, 1t is contended, has
taken the form of price cutting in
various localities while keeping up
high prices or raising them still high
O. in other localities where no COM
petition exists; of paying rebates to
customers as a part of their system Of
price cutting: of obtaining secret in
formation as to competitive business,
largely through bribing railway en-
ployes and using their secret informa-
tion to procure the countermanding
Of orders of independent procurers and
to facilitate the price cutting policy:
Of the use of companies held out by
the Standard as Independent, which
are engaged in price cutting, while
the Standard maintains the price
through its we'll known companies
and other abusive competitive meth
eds against the competitors.
The Standard Oil Company, the brief
alleges, is particularly able to carry
en- this competition for the reason
that it does not sell its product at
central markets or through ordinary
channels as most other ordinary
manufacturers. 1t markets its/ pro-
ducts to the retailer in every village
ard community in the United States
and it sells directly to the consum-
erS.
1t is also held that the testimony
taken in Standard prosecutions shows
that the company through the Galena
Signal Oil Company also controls
aLout 81 1-2 per cent of the lubrica-
ton of Illinois and that it sells to
most railroads at enormous profits.
r his is evidenced by the net earnings
o. the company, which in 1906 were
about 112 per cent on the capital
stock actually paid in and about 1O5
Ter cent on liberal valuation Of
TIE capital used, ~ -
1t is also charged the prices to
most railroads are substantially
double the prices charged to a few
favored lines notably the Pennsylva-
MIA. For instance, the brief says, the.
New York Central railroad for ten
years has paid about 100 per cent per
gallon more than the Pennsylvania. It
is also stated that wherever the
Standard can do so, it has made
contracts whereby it has either mar.
keted either part or all the product
Of the Independent refineries or has
limited the output.
One of the evidences of monopoly,
ic is charged, is the cOmpany's enor-
nous earnings summarized as fol-
lows.
"The Standard Oil trust and the
Standard Oil Company on an invest
ment of $69,024 ,4S0 had earned up to
the end of 1906 sS9S, 7S3,7S3 Adding
the estimated profits of 1907 and
1908, we have substantially billion
dollars earned by this company in
z7 years with an original investment
OF about $69,000,000.'
Further on the brief says:
1T has usually been claimed for
large corporations in this country
that they have increased business and
decreased the cost to the consumer,
but in the case of the Standard it
has during ten or fifteen years actu-
ally increased the price to the retail
er and this, good deal more than
The prices of other products, although
he price of its raw material and cost
If manufacture and sale during these