The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-04-05
The Standard Has Made q Bill.
lion Dollars in % Years.
Government Files Its Brief in
Suit to Dissolve.
UNFAIR WAYS CITED
By Which 1t Has Obtained a Mo-
nOpOly in Business.
Has Directors on Boards of All
the Big Railroads.

st. Louis. Mo-. April 5-The gov
ernment today filed in the circuit court
of the United States its brief in the
case of the United States against the
Standard Oil company of New Jersey.
by which it is sought to dissolve that
corporation.
The brief reviews the history of the
company and declares the testimony
shows that the various defendants
have pursued system of unfair
competition whereby the independent
companies selling and marketing
petroleum have either been driven out
Standard has practically controlled the
prices and monopolized commerce in
petroleum products.
This system, it is contended has
taken the form of price cutting in
! various localities, while keeping up
high prices or raising them still higher
in other localities where no competi-
ton exists; of paying rebates to Gus
toners as a part of their system of
price cutting; of obtaining secret in
largely through bribing railway en-
ployes and using their secret in
formation to procure the counter
manding of orders of Independent
producers and to facilitate the price
cutting policy; of the use of companies
held out by the Standard as in
dependent which are engaged in price
cutting, while the Standard maintains
the price through its well known COM
panies and other abusive competitive
methods against the competitors.
The Standard Oil company, the
brief alleges is particularly able to
carry on this competition for the rea-
son that it does not sell its product at
central markets or through ordinary
channels as most other ordinary
manufacturers. 1t markets its prod
ucts to the retailer in every village and
community in the United States and
sells directly to the consumers.
1t is also held that the. testimony
taken in Standard prosecutions shows
that the company through the Galena
Signal Oil company also controls
about 971A percent of the lubrlcatlng g
oils and that it sells to most railroads
at enormous profits This is cyl
denced by the net earnings of the
| company which in 1906 were about
| 112 per cent on the capital stock ac-
| tualIy paid in and about 105 per cent
on a liberal valuation of the capital
| used
IT is also charged the prices to most
railroads are substantially double the
| prices charged to a few favored lines
notably the Pennsylvania. For IN
| stance the brief says. the New YORK
! Central railroad for ten years has paid
T about 100 per cent per gallon more
! than the Pennsylvania. 1t Is also
! stated that wherever the Standard can
! do so it has made contracts WhereoH
/ it has either marketed part OF az
/ of the product of the Independent
| refineries or has limited the output.
one of the evidences of monopoly 1t
is charged is the company's enormous
earnings summarized as follows;
'.The Standard Oil trust and the
ment of sse, ,O24, ,4s0 had earned up to the
end of 1906. $685., ,7S3, 7S3. Adding the
! estimated profits of 1907 and 1908 we
have substantially billion dollars
| earned by this company in 70 years
with an original investment of about
s69, ,000, ,OOO."
! Further on the brief says:
s.It has usually been claimed for
| large corporations in this country that
! they have increased business and de-
creased the cost to the consumer. put
/ in the case of the Standard it has dur
/ ing the past Is years actually increased
j the price to the retailer and tbs a
| good deal more than the prices of other
products although the price of it's raw
| material and cost of manufacture and
| sale during the years mas increased
very little if any,"
Gathered in Pipe Lines.
| 1t is stated from 1874 to 1882, the
| Standard Oil obtained control of all of
the pipe lines then existing and
| brought them together under the con-
|
and ever since it has sought to prevent
or destroy pipe line competition 1t
| first sought to control the T1dewater
| Pipe company then the only pipe line
| to the seaboard, and succeeded in get
| ting an agreement for division of the
business Through this and other
| agreements the Standard, it is alleged,
| has at the present time control or
about ninety-five per cent of the
! transportation of crude oil to the At
lanta seaboard which gives 1T tre-
mendous advantage.
| Recognizing the Importance to the
Standard of railway transportation its
officials and their associates during
the last ten years, it is said, have been
directors in many of the leading rail-
road systems of the United States. For
instance, the Standard interests have
in the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
four directors; Union and Southern
Pacific and Santa Fe two each; New
York, New Haven & Hartford, New
York Central and allied lines, Missouri
Pacific, Boston & Maine, Wisconsin
Central, Rutland railroad and others
one each.
The brief says that "the government
does not wish to be understood as dis
couraging enterprise as taking a
position against legitimate competi-
ton, but if the Sherman act means
anything it means monopoly ac-
quired by such methods of competition
as are pursued Dy the STANDARD OH
company.
Unless it is enforced, the small cor
poration or individual wishing to en-
gage in business will have absolutely
no opportunity The testimony is val
liable as showing the intention of the
standard Oil company to monopolize
the commerce in oil. In many districts
| it has an absolute monopoly. We mean
BY absolute monopoly that in those
districts it does all the business and
has eliminated every competitor.
Dictates Prices
Practically this is the case through
' out the Rocky mountain country and
b