The Colorado statesman., 1909-04-10
LAWYER MlLBURN PRAISES THE
GREAT TRUST AS DEVELOPER
OF COMMERCE.
TELLS HOW IT GREW
ROCKEFELLER PRAISED FOR HIS
STEADFAST FAITH AND PER-
SISTENCE.

st. Louis-It was Mr.. Milburn's con-
tention in the hearing Wednesday that
the Standard has been greatly ma
ligned corporation whereas, as a mat
ter of fact, he declared, it had been the
nations greatest developer of not only
local but foreign commerce.
Having told Tuesday of John d.
Rockefeller's introduction into the oil
business through the acquisition of
refinery in Cleveland in 1865, Wednes-
day the New York attorney told first
of the establishment of refineries
throughout the country, both prior and
subsequent to 1870. Mr. Milburn said
that these investments had been very
prosperous at first, but later as result
of over-construction there had followed
a decline in profits.
He told of the Standards early ele-
ments of stability, its acquisition of
properties, including pipe lines, down
to 1875, which he asserted, had been
necessary to the development of the
corporations growing business and
also as one of the economies of the new
business.
Mr.. Milburn next explained the or
ganization and extension of the oil
marketing business after 1875. The lub-
ricating field was then invaded, ac-
cording to Mr. Milburn, a feature
which the lawyer explained with great
care, especially as to the acquisition
of ninety-seven per cent. of the coun-
try's railway fabrication by Standard
subsidiary company, the Galena Sig
nal Oil Company, through the alleged
weight of Rockefeller money in the
railway directorates, had been one of
the governments principal charges
against the defendants as showing
tendency toward monopolization. The
defendants chief counsel told of the
establishment of the marketing sta
lions for the fabrication business, and
its causes and effects.
Mr.. Milburn discussed the facts sur
rounding the Standards acquisition of
various miscellaneous properties,
which, he said, We're only incidental
to the corporations general expansion,
and then took up the properties prior
to the trust agreement, narrating just
how and under what conditions each
concern was purchased or founded by
Standard Oil money.
This is one of, if not the most i'm
portant, feature of the defendants
case, as it will insist that the proper
ties coming into the trust agreement
were in no sense competing companies
and from the start were companies pos
sessing distinctively a separate field
in the oil world, and, therefore, not
competitive.
Telling then of the fight made
against Cleveland as refining cen
ter 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 their midnight oil and connecting
this so-called conspiracy about which
we have heard so much, Mr.. Rookie
Teller 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
izer's of the famous South Improve
ment Company of Pennsylvania In
stead, he said, the embryo oil king de-
nounced the plan as impractical.