Albuquerque citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1907-1909, 1909-04-05
PRICES WERE CUT
AND REBATES GIVEN
Government Brief Reviews History
of the OIL Company and
Outlines Methods by
Which 1t Oper-
dteS.

st. Louis, April 5.-The govern
ment today filed in the circuit court
% 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 dis
sclye that corporation.
the brief reviews the history of the
company, and declares the testimony
shows that the various defendants
have pursued a system OF unfair COM
petition whereby the independent
companies selling and marketing pc
troleum have either been driven out
OF business or so restricted that the
standard has practically controlled
the prices and monopolized COM
merce in petroleum proucts.
This system, it is contended, has
taken the form of price cutting IN
various localities while keeping Up
high prices or raising them still high
e. 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
information as to competitive busi-
ness, largely through bribing railway
employees and using their secret in
formation to procure the counter
manGing of orders of Independent
procurers and to facilitate the price
cutting policy; of the use of compa
nies held out by the standard as in
dependent, which are engaged m
price cutting. while the standard
maintains the price through it's well
known com panies and other abusive
competitive methods against the
competitors.
The Standard oil company, the
brief alleges, is particularly able 70
carry on this cOmpeton for the rea-
son that it does not sell it's product
at central markets or through ordi-
nary channels as most other ordinary
manufacturers. 1t markets its prod
ucts to the retailer in every village
and community in the United States
and it sells directly to the consumers.
1t is also held that the testimony
taken in standard prosecutions shows
that the company through the Ca
lena signal oil company also controls
about 81 ~ per cent of the lubrica-
tion of Illinois and that it sells to
most railroads at enormous profits.
This is evidenced by the net earnings
OF the company, which in 1906 were
about 112 per cent on the capital
stock actually paid in and about 1O5
per cent on a liberal valuation Of the
capital used
1t is also charged the prices to
most railroads are substantially dou-
ble the prices charged to a few "a
vored lines notably the Pennsylvania,
For instance, the brief says the New
York Central railroad for ten years
has paid about 100 per cent per gall
Ion more than the Pennsylvania. 1t
is also stated that wherever the
standard can do so, il has made con-
tracts whereby it has either marketed
either a part or all the product of
the independent refineries or has
limited the output.
one of the evidences Of monopoly,
/; 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 $69,024,4SO had earned up
to the end OF 1906 SS3S,7S3,7S3.
Adding the estimated profits of 1907
and 1908, we have substantially
billion dollars earned by this COIN
pany in p years with an original in
vestment of about S69,000,0OO."
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 con-
sumer out in the case Of the Standard
it has during ten or fifteen years
actually increased the price TO the re-
taller and this, good deal more
than the prices of other products, al
though the price of its raw material
and cost of manufacture and sale
during these years has increased
very little If any"
It is stated that from 1874 10 lSS2
the standard obtained control OF
practically all of the pipe lines then
existing and brought them together
under the control Of the National
Transit company and ever since It
has sought to prevent, or destroy pipe
line competition. 1t first sought to
control the Tidewater Pipe company
then the only pipe line TO the sea-
board and succeeded in getting an
agreement for division of the busi-
ness. Through this and other agree