The Alaska citizen., 1911-06-19
DECISION PLEASES
 BUSINESS
Supreme Courts Oil Ruling in Brief

The supreme court holds.
 That the Standard Oil company is monopoly in restraint of trade.
 That this giant corporation must be dissolved within six months
 Corporations whose contracts are not unreasOnably restrictive ot competition" are not affected
 Other great corporations whose acts may be called into question will be dealt with according to the merits of their particular cases.
 The court was unanimous as to main features of the decision, Jus. tice Harlan dissenting only as 10 limitation of the application of the sherman antitrust law.
 President Taft and cabinet will consider immediately the entire trust situation and the advisabiity of pressing for federal incorporation act
 A decision in the tobacco trust case. which was expected simultan- eously, was not announced and may be handed down May %
 WASHINGTON, May l.. The Standard Oil company of New Jer. sey and it's nineteen subsidiary cor porations were declared today by the supreme court of the United States to be a conspiracy and combination in restraint of trade l. also was held 10 be monopolizing interstate commerce in violation of the Sher. man antitrust law. This dissolution or the combination was ordered to take place within six months.
 Thus ended a tremendous strug- gle on the part of the government to put down by authority of law d combination which it claimed was a menace 10 the industrial and econu- mic advancement of the entire country.
 At the time the court interpreted the sherman antitrust law so as 10 limit it's application to acts of 'un- due restraint of trade" and not every" restraint Of trade. II was on this point that the only discordant note was heard in the court. Justice liar Ian dissented. claiming that cases already decided by the court had determined - once for all that the word undue" or "unreason able" or similar words were not in the statute.
 He declared that the reasoning of the court in arriving at is finding was in effect, legislation which be longed in every instance to congress and not to the courts
 Ever since the decree ill this case i'll the lower court, the United States circuit court for the eastern district of Missouri. was announced, hope has been expressed by the business world that the law would be modified so as not 10 interfere with what was designated honest business. Tonight that section of the opinion calling for the use of the rule of reason in applying the law is regarded fin many quarters business world"
 The opinion of the court was an nounced by Chief Justice White. In printed form it contained more than 20,O00 words For nearly an hour the chief justice discussed the case from the bench, going over most of the points in the printed opinion, but not once referring to it in order to refresh his memory.
 Famed Men Hear Decision.
 Before him sat an audience of the most famous men of the country. Senators and representatives left chambers in the capitol to listen to the epoch-making decision of the court. Most eager to hear were At torney general WickerSham and Frank B. Kellogg, special council for the government, who had conducted the great fight against the Standard Oil.
 None of the brilliant array of counsel for the corporations or indi- vidual defendants were present dur ing the reading of the opinion.
 Today. as on previous decision days. for months, rival broker agents with messengers in line to the various telegraph and telephone instruments throughout the capital, were on hand, but to their dismay the an n0uncement of the decision was not begun until an hour after the close of the stock markets.
 Many expected that the decision in the dissolution suit against the Tobacco corporation would be hand ed down immediately after the decis- ion in the Standard Oil case. This was not done, however, but the de cision is expected on May %, the last decision day of the court until next October
 The opinion of the court was con strued to mean that the tobacco case. like every other case in which re straints of trade are alleged, must be subjected to the new test of req condolences of restraint. as laid down in the Standard Oil decision.