The Washington times., 1911-01-20
BUSINESS AWAITS
TRUST DECISIONS
Standard Oil and Tobacco Cases Now In Highest
Tribunal Most Important Before Bench In
Many Years.

What is to be the decision of the Su-
preme Court in the cases of the Ameri-
can Tobacco Company and the Standard
Oil Company?
There is no question of greater i'm
portance, perhaps, to the business world
today, and there have been no cases
before the highest tribunal in recent
years that have excited more specula-
ton and interest.
During the recent arguments just
closed, when the Government trained
Its heaviest guns against the trusts;
and when the latter, in turn, invoked
| the aid of some of the brightest legal
minds in this country, a long line of
would-be spectators stood daily out In
the corridors adjoining the Supreme
Court room. Men and women waited
to witness this battle to the finish be-
tween the Government, with its Sher-
man law, and the so-called trusts with
| their untold resources and their pleas
that corporations OF their kind are nee
essary in the world of commerce.
Inside the court room, Senators, men,
| bers of the House, attorneys from man,
| States, and men of affairs listened -
mastery arguments. Each man, no
doubt, had an opinion as to what the
verdict of the court would be; but 1t
was only a deduction.
WHAT ODScINcIS 4nluh.
1t is interesting to note, however,
| that many Of those who followed the
arguments closely are inclined to the
belief that the Government has no
made out the same sort of case against
| the American Tobacco Company as II
has against what has been called the
father trust of them all-the Standard
OIL.
There seems to be a belief in the
HfEN- klAa No
court, after 1t has sifted the evidence,
may refuse to dissolve the tobacco COM
pany and its subsidiaries; that the Gov
ernment has not clearly established the
fact that this younger corporation has
reached the state where II is monopoly
in restraint of trade.
In the first place, the Tobacco trust
case comes before the highest court
with the ''dog-fall' verdict in the court
below. Both the Government and the
tobacco company appealed from the de-
cision of that court.
The Standard Oil Company comes be-
fore the court of last resort on the de
fensive. The lower courts have decided
against il. The complaints against Its
operations are more specific than those
corporation. The Standard Oil has been
denounced as a trust for so many years
that the average mind has come to take
the matter for granted.
Long Gathering Evidence.
The Government has been gathering
evidence against the Standard Oil for
so long that some of the attorneys OF
the Department of Justice have almost
begun to regard this as their life work.
Not until a comparatively recent date
| however, did the Government look dis
| approvingly upon the tobacco company
nor were its operations deemed obnoX-
Gus under the Sherman antitrust law.
| The tobacco company, 1t appears, has
waxed fat as a corporation within the
| last decade, whereas the Standard OIL,
| il is claimed, has been absorbing COM
petition since soon after the civil war.
The Government attorneys made the
general assertion that the American
Tobacco Company now controls the bulk
of the tobacco trade, but II was difficult
| for the Government to point out, with
any great frequency, this man and that
man whose business had gone down In
| the maelstrom of the American Tobacco
Company's greatness.
The dissimilarity in the evidence pre-
| sented against the two defendant cor
pOrations. therefore, has led to the
| theory that the highest tribunal may
differentiate between the operations oi
the one with respect to those of the
| other.
| Theorists who listened to eloquent at
torneys, and who strained to catch the
questions asked them from the bench