The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-05-16
Supreme Court ofU. S.
Says Standard Oil CO.
Must Be Dissolved
Continued From rare one.

Continued From Page one.
brought in the name of the Unite
States. The immediate object was h
dissolve the Standard Oil Co. of New
Jersey.
From the very beginning, the bust
ness and the legal worlds recognized
that the suit put the Sherman anti
trust law to the most severe test Il
j which 1T had been subjected. The Law
had been on the statute book sine,
1880 and had been the basis of som,
eighteen suits finally passed upon by
the supreme court Of the United States
That the law was constitutional was
accepted as settled by these decisions
but simple as the words OF the statute
seemed. there was an absence oil
unanimity in regard to Its interpreta
ton. With that situation confronting
the government and the defendants
the suit was begun with the genera
belief that the entire business world
would feel the effect OF the outcome
of the gigantic struggle
The government claimed that two
sections Of the Sherman antitrust law
had been violated. The first section
reads as follows:
Every contract, combination in the
form Of trust or otherwise, or con-
spiracy, in restraint of trade or COM
merce among the several states. or
with foreign nations, is hereby de-
clared to be Illegal"
The second section reads:
Every person (Which subsequently
was explained in the statute to In
clude corporations) who shall monopo-
lie or attempt to monopoIize or COM
bine or conspire with any part of
trade or commerce among the several
states, or with foreign nations, shall
be deemed guilty of misdemeanor. :"
The Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey,
some seventy subsidiary corporations,
John d. Rockefeller, william Rookie
teller, Henry NJ Flagler, Henry H.
Rogers, John ID. Archbold, oliver H.
Payne and Charles NJ. Pratt, all de-
PENDANTS In the suit, denied the
charges.
Months were spent in gathering evil
dence. The general line of attack as
shown by evidence presented by the
government was this: 1t claimed that
about 1870 the Rockefellers and Flagler
conceived the idea of controlling the
petroleum trade Of the country, and
little later entered into a conspiracy
with Rogers, Archbold, Payne and
Pratt to gain control of the oil bust
ness. To carry out this alleged con-
spiracy 1t was claimed, they first
pooled" their interests, then put them
into the hands of trustees of trusts"
and finally when the trust of 1882 was
declared void" in a decision by the
Ohio supreme court j.. a proceeding
against the Standard Oil Co. of Ohio,
reorganized the Standard Oil Co. of
New Jersey to take over their inter-
ests and to secure monopoly. Evidence
of rebating, of price cutting, and Of
the organization of secret concerns to
pose as Independents were elected TO
show that the Standard was seeking
by unfair means to restrain trade and
to procure a monopoly.
STANDARD Oil" introduced evidence
to show that there never had been
such a conspiracy 1t sought to prove
that the Ohio supreme court did not
hold the trust agreement of 1882 void,
but merely required the Standard Oil
Co. of Ohio to withdraw from the
trust
Evidence was produced to show that
rebating had been the order of the
day among all commercial concerns,
that price cutting and secret concerns
were not the rule and were used as
legitimate instruments Of competition.
The circuit court held that the re-
organization of the Standard Oil Co.
of New Jersey in 1899 was not only
@ violation OF the first section of the
act, which referred to restraints Of
trade, but also of the second section
which applied to monopolizing. The
Standard Oil had argued that there
could be no additional restraint as
result Of reorganization because the
Standard Oil Co. OF New Jersey was
owned by common body of owners
in exactly the same proportion that
all the subsidiary companies taken
over by this new organization had been
held by these same common owners
for years past, The court held other
wise and said that the combination in
a single corporation or person. by an
exchange Of stock of the power Of
many stockholders holding the same
proportions respectively of the ma
jority of the stock of each of several