The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1911-01-13
STANDARD OIL ON TRIAL

UifiKUntiU Oll Wv ilttfk
Washington, Jan. 1.-THE Stan
dard Oh! company in New Jersey
| the Rockefeller holding company
| today began its fight for life before
the supreme court of the United
States, pleaded not guilty to the
governments charge of being the
most colossal monopoly in the coun-
try, and through costly legal repre-.
sentatives entered into the final bat
tie for preservation of it's corpor-
ate existence.
The argument in the Standard Oil
case today is the elimination of a
long and hard fought legal battle.
1t marks the submission to the high
est court of the biggest trust bust
ing suit ever undertaken by the gov
eminent, and one that has been
waged by the highest priced legal
talent obtainable. 1t is aimed at the
dissolution of the most gigantic octo-
pus of the business and industrial
world, and personally names the
world RICHEST man. 1t has been,
all things considered, probably the
most costly litigation in which the
government has ever been involved.
Attorney General Wickersham, in
his argument on the same case last
year before the court, declared it a..
his opinion that the Standard Oil
suit was probably the most import
ant ever before the supreme court. )"
Additional interest centers in the
argument begun today by reason of
the fact that Justice Willis VanDe-
vanter, one of President Taft's recent
appointees to the Highest Bench,
participated, as a judge Of the Sth
circuit court in a decision against
the trust. Heretofore a justice of
the court who is called upon to sit
in an appeal of case tried before
him in a lower court, has always re-
Trained from participation in the re-
view, but in the case of Justice Van
Devanter, it was President Taft's de-
sire that he should sit.
In brief, the charges which Attor-
neys John G. Millburn OF New York
and John G. Johnson, of Philedal-
phia, are seeking to controvert in
the day and half of argument allot.
ted to them, include a conspiracy al
| legged to have had it's conception in
1870; a growth into gigantic proper
lions, fed by illegal rebate, fostered
by unfair competition, and made al
/ most impregnable through domina-
ton of the market.
! They must prove to the court, to
secure reversal Of the decision OF
| the lower tribunal, that this growth
has been the result of extraordinary
business acumen, that the combina-
ton of interests was not a trust for
evil, and that at present, the Stand
ard Oil Company does not control
the Oil business.
Against these arguments, Frank
Kellogg, special assistant to the At
torney General and Attorney Gen.
eral Wickersham will relate in an
amazing story of high finance, mar
ket manipulation, and oppression OF
competitors.
Kellogg, who will make the main
argument for the government, has
been counsel in the two suits insti-
tuted by the government against the
Standard Oil Company. He has been
working to accomplish the downfall
of the Standard since early in 1906
first as the governments mainstay
in the famous s29,OOO,OOO suit
against the Standard Oil Company
OF Indiana, one of the subsidiary
corporations of the parent, or New
Jersey Company-and, since Noven1-