Arizona republican., 1912-12-17
Supreme Court of United States Dissolves Agree ments Between Coal Car rying Roads in Pennsyl- Vanla
VIOLATION OF
 SHERMAN LAW
Court States, Howev yer, That Six Big Roads Have Control on Carrying Coal to Tidewater; Opinion by LurtOn
ASSOCIATED PRESS DIsPArcHl

WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 1G- The federal supreme court cancelled today as a violation of the Sherman law the contracts by which the rail- road coal companies of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields pur- chased the output for all time of the independent mines. Attorney Gen eral Wickersham tonight expressed his belief that the decision will SD completely destroy the combination which now controls the price of an thracite, that it must result in a dis tinct measure of relief to the public. The court ordered also the dissolu- tion of the railroad control of the Temple Iron company by which the ] principal railroads and coal com l panies were found to have strangled 1 the project to build a competing road 1 into the anthracite fields in 1898 and | by which the monopolizing schemes l be put into execution handily in the 1 future.
 ! The government failed, the court i held to show "a general combina- 1 ton to apportion the amount of coal
 to be put upon the market annually l by the various roads, and the gov 1 ernments other charges as to com bination were characterized as "in- definite
 The minor combinations were held
 to have been improperly included in i the petition of the government, and
 the proceeding against them was dis missed without prejudice to other ac- | tiOns by the government
 1 MT. Justice H H. Lurton announc- 1 ed the unanimous opinion of the
 court which for the purpose of this case consisted of only six members. 1 MT. Justice Day took no part in the
 discussion because he was absent
 from the bench when the case was
 argued in October, 1911. MT. Justice
 Hughes refrained from participating
 in the action of the court because he
 was special assistant attorney gen
 eral when the coal case was first in vestigated by the government. . MT Justice Pitney was not on the
 bench when the case was presented
 to the court
 The railroads concerned in the case
 were the Philadelphia and Reading.
 the Lehigh valley, Delaware; the
 Lackawanna and Western, the Gen. . tral railroad of New Jersey, the Erie
 and the New York, Susquehanna and Western.
 The minor combinations were not passed upon, but were left for fu , ture consideration. Those which were alleged to have been created in 1898 l by absorption of the New York, Sus-
 quehanna and Western by Erie, in s 1901, by the acquisition by the Read- ing company of the Central of New Jersey, with it's coal companies, and
 in 1899, by the acquisition by the
 Erie of the Pennsylvania Coal com pany, which was said to have been projecting new railroad, known as
 the Delaware Valley and Kingston.
 Justice Lurton dwelt upon the great factor the six railroads and their coal companies are in anthracite mining. 2 Over go per cent of the entire un- 2 mined area of anthracite is owned by I them, he declared and over 75 per = cent of the annual supply of the mar a ket is theirs. He said the tremen S dOuS influence of these companies i'll = this business is due to the liberal pol
 icy of Pennsylvania in encouraging = coal development by authorizing an