FAVOURS FOR THE OIL TRUST

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1079, 18 March 1911, Page 5

FAVOURS FOR THE OIL TRUST

« — RAILROAD COMPANIES FINED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrieht . Naw York, March 16! The Central and Pennsylvania Hailroad Companies have been fined respectively £71500 and £4000 for illegally granting rebates to the Standard Oil Trust. The litigation began in 1907, THE FIGHT AGAINST THE TRUST. A LONG STRUGGLE. The standard Oil Company has been before the-American Courts on numerous occasions recently as a party to various alleged illegal transactions. In the State of Indiana it was heavily lined lor accepting rebates from the railways. A civil suit for the dissolution of tho Oil Trust is now before the American Courts.' At the bearing in January Mr. Prank Keliog, the special. Government Attorney, claimed to have shown that 80 per cent, of the refined oil used in the Jnited States and exported was furnished by tho trust, and this he declares was prima-facie evidence of tjie existence of monopoly; that as early as 1870 seven men,' of whom Mr; John D. Rockefeller was the head, joined partnership in an agreement designed to suppress competition in the oil trade, ana that between 1870 and 1882 agreements with other oil companies were made with this purpose; and .that by 1882 these seven men had stock enough in oil companies to control tho operation of the industry, and that competition had been suppressed. iU ' . In his address to the Court, Mr. Kelloj; contended that tjie Ohjo., Supremo Court' .ordered-., the trust's, (lis-; solution, the conipany pretended to dis-' solve, but were in reality operating as they had before tho Ohio decision. Ho declared that in 1899 the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey became a liold;ing company to evade tho Ohio decision, the holding company'acting as the trustee of subsidiary stock instead of the original seven men; that at the same time tho. New Jersey company's capital was raised from ,£2,000,000 to ,£20,000,000, atid that the company's charter empowered it to buy the stock of subsidiary companies. Mr. Milburn, counsel for tho trust, related the story of the . "poor bov,", John Rockefeller, from tho time when he was a clerk in a country grocery to his present position of the world's richest man. In answer to this Mr. Keliog drew a pathetic picturo of the straits to which opoonents of the trust had been brought by this "wonderfully philanthropic institution." Ho showed how for many mouths after tho Government had decided to tako stronger action against the trust there were hearings to tho number of 144 in various cities, and how the rich generals of the oil industry and the crushed, broken drivers of the single competing oil wagons flonked to the hearings to tell their stories. The testimony taken, the Government filed its final brief before the St. Louis Court, and asked that the cas« be advanced for the Government, and the trust, was ordered to be dissolved within thirty da vs. A. stay of execution was granted pendinz an anneal, and it is now this appeal which is being heard by the Supremo Court.