Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1909. MORE ABOUT STANDARD OIL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, 1 February 1909, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1909. MORE ABOUT STANDARD OIL.

THE FINE ON THE WATERS PIERCE COMPANY. A RTCENT cablegram from New York announced that the United States Supremo Court had affirmed the decree of the Texas Court, fining the Waters Pierco Oil Company the sum of 1,623,---000 dollars (about £325,000) and expeling it from Texas for violating the Anti-Trust law. It is one thing for even the Supreme Court of Americ*. to uphold the judgment of a State Court and quite another to recover the fine. But a few particulars of the extraordinary developments and ramifications of the Standard Oil Trust leading up to | the trial and "punishment" of the Waters Pierce Oil Company — one of the incarnations of Standard Oil— may be of interest to the general reader. The case was one of a largo number of prosecutions against the Standard Oil Trust instituted in the various States wherein it operates. The action was commenced towards the close of last year in the District Court for an injunction against the continuance of the Standard Oil Company in Texas. About six weeks ago it was announced that the subsidiary companies had been ousted, and that tho Court had made an order dissolving the Waters Pierce Oil Company, of Saint Louis. Each company was fined SO.OOOdoI. for breaches of the law. John D. Rockefeller, in testifying recently before the Inquiry Commission at New York, gave an account of the origin and methods of the great and mysterious financial organisation which has spread its tentacles all over the United States, till it is stronger than the law itself. In its early days, before it became known by its present name — long before it ramified into the two great organisations one actually dealing in oil and the other with predatory finance in all its branches — it reached ont its arms for more and more of the oil refineries of its rivals, and fattened on them for ten years or more, till it became strong enough to change into what became "the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. That was the first trust organised in the history of American commerce. Between 1872 and 1882 the Rockefeller combine bought and bought its rivals, and when it was strong enough it organised them all in the famous trust. Mr Rockefeller said that the company was constantly reaching out for more refineries pnd more markets. It bought refineries to get them out of competition and to get their business. That is the way (writes the* New York correspondent of the London "Daily Telegraph") Mr H. H. Rogers and Mt John D. Archbold went into the company. They were bought up. Both were strong, brilliant, and bold. The Rockefeller combine had to get them out of the way. It absorbed their rival concerns and them at the same time. Mr Rockefeller went on to say that Mr Rogers, the most prominent figure in the active business of the Oil Trust since its creator retired to the golf links, was "acquired" with Charles Pratt and Company, of Brooklyn. He was Mr Pratt's partner. They had a great trade in astral oil. Mr Rockefeller wanted the trade, the plant, and Mr Rogers, whose brains he appreciated. They wero absorbed. And so the *iory x-a.c. Xho t-eut-a<r*.=» t>f grow. ing Trust first caught the Long Island Refining Island, of Long Island. The Devoe Can Company, which made the kind of cans the Rockefellers wanted for their oil, was absorbed. They reduced the prico of the cans from. 10a to 2s. The Imperial Refining Company, of Oil City, was gobbled up; Chess, Carley, and Company, of Louisville, followed. Then the RogeTs and Archbold concerns and the Wardenfrewe Company fell victims to the determined policy. It was an amazing story of the gradual and continuous development of contracts and agreements with all sorts and classes of men, ranging from a small trader to a big railway oompany. • • '• • • • Tho Waters Pierce Oil Company, of Texas, and its connecting links, have been fined heavily for a breach of the Texas Anti-Trust law, and the United States Supreme Court has affirmed the decision. But it may be yeare, if Jhen, before the fine is recoverable, and the companies are really driven out of Texas. The suit in which Mr Rockefeller was called was filed nearly two years ago. Testimony has been taken before a referee in New York, Washington, Cleveland, Albany, and Chicago, in September, October, and December, 1907, and January, May, September, October, and November, last year. The records of late total about 5.000,000 words, and before the close of the year they comprised 15 large volumes of testimony, together with six volumes containing exhibits. A similar appeal and investigation may follow each individual case dealt wilK in '.oral Stato Courts, and it is easy to see how the law can be defied and held back by the "dollar pull." r~