FIFTY-YEAR TRIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 25 March 1907, Page 4

FIFTY-YEAR TRIAL.

939 INDICTMENTS AGAINST TRUST MAGNATES. NEW YORK, January ]5. Hostilities on the part of the State ajjaiiist tho Standard Oil Trust have now beguD in earnest. All attempts to crush the hydra-headed company by means of generalised charges based on th« Anti-Trust laws having hitherto been baulked by the ingenuity of Mr Rockefellers attorneys, the grand jury of Findlay, Ohio, agreed to return 939 indictments, providing for every possible contingency in the way of legal quibbles, against Mr "Rockefeller and his associates in ihe Standard Oil and five, subsidiary companies, v-nt'h their presidents. Each person in tho company is accused 'of having acted in violation of the Valentin i .Anti-Trust Law, and separate indictments are entered dealing with each day since the bfiVncv is alleged to have begun three year? ago. The indictments, which 181 many volumes of foolscap, make possible the infliction of lines aggregating £12,000,000 and imprisonment for terms totalling from 192 years to 939 years. Mr Rockefeller, il ,turn! guilty, may bo sentenced to 164 years in gaol. It is expected that the aves will oome up for hearing at the end of February. Unless the defendants' counsel agree to a joint trial, it is estimated that proceedings cannot last less than fifty years.