It is to be noted that many of those corporations were combinations of several business enterprises, just as it was shown above that the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, within two years of its organization, was in control of some forty different plants, previously competitors.

In 1892 the Supreme Court of Ohio declared this trust agreement void. Apparent dissolution of the trust followed, but the dissolution amounted to transfer of stock held in some sixty-four companies controlled by the trust to the remaining twenty companies. The nine trustees and immediate members of their families still owned together enough stock to maintan control as effectively as before this "dissolution." Contempt proceedings were instituted in 1897 by the attorney-general of Ohio-on the claim that the trust had not been dissolved according to the court decree, and proceedings were also begun to forfeit the charter of the Buckeye Pipe Line Company on the ground that it was connected with the illegal trust. The complicated situation, developed by the partial dissolution, and these further attacks led to a new form of organization whch opens the third and last period of the story.

In January, 1899, the charter of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was so amended as to give it sweeping powers of a holding company The capital stock of this company which had been since 1892 $10,000,000, was raised to $110,000,000 and the trustees of the Ohio trust continued to be a majority of the board of directors. The stock of the various corporations controlled by the trust was transferred to this Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, in return for certificates of its common stock to the amount of $97,250,000. Ten million dollars of the $110,000,000 was preferred stock which was subsequently retired leaving the capitalization $100,000,000.*

In the new oil fields developed in California, southeastern Kansas, northern Indian Territory, and northern Oklahoma, the Standard built or acquired refineries and pipe lines which extended its control over the oil business of these fields.

When, in November, 1906, suit was filed in the Circuit Court of Missouri against the oil combination, the bill set forth that the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, about seventy subsidiary corporations and seven individuals were engaged in a conspiracy to restrain and to monopolize commerce in petroleum and its products. In the Supreme Court decision of this case, in May, 1911, Mr. Chief Justice White thus summarized the charges of the bill as to various means employed by the Standard Oil Trust from 1882 to 1899 and by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey since 1899, by which the combination sought to maintain its monopoly: "Rebates, preferences, and other discriminatory practices

*The actual outstanding capital stock of the Oil Combination ranged from $71,000,000 to $73,400,000 from 1882 to 1887; rose to $90,000,000 from 1887 to 1890; rose to $96,900,000 in 1890, and from 1891 to 1900 was $97,250,000. It rose slightly until 1904 since when it has remained to date $98,338,300.

On the outstanding stock at the respective dates the following dividends were paid:

1882, 4%; 1883-84, 6%; 1885-87, 10%; 1888, 11%; 1889 to 1894, 12%; 1895, 17%; 1896, 31%; 1897, 33%; 1898, 30%; 1899, 33%; 1900-01, 48%; 1902, 45%; 1903, 44%; 1904, 46%; 1905 to 1910, 40%; 1911, 37%; 1912 to 1915 inclusive 20%.

in favor of the combination by railroad companies; restraint and monopolization by control of pipe lines; contracts with competitors in restraint of trade; unfair methods of competition, such as local price-cutting at the points where necessary to suppress competition; espionage of the business of competitors, the operation of bogus independent companies, and payment of rebates on oil, with the like intent; the division of the United States into districts and the limiting of the operations of the various subsidiary corporations as to such districts so that competition in the sale of petroleum products between such corporations had been entirely eliminated and destroyed; and finally reference was made to what was alleged to be the 'enormous and unreasonable profits' earned by the Standard Oil Trust and the Standard Oil Company as a result of the alleged monopoly; which presumably was averred as a means of reflexly inferring the scope and power acquired by the alleged combination."*

The decreet ordering the dissolution of the company was followed by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, which, in a letter of July 28, 1911, to its stockholders notified them that it was required "to distribute or cause to be distributed‡, ratably, to its stockholders the shares of stock of the following corporations, which it owns directly or through its ownership of stock of the National Transit Company, to wit: Anglo-American Oil Company, Limited; The Atlantic Refining Company; Borne-Scrymser Company; The Buckeye Pipe Line Company; Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, Consolidated; Colonial Oil Company; Continental

*221 U. S. 42, 43.

†See pp. 297 for statement of this case and decision.

In the process of the dissolution the stocks of thirty-three subsidiary companies were distributed to the shareholders of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey on December 1, 1911. This resulted in some complicated applications of arithmetic fractions. For example of a share in the Swan and Finch Company (with a face value of ten cents) and of a share in the Ohio Oil Company (face value $15.25) were distributed to each share in the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.

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Oil Company; The Crescent Pipe Line Company; Cumberland Pipe Line Company, Incorporated; The Eureka Pipe Line Company; Galena-Signal Oil Company; Indiana Pipe Line Company; National Transit Company; New York Transit Company; Northern Pipe Line Company; The Ohio Oil Company; The Prairie Oil and Gas Company; The Solar Refining Company; Southern Pipe Line Company; South Penn Oil Company; South West Pennsylvania Pipe Lines; Standard Oil Company (California); Standard Oil Company (Indiana); The Standard Oil Company (Kansas); Standard Oil Company (Kentucky); Standard Oil Company (Nebraska); Standard Oil Company of New York; The Standard Oil Company (Ohio); Swan & Finch Company; Union Tank Line Company; Vacuum Oil Company; Washington Oil Company; Waters-Pierce Oil Company.

"Such distribution will be made to the stockholders of the Standard Oil Company (of New Jersey) of record on the 1st day of September, 1911; and, for that purpose, the transfer books of the Company will be closed on the 31st day of August, 1911, at 3 o'clock P. M., and kept closed until the date when said stocks are ready for distribution, which it is expected will be about December 1, 1911.

"Notice of the date when said stocks are to be distributed and of the reopening of the books will be duly given.”*

In accordance with this court decree, the combination was separated into thirty-eight companies which are not to have common officers or directors.. There is much common ownership of the shares of these companies, making possible a working understanding to common ends.

The actual monopolistic power achieved by the Oil Combination is stated in the reports of the Bureau of Corporations on the Petroleum Industry,† covering data for 1904

*Stevens, W. S., Industrial Combinations and Trusts, pp. 462-463.

†Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Petroleum Industry, 1907.