Trusts and the Courts

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 14.

Trusts and the Courts

Trusts.—The great asphalt trust has been deprived of its powers by a recent court decision, and now, says a Philadelphia despatch, the whole country is thrown open to real competition in the matter of street-paving. A Chicago despatch of March 24 announces that the consolidation of all the telegraph and telephone companies of the United States is under serious consideration. The report is that the Postal and Western Union will be absorbed by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Another despatch of the same date announces the incorporation of the National Packing Company, with a capital of $15,000,000, and J. P. Lyman as president. It includes several concerns in Chicago, Omaha, and other places. The papers were taken out in New Jersey, and the trust is expected to do a business of $140,000,000 a year. A short time ago several coal corporations and individual operators were tried in the State Court of Illinois on a charge of combining to raise the price of coal and to restrict the output, thus bringing on the coal famine in Chicago. The case was dismissed on the ground that the offense was against the Federal law and not against the law of Illinois. Now, however, that the case has been heard in a United States Circuit Court, the decision of Judge Kohlsaat has been rendered against the coal companies, and they have been enjoined not to enter into any combination to fix prices of coal in a manner to destroy competition.