Horace Harmon Lurton

“ In the instant case the extent of the control over the limited supply of anthracite coal by means of the great proportion theretofore owned or controlled by the defendant companies, and the extent of the control acquired over the independent output which constituted the only competing supply, affords evidence of an intent to suppress that competition, and of a purpose to unduly restrain the freedom of production, transportation, and sale of the article at tide water markets. ”

“ Prior to 1900, we find no evidence of any combination or agreement for the procurement of contracts of sale with independent operators. Upon the contrary, there is much to indicate that there was more or less competition for coal accessible to more than one of the buying defendants. The effect of competition is shown by the gradual rise in the price the great companies were willing to pay. In the earliest stages of the business the buying price seems to have been fixed with some relation to the varying wage scale of miners. ”

“ But in the power which each other group would have to compete would be found a corrective. The statute forbids the concerted action which has already brought about the strangling of a projected competing railroad and the complete control of the sale of an immense tonnage of independent coal which had prior thereto not only been a menace to their collective control of the means of transportation to New York harbor points, but a large competing factor in sales at these points. ”

“ To treat the bill as one seeking to apply the prohibition of the act of Congress to each one of these independent combinations would condemn the pleading as a plain misjoinder of parties and of causes of suit, and a plain confession of multifariousness. ”

“ Excluding the Temple Iron Company, the groups as arranged are independent of each other, and each group, in the absence of any agreement or combination, possesses the power to compete with every other in the production, sale, and transportation of coal from the mines to tide water. ”

“ Excluding two carrier companies not made defendants, which reach but a limited number of collieries,-the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and the New York, Ontario, & Western Railroad Company,-the six carrier companies who are defendants are shown to control the only means of transportation between this great anthracite deposit and tide water, from whence the product may be distributed by rail and water to the great consuming markets of the Atlantic coast states. ”

“ The bill alleges that anthracite coal is an article of prime necessity as a fuel, and finds its market mainly in the New England and middle Atlantic states. The deposits of the coal, with unimportant exceptions, lie in the state of Pennsylvania, but do not occupy a continuous field, though found in certain counties adjoining in the eastern half of the state, and embrace an area of 484 square miles. ”

“ That any such pooling agreement was made is denied most earnestly by all of the defendants. That there occurred a conference in 1896 looking to such an arrangement seems probable on the evidence. But the weight of proof satisfies us that whatever might have been contemplated or attempted, the scheme proved abortive, or, if attempted, was abandoned long before this bill was filed. We do not set out the circumstances which are pointed out as tending to show such an illegal agreement, nor do we deem it necessary to discuss the conflicting direct testimony. We have gone through the record. ”

“ And whereas the independent operators and the general public are now largely at the mercy of the existing railroad companies, which charge unreasonable rates for their services, owing in part to the large amounts for which the said companies have been capitalized ”

“ The result was that a form of contract and a price was mutually agreed upon, being the form of the 65 per cent contracts, which were thereafter entered into as the short term agreements theretofore made expired. Thus the independents put in force the advance wage scale imposed by the strike arbitrators before any agreement whatever was made or promised by the defendants. This increased scale which the arbitration imposed having been accepted by the large companies could not be successfully resisted by the independents. ”

“ He then reported the organization of the Delaware Valley & Kingston Railroad, backed by the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and the proffer of this latter company to purchase coal from operators in the Wyoming and Lehigh region, paying 65 per cent of the tide-water price for chestnut and larger; 50 per cent for pea coal, and a flat 85 per cent freight rate on buck-wheat and smaller sizes. These contracts were to be for all of the coal in the ground, thus settling permanently the price which the operator would receive. ”