Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/192

 to terminate the trust agreement, in accordance with the terms of said agreement, and to take such further action as may be thereby rendered necessary.

, Secretary.

The meeting was held as called. Mr. Rockefeller was in the chair, and Mr. Dodd, who had drawn the trust agreement, now presented the resolution which was to dissolve it. The remarks with which Mr. Dodd introduced his resolution denied every point which the courts had charged against the combination:

"Something over ten years ago," said Mr. Dodd, "a few individuals owning stocks in a number of corporations engaged in transporting and refining oil, entered into an agreement by which their stocks were placed in the hands of trustees, and certificates were issued by said trustees showing the amount of each owner's equitable interest in the stocks so held in trust. This was not done in order to vest the voting power in the hands of a few persons, because the persons chosen as trustees then held, and always have held, the voting power by virtue of their absolute ownership of a majority of the stocks. It was not done to reduce competition, because the companies whose stocks were placed in trust were not competing companies, and could not be so long as their stocks were owned by these few persons. It was not done to limit production or to increase prices, but, on the contrary, was done to increase production, cheapen cost of manufacture, and to lower prices, and it has been successful in that object far beyond the anticipations of those who originated the plan. It was called a trust, because it was a trust in the sense in which the word was then understood. It vested a fiduciary obligation in a few for the benefit of many, and the trustees thus created have faithfully observed the trust confided in them.

"Other persons, however, found this trust plan a convenient one, and it is alleged that it has been adopted for and adapted to purposes quite different from those which actuated the framers of this trust. Whether these allegations be true or false, it is true that a trust is now defined to be a combination to suppress competition and to reduce production, and to increase prices. Public opinion has not unwisely been aroused against combinations for such purposes, and legislation of more or less severity, and rather more or less peculiarity, has been directed against them in seventeen or eighteen states of the Union. All such arrangements are now miscalled trusts, and all trusts are popularly supposed to partake of the same nature. For this reason, if for no other, it should be seriously considered whether this trust should not be terminated. So long as it exists, misconception of its purposes will exist.

"But another reason exists which seems to make it desirable to dissolve this trust.