Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/230

 could not believe it, nor did they until they found, the morning it was to be presented, that the Senator having it in charge had disappeared, taking with him the bill and everything concerning it. Four days later the Legislature adjourned, and the precious Senator, when next heard from, was in the far West!

Deprived of this hope, and condemned to a litigation which was certain to be made as long, as vexatious, and as costly as lawyers could make it, the chief counsel of the United States Pipe Line, Roger Sherman, advised a bold move—to bring suit against the Standard Trust under the Sherman anti-trust law. The summons was issued in July, 1897, by John Cunneen, of Buffalo. A very pretty list of wrongs it was of which the plaintiff complained: the instigation of lawsuits and the causing of injunctions without cause, and solely for the purpose of preventing the independent line from doing business; the publishing of libellous matter concerning the company and its officers in newspapers controlled by the trust; engaging bodies of men to tear up parts of pipe-line already laid; enticing away from the enterprise officers, agents and employees; chartering or purchasing any vessels carrying independent oil, solely for the purpose of interfering with the independent market; intimidating merchants by threats of underselling until they refused to buy the oil contracted for; criminal underselling solely for destroying the plaintiff's markets.

It was a serious case Mr. Sherman made out, and the evidence he collected was elaborate and detailed. But, for a sad reason, it was never to come to trial. Less than two months after the summons was issued Mr. Sherman died suddenly in New York City. The shock of his death was such that the independent companies had no heart for the suit, but allowed it to lapse.

There was nothing now but the slow course of Jersey jus-