Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/375

 thereof, and maintaining an unnaturally high price, said plaintiff entered into said so-called agreement under the form of a joint arrangement or adventure, and for no other purpose, and contributed to the capital of said so-called adventure the sum of $10,000, whereas those defendants contributed thereto the sum of $73,000 and their time and attention, and their refinery had the capacity for refining 180,000 barrels of crude oil per year, as plaintiff well knew, and said plaintiff thereby, and by said other contracts made with the same design, succeeded in creating a substantial monopoly and averting competition and maintaining an unnaturally high price for refined oil, and that said so-called agreement is therefore in restraint of trade and against public policy, and void.

These defendants further say that defendants have from time to time paid to plaintiff their full share of the profits of said so-called adventure, and at no time has plaintiff been required to pay any sum whatever to defendants, but has realised large profits from said business, and on the fourth day of March, 1880, with full knowledge of how much oil in excess of 85,000 barrels per year had been manufactured by defendants, demanded of said defendants that they should pay to plaintiff the entire profits upon said excess, and claimed that its monopoly was so perfect that it would have sold said excess if defendants had not, and defendants did pay to plaintiff the one-half of the profits on said excess.