Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/459

 209 U.S. Opinion of the Court. had been loaned money by the president of the Gulf Company, whereby control of the Shawnee Company might be obtained and the lease authorized. This, however, we may put out of view. It may be conceded that the evidence shows that the Shaw- nee Company was financially embarrassed, and its condition might have justified a lease of its property if that had been all it did. It, however, covcnantcd for its assistance in dis- couraging competition against its tenant, and bound itself not to "directly or indirectly engage in the compressing of cotton within fifty miles of any plant operated by the tenant." So far it covcnanted to aid in the restraint of trade. It went out of the field of competition; it covenanted not to enter into that field again, and .it pledged itself to render every assistance to prevent others from entering it. And it could not misunderstand the purpose for which its lease was solicited. It was told by the prcsldent of the Gulf Compress Company. In a letter dated April 18, 1905, addressed to it by the presi- dent of that company, among other inducements, the following was expressed: "Our getting together on a lesc proposed means the avoiding for each other, directly or indireetly, of the possibility, if not probability, of unnecessary competition." And what was the comlition to which the Shawnee Company contributed? It aptwars from the letter just mentioned that the writer was president of two companie., which operated "forty odd compre,es." Twenty-seven of tbem, it appears from the testimony, were oil, rated by thc Gulf Conapany, six only of which it owned. Most of the latter wcrc acquired in the stunruer preceding the lease, and the president of the Gulf Company testified that "we are prepared to buy or lease, whichever proposition suits us best." To what object was the assembling in one ownership or management so many com- presses, and keeping the means and declaring the purpose of acquiring more? The answer would seem to be obvious. The flint effect would necessarily be the cessation of competition. If there was left a possibility of o'her compresses being con-

�