TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE
The District Attorney put the president of the light of the world on
the stand. His evidence showed that the purchase of the three-quarter's
interest in the Vacuum Company, sold because "there were restrictions
in the shipments," was made by the three New York men on trial. "They
are share-holders in the trust," he said. When they bought the stock
they transferred it to the oil trust. He had known of the contemplated
purchase. Having thus proved that the three indicted directors from
New York on trial were members of the oil trust, and were managing
the Vacuum for it, the District Attorney proceeded, in pursuance of a
logical plan of inquiry, to bring before the jury what the trust was,
and its relations to the companies it covered.
"What is it ... if you know?" the District Attorney asked. The
president, through his counsel, objected to the question.
"What is the object of this?" the judge asked the District Attorney.
The trust, the District Attorney explained, owns a majority of the
stock of this Vacuum Company and others, and controls the manufacture
in this country of substantially all the lubricating and illuminating
oils. These defendants belonging to the trust, and "one of these being
chairman of a committee of the trust, it was the desire and motive
of the three to do away with competition, to destroy and ruin the
competitive works in Buffalo."
The Court asked the president of the trust if it was a manufacturing
company.
"It is not, your honor."
The Court ruled out the question "What is it?" although in doing so he
used language apparently contradicting his ruling, saying, in effect,
that it was "quite immaterial what the objects or purposes of the oil
trust are, unless these defendants are in some way interested so as
to create a motive to do what it is claimed they did do." Again, when
the District Attorney sought to ascertain in what other corporations
engaged in the manufacture of oil in 1879, 1880, and 1881 the trustees
on trial owned stock, it was objected to and the objection sustained,
although the Court but a few moments before had said, "I will allow
you to show everything these defendants have done upon the question of
motive, ... to show what their business is, the companies they have
stock in, whether it is an oil company or some other company--that
is, any company engaged in the manufacture of oil that would come in
competition with the Buffalo company...."
The judge, declaring that he would admit such evidence, refused to
admit it. What the District Attorney would have been able to uncover
as to the responsibility of the "trustees" for what was done by the
subordinate companies, the reader, freer than the jury in this case,
can find out for himself.
The nine trustees, of whom three were on trial, owned as their
individual property more than half of this as of every establishment in
the trust. They decided who were to be elected directors and officers
of each company. They exercised full control over these officers
when elected. They declared the dividends. The profits of all these
shares are put into one purse, and distributed in quarterly dividends
among the trustees in proportion to their interest in the trust--the
purse-holder.[489] In the case of the Vacuum Company, accordingly, we
find that the minutes of stockholders' meetings record the presence
of members of the oil trust, in person and by proxy, representing
a majority of the stock, electing the officers and directors, and
declaring the dividends. How thorough and minute is the supervision
over the vassal companies an employé, who had been in the service of
the combination for several years in a confidential way, and "had
access to every book and paper and their cipher arrangement," has
told.[490] They "control every movement of every branch of their
business." The subordinate companies "make a report every day of all
their business.... They have blanks there on which they make a report
of all their shipments, where shipped, and who shipped to, and all
their purchases; and they report every month the exact percentage they
have made out of their crude oil, of all the different products they
get out of it. They report everything in detail."
This was in 1879. Ten years later, in 1888, the testimony of the
president shows that the system is the same. "They know the cost at
every refinery. They get such reports once in thirty days; each report
shows just what it has cost for everything.... Made out on regular
blanks."[491]
But when put on the stand in this case, in Buffalo, he had professed
himself altogether ignorant of any such reports.[492] Asked if the
Vacuum Company had made them, he replied:
"I can't recall any such reports."
Asked if it was obligatory upon the Vacuum Oil Company to make reports,
he said:
"I can't state."
But the manager's testimony in the same case shows that the system of
reports which his superior "could not recall" was in regular operation.
"There are reports of sales of the Vacuum Oil Company made to certain
parties in New York."[493]
The three trustees who bought the control of the Vacuum stock did
not keep it for themselves. They transferred it to the trust, and
received for it shares in the trust. They were not stockholders in
the Vacuum, but stockholders in the trust. It was the trust which was
the real stockholder in the Vacuum. The profits on this Vacuum stock,
therefore, went into the common fund in which the trust accumulated the
profits of all its controlling ownerships in companies all over the
country--all over the world. Every trustee shared in the profits of
every company so controlled, whether in the United States or Europe or
Asia. The president of the trust, now on the witness-stand, was a large
participator in the profits of the Vacuum, because he was a large owner
in the trust which possessed three-quarters of it. Similarly as to the
three trustees indicted and on trial, and every other trustee.[494]
The case was interwoven, notwithstanding the exclusion of this by the
judge, with evidence that the three members of the trust on trial
were the managers of the company for the trust, and were consulted
habitually about the current details by the salaried agents.
"After this purchase was made did you continue to represent the
purchasers in the management of the affairs of the Vacuum Oil Company?"
one of the three was asked.
"I did."
After the purchase of the Vacuum by the trust, Mr. Matthews, before he
left to go into business on his own account, had to go to its office
in New York half a dozen times, to see the New York directors when he
wanted instructions. His testimony on this point covers thirty pages of
the official testimony, and shows repeated interviews between him and
the members of the trust about every kind of detail of the business of
the Vacuum. When Matthews asked the manager of the Vacuum to give him
more pay, the latter had told him to speak to one of the trustees--one
of the three now on trial. "It will be as he says about it." Again, as
to another matter, he said to Matthews: "I cannot tell you. There is no
use for me to pretend that we run our business, for we do not."[495]
This evidence must be sought in the original records of the case at
Buffalo, as it is left out in the transcript furnished by the trust to
the committee of Congress, which represents the case against the two
local managers only. The Rochester manager, after the explosion, and at
the time of sending for Albert to come to New York, telegraphed to his
son: "Our views with regard to Albert confirmed." By whom? as Matthews'
lawyer asked. The manager saw one of the three accused trustees in New
York after he returned from the trip to Boston to hide Albert. "I told
him that I had hired him," he testified.
The trustee denied this, as the president denied the monthly reports.
But he has himself furnished the evidence that his employé told the
truth. In their answer in court to the allegations of the suit against
them for damages, he and the other two trustees concerned in the
Vacuum direction testified that they advised the Rochester managers
"to endeavor to retain the said" Albert, ... "and after" he "had left
the employment of the Vacuum Oil Company ... they further advised that
he should be re-employed if it could be done by reasonable increase of
his wages. They were afterwards informed that he had been re-employed."
This shows they knew about the negotiations before, during, and after.
They knew the man was to have more wages, though the increase was only
$300 a year, and their income was millions yearly. When he had been
gotten away they were informed of that too. The District Attorney knew
all about this answer in the civil case, but under the statutes of New
York it could not be used in a criminal prosecution against those who
had made it. He put the trustee on the stand, and did his best to get
him to tell the same story, but in vain.
The body-guard of lawyers surrounding the great men who made the
court-room a veritable curiosity-shop for the people of Buffalo, did
a deal of acting throughout the trial to impress on the jury that the
whole proceeding was a farce. They laughed and yawned and pooh-poohed,
and sneered at the District Attorney's questions and points, and went
through all kinds of dumb-shows of indignation and ennui that their
clients should be so needlessly called on to waste priceless time. But
this could not prevent their faces from lengthening as the story was
told by witness after witness, as more than one observant reporter
saw and noted. When the evidence was all in, and District Attorney
Quinby had closed his case, the situation was desperate. There was no
doubt about that. The great men of the trust on trial had been proved
to be the actual directors of the Vacuum at every turn of its daily
affairs. Before any evidence was introduced for the defence, one of
the distinguished lawyers arose and moved the discharge of the three
members of the trust, who were a majority of the Board of Directors
of the Vacuum Company, and managed it for the trust. The prosecution
were not taken unawares by the motion. The District Attorney's able
assistant, William L. Marcy, had gathered all the precedents and
equipped himself to resist the discharge. He and the District Attorney
fought hard to have the principals in the company go to the jury with
their agents, but in vain. Mr. Marcy pointed out that, as shown in the
case of The People _vs._ Mather, "to charge partners as conspirators it
is not necessary even to show that they were the original conspirators.
It is sufficient if at a subsequent time they become party to it by
accepting the benefits derived from the conspiracy. The case lays that
down in exact terms."
The Judge: "Must there not be an adoption?"
Mr. Marcy: "That is an adoption--accepting the benefits."
The Judge: "They may accept the benefits without knowing."
Mr. Marcy: "Then the jury may infer that knowledge from all the
circumstances. The jury are the tribunal to determine whether or not
the parties had the knowledge." Mr. Marcy pointed out that there was
everything to lead the jury to infer that these men were parties to the
plan. "Where did the meetings of the Board of Directors take place?
At Rochester, where the works are? No; at New York, where these men
carried on their other business. The Rochester representatives dance
in attendance wherever these New York parties desire them to go." He
pointed out to the judge that the trustee whom Albert met in New York
after the explosion knew of the plan to take him to Boston. He showed
that the same trustee, when remonstrated with by Matthews for bringing
patent suits without foundation, said that he intended to carry them
on, and if he was beaten in one court, he would carry them to a higher
court. Just in the same way the Rochester representative of the trust
had said: "I will bring lawsuits against you. I will get an injunction
against you." "When the Rochester manager," said Mr. Marcy, "hired
Albert, he did not pretend to be able to make a bargain until he had
been to New York and consulted about it. He was in New York before he
telegraphed to him to come to New York. This significant fact points
home the conspiracy upon the gentlemen who reside in New York."
But the judge, and not the jury, rendered the verdict as to the three
members of the trust on trial. He failed to remember or observe the law
that leaves it to the jury to render the verdict. He announced that he
had decided to grant the motion for their discharge. There was silence
in the court-room for a moment. Then: "Gentlemen of the jury, hearken
to your verdict as advised by the Court," came in sonorous tones from
the clerk; "you find the defendants"--naming the three members of the
oil trust at the bar--"not guilty of the crime, as charged in the
indictment, so say you all."
The jury looked scared at being addressed so peremptorily, but said
nothing.
"The New York men looked happy," said one of the observers, "but
their Rochester associates and codefendants did not smile." Upon the
discharge of the trustees, one of the Buffalo dailies said that whether
there was any conspiracy at all is an undecided question, but it should
be remembered that the oil trust and the Vacuum Oil Company "have been
honorably acquitted of the charge of having anything to do with the
matter. As the case now stands, it is simply The People against"--the
two Rochester managers.
Poor men! It was for this that they succumbed to the attacks of the
oil trustees upon their business, sold them for $200,000 three-quarters
of a concern which produced $300,000 in dividends in one year for
the lucky conquerors, became vassals instead of masters in their own
refinery. It was for $10,000 a year, divided into $6500 for one and
$3500 for the other, that they undertook to fetch and carry for their
suzerains, even to the gates of the penitentiary; and when discovery
and conviction came, to bear in silence upon their own shoulders the
guilt and shame from which others got only "more."
The trial of the two remaining defendants proceeded. Neither of them
took the stand. In a deposition the elder said it was Albert who had
spoken about misplacing the pipes; but when asked what he said in reply
to a suggestion, which no one better than he knew the significance
of, he replied: "I made no reply to it, but I thought it would be a
very scandalous proceeding."[496] Albert had told how, in conversation
in California, his employer had described his plans with regard to
Matthews.
"We would have just got them fellows in a boat, right in the middle
of the stream, and we would have tipped them two over, and drowned
them, and you would have been all right."[497] "If I ever made such a
remark," this defendant deposed, "it was in a playful humor. I am in
the habit of making playful remarks."
Witness after witness had to confess, under cross-examination, that
his testimony had been written and rewritten by himself or the lawyer
for the defence, and carefully conned before coming on the stand. The
District Attorney asked one of these tutored witnesses why he had read
over the written preparation of his testimony in the rotunda of the
court-house just before going on the stand.
"I read it over," he replied, lucidly, "for the simple reason of
reading it over."
"Just to practise in reading?"
"Well, perhaps we might call it practice in reading."[498]
"This preparation of the testimony," said the District Attorney to the
jury, "which I stigmatize as infamous, this going to a witness and
writing him down, and having him fix it, and write it over again, and
keeping it in his mind, and reading it over, and so going on the stand,
is not the way to try a lawsuit, in my mind. I write nothing down. I
coach no witnesses. I want a witness to tell me his story. I put him on
the stand and he tells me his story; but no writing down, no reading
over. It is not right, and it is very liable to be very wrong."
Several witnesses were introduced to prove that Matthews had offered
to settle the criminal prosecution. He could not have done so had he
wished to. The criminal case was in the hands of the State. Of the
witnesses who made this charge against Matthews, one was a stockholder
in the trust, another had been a stockholder in one of its pipe lines,
and both had to admit on cross-examination that the occasion of his
alleged agreeing to settle the case had been that they had gone to him
for their friends, unsolicited by him and unexpected, to find out at
what price he would sell his works to the combination." I was anxious
to settle the criminal prosecution," said one of these ambassadors.
"Anxious for whom?" asked the ever-ready District Attorney.
"I should say--nobody," replied the witness, in confusion.
"Mr. Matthews told him," said Mr. Hiram Benedict, one of the best-known
citizens of Lockport, who was present, "that if they bought the capital
stock of the company they could do what they chose with the civil
suits, but with the criminal suit he had nothing to do; the people had
that in charge."[499]
The lawyers tried to make a jest of the whole proceeding, and affected
to look upon the incidents of this rivalry with their powerful client
as something too trivial to be noticed. "Is it a trivial matter," asked
District Attorney Quinby, "that it shall be decided, once for all, in
a court of justice, that in an alleged republic you and I shall not
start a business which is a rival to some one else? That is the issue
here, and yet the lawyers for the accused tell us it is trivial. It
is the most important question that was ever left to a jury of twelve
men in this or any country in this age of monopoly." The jury thought
so too. The meaning of the policy of suppressing competition was
skilfully described by Judge Edward Hatch, Mr. Matthews' counsel in
the civil suit for damages, and here again the jury, representing the
people, thought so too. "When a man or a corporation is in a position
to control the market as to a given article, then everybody is within
their power, and it rests with their conscience to determine what
shall be the price. Every time you farmers at home, or your wives or
daughters, take your oil-can, turn it up, fill your lamp, and then
sit down to read by it, you can understand what is meant by this
proposition to crush these men out.... It was a matter that not only
these three men were interested in, but every person that lived in the
community. Competition would run along to a point where you could get
the oils that you use in your families, to grease your wagons, and to
burn in your houses, or for any other purpose, at a price that should
give the manufacturer a fair profit, and at the lowest possible price.
On the other hand, if you leave that open to these parties to regulate
as they saw fit, having a monopoly of the market, then you rest upon
the conscience of a corporation and put your faith in a soulless
individual."
It is one of the few bright lines in this picture that whenever the
people got a chance to make themselves heard, their utterance was
always right and true. The four juries which passed upon the facts
understood them, and had the moral standard by which to judge them
aright.
One of the trust's employés was put on the stand to break the effect
of the evidence that the competition of the new works had put down the
price of oil. "In the early part of 1881--the winter of 1881"--he said,
"common oil was 5-1/2 cents a gallon"--this to prove that the reduction
had preceded the appearance of the new refinery. He was confronted
by the District Attorney with one of his own bills of oil sold in
February, 1881. "That would seem to be a sale of 120 degrees oil at 12
cents a gallon," he confessed, and added, awkwardly, "I was asked as to
the winter of 1881. That is not the winter of 1881 as I understand. I
meant to speak from July, 1881, and so on."[500]
The great lawyers held up to the ridicule of the jury the idea that the
gases of distilling petroleum were dangerous. Matthews stated on the
stand that he had seen this gas burn up derricks, property, and several
men. The lawyers could not let anything so absurd go unchallenged.
"Did it explode?" he was asked smartly.
"Yes, sir."
"And how did the 'explosion' burn up the men and property?" with a
knowing look to the jury.
"The gases crept quietly to the boilers, unobserved," said the witness,
"and all at once the whole atmosphere was ablaze."
The witnesses who tried to prove that no harm could have resulted from
the tampering with the still broke down. One of them was the inspector
of oils at the combination's refinery at Cleveland. He, too, had once
been an independent refiner, but had passed under the yoke. He declared
with every possible variation of phrase that there could not have been
an explosion at the Buffalo works; but the District Attorney got out of
him piecemeal admissions that the "escaping petroleum gases would be
inflammable"; that "in a damp day you would expect them to settle close
to the still"; that then, if they came in contact with fire, "you would
have a large flash, and consume those vapors; if a person was in the
vicinity he would burn."
"I ask you if it would be a safe thing to fill a still with 175 barrels
of petroleum, put under it an extremely hot fire, so that the front
portion of the still is a cherry red, and a weighted safety-valve is
blown off--would you consider that a safe thing to do?"
"I would not."
Still another of these witnesses ended, like Balaam, by saying just the
opposite of what had been wanted of him. He testified that the escape
of gases from the stills, and even their ignition, was a matter of no
consequence--"it may occur at any time"--until he was cross-examined.
It turned out then that his own works had been burned three times by
the gases from distillation taking fire. "These gases," he had to
admit, "took fire and burned the receiving-house. A man got burned up
with it."
"Are you willing," the District Attorney asked, sarcastically, "to go
down to the Buffalo works and have them run some vapor, on a quiet day,
on the ground, and let you stand in the middle of it and touch it off?"
"I am not anxious to do that."[501]
Every one looked to see Matthews crushed by the cross-examination, in
accordance with the widely advertised promises of the counsel on the
other side.
"As he stood up to take the oath," said the New York _World_, "and
confronted the men with whom he had been at sword's-point for six
years, men of unlimited wealth and almost unlimited influence, and
controlling the most gigantic monopoly of any age or any country,
Charles B. Matthews looked, as a good observer said, what he proved
himself to be, a fighter, who will never know when he is whipped. Hard
knocks and a struggle of years against an all-powerful enemy have
whitened his hair, and set firm, hard lines about his face. His eyes
are deep-set under a protruding forehead and black, bushy lashes, and
are dark, firm, and searching. His jet-black beard is luxuriant but
coarse, his whole head and face bespeak the dogged persistence in
following a foe that is characteristic of the man. He is tall, well
built, and with those whom he knows to be friends he is kindly and
almost jovial in his manner." He told his story, and the jury believed
it. One of the most damaging portions of his testimony was that given
to connect the New York members of the trust with the conspiracy by
showing that they had the actual, practical, continuous management of
the Vacuum in matters small as well as large. Matthews, when in their
employ, was kept running to New York continually to see one or the
other of them about some detail of the business. Seeking to break down
the force of this testimony, the big gun of the legal battery opened on
him.
"But you did not see the name" of the oil combination "up over the
office that you went into (in New York)?"
"I do not think I ever saw the name over the office that I went into. I
think that name is not often in view over where they do business."
"What makes you think so?"
"My experience and observation."
"What experience and observation have you had?"
"Do you want I should tell it all?"
"No, you need not tell it all. We will let that go now." Matthews had
been in their employ. He knew about the staff of lobbyists they keep to
go from capital to capital as needed.
For lack of evidence the jury was offered abuse of Matthews, spoken by
the brilliant attorney on a shout which enabled the populace outside
the court-house to hear his speech, and, as the verdict proved,
deafened the jury to his eloquence. The jury preferred the view given
by the District Attorney. "When I look upon the troubled face of
Matthews," said District Attorney Quinby in his closing of the case, "I
know what is coming upon his head. When I know the struggle he has gone
through, the integrity that is in his heart, I would say to him, 'Well
done, good and faithful servant, you have withstood the powerful arm
of this insatiable corporation. You stand to-day honored from one end
of this land to the other.' ... I am proud that in the county of Erie
has been born a gentleman who has had the bravery and fortitude he has
shown."