CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION
The jury was composed of nine farmers, one tailor, one store-keeper,
and one railroad foreman. "So intelligent a jury," said the Buffalo
_Express_, "is proof perfect that the verdict it returns is the
only one warranted by the law and evidence." The jury found all the
defendants guilty whom the court allowed them to try. The verdict,
"Guilty as charged in the indictment," was given May 18, 1887. Every
possibility of appeal and reversal was resorted to. The judge granted
a stay, and this left the defendants unsentenced. A motion for a new
trial postponed the day of fate until December 24, 1887.
When the judge decided against the new trial an appeal was taken, and
was carried through every court except the highest. Legal procedure
in New York makes the courts a hunting preserve for those who can
afford the luxuries of litigation. The law was changed by the Field
code so that demurrers and counter-appeals, proceedings and ancillary
proceedings, on technical points can be carried, one after another,
from court to court, while the real point at issue has to wait untried
below for the results of this interminable contest. By grace of
this power to carry preliminary and technical questions from court
to court, at the pleasure of quibbling and appealing lawyers and
procrastinating judges, from courts of Oyer and Terminer to the Supreme
Court at General Term, to the Court of Appeals, rich corporations and
individuals are able to tire out altogether all ordinary opponents.
It was only by help of very able and highly paid lawyers, officers of
the courts and of justice, that the law of New York was "reformed,"
so that the technical parts of a case could be to such an extent
disengaged from the main body, and sent forward and backward, up and
down, through the whole series of appeals, consuming endless time and
money, while poor men seeking justice kick their heels in the lowest
courts.
As the time for pronouncing sentence came on, petitions for mercy were
circulated in Buffalo and Rochester. The members of the jury which
had found the accused guilty were labored with separately to sign
a recantation. Only six succumbed and signed a statement that the
prisoners were found guilty, not because they had conspired to blow up
their rival's refinery, but because they had enticed away Albert. This
recantation was in the face of the judge's charge, which had made the
plot to blow up the Buffalo works the chief and the important inquiry
in this case, and the verdict had been given under the influence of
this view of the case. Six of the jury saw the impropriety of making
this statement after they had disbanded and passed from under the legal
and moral restraints they felt when sitting under their oath of office,
and refused to sign it.
When the paper from the complaisant six jurors was handed in, the
District Attorney said in court: "These jurors received money for
making these affidavits. If required to do so I will prove the
statement." He was not called upon to do so. "These affidavits," he
said afterwards, "were procured for the purpose of influencing the
Court to administer the lighter punishment, since they tended to
show that the verdict was directed against the lighter offence. One
of the jurors told me he had been offered money to sign one of these
affidavits, and he knew of one juror who had received $10 for signing
one."
When the last possibility in the way of proceedings for a stay or for a
new trial had been exhausted, except argument of an appeal in the Court
of Appeals, which was known to be useless, sentence was pronounced.
The penalty provided in the statutes was imprisonment for one year in
the penitentiary, or a fine of $250, or both. The lawyers pleaded
that the elder of the convicted men was old, that the younger had just
returned from a wedding tour in Europe, that some of the wealthiest
and most prominent citizens of Rochester had petitioned for mercy,
and that six of the jury had done likewise. Each was sentenced to pay
a fine of $250. Notice of appeal was given by the convicted, and a
year was consumed on both sides in preparations to fight the case to
a bitter finish. But the appeal was abandoned. A new trial and new
sentence might have ended worse. The fine was paid, and these employés
of the trust, upon whose record as reputable and inoffensive citizens
for all the years of their business career no shadow had fallen till
they entered its employ, took thereby the place assigned them by the
jury--that of convicts guilty of crime.
Crime, it seems, may in this country be cheaper than competition.
They who received the larger part of the benefit of the enticement
of Albert, of the harassing litigation, of the damage done by the
explosion, and of the bankruptcy which was finally produced by these
means, went free of all punishment; and the employés found their crime
but little less than a pastime. After his conviction, and before his
sentence, one of the two married. His wedding was attended by many of
the great men of the trust--magnates in the New York world of affairs
and its affiliated interests. It glittered with gold and silver and
precious stones which they sent to signify to the world that they stood
sponsor for him.
The case of some humble boycotters was then fresh in the public mind.
Certain working-men, on strike, handed around printed circulars in the
streets of New York, requesting people not to buy beer sold by their
employer. In a few weeks from the time they dropped those circulars in
the streets they were in the penitentiary at Sing Sing. It was shown on
their trial that they were entirely ignorant of the fact that they were
violating any of the laws of the State in what they did. It was shown
on the trial of the oil men that they did know that the course they had
in view was criminal, and were warned by a lawyer it might land them
in prison. "It was very fortunate," said the New York _World_, "that
they were not poor men convicted of stealing a ham."
One of the reasons given by the judge for his leniency was that
prominent citizens of Buffalo and Rochester had begged for mercy. "With
the very highest respect for the judge," said the Buffalo _Express_,
"as the _Express_ has often demonstrated, we must say that this is a
mighty queer excuse. Three-fourths of those citizens are in one way
or another identified in interest with the oil trust, as the judge
could readily have ascertained, and their names on that petition were
entitled to no more moral weight in the consideration of this case than
the names of the two guilty men should have had if they had seen fit to
sign it."
The sentence raised a whirlwind of indignation. "As ridiculous as
anything that could be imagined," said the Philadelphia _Ledger_. "It
is high time," said the New York _World_, "that the lines were drawn
between competition and conspiracy, between business and brigandage."
Referring to the golden harvest of $300,000 dividends in one year on
a capital of $100,000, representing an original investment of only
$13,500, the _World_ said: "The monopoly of this sort of business is
a very seductive thing. It is calculated to make men of more boldness
than morals blow up factories, or do almost anything else to control
the field." "It can afford to blow up a rival refinery every day
in the year at that price," said the Erie _Dispatch_. "There have
been conspiracies," said the Oil City _Blizzard_ (Pa.), "to injure
the business of opposition concerns right here in Oil City, and the
conspirators have never been punished." "It is--a light sentence," was
the comment of the Buffalo _Commercial_. "Poor criminals," the Buffalo
_Express_ declared, "may well wonder why rich ones are let off so
easily. It is equivalent to deciding that wealth may securely indulge
in that inexpensive sort of amusement as a mere pastime. Who's afraid?"
it asked. "What conspirator 'in restraint' of trade is afraid of a $250
fine?" "Certain it is that no wealthy criminals convicted of such a
crime ever before received from a court such a mockery of justice," was
the verdict of the Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_.
The facts of this case have not been carelessly examined or decided.
Two grand-juries in succession passed upon the evidence and found it
good enough for indictments. Two petit juries heard the evidence,
both for and against, in the civil and criminal suits, and found it
good enough--one jury for $20,000 damages, another for a verdict of
criminally guilty. Seventy picked citizens have unanimously concurred
in the decision "Guilty." And this scarlet letter the monopoly will
always have to carry.
"So surely as Matthews lives, and so long as he lives," District
Attorney Quinby said in the criminal prosecution, "he will never again
make another dollar upon a barrel of oil he may manufacture. The
word has gone forth, right in this court-room, that this man shall
be crushed, and he can never again run his works successfully. That
is going to be one of the results of this case." The fulfilment of
this prediction came swiftly. This sentence of ruin upon Matthews was
executed before sentence was even pronounced upon the conspirators
against him. He had been left crippled by the flight and corruption
of his partner, the only practical oil man in the enterprise. When
he tried to obtain some one to take his place, he could not get word
of any one not connected with the oil combination. He did not dare
to advertise, and knew no one in Buffalo he could venture to speak
to. He had made contracts before opening the works, and was unable to
fill them. The pipes had been laid wrong; it took him a year trying
one way and another, and making a great many mistakes, to set them
right. His third partner was frightened back into the employ of the oil
combination by threatening litigation.
Then came the suits to destroy, punctually as threatened.[502] "If one
court does not sustain the patents, we will carry them up until you
get enough of it," one of the trustees said to Matthews. One of the
Rochester managers, in speaking of these suits, said: "I don't know as
we will gain anything really, but we will embarrass them by bringing
these suits, and, if it is necessary, we will bring them once a month;
yes, we will bring them once a week." One, two, three, four, five suits
came with injunctions. "Null and void" was the verdict of court after
court on the worthless patents and pretended trade-marks on which he
was sued.
Matthews had to keep pushing his pursuers to trial. What they wanted
was not decisions but delays, to ruin him by the waste of time and
money.[503] "It cost me one-third of my time, and $25,000 or more to
defend these suits." These suits were used to scare away his customers.
"I was instructed," said the Boston representative of the combination,
"to tell the customers that the Buffalo company were using their
patents."[504] The sole legal victory the combination won was the
recovery of six cents damages on a technical point.
Matthews, on his side, took to the courts. He sued his persecutors as
individuals and corporations. He pursued them civilly and criminally.
He was successful in defending himself against their suits. All his
suits were successful as far as he was able to carry them. One suit
for damages produced a $20,000 verdict; another was for $250,000,
on the still stronger evidence procured in the criminal trial. It
took Matthews two years--from 1883 to 1885--to get his first case
for damages for conspiracy to trial. All that time was consumed by
his opponents in quibbles about procedure, technical objections, and
motions for delay, appealing them from court to court. The judge, in
taking from the jury afterwards the three trustees who had been brought
to trial for conspiracy, declared that he could see no reason to
believe that these suits had been brought without probable cause. But
the jury before which the suit for damages was tried saw plenty of such
reasons, and gave Matthews' company a verdict of $20,000 damages. The
views of the judge and jury might have varied in the same way on the
question of the guilt of the three members of the trust.
Matthews woke up one morning to discover, as he had been told he would,
that there was no Atlas Company to get his oil from. Corporations may
have no souls, but they can love each other. The Erie Railroad killed
the pipe line of the Atlas Company for the oil combination.[505] The
courts had been kept busy granting injunctions against it on the
motion of the Erie. These were invariably dissolved by the courts,
but an application for a new one would always follow. At one time the
lawyers had fifteen injunctions all ready in their hands to be sued
out, one after the other, as fast as needed. The pipe line was finally
destroyed by force. Where it crossed under the Erie road in the bed
of a stream grappling-irons were fastened to it, and with an immense
hawser a locomotive guarded by two freight cars full of men pulled it
to pieces. The Atlas line and refinery became the "property" of their
enemy. Matthews' supply of crude oil was not cut off immediately. He
was tapered off. One of the superintendents of the Atlas testified in
the suit for damages Matthews brought against the Atlas after it passed
into the hands of the combination, that by the order of the manager
of the refinery he mixed refuse oil with the crude which they sold to
the Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company. Finally the supply was shut off
altogether.
Matthews turned to the railroads connecting Buffalo with the oil
country. They all put up their rates. At the increased rates they
would not bring him enough to keep him going; they would not give him
cars enough, and told him they would not let him put his own cars on
the road. Even the lake steamers raised their rates against him. The
farmer-refiner was taking his lesson in the course which had driven
his first employer to dig oil-wells because "there were restrictions
in the shipments." Cut off from a supply by either pipe or rail at
Buffalo, Matthews made an alliance with the Keystone Refinery in the
oil regions. War was now made upon the Keystone. It was finally ruined.
Packs of lawyers were set upon Matthews, and they finally brought
him down. An attorney appeared before a judge and made a motion that
the property of Matthews' company be taken out of Matthews' hands
and be placed in the charge of a receiver, as officer of the court,
to secure a debt due a Buffalo bank. This done, the lawyer appeared
before the judge who afterwards decided that $250 fine was punishment
enough for criminal conspiracy, with an offer from the monopoly to
pay $17,300 for the discontinuance of the suits for damages which
Matthews had instituted, and $63,700 for all the other assets. The
other creditors and all the stockholders opposed the motion, but the
judge granted it. There were two suits. One had produced a verdict of
$20,000, and the other one for $250,000 was brought on the new and
much stronger evidence secured in the criminal trial. As to the value
of the property, Matthews had brought his enterprise to the point
where it was worth $20,000 a year. It was capable of producing many
times that amount of profit. Had not Albert been enticed away, the new
works would have yielded a profit of over $100,000 the first year.
They had a capacity of 70 to 80 barrels a day of lubricating oil,
and the profit was $5 to $6 a barrel at the time Matthews and Albert
went into the business.[506] The judge, overruling a majority of the
creditors, ordered the receiver to accept the offer. He gave as his
reason for selling these damage suits that a criminal prosecution had
already taken place for the same offences, and a person could not be
punished twice for the same offence. As they had not yet been punished,
this meant, if it meant anything, that the suits were to be sold out
for this inconsiderable sum, and the guilty men were to get their
punishment in the sentence he was to pass upon them in the criminal
court.
Three months later, before the same judge, these convicted agents stood
up to receive their criminal sentence. The judge gave them the lightest
sentence in his power, "nominal punishment." He did so, he was reported
by the Buffalo press to have said, because "it has come to the
attention of the court that civil suits have been brought to recover
damages sustained by reason of the same overt acts. Large punitive
damages are demanded in those actions. It is fundamental that a person
cannot be punished twice for the same offence."
The judge released them from the suits for damages because they were
to be punished criminally. Then he released them from any but nominal
punishment, because there had been suits for damages. One would infer
that the civil suits for damages were in full career in the courts,
to end possibly in hundreds of thousands of dollars' damages against
the convicted. No one would infer what was the truth--and who should
have remembered it so well as the judge, for it was he who had done
it?--that the civil suits had been ordered sold. The judge had ordered
his officer--the receiver--who had the luckless Matthews' affairs in
his grip, not to try the cases, but to sell them. The suits had been
ordered sold in February preceding, and they were as dead as--justice.
But as all the technical formalities and slow proceedings needed to
consummate the sale had not been completed when sentence was passed in
May, the damages they might produce were made a reason for inflicting
none but nominal punishment. The order of sale made it impossible that
they should ever be tried.
Of the money paid into court, nearly half--$30,000--went to the
lawyers, and, crudest stroke of all, the attorney who had made the
successful motion before the judge to take Matthews' property away, and
to order the forced sale, got $5000. Matthews got nothing. Even his
right to sue his destroyers had been sold to them on their own motion
and at their own price.
The crime was plotted in March, 1881. The participants were indicted in
1886. It took until May 15, 1887, to secure conviction. While sentence
was still unpronounced Matthews' property was put into the hands of a
receiver of the court, January 16, 1888; the property was sold by order
of the court, February 17, 1888; sentence was pronounced May 8, 1888;
the formalities of the sale were consummated July 11, 1888; and the
sentence, coming last of all--the fine of $250--was executed May 1,
1889.
Matthews had tried to make money in oil, and had failed; but his
competition had forced those in control of the markets to increase the
price to the producer, and he made light cheaper to the community. In
Buffalo his enterprise had caused the price to drop to 6 cents from 12
and 18 cents, in Boston[507] to 8 cents from 20. Oil has never since
been as high in Boston or Buffalo as before he challenged the monopoly.
And he forced the struggle into the view of the public, and succeeded
in putting on record in the archives of courts and legislatures and
Congress a picture of the realities of modern commerce certain to
exercise a profound influence in ripening the reform thought with which
our air is charged into reform action.
Nothing is so dramatic as fact, when you can find the fact. The
treatment his church gave the brother, who had been the victim, as
judicially declared, of a criminal conspiracy, is described in the
following letter from Matthews:
"BUFFALO, January 19, 1888.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,--As your father was a clergyman, and as you feel an
interest in church affairs, I think you will wish to know of my recent
experiences. My church here is not a rich one, but we pay as much for
church music as we do as salary to our pastor. Probably the wealthiest
man in our church is an agent of the oil trust. He receives a salary
of $18,000 per year, and keeps their retail store here, and has been a
witness for them in important suits. He does not belong to our church,
but is a trustee and treasurer of the Church, and is very kind to our
pastor, whom he took last summer on quite an extended vacation trip
in New England. But you know the class of men that usually become
trustees in our city churches these days.
"My pastor surprised me a few days ago by making a visit at my office,
and telling me that as my term of office as member of the session
expired soon, it might be best for me not to be a candidate for
re-election, in view of what the newspapers had said about me, and
the opposition there was. He said, however, that he personally felt
friendly to me, and regarded me highly. He seemed to be embarrassed,
but I quickly relieved the situation by saying that I had told my
family some months before that I should not again hold a church
office. I told the doctor he well knew I did not desire office in or
out of the Church. True, the newspapers, under the influence of the
oil trust, had ridiculed me as 'farmer Matthews from the country.' But
why should my pastor mock me with such shallow pretences for reasons
for church opposition to me? I had engaged in the oil business without
the consent of the oil monopoly, and my pastor then and there told me
my friends thought me foolhardy in doing so. I could hardly suppress
my feelings on hearing this said by the man who baptized my children
and ministers at the church altar. What could all this mean? I had
only fought for my rights as an American citizen, as a manufacturer
and shipper of oil. I had been sustained in every detail by the
courts. I had convicted in our courts prominent men of conspiracy,
little thinking that the subtle power of these men could come to
dominate the Church itself. My feelings were intense, and words came
thick and fast--all too tame to express my feelings. I told the doctor
how I had struggled on from boyhood, and at middle age had accumulated
a few thousand dollars, and in all these years had never sued a man or
been sued, and that my struggle with the oil monopoly was for rights
that no one worthy to be called a man dare to surrender. I told the
doctor how I had been hounded, and my business beset by spies--that
my friends had often told me I was in danger of assassination if I
continued the fight in the courts. He, having done his errand, seemed
uneasy, and anxious to go. I told him I had seen the rising and
corrupting power of this trust in their control of our aldermen and
courts, in state and national legislation. I could witness all this
with comparative composure; but it made every drop of my blood hot
to see them erect their altars for Mammon worship in the Church of
the living God. I had seen the hard-won earnings of a lifetime swept
away, and had hoped that at least one word of sympathy might come
from the Church. If I had been robbed by old-fashioned highwaymen and
the Church received none of the loot, church sympathy would have been
hearty and abundant. But no; Sabbath after Sabbath our reverend doctor
rises in the pulpit, and, at the regular time, says: 'Let us worship
God in the gift of money.' Religion, divine worship, and money all
seem to have a like meaning as they are alternately mentioned in our
pulpit. My ancestors far back were church people, but this worshipping
money, or worshipping God with money, is all new to me. It was not the
acceptable worship required by Christ and taught by his disciples.
After the conversation I had with my pastor that day I trudged home,
but could not sleep that night. My heart was too full of sorrow as
well as anger. I hope you will forgive me for writing you so long a
letter. I have written much more than I intended to, but did not see
where to stop. There are many things I wish you could see but not
experience in the life of a business man nowadays. I want you to write
often, as every word from a true friend is prized highly in these dark
days for me."
The action of the judge in this and another celebrated case was made
an issue in the elections in New York in 1889. In June, 1882, the
railroads in New York City, rather than pay the freight-handlers the
20 cents an hour they asked for, instead of 17 cents, brought the
business of the city to a stop. They refused to employ their old men
at that price, and did not supply their places. Trucks by thousands,
heavy with merchandise, stood before the railroad freight-houses for
days, waiting in vain to be unloaded. The trade of the metropolis was
paralyzed, and the railroad officials sat serenely in their offices,
letting the jam pile up until the freight-handlers were starved into
accepting the wages they were offered, and commercial distress had made
the business community desperate enough to tolerate that injustice, or
any other iniquity, provided the "Goddess of Getting-on" were allowed
to get on again. It was so clear that the price asked by the men was
fair, and that the refusal of the railroads to set them at work and
keep the channels of trade open was due to a purpose to manufacture
such widespread loss and trouble that the public should be goaded into
forgetfulness of the rights of the men, that public opinion forced the
Attorney-General of the State to act. Re-enforced by able counsel, he
applied for a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel the roads to resume
operations. This motion came before this Buffalo judge, then sitting
by assignment in New York. He kept the people waiting ten days, and
then quashed and dismissed the petition. The decision of the Supreme
Court, composed of judges of both parties, reversing his action, was
unanimous, but the mischief he had done was by that time--January 17,
1883--long past mending.
When he was nominated to be judge again, after his indecision and
decision had swelled the dividends of the great railways of New York,
the presiding officer of the convention which was to choose him to be
their candidate was, by a coincidence, also the president of one of
the great railway corporations which had been involved in the judicial
proceeding of 1882. The judge's record was made one of the issues in
the State election which followed the defeat of justice in Buffalo. He
was nominated by the Republicans in 1889 for Judge of the Court of
Appeals, the highest court in the State of New York, and the nomination
was asserted by the New York _Times_, in a leading editorial, to have
been procured by the oil trust. Its "influence was active," said the
_Times_, "in securing the nomination of" this judge. " ... An attorney
who has labored in its interests at Albany during the last two sessions
of the Legislature was conspicuous among the men who did the work." The
New York _Times_, the Buffalo _Courier_, the New York _Star_, the New
York _World_, and other leading journals of the State retold the story
of the trial, and declared that the judge's action in taking the case
of the members of the trust from the jury, and the sentence he gave the
convicted agents, made it clear that he was unfit to be a judge. The
oil combination, the _World_ said, editorially, "have had agents busy
this year trying to secure his elevation to the highest court in the
State.... We say confidently that the history of the case establishes
his conspicuous unfitness for a place on the bench of the Court of
Appeals. He should be defeated, and with him the oppressive monopoly
which is actively seeking his election."
He was defeated with the rest of the ticket. District Attorney Quinby
was re-elected several terms in succession. After their victory the
people went to sleep, but not the sower of tares. At the election of
1890 the nomination of this judge to a seat on the bench was secured
from both parties. For fourteen years, therefore--from 1890--a seat of
the Supreme Court, one of the most important tribunals of justice in
New York State, will be occupied by this judge, before whom must come
many questions affecting oil transportation, electric lighting, natural
gas and illuminating, street railways, banking, and other interests of
the oil trust.
Monopoly cannot be content with controlling its own business. It is the
creature of the same law which has always driven the tyrant to control
everything--government, art, literature, even private conversation. Any
freedom, though seemingly the most remote from any possible bearing
upon the tyrant, may--will grow from a little leak of liberty into a
mighty flood, sweeping his palaces and dungeons away. The czar knows
that if he lets his people have so much freedom as free talk in their
sitting-rooms their talk will gather into a tornado. In all ages
wealth, like all power, has found that it must rule all or nothing. Its
destiny is rule or ruin, and rule is but a slower ruin. Hence we find
it in America creeping higher every year up into the seats of control.
Its lobbyists force the nomination of judges who will construe the laws
as Power desires, and of senators who will get passed such laws as it
wants for its judges to construe.
The press, too, must be controlled by Power. During the criminal trial
at Buffalo one of the oil combination's detectives was put on the
stand. He was compelled to produce his written instructions from the
counsel of the trust.[508] These had been given him at the office of
the oil trust in New York. He forwarded his reports to its office in
New York, and received his pay from the same place.[509] He sent his
subordinates to get employment in Matthews' works, and through them
obtained information from the inside. The monopoly paid one of these
detectives $2.50 a day for spying, while he could earn only $1.50 a day
for working.
"I see here further," said the District Attorney, "'Why the _Express_
published the last complaint'"--in Matthews' suit for $250,000 damages.
"Did he ask you to find out about that?"
"He did."
"That is, he wanted you to find out what arrangements were made with
the Buffalo _Express_ to have the complaint published?"
"Yes; the whole complaint. It covered the whole of the newspaper."
"And do you know 'how many copies were taken by Matthews?' Did he tell
you to find that out, too?"
"Yes, sir."[510]