221 U.S. Argument for the United States. rate business enterprises been stock corporations and the stock placed in the hands of a holding company. A similar illustration was the case of Smiley v. Kansas, 196 U. S. 447 (affirming 65 Kansas, 240), in which an attempt to control the grain trade of a particular station was held illegal under a state statute. The Standard combination is an attempt to control and monopolize a vast commerce of the entire country, as these people undertook to control and monopolize a local commerce. 1 The term "monopoly," therefore, as used in the Sherman Act was intended to cover such monopolies or attempts to monopolize as were known to exist in this country; those which were defined as illegal at common law by the States, when applied to intrastate commerce, and those which were known to Congress when the act was passed. The monopoly most commonly known in this country, and which the debates in Congress 1 show were intended to be prohibited by the act, were those acquired by combination (by purchase or otherwise) of competing concerns. The purchase of a competitor, as a separate transaction standing alone, was the exercise of a lawful privilege, not in and of itself unlawful at common law nor prohibited by statute, yet in the Northern Securities Case the purchase of stock in a railway was held to be illegal when done in pursuance of a scheme of monopoly. It is not necessary in this case, and we doubt whether in any case it is possible, to make a comprehensive definition of monopoly which will cover every case that might arise. It is sufficient if the case at bar clearly comes within the provisions of the act. We believe that the defendants have acquired a monopoly by means of a combination of the principal manufacturing concerns through 1 Cong. Rec., Vol. 21, part 3, pp. 2456-2460, 2562, 2645, 2726, 2728, 2791, 2928; Cong. Rec., Vol. 21, part 5, pp. 4089, 4093, 4098, 4101; Vol. 21, part 6, p. 5954. Argument for the United States. 221 U. S. a holding company; that they have, by reason of the very size of the combination, been able to maintain this monopoly through unfair methods of competition, discriminatory freight rates, and other means set forth in the proofs. If this act did not mean this kind of monopoly, we doubt if there is such a thing in this country. The men who framed the Constitution of this country were familiar with the history of monopolies growing out of acts of the Government. They guarded the people against these by constitutional provisions, but they left open the widest field for the exercise of individual enterprise, and it was the abuse of these personal privileges, made easy by state laws permitting unlimited incorporation, which gave rise to the evils that convinced the people of the necessity for the passage of the Sherman Anti-trust Act. It was not monopolies as known to the English common law, but monopolies such as were commonly understood to exist in this country which that act prohibited. As a natural conclusion from the foregoing definition of monopoly by appellants' counsel they claim that the inhibitions of the second section are against the unlawful means used to acquire the monopoly, but that acquired monopoly is not illegal; therefore that the court can only restrain the means by which the monopoly was acquired, leaving the monopoly to exist. We believe this to be an altogether too refined construction of the act. If such be the true interpretation, the result would be that one could combine all the separate manufactures in a given branch of industry in this country by use of unlawful means such as discriminatory freight rates, but, if not attacked by the Government before it had obtained complete control of the business, its very size, with its ramifications through all the States, would make it impossible for anyone else to compete, and it could control the price of products in the entire country and would be beyond the reach of the law. It could, by selling at a low price where a competitor was 221 U. S. Argument for the United States. engaged in business and by raising the price where there was no attempt at competition, absolutely control the business without itself suffering any loss; and yet the Government would be powerless to destroy the monopoly because the unlawful means had been abandoned. If the court finds this combination to be in restraint of trade and a monopoly, it is authorized by § 3 to enjoin the same and has plenary power to make such decree as is necessary to enforce the terms and provisions of the act. Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 336, 337, 344; Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375; United States v. Marigold, 9 How. 560, 566; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 57; In re Rapier, 143 U. S. 110; The Lottery Case, 188 U. S. 321; United States v. General Paper Co., opinion of Judge Sanborn in settling the decree, not reported; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 164 Fed. Rep. 700; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R. Co. v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 47 Fed. Rep. 15, 26. Evidence that the defendant companies obtained rebates and discriminatory rates in the transportation of their product as against their competitors, and engaged in unfair and oppressive methods of competition thereby destroying the smaller manufacturers and dealers throughout the country, is material in this case. State of Missouri v. Standard Oil Co., 218 Missouri, 1; State of Minnesota v. Standard Oil Co., 126 N. W. Rep. 527; Standard Oil Co. v. State of Tennessee, 117 Tennessee, 618; S. C., 120 Tennessee, 86; S. C., 217 U. S. 413; State of South Dakota v. Central Lumber Co., 123 N. W. Rep. 504; Citizens' Light, Heat & Power Co. v. Montgomery, 171 Fed. Rep. 553; State of Nebraska v. Drayton, 82 Nebraska, 254; S. C., 117 N. W. Rep. 769; People v. American Ice Co., 120 N. Y. Supp. 443. A person or corporation joining a conspiracy after it is formed, and thereafter aiding in its execution, becomes from that time as much a conspirator as if he originally designed and put it into operation. United States v. Standard Oil Co., 152 Fed. Rep. 294; Lincoln v. Claflin, 7 Wall. 132; United States v. Babcock, 24 Fed. Cas. 915, No. 14,487; United States v. Cassidy, 67 Fed. Rep. 698, 702; The Anarchist Case, 122 Illinois, 1; United States v. Johnson, 26 Fed. Rep. 682, 684; People v. Mather, 4 Wend. 230. This conspiracy was a continuing offense. Every overt act committed in furtherance thereof was a renewal of the same as to all of the parties. The statute of limitations does not begin to run until the commission of the last overt act. Neither can the parties claim a vested right to violate the law. 19 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, 2d ed, "Limitations of Actions;" United States v. Greene, 115 Fed. Rep. 343; Ochs v. People, 124 Illinois, 399; Spies v. People, 122 Illinois, 1; 8 Cyc. 678; State v. Pippin, 88 N. Car. 646; United States v. Bradford, 148 Fed. Rep. 413; Commonwealth v. Bartilson, 85 Pa. St. 489; People v. Mather, 4 Wend. 261; State v. Kemp, 87 No. Car. 538; American Fire Ins. Co. v. State, 22 So. Rep. (Miss.) 99; Lorenz v. United States, 24 App. D. C. 337; People v. Willis, 23 Misc. (N. Y.) 568; Raleigh v. Cook, 60 Texas, 438; Commonwealth v. Gillespie, 10 Am. Dec. (Pa.) 480. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and 33 other corporations, John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller and five other individual defendants prosecute this appeal to reverse a decree of the court below. Such decree was entered upon a bill filed by the United States under authority of § 4, of the act of July 2, 1890, c. 647, p. 209, known as the Anti-trust Act, and had for its object the enforcement of the provisions of that act. The record is inordinately voluminous, consisting of twenty-three volumes of printed matter, aggregating about twelve thousand pages, containing a vast amount of confusing and conflicting testi 量 mony relating to innumerable, complex and varied business transactions, extending over a period of nearly forty years. In an effort to pave the way to reach the subjects which we are called upon to consider, we propose at the outset, following the order of the bill, to give the merest possible outline of its contents, to summarize the answer, to indicate the course of the trial, and point out briefly the decision below rendered. The bill and exhibits, covering one hundred and seventy pages of the printed record, was filed on November 15, 1906. Corporations known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Standard Oil Company of California, Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Standard Oil Company of Iowa, Standard Oil Company of Kansas, Standard Oil Company of Kentucky, Standard Oil Company of Nebraska, Standard Oil Company of New York, Standard Oil Company of Ohio and sixty-two other corporations and partnerships, as also seven individuals were named as defendants. The bill was divided into thirty numbered sections, and sought relief upon the theory that the various defendants were engaged in conspiring "to restrain the trade and commerce in petroleum, commonly called 'crude oil,' in refined oil, and in the other products of petroleum, among the several States and Territories of the United States and the District of Columbia and with foreign nations, and to monopolize the said commerce." The conspiracy was alleged to have been formed in or about the year 1870 by three of the individual defendants, viz: John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller and Henry M. Flagler. The detailed averments concerning the alleged conspiracy were arranged with reference to three periods, the first from 1870 to 1882, the second from 1882 to 1899, and the third from 1899 to the time of the filing of the bill. The general charge concerning the period from 1870 to 1882 was as follows: |