"Now at this day comes Edward C. Crow, Attorney General of the state of Missouri, and informs the court that the Continental Tobacco Company is a corporation organized under and by virtue of the laws of the state of New Jersey, and that said J. G. Butler Tobacco Company, Brown Tobacco Company, Drummond Tobacco Company, and Wright Bros. Tobacco Company are corporations organized under and by virtue of the laws of the state of Missouri. The plaintiff states that all of said named respondents were so severally organized as corporations for the purpose of buying, manufacturing, and selling tobacco, and were and are authorized to own, maintain, and operate such plants, machinery, warehouses, etc., as may be necessary to the proper conduct of their several businesses. The plaintiff states that the said Continental Tobacco Company is carrying on its said business of buying, manufacturing, and selling tobacco as a foreign corporation within the state of Missouri, and that said J. G. Butler Tobacco Company, Brown Tobacco Company, Drummond Tobacco Company, and Wright Bros. Tobacco Company were organized under the laws of the state of Missouri as aforesaid for the purpose of carrying on the business of buying, manufacturing, and selling tobacco in said state, and have since been carrying on said business in said state. Plaintiff, for cause of action herein, states that about the year 1890, and for many years prior thereto, there were certain five distinct and separate corporations or copartnership companies, to wit, Allen & Ginter, located at the city of Richmond, Virginia, W. Duke Sons & Co., located at the
city of Durham, North Carolina, W. S. Kimball & Co., located at the city of Rochester, New York, and Goodwin & Co. and Kinney Bros., each located at the city of New York, New York, all severally engaged in the business of manufacturing cigarettes and smoking tobacco, and also severally engaged in selling the products of their respective factories throughout the United States. Plaintiff further states that on or about the year 1890 the said five last-named corporations or copartnership companies were merged and consolidated into one corporation, to wit, into the American Tobacco Company, which was then at that date organized as a corporation under the laws of the state of New Jersey. Plaintiff alleges the fact to be that said American Tobacco Company was organized as a corporation as aforesaid with the object and purpose on the part of the incorporators of absorbing, combining, and consolidating said five corporations or copartnership companies into one holding, and to place the same under the control and management of a single directory, and this with the further object and purpose thereby and by means of said combination to limit and control the production and price of cigarettes and smoking tobacco. Plaintiff states that after the organization of said American Tobacco Company, to wit, about the year 1899, the business and properties of said abovenamed five corporations or copartnership companies were transferred to the said American Tobacco Company, and thereafter were, and ever since have been, under the management, direction, and control of said American Tobacco Company. Plaintiff states that since the year 1890 numerous other corporations and copartnership companies, organized and existing in different states of the Union, for the purpose of manufacturing and selling cigarettes and smoking tobacco, and which were severally engaged in said business as separate and independent concerns, have also transferred their business and properties to said American Tobacco Company. Plaintiff states that said transfers of the business and properties of all of said corporations and copartnership companies to said American Tobacco Company were made with the object, purpose, and intention of effecting a combination or trust, so as to limit or destroy competition in the business of manufacturing and selling cigarettes and smoking tobaccos, and thereby to enable the said American Tobacco Company to acquire a monopoly of said business throughout the United States: and plaintiff alleges that by reason of the premises the said American Tobacco Company has in fact acquired, and now has, a virtual monopoly of said business of manufacturing and selling cigarettes and smoking tobaccos throughout the United States.
"Further complaining, the plaintiff says that the said American Tobacco Company, having thus acquired a virtual monopoly of said business of manufacturing and selling cigarettes and smoking tobaccos as aforesaid, then and thereafter, to wit, between the years 1893 and 1898, organized and prosecuted a systematic plan or scheme, as hereinafter stated, to combine and bring under its control and direction the principal and leading corporations and copartnership companies existing in the different states of the United States, which were engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobaccos. Plaintiff says that between the years 1893 and 1898, and prior thereto, there were a large number, to wit, about the number of ____, corporations and copartnership companies organized and existing in the different states of the United States, engaged as separate and independent concerns in the business of manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobaccos; that prior to about the year 1893 the business of manufacturing and selling smoking tobaccos, in the form of cigarettes, packages, and other forms, and the business of manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobaccos were carried on and conducted as different and distinct lines of manufacture, certain corporations and copartnership companies being engaged exclusively in the manufacture and sale of smoking tobaccos, and certain other corporations and copartnership companies being engaged exclusively in the manufacture and sale of plug chewing tobaccos; and that the two lines of manufactures were rarely, if ever, combined in the business of any one of such corporations or copartnership companies. Plaintiff states that in furtherance of its said plan or scheme to combine and bring under its control the principal and leading corporations or copartnership companies engaged throughout the United States in the business of manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobaccos, the said American Tobacco Company, about the year 1893, obtained control by purchase of the National Tobacco Works, theretofore under the management of Pfingst, Doerhofer & Co., a corporation organized under the laws of Kentucky, and engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobacco. Plaintiff states that, after it had so obtained control of the said National Tobacco Works, the said American Tobacco Company, through its officers thereto duly authorized, proposed to all the leading and principal corporations and companies engaged in the several states of the Union in manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobacco to sell their business and properties to it, or to combine with it in organizing and effecting a combination or trust to control and monopolize under a single or common directory and management the said business of manufacturing and selling plug chewing tobacco throughout the United States; and plaintiff says that said American Tobacco Company, at the time of making its said proposal to said corporations and companies to buy their business and properties, or to combine with them as aforesaid
threatened said corporations and companies, or many of them that if they refused to agree to said proposal that the said American Tobacco Company would sell on the markets of the country the plug chewing tobaccos manufactured by it at prices far below the cost of production, thereby entailing heavy...
