United States v. American Naval Stores Co.

• Decision Date: 12 May 1909
• Citation: 172 F. 455
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN NAVAL STORES CO. et. al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia

172 F. 455

UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN NAVAL STORES CO. et. al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. Georgia, Eastern Division.

May 12, 1909

Alexander Akerman, Asst. U.S. Atty., and W. M. Toomer, Acting Asst Atty. Gen., for the United States.

P. W Meldrim, Adams & Adams, and Powell & Makall, for defendants.

SHEPPARD District Judge (charging jury).

This case has been long, and necessarily taxing to your patience but your attention throughout has been marked, demonstrating to the court your interest and deep appreciation of the importance of the issue, both to the government and to the defendants. The issues now rest solely upon an honest and impartial discharge of your duties under the guidance of the law, which it now becomes my duty, as best I may, to give you in charge. In our system of the administration of justice the judge decides the questions of law, and directs you only as to the law of the case, while it is your peculiar province to pass on the facts of the case, and by your verdict you decide the questions of fact involved in this controversy.

I shall be as brief as the case admits, and will confine my instructions mainly to what I conceive to be the law applicable to the facts adduced.

The issue which it is your province under our system of government to determine is the innocence or guilt of the accused upon the indictment, which was read to you at the opening of this case. By order of the court, the third count of the indictment was stricken, and you have therefore before you only the first and second counts.

The defendants indicted are the American Naval Stores Company, a corporation of West Virginia, the National Transportation & Terminal Company, a corporation of New Jersey, Edmond S. Nash, Spencer P. Shotter, J. F. Cooper Myers, George Meade Boardman, Carl Moller, and C. J. De Loach. As to the defendant C. J. De Loach you are directed to find a verdict of 'not guilty.'

The two counts of the indictment and the government's bill of particulars will be before you, and you should examine them very carefully, in connection with all the evidence in the case and the principles of law I will presently give you, in reaching your conclusions. To the two counts of the indictment all the defendants have pleaded 'not guilty.' It is necessary that I should present for your consideration certain rules of evidence, which should be borne in mind throughout your deliberations. The plea of the defendants raises immediately the presumption of innocence, and this presumption accompanies them throughout the trial, and until it is overcome by testimony which satisfies your minds beyond a reasonable doubt of the truth of the charge.

The burden of proof is therefore on the government to prove the conspiracy charged in the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt. While this is true, if the weight of evidence does satisfy your minds beyond such a reasonable doubt, the presumption of innocence is removed, and if you should be thus satisfied with regard to any two or more of the defendants it would be your duty with regard to them to find a verdict of 'guilty.'

Again, if with regard to any one or more of the defendants the evidence should fail to satisfy your minds beyond such reasonable doubt of their guilt, it would be your duty to acquit them. It is important, then, that you should understand what is a reasonable doubt. It is not a mere possible doubt, because in human affairs, which depend upon deductions, there may be possible or imaginary doubts. A reasonable doubt is that state of the case which, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, leaves your minds in such a condition that you cannot say that you feel an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the truth of the charge. By reasonable doubt is not meant strained or whimsical conjecture, but an actual, sincere, mental hesitation, caused either by insufficient evidence or by unsatisfactory evidence? In other words, it has been defined as 'such a doubt as a reasonable man would have, and hesitate to act upon in matters of the highest concern for his own welfare. ' If you have such a doubt, you should give the defendants the benefit of it, and acquit them of whom you have such a doubt; but the government is not required to prove its case beyond all doubt.

In this case the government relies on circumstantial evidence. Now, such evidence has been defined to be that which does not directly prove the issue, but which tends to establish the issue only by proof of the facts, sustaining by their consistency the hypothesis claimed, and from which the jury might infer the principal fact. It is composed of facts which raise logical inferences, and by a chain of such inferences lead to the ultimate conclusion, which is sought to be made. A conviction may as well be had upon circumstantial evidence as upon direct evidence; but to warrant a conviction upon evidence of this character the proven facts must not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but must do this so clearly and satisfactorily as to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt.

With these general rules of law before you, you should next consider, under the interpretation I shall give, the provisions of the statute approved July 2, 1890 (26 Stat. 209, c. 647 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3200)), with the violation of which the defendants are charged by this indictment. It is entitled 'An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies. ' Section 1 provides as follows:

'Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations, is hereby declared illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract, or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,' etc.

Section 2 provides as follows:

'Every person who shall monopolize or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,' etc.

The first count of the indictment charges a violation under section 1, and the second count charges a violation under section 2. As the latter section is easier defined, it may be well to consider that section and count first. After setting out the relations of the several defendants to each other and their several parts, it is charged that:

'Having already secured to themselves more than half the trade and commerce among the several states of the United States and with foreign nations in the aforesaid articles of commerce, did then and there * * * unlawfully combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together, amongst themselves and with divers other persons to the grand jurors aforesaid unknown, to further monopolize the trade and commerce, to be effected, amongst other ways, as follows.'

The count then continues to set forth twelve different means by which the alleged monopoly was to be accomplished. These means will be discussed later in connection with the first count of the indictment. The effect of the second count charges a combination and conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce in 'spirits of turpentine, rosin, and the products of pine forests and turpentine farms, commonly called 'naval stores."

To constitute the offense of monopolizing or attempting to monopolize under the act of Congress, it is necessary to acquire, or attempt to acquire, an exclusive right in such commerce by means which will prevent others from engaging therein.

'The abuse of free commerce, by which one or more individuals have procured the advantage of selling alone all of one particular kind of merchandise, to the detriment of the public; any combination among merchants to raise the price of any particular merchandise, to the detriment of the public.'

The popular meaning of 'monopoly' at the present day seems to be the sole power (or a power largely in excess of that possessed by others) of dealing in some particular commodity or at some particular market or place, or of carrying on some particular business. Anything less than this is not monopoly. The results in business or trading combinations may even temporarily, or perhaps permanently, reduce the article traded in or manufactured, by reducing the expense inseparable from the running of many different companies for the same purpose. Trade or commerce under those circumstances may nevertheless be badly and unfortunately restrained by driving out of business the small dealers and worthy men whose lives have been spent therein, and who might be unable to readjust themselves to their altered surroundings. Mere reductions in the price of a commodity dealt in might be dearly paid for by the ruin of such a class and the absorption of control over one commodity by an all-powerful combination of capital, whose purpose in combining is to control the product or manufacture of any article on the market, and by such control dictate the price at which the article shall be sold; the effect being to drive out of business all the small dealers in the commodity and to render the public subject to the decision of the combination as to what price shall be paid for the article.

This will illustrate the fundamental idea to be borne in mind in determining if there was in this case a conspiracy to monopolize-- that the essence of the monopoly 'is found not so much in the creating of a very extensive business in the hands of a single control. ' The size of a business is not in itself a violation of this law, and should carry with it no great weight...