To do this he transferred his assignment of legal title to an agent with the order to liquidate it. A long correspondence followed between Mr. Kemper, Mr. Rice's agent, and Mr. Dodd, who objected to making the transfer on the ground that it cut the share into a "multitude of almost infinitesimal frac tions of corporate shares." Thcy were obviating this difficulty, Mr. Dodd said, by purchasing certificates calling for one or a few shares and uniting them until sufficient were had by one party to call for the issue of full corporate shares. Mr. Kemper insisted, however, and finally received scrip for his share. "Infinitesimal" it was, indeed, of one share in one company, of one share in another, and so on through nineteen constituent companies.* Arguing from these experiences and what else he could gather, Mr. Rice decided that the trust was not dissolved and had no intention of doing so. Furthermore, he argued that the scheme was one to entice the small shareholders to sell their shares and thus enable the trustees to increase their holdings! And he sought legal counsel in Ohio as to the possi bility of bringing suit against the Standard Oil Company of Ohio for failing to obey the court's orders in March, 1892. The attorneys, one of whom was Mr. Watson, advised Mr. Rice to lay his facts before the attorney-general of the state, Frank S. Monnett. Like Mr. Watson, when he brought his suit, Mr. Monnett was young and held firmly to the belief that the business of an attorney-general is to enforce the laws. The facts Mr. Rice and his counsel laid before him seemed to him to indicate that the Standard Oil Company of Ohio had taken advantage of the leniency of the court in allowing it time to disentangle itself from the trust, and had devised a skilful plan to evade the judgment pronounced against it five years before. He asked Mr. Rice and his attorneys to go with him and lay the case before the judges of the Supreme Court in chambers, and ask if it did not justify proceedings against the company. The judges agreed with the attorney-general and ordered him to bring the company before the court for contempt. Information was filed in November, 1897. The suit which followed proved one of the most sensational ever insti tuted against the Standard Oil Combination.
The first substantial point gained by the attorney-general in the proceedings was securing answers to a long series of questions concerning the history of the operations of the Stand ard Oil Company of Ohio, both within and without the trust. These answers were made by the president of that company, who was at the same time the president of the trust, John D. Rockefeller. They furnish a mass of facts of value and interest, and they include the minutes of the meeting at which the trust was dissolved on March 11, 1892,, as well as the minutes of all the quarterly meetings the liquidating trustees held from 1892 to October, 1897. It was from the information obtained from this set of questions that 'Mr. Monnett secured proof that the liquidation scheme had been held up, as Mr. Rice claimed. The minutes showed, as related in Chapter XIV, that from November, 1892, to March, 1896, 477,881 shares were reported every three months to the trustees as uncancelled.
In July, 1896, the number fell suddenly to 477,880. George Rice had succeeded in having his assignment of legal title liquidated! Mr. Monnett learned from the result of this inquiry another suggestive fact, that while only one share was cancelled in the five years before the contempt proceed ings were brought, in the first three months after, 100,583 shares were cancelled ! * It took Mr. Monnett some six months to secure the answers from Mr. Rockefeller, but his information was still incom plete, and he asked the court to appoint a master commis sioner, with power to examine the officers, affairs and books of the Standard, to take testimony within or without the state, and to report. This was done, the commissioner holding his first court at the New Amsterdam Hotel, in New York, on October i 1 and 12, 1898. Mr. Rockefeller was the only witness examined at the sessions, and his deliberation and self-control, his almost detached attitude as a witness, were the subject of remark by more than one observer. He answered no question promptly. He had the air of reflecting always before he spoke. He consulted frequently with his counsel. His counsel, his col leagues who were present, the counsel of the prosecution, were sometimes irate, never Mr. Rockefeller. From beginning to end he was the soul of self-possession. His only sign of impa tience—if it was impatience—was an incessant slight tapping of the arm of his chair with his white fingers.
The outcome of this examination of Mr. Rockefeller was that Mr. Monnett and his colleagues called for those books of the trust which would show exactly how the original trust certificates had been liquidated. It was then that the copies of the transfers of Mr. Rockefeller's trust certificates and of his assignments of legal title printed in the Appendix, Num ber 54, were obtained. Although Mr. Monnett had added to his knowledge of the Standard's operations between 1892 and 1898, he was not yet convinced that the Standard Oil Company of Ohio was conducting its own business. He had found that, in spite of the order of the court in 1892, 13,593 shares of that company's stock were still outstanding in trust certificates. He knew these certificates drew dividends. Was the company paying money directly or indirectly to the liqui dating trustees? They said no, that they had been paying no dividends since 1892, that the money paid the holders of trust certificates came from the other nineteen companies, that all their earnings had been used in improving their plant, or were invested in government bonds. Besides, said they, we are not the thrifty concern we used to be. Mr. Monnett demanded proof from their books. The secretary of the company, on advice of his counsel, Virgil P. Kline, refused to produce the books asked for, on the ground that they would incriminate the company. The court supported Mr. Monnett, and ordered the company to produce those of their records showing the gross earnings since 1892, and what had been done with them. The order met with a second refusal.