Railroad Merger Suit

Discussion about a proposed merger between the Northern Pacific Railway and Great Northern Railway Company rejects that the new company be under “one management” because it would “restrain competition”.

Northern Securities Company Filed Answer in Circuit Court.
Deny Charges of Conspiracy

Railroads purchased by company are not to be placed under one management, or to be used to restrain competition.

St. Paul, May 6.-- "An enterprise of a great inter-state and international commerce" is the declaration of the Northern Securities Company given in the answer, filed by the attorneys for that corporation, in the suit brought by Attorney General P.C. Knox on behalf of the United States, to enjoin the so-called merger of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways. This answer was filed late yesterday afternoon in the United States circuit court in this city, and at the same time individual answers were also filed by the various railroad magnates, including James J. Hill and J. Pierpont Morgan. These various papers follow the same lines.
The answer of the Northern Securities Company is divided into two parts. The first is largely a denial of the petition, respecting many charges of conspiracy, and respecting the purposes of the organization of the Securities Company. Instead of owning a majority of the shares of the Great Northern or of the Northern Pacific Company, it is stated that those who are interested in the organization of the Securities Company do not own within $26,000,000 of a majority of the Great Northern shares, and little more than one-quarter of the Northern Pacific shares.
In the second part of the answer, the purchase of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railway Company is taken up, the reasons for such purchase having been, it is alleged, "erroneously stated in the petition." It is denied specifically and generally that any stock thus secured is to be held or used "for the purpose of placing under one control the railways of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific companies: or for any other purpose than to manage each of them for the benefit of their shareholders and of the public."
The answer declares: ""The anti-trust act' was not intended to prevent or defeat an enterprise, in aid of a great competitive inter-state and international commerce, merely because such enterprise may carry with it the possibility of incidental restraint upon some commerce, trifling both as respects territory and volume. Nor was the act intended to limit the power of the several states, to create corporations, define their purchases, fix the amount of their capital and determine who may buy, own and sell their stock.
"Otherwise construed, the act would be unconstitutional, because: The power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states does not give congress the power to regulate any of the matters above mentioned. In respect to corporations created by the states; and, because: Persons may not be deprived of their property without due process of law, by taking from them the right to sell it, as their interest may suggest."

“Railroad Merger Suit,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1057.