Bathtub Trust

Baltimore-based A. Weiskittel & Son merrily flaunted the "Bathtub Trust" in this 1902 advertisements, but by 1913 they had been found guilty of criminal conspiracy and the trust dissolved. The suite against the trust began in Baltimore.

The Bathtub Trust was when the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company and forty-nine other companies were charged with engaging in anti-competitive practices (price fixing etc). The trust had been around in some form or another since at least the turn of the century. A suite was filed against them, at the urging of President William Howard Taft, that began in Baltimore. ^[1] It reached the Supreme Court of the United States as Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States and the trust was broken. ^{[2] [3]} Joseph R. Darling was a special agent of the United States Department of Justice who prepared the case. ^[4] In 1915 he wrote "Darling on Trusts" a legal treatise.

A subsequent criminal case was brought in Detroit, and in February 1913, members of the now-broken trust were found guilty of criminal conspiracy to restrain trade. ^[5]

References

1. "Bathtub Suit Began Here". The Baltimore Sun. November 20, 1912. p. 7.
2. "Seller of Patent Can't Prescribe Prices or Sales of Product, Says Supreme Court". The New York Times . November 19, 1912. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
3. "Bathtub Trust Order Is Signed". The Evening Sun. November 27, 1911. p. 12.
4. "Joseph R. Darling Resigns". The Christian Science Monitor . December 1, 1913. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
5. "Bathtub Trust Guilty". The Baltimore Sun. February 15, 1913. p. 5.