Each Standard stockholder received twenty of these certificates
for each share which he held of Standard stock. These
certificates could be bought and sold and passed on by
inheritance precisely the same as stocks.

Ingenious as was this legal device, it did not stand the test of
the courts. In 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court declared the Standard
Oil Trust a violation of the law and demanded its dissolution.
The persistent attempts of the Standard to disregard this order
increased its reputation for lawlessness. Finally, in 1899, after
Ohio had brought another action, the trust was dissolved. The
Standard interests now reorganized all their holdings under the
name of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Again, in 1911,
the United States Supreme Court declared this combination a
violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and ordered its
dissolution. By this time the Standard capitalists had learned
the value of public opinion as a corporate asset, and made no
attempt to evade the order of the court. The Standard Oil Company
of New Jersey proceeded to apportion among its stockholders the
stock which it held in thirty-seven other companies--refineries,
pipe lines, producing companies, marketing companies, and the
like. Chief Justice White, in rendering his decision,
specifically ordered that, in dissolving their combination, the
Standard should make no agreement, contractual or implied, which
was intended still to retain their properties in one ownership.
As less than a dozen men owned a majority interest in the
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, these same men naturally
continued to own a majority interest in the subsidiary companies.
Though the immediate effect of this famous decision therefore was
not to cause a separation in fact, this does not signify that, as