The Port Gibson Reveille

Settle Out of Court
As a result of a legal transaction here the treasury of the State of Mississippi is enriched by reason of the settlement out of court by agreed decree and fine of the litigation against the Standard Oil Company of Kentucky and its subsidiary corporations. This ends the penalty suit entered in the chancery court of Lauderdale county some two years ago, which has been sustained as to the law of the case by the state supreme court and was ready to be gone into to develop the facts alleged.
This settlement is due to the activity of Ross A. Collins, Mississippi's aggressive and successful attorney-general, who has thus succeeded in settling another of the antitrust suits brought by him to enforce obedience to the laws of this state without going into the facts in his possession.
During his administration, a period of a little more than two years, he has succeeded in collecting more funds for violation of the antitrust laws than has been collected in this manner prior to his administration, as shown by the records.
A few months ago he collected from the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company $50,000 for its violation of the antitrust laws of the state by illegal combination with other companies.
He has a number of other suits pending and has determined to see that the laws of the state are obeyed by the big business interests as well as by ordinary citizens. Suits instituted by Gen. Collins and his policy in connection with them is mainly to secure obedience to the law and to give the people the benefit of competition and fair dealing. He believes, however, that parties violating laws should be made to pay a sufficient fine to make them feel the effect of their deeds.
It is his determination, as he states, to see that laws are respected by the large interests as long as he is attorney-general of the state.
Attorney-General Collins, who was at New Orleans, busily occupied on another case, made a flying trip to Jackson, where he met Attorney Middleton of Louisville, of Humphreys, Middleton & Humphreys, of general counsel for the Standard Oil Company, and Judge Edward Mayes, who were ready to close up the tentative negotiations for settlement, which had been pending for several weeks. The terms were satisfactory, and before Attorney-General Collins left for New Orleans the details were entirely closed.