In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the purchase on the ground that it was contrary to the Sherman law, and to order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government. Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United States government could not control them. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd. His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is _Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894); consult also C.A. Lloyd, _Henry D. Lloyd_ (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals are in _Political Science Quarterly_, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp. 296-319; W.Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (rev. ed., 1916), is useful; B.J. Hendrick, _Age of Big Business_ (1919), is interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, _History of the Standard Oil Company_ (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S.C.T. Dodd, _Trusts_ (1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, _The Anthracite Coal Combination in the United States_ (1914); J.W. Jenks, _Trust Problem_ (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale production; J.W. Jenks and W.E. Clark, _The Trust Problem_ (4th ed., 1917), is scholarly and complete; J.D. Rockefeller, _Random Reminiscences of Men and Events_ (1916), is a brief defence of the Standard Oil Company; W.H. Taft, _Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_ (1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward Bellamy, _Looking Backward_ (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on the subject are in _Senate Documents_, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol. 14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society. * * * * *