A trust is a combination of capital, skill, or acts by two or more persons, firms, corporations, or associations of persons, or of two or more of them, for either, any, or all of the following purposes: First, to create or carry out restrictions in trade. Second, to limit or reduce the production, or increase or reduce the price of merchandise or commodities. Third, to prevent competition in manufacture, making, transportation, sale, or purchase of merchandise, produce, or commodities. Fourth, to fix at any standard or figure whereby its price to the public shall be in any manner controlled or established upon any article or commodity of merchandise, produce, or manufacture intended for sale, use, or consumption in this state; or to establish any pretended agency whereby the sale of any such article or commodity shall be covered up and made to appear to be for the original vendor, for like purpose or purposes, and to enable such original vendor or manufacturer to control the wholesale or retail price of any such article or commodity after the title to such article or commodity shall have passed from such vendor or manufacturer. Fifth, to make or enter into, or examine or carry out any contract, obligation, or agreement of any kind or description by which they shall bind or have bound themselves not to sell, dispose of, or transport any article or commodity, or article of trade, use, merchandise, commerce, or consumption below a common standard figure, or card or list price; or by which they shall agree in any manner to keep the price of such article, commodity, or transportation at a fixed or graduated figure; or by which they shall in any manner establish or settle the price of any article or commodity or transportation between them or themselves and others, to preclude a free and unrestricted competition among themselves or others in the sale or transportation of any such article or commodity; or by which they shall agree to pool, combine, or unite any interest they may have in connection with the sale or transportation of any such article or commodity that its price might in any manner be affected.
The various laws differ from one another in no important particulars. They agree in declaring all combinations in restraint of free competition illegal. The United States law differs from the state laws only in its application to interstate commerce and combinations in the territories and the District of Columbia. Most of the laws are directed against monopolies in ordinary
