Northern Securities Company

Northern Securities Company was a large railroad conglomerate formed in 1901 by financiers J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, J. D. Rockefeller, E. H. Harriman and others. The company controlled the Northern Pacific Railway, Great Northern Railway, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and others. The companies had all formed a large trust, which had been outlawed since 1890 by the Sherman Antitrust Act. President Theodore Roosevelt sued them for violating the Act.

The company is perhaps best known as one of the first large-scale examples of Roosevelt's "trust-busting" activities in the early 1900s. After vigorous federal prosecution, the company was dissolved according to the 1904 Supreme Court ruling in the Northern Securities case. The companies were convicted under the Sherman Antitrust Act, overturning the previous decision of United States v. E. C. Knight Co.. In that case, the Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act was insufficient in regulating that monopoly. In the following 7 years, 43 other cases turned out rulings similar to the Northern Securities case. The Northern Securities case was one of the earliest and most important antitrust cases and provided important legal precedents for many later cases, including that against Major League Baseball.

Ironically, in 1970, the three railroads merged together with Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway to form Burlington Northern Railroad