The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 149

Book Reviews

debate of the role of these units and how they have been used until the present.
His examination of the Texas 36th Division is anchored in this context.
Some problems slow the narrative, however. The author introduces many
names that are difficult to track; a list would be useful. Photographs and maps
could be better incorporated; maps used do not directly correspond to the
actions described. Further, reading the level of detail in the latter half of the
book sometimes resembles the "slow slog" of the battles that Brager describes (p.
144). Nevertheless there is much of value here: a thought-provoking discussion
of the evolution of the American military, the wealth of first-person accounts,
and an extensive bibliography (reflecting a vast survey of the secondary litera-
ture and primary documents). As Brager intends, he creates an interesting pro-
file of this unit, whose experience and accomplishments reflect those of many
American World War I and II divisions.
Tempe Hzstorical Museum JOHN AKERS
Broken Trusts: The Texas Attorney General Versus the Oil Industry, 1889-1909. By
Jonathan W. Singer. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. Pp.
xiii+344. List of illustrations, list of abbreviations, acknowledgments, intro-
duction, epilogue, appendix, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 1-
58544-160-0. $49.95, cloth.)
Broken Trusts is the history of twenty years of judicial, political, and economic
activities revolving around the Standard Oil company's illegal, monopolistic,
business practices in Texas. The author, who of necessity has legal expertise,
reveals the political and economic motives of the plaintiffs, especially the state's
attorneys general, as well as the desires of defendant corporations in various law-
suits and trials.
Convoluted maneuvering and testimony, the bane of legal histories, is ever pre-
sent, and marked by predictable alleged memory lapses of key Standard officials,
but the author keeps it interesting and relevant with numerous revelations. One
ex-official of Waters-Pierce, the Standard subsidiary that pretended to be inde-
pendent, turned state's witness, but proved less than helpful when he altered
company documents and accepted pay for his testimony. Waters-Pierce tried to
quash an affidavit on the grounds that a woman could not serve as a notary pub-
lic, but the judge ruled that there was no constitutional ban and women had held
such offices for seventeen years. A momentary stumble occurs when a Missouri
attorney of that time, as well as the author, get embroiled in arguments about the
"treaty" admitting Texas to the Union (p. 177), but the treaty, of course, was
voted down and Texas was admitted by joint resolution of both houses of
Congress. By 1904 Standard's policy was to back away from the Texas trouble,
and when one of its officials became de facto president of Waters-Pierce, he tried
to comply with the state's anti-trust laws. Henry Pierce, whose rapacity even
Standard underestimated, quickly used his executive control to fire him. In 1909
Waters-Pierce was finally expelled from the state and had to pay a penalty of over
$1,6oo,ooo, but the criminal case against Henry Pierce was tossed out.

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