*165Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents 1 were convicted by a jury,2 23 F. Supp. 937, under an indictment charging violations of § 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act,3 26 Stat. 209; 50 Stat. 693. *166The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial. 105 F. 2d 809. The case is here on a petition and cross-petition for certiorari, both of which we granted because of the public importance of the issues raised. 308 U. S. 540.
I. The Indictment.
The indictment was returned in December 1936 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. It charges that certain major oil companies,4 selling gasoline in the Mid-Western area5 (which includes the Western District of Wisconsin), (1) “combined and conspired together for the purpose of artificially raising and fixing the tank car prices of gasoline” in the “spot markets” in the East Texas6 and Mid-Continent7 fields; (2) “have artificially raised and fixed said spot market tank car prices of gasoline and have maintained said prices at artificially high and non-competitive levels, and at levels agreed upon among them and have thereby intentionally increased and fixed the tank car prices of gasoline contracted to be sold and sold in interstate commerce as aforesaid in the Mid-Western area”; (3) “have arbitrarily,” by reason of the provisions of the prevailing form of jobber contracts which made the price to the jobber dependent on the average spot market price, “exacted large sums of money from thousands of jobbers with *167whom they have had such contracts in said Mid-Western area”; and (4) “in turn have intentionally raised the general level of retail prices prevailing in said Mid-Western area.”
The manner and means of effectuating such conspiracy are alleged in substance as follows: Defendants, from February 1935 to December 1936 “have knowingly and unlawfully engaged and participated in two concerted gasoline buying programs” for the purchase “from independent refiners in spot transactions of large quantities of gasoline in the East Texas and Mid-Continent fields at uniform, high, and at times progressively increased prices.” The East Texas buying program is alleged to have embraced purchases of gasoline in spot transactions from most of the independent refiners in the East Texas field, who were members of the East Texas Refiners’ Marketing Association, formed in February 1935 with the knowledge and approval of some of the defendants “for the purpose of selling and facilitating the sale of gasoline to defendant major oil companies.” It is alleged that arrangements were made and carried out for allotting orders for gasoline received from defendants among the members of that association; and that such purchases amounted to more than 50% of all gasoline produced by those independent refiners. The Mid-Continent buying program is alleged to have included “large and increased purchases of gasoline” by defendants from independent refiners located in the Mid-Continent fields pursuant to allotments among themselves. Those purchases, it is charged, were made from independent refiners who were assigned to certain of the defendants at monthly meetings of a group representing defendants. It is alleged that the purchases in this buying program amounted to nearly 50% of all gasoline sold by those independents. As respects both the East Texas and the Mid-Continent buying programs, it is alleged that the purchases of gasoline were in excess of the amounts which defendants would have *168purchased but for those programs; that at the instance of certain defendants these independent refiners curtailed their production of gasoline.
The independent refiners selling in these programs were named as co-conspirators, but not as defendants.
Certain market journals — Chicago Journal of Commerce, Platt’s Oilgram, National Petroleum News — were made defendants.8 Their participation in the conspiracy is alleged as follows: that they have been “the chief agencies and instrumentalities” through which the wrongfully raised prices “have affected the prices paid by jobbers, retail dealers, and consumers for gasoline in the Mid-Western area,” that they “knowingly published and circulated as such price quotations the wrongfully and artificially raised and fixed prices for gasoline paid by” defendants in these buying programs, while “representing the price quotations published by them” to be gasoline prices “prevailing in spot sales to jobbers in tank car lots” and while “knowing and intending them to be relied on as such by jobbers and to be made the basis of prices to jobbers.”
Jurisdiction and venue in the Western District of Wisconsin are alleged as follows: that most of defendant major oil companies have sold large quantities of gasoline in tank car lots to jobbers in that district at the “artificially raised and fixed and non-competitive prices”; that they have “solicited and taken contracts and orders” for *169gasoline in that district; and that they have required retail dealers and consumers therein “to pay artificially increased prices for gasoline” pursuant to the conspiracy.
The methods oj marketing and selling gasoline in the Mid-Western area are set forth in the indictment in some detail. Since we hereafter develop the facts concerning them, it will suffice at this point to summarize them briefly. Each defendant major oil company owns, operates or leases retail service stations in this area. It supplies those stations, as well as independent retail stations, with gasoline from its bulk storage plants. All but one sell large quantities of gasoline to jobbers in tank car lots under term contracts. In this area these jobbers exceed 4,000 in number and distribute about 50% of all gasoline distributed to retail service stations therein, the bulk of the jobbers’ purchases being made from the defendant companies. The price to the jobbers under those contracts with defendant companies is made dependent on the spot market price, pursuant to a formula hereinafter discussed. And the spot market tank car prices of gasoline directly and substantially influence the retail prices in the area. In sum, it is alleged that defendants by raising and fixing the tank car prices of gasoline in these spot markets could and did increase the tank car prices and the retail prices of gasoline sold in the Mid-Western area. The vulnerability of these spot markets to that type of manipulation or stabilization is emphasized by the allegation that spot market prices published in the journals were the result of spot sales made chiefly by independent refiners of a relatively small amount of the gasoline sold in that area — virtually all gasoline sold in tank car quantities in spot market transactions in the Mid-*170Western area being sold by independent refiners, such sales amounting to less than 5% of all gasoline marketed therein.
So much for the indictment.
II. Background of the Alleged Conspiracy.
Evidence was introduced (or respondents made offers of proof) showing or tending to show the following conditions preceding the commencement of the alleged conspiracy in February 1935. As we shall develop later, these facts were in the main relevant to certain defenses which respondents at the trial unsuccessfully sought to interpose to the indictment.
Beginning about 1926 there commenced a period of production of crude oil in such quantities as seriously to affect crude oil and gasoline markets throughout the United States. Overproduction was wasteful, reduced the productive capacity of the oil fields and drove the price of oil down to levels below the cost of production from pumping and stripper 9 wells. When the price falls below such cost, those wells must be abandoned. Once abandoned, subsurface changes make it difficult or impossible to bring those wells back into production. Since such wells constitute about 40% of the country’s known oil reserves, conservation requires that the price of crude oil be maintained at a level which will permit such wells to be operated. As Oklahoma and Kansas were attempting to remedy the situation through their proration laws, the largest oil field in history was discovered in East Texas. That was in 1930. The supply of oil from this *171field was so great that at one time crude oil sank to 10 or 15 cents a barrel, and gasoline was sold in the East Texas field for 2%^ a gallon. Enforcement by Texas of its proration law was extremely difficult.. Orders restricting production were violated, the oil unlawfully produced being known as “hot oil” and the gasoline manufactured therefrom, “hot gasoline.” Hot oil sold for substantially lower prices than those posted for legal oil. Hot gasoline therefore cost less and at times could be sold for less than it cost to manufacture legal gasoline. The latter, deprived of its normal outlets, had to be sold at distress prices. The condition of many independent refiners using legal crude oil was precarious. In spite of their unprofitable operations they could not afford to shut down, for if they did so they would be apt to lose their oil connections in the field and their regular customers. Having little storage capacity they had to sell their gasoline as fast as they made it. As a result their gasoline became “distress” gasoline — gasoline which the refiner could not store, for which he had no regular sales outlets and which therefore he had to sell for whatever price it would bring. Such sales drove the market down.
In the spring of 1933 conditions were acute. The wholesale market was below the cost of manufacture. As the market became flooded with cheap gasoline, gasoline was dumped at whatever price it would bring. On June 1, 1933, the price of crude oil was 25<¿ a barrel; the tank car price of regular gasoline was 2%‡ a gallon. In June 1933 Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act (48 Stat. 195). Sec. 9 (c) of that Act authorized the President to forbid the interstate and foreign shipment of petroleum and its products produced or withdrawn from storage in violation of state laws. By Executive Order the President on July 11, 1933, forbade such shipments. On August 19, 1933, a code of fair competi*172tion for the petroleum industry was approved.10 The Secretary of the Interior was designated as Administrator of that Code. He established a Petroleum Administrative Board to “advise with and make recommendations” to him. A Planning and Coordination Committee was appointed, of which respondent Charles E. Arnott, a vice-president of So cony-Vacuum, was a member, to aid in the administration of the Code. In addressing that Committee in the fall of 1933 the Administrator said: “Our task is to stabilize the oil industry upon a profitable basis.” Considerable progress was made. The price of crude oil was a dollar a barrel near the end of September 1933, as a result of the voluntary action of the industry,11 but, according to respondents, in accordance with the Administrator’s policy and d'esire. In April 1934 an amendment to the Code was adopted under which an attempt was made to balance the supply of gasoline with the demand by allocating the amount of crude oil which each refiner could process with the view of creating a firmer condition in the market and thus increasing the *173price of gasoline.12 This amendment also authorized the Planning and Coordination Committee, with the approval of the President, to make suitable arrangements for the purchase of gasoline from non-integrated or semi-integrated refiners and the resale of the same through orderly channels. Thereafter four buying programs were approved by the Administrator.13 These permitted the major companies to purchase distress gasoline from the independent refiners. Standard forms of contract were provided. The evil aimed at was, in part at least, the production of hot oil and hot gasoline. The contracts (to at least one of which the Administrator was a party) were made pursuant to the provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Code and bound the purchasing company to buy fixed amounts of gasoline at designated prices14 on condition that the seller *174should abide by the provisions of the Code. According to the 1935 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior, these buying programs were not successful as “the production of gasoline from 'hot oil’ continued, stocks of gasoline mounted, wholesale prices for gasoline remained below parity with crude-oil prices, and in the early fall of 1934 the industry approached a serious collapse of the wholesale market.”15 Restoration of the price of gasoline to parity with crude oil at one dollar per barrel was not realized.
The flow of hot oil out of East Texas continued. Refiners in the field could procure such oil for 35$ or less a barrel and manufacture gasoline from it for 2 or 2%^ a gallon. This competition of the cheap hot gasoline drove the price of legal gasoline down below the cost of production. The problem of distress gasoline also persisted. The disparity between the price of gasoline and the cost of crude oil which had been at $1 per barrel since September 1933 caused losses to many independent refiners, no matter how efficient they were. In October 1934 the Administrator set up a Federal Tender Board and issued an order making it illegal to ship crude oil or gasoline out of East Texas in interstate or foreign commerce unless it were accompanied by a tender issued by that Board certifying that it had been legally produced or manufactured. Prices rose sharply. But the improvement was only temporary as the enforcement of § 9 (c) of the Act was enjoined in a number of suits. On January 7, 1935, this Court held § 9 (c) to be unconstitutional. Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388. Following that decision there was a renewed influx of hot gasoline into the Mid-Western area and the tank car market fell.
*175Meanwhile the retail markets had been swept by a series of price wars. These price wars affected all markets — service station, tank wagon, and tank car. Early in 1934 the Petroleum Administrative Board tried to deal with them — by negotiating agreements between marketing companies and persuading individual companies to raise the price level for a period. On July 9, 1934, that Board asked respondent Arnott, chairman of the Planning and Coordination Committee’s Marketing Committee,16 if he would head up a voluntary, cooperative movement to deal with price wars. According to Arnott, he pointed out that in order to stabilize the retail market it was necessary to stabilize the tank car market through elimination of hot oil and distress gasoline.17 On July 20, 1934, the Administrator wrote Arnott, described the disturbance caused by price wars and said:
“Under Article VII, Section 3 of the Code it is the duty of the Planning and Coordination Committee to cooperate with the Administration as a planning and fair practice agency for the industry. I am, therefore, requesting you, as Chairman of the Marketing Committee of the Planning and Coordination Committee, to take action which we deem necessary to restore markets- to their normal conditions in areas where wasteful competition has caused them to become depressed. The number and extent of these situations would make it impractical for the Petroleum Administrative Board acting alone to deal with each specific situation. Therefore, I am re*176questing and authorizing you, as Chairman of the Marketing Committee, to. designate committees for each locality when and as price wars develop, with authority to confer and to negotiate and to hold due public hearings with a view to ascertaining the elements of conflict that are present, and in a cooperative manner to stabilize the price level to conform to that normally prevailing in contiguous areas where marketing conditions are similar. Any activities of your Committee must, of course, be consistent with the requirements of Clause 2 of Sub-section (a) of Section III of the Act, . . .”18
*177After receiving that letter Arnott appointed a General Stabilization Committee with headquarters in Washington and a regional chairman in each region. Over fifty-state and local committees were set up. The Petroleum Administrative Board worked closely with Amott and the committees until the end of the Code near the middle of 1935. The effort (first local, then state-wide, and finally regional) was to eliminate price wars by negotiation and by persuading suppliers to see to it that those who bought from them sold at a fair price. In the first week of December 1934, Arnott held a meeting of the General Stabilization Committee in Chicago and a series of meetings on the next four or five days attended by hundreds of members of the industry from the middle west. These meetings were said to have been highly successful in elimination of many price wars. Amott reported the results to members of the Petroleum Administrative Board on December 18, 1934, and stated that he was going to have a follow-up meeting in the near future. It was at that next meeting that the groundwork for the alleged conspiracy was laid.
III. The Alleged Conspiracy.
The alleged conspiracy is not to be found in any formal contract or agreement. It is to be pieced together from the testimony of many witnesses and the contents of over 1,000 exhibits, extending through the 3,900 printed pages of the record. What follows is based almost entirely on unequivocal testimony or undisputed contents of exhibits, only occasionally on the irresistible inferences from those facts.
*178A. FORMATION OF THE MID-CONTINENT BUYING PROGRAM.
The next meeting of the General Stabilization Committee was held in Chicago on January 4, 1935, and was attended by all of the individual respondents, by representatives of the corporate respondents, and by others. Representatives of independent refiners, present at the meeting, complained of the failure of the price of refined gasoline to reach a parity with the crude oil price of $1 a barrel. And complaints by the independents of the depressing effect on the market of hot and distress gasoline were reported. Views were expressed to the effect that “if we were going to have general stabilization in retail markets, we must have some sort of a firm market in the tank car market/' As a result of the discussion Arnott appointed a Tank Car Stabilization Committee19 to study the situation and make a report, or, to use the language of one of those present, “to consider ways and means of establishing and maintaining an active and strong tank car market on gasoline.” Three days after this committee was appointed, this Court decided Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, supra. As we have said, there was evidence that following that decision there was a renewed influx of hot gasoline into the Mid-Western area with a consequent falling off of the tank car market prices.
The first meeting of the Tank Car Committee was held February 5, 1935, and the second on February 11, 1935. At these meetings the alleged conspiracy was formed, the substance of which, so far as it pertained to the Mid-Continent phase, was as follows:
It was estimated that there would be between 600 and 700 tank cars of distress gasoline produced in the Mid-*179Continent oil field every month by about 17 independent refiners. These refiners, not having regular outlets for the gasoline, would be unable to dispose of it except at distress prices. Accordingly, it was proposed and decided that certain major companies (including the corporate respondents) would purchase gasoline from these refiners. The Committee would assemble each month information as to the quantity and location of this distress gasoline. Each of the major companies was to select one (or more) of the independent refiners having distress gasoline as its “dancing partner,”20 and would assume responsibility for purchasing its distress supply. In this manner buying power would be coordinated, purchases would be effectively placed, and the results would be much superior to the previous haphazard purchasing. There were to be no formal contractual commitments to purchase this gasoline, either between the major companies or between the majors and the independents. Rather it was an informal gentlemen’s agreement or understanding whereby each undertook to perform his share of the joint undertaking. *180Purchases were to be made at the “fair going market price.”
A Mechanical Sub-Committee21 was appointed to find purchasers for any new distress gasoline which might appear between the monthly meetings of the Tank Car Stabilization Committee and to handle detailed problems arising during these periods. It was agreed that any such attempt to stabilize the tank car market was hopeless until the flow of hot gasoline was stopped. But it was expected that a bill pending before Congress to prohibit interstate shipment of hot gasoline would soon be enacted which would deal effectively with that problem. Accordingly, it was decided not to put any program into operation until this bill had been enacted and became operative. It was left to respondent Amott to give the signal for putting the program into operation after this had occurred.
The Connally Act (49 Stat. 30) became law on February 22, 1935. The enforcement agency under this Act was the Federal Tender Board which was appointed about March 1st. It issued its first tenders March 4th. On March 1st respondents Arnott and Ashton explained the buying program to a group of Mid-Continent independent refiners in Kansas City, who expressed a desire to cooperate and who appointed a committee to attend a meeting of the Tank Car Stabilization Committee in St.Louis on March 5th to learn more about the details. This meeting was held with the committee of the independents present at one of the sessions. At a later session that day the final details of the Mid-Continent buying program were worked out, including an assignment *181of the “dancing partners” among the major companies.22 On March 6th Ashton telephoned Arnott and told him what had been accomplished at the St. Louis meeting. Later the same day Arnott told Ashton by telephone that the program should be put into operation as soon as possible, since the Federal Tender Board seemed to be cleaning up the hot oil situation in East Texas. Ash-ton advised McDowell, chairman of the Mechanical SubCommittee, of Arnott’s instructions. And on March 7th that committee went into action. They divided up the major companies; each communicated with- those on his list, advised them that the program was launched, and suggested that they get in touch with their respective “dancing partners.” Before the month was out all companies alleged to have participated in the program (except one or two) made purchases; 757 tank cars were bought from all but three of the independent refiners who were named in the indictment as sellers.
B. THE MID-CONTINENT BUYING PROGRAM IN OPERATION.
No specific term for the buying program was decided upon, beyond the first month. But it was started with the hope of its continuance from month to month. And in fact it did go on for over a year, as we shall see.
The concerted action under this program took the following form:
The Tank Car Stabilization Committee had A. V. Bourque, Secretary of the Western Petroleum Refiners’ *182Association;23 make a monthly survey, showing the amount of distress gasoline which each independent refiner would have during the month. From March 1935 through February 1936 that Committee met once a month. At these meetings the surveys showing the amount and location of distress gasoline were presented and discussed. They usually revealed that from 600 to 800 tank cars of distress gasoline would become available during the month. Each member of the Committee present would indicate how much his company would buy and from whom. Those companies which were not represented at the meetings were approached by the Mechanical Sub-Committee; “word was gotten to them as to the amount of gasoline that it was felt they could take in that month.” Also, as we have stated, the Mechanical Sub-Committee would endeavor to find purchasers for any new distress gasoline which appeared between the meetings of the Tank Car Stabilization Committee. It would report such new surpluses to Bourque. The functions of the Mechanical Sub-Committee were apparently not restricted merely to dissemination of information to the buyers. One of its members testified that he urged the majors to buy more distress gasoline. Throughout, persuasion was apparently used to the end that all distress gasoline would be taken by the majors and so* kept from the tank car markets. As the program progressed, most of the major companies continued to buy from the same “dancing partners” with whom they had started.
One of the tasks of the Mechanical Sub-Committee was to keep itself informed as to the current prices of *183gasoline and to use its persuasion and influence to see to it that the majors paid a fair going market price and did not “chisel” on the small refiners. It did so. At its meetings during the spring of 1935 the question of the fair going market price was discussed. For example, Jacobi, a member of the Sub-Committee, testified that at the meeting of March 14, 1935, “the subcommittee . . . arrived at what we thought was a fair market price for the week following,” viz. 3%‡ and 4%?i.24 Jacobi termed these prices arrived at by the Sub-Committee as the “recommended prices.” He made it a practice of recommending these prices to the major companies with which he communicated. According to his testimony, those “recommendations” were represented by him to be not the Sub-Committee’s but his own idea. McDowell testified that he never made any such price recommendations but if asked would tell the purchasing companies what his own company was paying for gasoline.25 Up to June 7, 1935, price “recommendations” were made five or seven times, each time the “recommended” prices constituting a price advance of or y$ over the previous “recommendation.” No more price “recommendations” were made in 1935. In January 1936 there was an advance in the price of crude oil. The members of the SubCommittee discussed the price situation and concluded that an advance of a gallon of gasoline purchased under the program should be made. Jacobi made that “recommendation” to the companies on his list.
*184We shall discuss later the effect of this buying program on the market.
The major companies regularly reported to Bourque, the trade association representative of the Mid-Continent independent refiners, the volume of their purchases under the program and the prices paid. Representatives of one of the corporate respondents repeatedly characterized its purchases under the program as “quotas,” “obligations,” or “allocations.” They spoke of one of its “dancing partners” under the buying program as “one of the babies placed .in our lap last spring when this thing was inaugurated.” And they stated that “we don’t have much choice as to whose material we are to take, when we purchase outside third grade gasoline in connection with the Buying Program Committee’s operations. On such purchases, we have refineries ‘assigned’ to us.” This was doubtless laymen’s, not lawyers’, language. As we have said, there does not appear to have been any binding commitment to purchase; the plan was wholly voluntary; there is nothing in the record to indicate that a participant would be penalized for failure to cooperate. But though the arrangement was informal, it was nonetheless effective, as we shall see. And, as stated by the Circuit Court of Appeals, there did appear to be at least a .moral obligation to purchase the amounts specified at the fair market prices “recommended.” That alone would seem to explain why some of the major companies can-celled or declined to enter into profitable deals for the exchange of gasoline with other companies in order to participate in this buying program. Respondent Skelly Oil Co. apparently lost at least some of its pipe-line transportation profit of 3Ad a gallon “on every car of gasoline” purchased by it in the buying program. And both that company and respondent Wadhams Oil Co. continued to make purchases of gasoline under the program although they were unable then to dispose of it.
*185Up to June 1935, the expenses incurred by the members of the Mechanical Sub-Committee were charged to and paid by the Planning and Coordination Committee of the Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry. On May 27, 1935, this Court held in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, that the code-making authority conferred by the National Industrial Recovery Act was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. Shortly thereafter the Tank Car Stabilization Committee held a meeting to discuss their future course of action. It was decided that the buying program should continue. Accordingly, that Committee continued to meet each month through February 1936. The procedure at these meetings was essentially the same as at the earlier ones. Gradually the buying program worked almost automatically, as contacts between buyer and seller became well established. The Mechanical Sub-Committee met at irregular intervals until December 1935. Thereafter it conducted its work on the telephone.
C. FORMATION AND NATURE OF THE EAST TEXAS BUYING program:
In the meetings when the Mid-Continent buying program was being formulated it was recognized that it would be necessary or desirable to take the East Texas surplus gasoline off the market so that it would not be a “disturbing ■ influence in the Standard of Indiana territory.” The reason was that .weakness in East Texas spot market prices might make East Texas gasoline competitive with Mid-Continent gasoline in the Mid-Western area and thus affect Mid-Continent spot market prices. The tank car rate on gasoline shipments from the East Texas field to points in the Mid-Western area was about a gallon higher than from the Mid-Continent field. With East Texas spot market prices more than y8j a *186gallon below Mid-Continent spot market pnces, there might well be a resulting depressing effect on the Mid-Continent spot market prices.26
Early in 1935 the East Texas Refiners’ Marketing Association was formed to dispose of the surplus gasoline manufactured by the East Texas refiners. The occasion for the formation, of this Association was the stoppage of the shipment of hot oil and gasoline as a consequence of a Texas law enacted in December 1934. As long as these refiners had operated on cheap hot oil they had been able to compete for business throughout the Middle West. If they used legal crude at a dollar a barrel, their costs would increase. Their shift from a hot oil to a legal oil basis necessitated a change in their marketing methods. They were already supplying jobbers and dealers of Texas with all the gasoline they could use. Hence, their problem was to find additional markets for the surplus gasoline which they manufactured from legal crude. The Association was to act as the sales agency for those surpluses. Shipments north would be against the freight differential. Therefore, without regular outlets for this surplus gasoline they would have been forced to dump it on the market at distress prices. Their plan was to persuade the major companies if possible to buy more East Texas gasoline and to purchase it through the Association which would allocate it among its members who had surpluses. Neil Buckley, a buyer for Cities Service *187Export Corporation in Tulsa, was recommended by one of the independents as the contact man. Buckley undertook the job.27
Thus it was not established that the major companies caused the Association to be formed. But it is clear that the services of the Association were utilized in connection with a buying program by defendant companies. The record is quite voluminous on the activities of Buckley in getting the support of the majors to the Association’s program. Suffice it to say that he encountered many difficulties, most of them due to the suspicion and mistrust of the majors as a result of the earlier hot oil record of the East Texas independents. His initial task was to' convince the majors of the good faith of the East Texas independents. Many conferences were had. Arnott gave help to Buckley. Thus, on March 1, 1935, Arnott wired a small group of representatives of major companies, who were buyers and users of East Texas gasoline, inviting them to attend a meeting in New York City on March 6th “to hear outcome my meeting with East Texas refiners and to consider future action surplus gasoline this and other groups that is awaiting our decision . . . matter of extreme importance.” The problem was discussed at that meeting28 but reliable information was lacking as to the probable amount of distress gasoline, the size of the independents’ federal allocations and whether or not such gasoline was going to be manufactured within *188those allocations. Accordingly Arnott appointed a committee to attend the meeting of the District Allocators29 on March 13th and to obtain the information. That information was obtained and a schedule was prepared showing the probable amount of surplus gasoline in East Texas and the Gulf, the names of the regular buyers in those areas, and the amounts they might take. Arnott, on March 14th, by telegraph called another meeting in New York City for the next day, saying “The question óf surplus gasoline which has been under consideration must be finalized tomorrow.” At that meeting someone (apparently a representative of respondent Sinclair) “arose with a slip of paper in his hand and stated that it had been suggested” that each of 12 to 15 major companies “take so much gasoline” from East Texas, “the amounts being read off as to what each company would take.” Nothing definite was decided at the meeting. Buckley continued his efforts, talking with Arnott and representatives of other majors. It is impossible to find from the record the exact point of crystallization of a buying program. But it is clear that as a result of Buckley’s and Arnott’s efforts and of the discussions at the various meetings various major companies did come into line and that a concerted buying program was launched. The correspondence of employees of some of the majors throughout the period in question is replete with references such as the following: “buying program in East Texas”; “our allocation of five cars per day”; “a general buying movement”; “regular weekly purchases from the East Texas group”; “allocations and purchases” in the East Texas field; and the like.
*189In 1935 the East Texas refiners named in the indictment sold 285,592,188 gallons of gasoline. Of this certain defendant companies30 bought 40,195,754 gallons or 14.07%. In the same year all independent refiners in East Texas sold 378,920,346 gallons — practically all of it on the spot market. Of this amount those defendant companies purchased 12.03% or 45,598,453 gallons. Of the 8,797 tank cars purchased by all defendants (except Sinclair) from March 1935 through April 1936 from independent refiners in the East Texas field, 2,412 tank cars were purchased by the present corporate respondents.
Every Monday morning the secretary of the East Texas association ascertained from each member the amount of his forthcoming weekly surplus gasoline and the price he wanted. He used the consensus of opinion as the asking price. He would call the major companies; they would call him. He exchanged market information with them. Orders received for less than the asking price would not be handled by the Association; rather the secretary would refer the buyer to one of the independents who might sell at the lower price. Very few cars were purchased through the Association by others' than the major oil companies.31 The majors bought about 7,000 tank cars through the Asssociation in 1935 and about 2,700 tank cars in the first four months of 1936. And in 1935 the secretary of the Association placed an additional 1,000 tank cars by bringing the purchasers and the independent refiners together. The purchases in 1935 in East Texas were, with minor exceptions, either *190at the low or slightly below the low quotation in Platt’s Oilgram, following it closely as the market rose in March, April, and May, 1935; they conformed to the market as it flattened out into more or less of a plateau through the balance of 1935 with a low for third grade gasoline of This was consistent with the policy of the buying program. For the majors were requested to purchase at the “fair, going market price.” 32 And it is clear that this East Texas buying program was, as we have said, supplementary or auxiliary to the Mid-Continent program. As stated in March 1935 in an inter-company memorandum of one of the majors: . . with east coast refiners having a program to purchase surplus East Texas gasoline over the next four months, we feel that still further advances can be made in the tank car market and a resultant increase in the service station price.”
D. SCOPE AN» PURPOSE OF THE ALLEGED CONSPIRACY.
As a result of these buying programs it was hoped and intended that both the tank car and the retail markets would improve. The conclusion is irresistible that defendants’ purpose was not merely to raise the spot market prices but, as the real and ultimate end, to raise the price of gasoline in their sales to jobbers and consumers in the Mid-Western area. Their agreement or plan embraced not only buying on the spot markets but also, at least by clear implication, an understanding to maintain such improvements in Mid-Western prices as would result from those purchases of distress gasoline. The latter obviously would be achieved by selling at the increased prices, not *191by price cutting. Any other understanding would have been wholly inconsistent with and contrary to the philosophy of the broad stabilization efforts which were under way. In essence the raising and maintenance of the spot market prices were but the means adopted for raising and maintaining prices to jobbers and consumers. The broad sweep of the agreement was indicated by Arnott before a group of the industry on March 13, 1935. He described the plan as one “whereby this whole stabilization effort of markets, the holding up of normal sales market structures, the question of the realization of refineries, the working together of those two great groups in order that we may balance this whole picture and in order that we may interest a great many buyers in this so-called surplus or homeless gasoline, can be done along organized lines. . . .” Certainly there was enough evidence to support a finding by the jury that such were the scope and purpose of the plan.
But there was no substantial competent evidence that defendants, as charged in the indictment, induced the independent refiners to curtail their production.
E. MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION METHODS.
Before discussing the effect of these buying programs, some description of the methods of marketing and distributing gasoline in the Mid-Western area during the indictment period is necessary.
The defendant companies sold about 83% of all gasoline sold in the Mid-Western area during 1935. As we have noted, major companies, such as most of the defendants, are those whose operations are fully integrated— producing crude oil, having pipe lines for shipment of the crude to its refineries, refining crude oil, and marketing gasoline at retail and at wholesale. During the greater part of the indictment period the defendant companies *192owned and operated many retail service stations33 through which they sold about 20% of their Mid-Western gasoline in 1935 and about 12% during the first seven months of 1936. Standard Oil Company (Indiana) 34 was known during this period as the price leader or market leader throughout the Mid-Western area. It was customary for retail distributors, whether independent or owned or controlled by major companies, to follow Standard’s posted retail prices. Its posted retail price in any given place in the Mid-Western area was determined by computing the Mid-Continent spot market price and adding thereto the tank car freight rate from the Mid-Continent field, taxes and 514C The was the equivalent of the customary 2‡ jobber margin, and 3service station margin. In this manner the retail price structure throughout the Mid-Western area during the indictment period was based in the main on Mid-Continent spot market quotations,35 or, as stated by one of the witnesses for the defendants, the spot market was a “peg to hang the price structure on.”
About 24% of defendant companies’ sales in the Mid-Western area in 1935 were to jobbers, who perform the function of middlemen or wholesalers. Since 1925 jobbers were purchasing less of their gasoline on the spot tank car markets and more under long term supply contracts from major companies and independent refiners. These contracts usually ran for a year or more and covered all of the jobber’s gasoline requirements during the period. The price which the jobber was to pay over the life of the contract was not fixed; but a formula for its com*193putation was included. About 80% or more of defendant companies’ jobber contracts provided that the price of gasoline sold thereunder should be the Mid-Continent spot market price on the date of shipment. This spot market price was to be determined by averaging the high and low spot market quotations reported in the Chicago Journal of Commerce and Platt’s Oilgram or by averaging the high and low quotations reported in the Journal alone. The contracts also gave the jobber a wholly or partially guaranteed margin between the price he had to pay for the gasoline and the normal price to service stations — customarily a 2‡ margin.36
There is no central exchange or market place for spot market transactions. Each sale is the result of individual bargaining between a refiner and his customers, sales under long-term contracts not being included. It is a “spot” market because shipment is to be made in the immediate future — usually within ten or fifteen days. Sales on the spot tank car markets are either sales to jobbers or consumers, sales by one refiner to another not being included.37 The prices paid by jobbers and consumers in the various spot markets are published daily *194in the trade journals, Platt’s Oilgram and Chicago Journal of Commerce. In the case of the Oilgram these prices are obtained by a market checker who daily calls refiners in the various refinery areas (major companies as well as independents) and ascertains the quantity and price of gasoline which they have sold to jobbers in spot sales.38 After checking the prices so obtained against other sources of information (such as brokers’ sales) and after considering the volume of sales reported at each price, he determines the lowest and highest prices at which gasoline is being sold to jobbers in substantial quantities on the spot market.39 Thus, if he finds that substantial sales are reported at b1/^ and 5%‡, the Oilgram reports a price range of 5%-5%0. The result is published in the Oilgram that same day.40 The Chicago Journal of Commerce publishes similar quotations the day after the sales are reported. And its quotations cover sales to industrial consumers as well as to jobbers. But it was not shown that either journal had published prices paid by a major company as a price paid by jobbers on the tank car market.
E. THE SPOT MARKET PRICES DURING THE BUYING PROGRAM.
In 1935 the 14 independent Mid-Continent refiners named in the indictment sold 377,988,736 gallons of gasoline. Of that output, the corporate respondents pur*195chased about 56,200,000 gallons or approximately 15% 41 and the defendant companies who went to trial, about 17%. The monthly purchases of all defendant companies from Mid-Continent independents from March 1935 to April 1936 usually ranged between 600 and 900 tank cars and in a few months somewhat exceeded those amounts.
Major company buying began under the Mid-Continent program on March 7, 1935. During the week before that buying' commenced the Mid-Continent spot market for third grade gasoline rose %A The low quotation on third grade gasoline was 3%$ on March 6, 1935. It rose to 4%$ early in June. That advance was evidence