Legal Career
Until 1899 Bradley's chief work in the firm of Storey, Thorndike and Palmer had been to check the legality of bonds and then to handle the legal business of the Boston Fruit Company, the company of Andrew W. Preston, a Boston banana importer. In that year, however, he created the United Fruit Company by a merger of Preston's firm and the banana import business of Minor Cooper Heath. Bradley became a director and a permanent member of the executive committee, while his law partners were listed as executives. Their first move was to buy outright or buy an interest in 14 competitors. They now had a monopoly on the Costa Rican banana import business and controlled 80% of the entire business in the United States. These moves under Bradley's tutelage brought instant wealth to everyone concerned. The profits in 1899 were 1.6 million, and were up to 6.2 million by 1907. For all business purposes, Bradley was United Fruit. When the first anti-trust suit was brought against United Fruit in 1909, charging that it had created a monopoly and was using its financial interests in the competition (in this case the Bluefields Steamship Company) to suppress their business, Palmer, as secretary, was named along with Preston and Heath, the president and vice president.
Palmer was a lawyer and partner with multiple Boston-based corporations, including the United Fruit Company (which controlled large land holdings and agriculture in Central America), Gillette, and IT&T. He was an attorney for Sinclair Oil during the Teapot Dome scandal.
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