Strange, Slightly O/T Question About Tobacco Distribution

[toppcat]

Sorry this is slightly off topic but as many of you I do a lot of research about the card companies of the past, especially Topps. I am now trying to determine difficult it would have been for a US firm to distribute imported leaf tobacco outside of the American Tobacco trust network and figure this is the most visible place for such a question.

The father of the four brothers who founded Topps was Morris Shorin and he operated outside the ATC after founding American Leaf Tobacco in 1890. My question is basically would there have been an alternate network of distributors available at the time or would he have to create his own? I can't imagine it was easy going against the ATC!

Thanks for any help on this.