The History of the Standard Oil Company/Volume 1/Chapter 5

by Ida Tarbell

CHAPTER FIVE

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF A TRUST

VIDENCE OF REAPPEARANCE OF REBATES SOON AFTER AGREEMENT OF MARCH 25 IS SIGNED—PRINCIPLE THOROUGHLY ESTABLISHED THAT LARGE SHIPPERS SHALL HAVE ADVANTAGES OVER SMALL SHIPPERS IN SPITE OF RAILROADS' DUTY AS COMMON CARRIER—AGREEMENT WORKED OUT BY WHICH THREE ROADS ARE TO HAVE FIXED PERCENTAGE OF EASTERN SHIPMENTS—OIL REGIONS ROBBED OF THEIR GEOGRAPHICAL ADVANTAGE—THE RUTTER CIRCULAR—ROCKEFELLER NOW SECRETLY PLANS REALISATION OF HIS DREAM OF PERSONAL CONTROL OF THE REFINING OF OIL—ORGANISATION OF THE CENTRAL ASSOCIATION—H. H. ROGERS' DEFENCE OF THE PLAN— ROCKEFELLER'S QUIET AND SUCCESSFUL CANVASS FOR ALLIANCES WITH REFINERS—THE REBATE HIS WEAPON—CONSOLIDATION BY PERSUASION OR FORCE—MORE TALK OF A UNITED EFFORT TO COUNTERACT THE MOVEMENT.

THROUGHOUT 1872, while the producers and refiners were working out associations and alliances to regulate the output of crude and refined oil, the freight rates over the three great oil-carrying roads were publicly supposed to be those settled by the agreement of March 25. Except by the sophisticated it was believed that the railroads were keeping their contracts. The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the New York Central had never kept them, as we have seen. Mr. Flagler's statement that the Standard received a rebate of twenty-five cents a barrel from April 1 to November 15, 1872, would seem to show that while with one hand Mr. Clark and Mr. Vanderbilt signed the agreement with the oil men that henceforth freights should be "on a basis of perfect equality to all shippers, producers and refiners, and that no rebates, drawbacks, or other arrangements of any character should be made or allowed that would give any party the slightest difference in rates or discriminations of any character whatever," with the other they had signed an arrangement to give a twenty-five-cent rebate to Mr. Rockefeller! They certainly had a strong incentive for ignoring their pledge. Consider what Mr. Rockefeller could offer the road—sixty car-loads of oil a day, over 4,000 barrels. General Devereux points out in the affidavit already mentioned^[1] what this meant. It permitted them to make up a solid oil train and run it out every day. By running nothing else they reduced the average time of a freight car from Cleveland to New York and return from thirty days to ten days. The investment for cars to handle their freight was reduced by this arrangement to about one-third what it would have been if several different persons were shipping the same amount every day. Promptness was insured in forwarding and returning (a drawback of from fifty dollars to $150 a day accrued if it was late, so that the Standard was bound to ship promptly), and all the inconvenience of dealing with many shippers each with his peculiar whim or demand was avoided. It was certainly worth a rebate to the Central, and the Central not having any prejudices in favour of keeping agreements because they were agreements naturally conceded what Mr. Rockefeller wanted. There was another point. If the Central did not concede to Mr. Rockefeller's terms it undoubtedly would lose the freight. There was the lake and the canal and there was the Erie!

Now it is not supposable that such an arrangement would go on long without leaking out in the upper oil circles. We have evidence that it did not. Indeed, there was among certain intelligent oil men a conviction when the agreement was signed that the New York roads would not regard it—that if they did it would ruin the refining business of Cleveland. W. T. Scheide, a member of the oil men's committee making this contract, the agent of one of the largest oil shippers in the country, Adnah Neyhart, in some frank and suggestive testimony given to the Hepburn Committee in 1879, said that at the time the arrangement was made he did not think anybody connected with the business expected it would last. "My reason for that was that it was an impossible agreement," said Mr. Scheide. "The immediate effect of it would have been to have utterly destroyed fifty-five per cent. of the refining interest of the country; that is to say, Cleveland and Pittsburg, which during the previous four years had shipped fifty-five per cent. of all the oil out of the Oil Regions—they, in addition to paying the rates of freights which all other refiners would have had to pay, were required to pay fifty cents a barrel on their crude oil to their works." The refiners in Cleveland and Pittsburg had of course always paid to get crude oil to their works, even the South Improvement Company tariffs provided for that, and under that arrangement Cleveland had come to be in 1871 the chief refining centre of the country. The chairman of the committee examining Mr. Scheide suggested it was a "temporary impossibility which would have adjusted itself," which Mr. Scheide admitted. "Yes, sir, naturally, it would have adjusted itself I suppose, but the effect was very marked at the time."

So strong was Mr. Scheide's conviction that the New York roads would not stand the new rates that on the 10th of April he went to the Pennsylvania railroad and asked for a rebate on Mr. Neyhart's crude shipments—and got it. What the rebate was he does not state, but Mr. Flagler tells us in his testimony^[2] that in December he discovered that the Pennsylvania was shipping for as low as $1.05 a barrel. And for one month he got from Mr. Vanderbilt a rate of $1.05 on his 4,000 barrels a day.

Mr. Scheide was also shipping refined oil over the Erie. George R. Blanchard, who in October, 1872, became the general freight agent of the Erie, told the Hepburn Committee in 1879 that he found on entering his position that $7,000 in rebates had been paid Mr. Scheide for Mr. Neyhart in the month of September, 1872, on this refined. He does not say how long this had been going on. Mr. Blanchard found at the same time the March 25 agreement. He asked why it was not observed, and the reply convinced him that it had not been kept more than two weeks by the Pennsylvania and Central systems. "The representations made to me," says Mr. Blanchard, "also convinced the Atlantic and Great Western as to what our rivals were doing, and that railway company and our own decided to continue to pay the twenty-four cents per barrel drawback then being paid on the rate of $1.35, provided by their producers' agreement of March 25, 1872."

But Mr. Blanchard was shipping only Mr. Neyhart's refined, and naturally he looked for more business and was willing to give a rebate to get it. He soon had some from another of the oil men who had signed the agreement of March 25. This was Mr. Bennett, of Titusville, who with J. D. Archbold and his other partners entered into a contract with Mr. Blanchard to ship their entire product for a year at a rate considerably below the one agreed upon on March 25.^[3] The contract was a short-lived one, for in November Mr. Bennett and his partners turned their shipments over to the Pennsylvania. The Erie had some compensation, however, in the fact that in July, 1873, Mr. Neyhart's crude shipments had all come to them. Mr. Scheide, Mr. Neyhart's agent, explained to the Hepburn Commission that he left the Pennsylvania because of what he considered "very bad treatment—a discrimination against us in furnishing us cars." The Pennsylvania had indeed undertaken to carry out the clause in the agreement of March 25 which stipulated that there should be no discrimination in furnishing cars. Mr. Scheide, considering himself "their shipper," that is, shipping larger quantities more regularly than anybody else, and as a consequence having better rates, thought it unfair that the cars should be pro rated,^[4] and left the road, giving his business to the Erie, where presumably he got assurances that cars would be furnished to shippers according to the quantity and regularity of shipments. Mr. Scheide's excellent testimony is good evidence of how deep a hold the principle that the large shippers are to have all the advantages had taken hold of some of the best men in the oil country, although the oil country as a whole utterly repudiated the "rebate business." These details, all drawn from sworn testimony, show how, before a year had passed after the end of the Oil War, all the roads were practising discrimination, how a few shippers were again engaged in a scramble for advantages, and how the big shippers were bent on re-establishing the principle supposed to have been overthrown by the Oil War that one shipper is more convenient and profitable for a road than many, and this being so, the matter of a road's duty as a common carrier has nothing to do with the question. ^[5]

This was the situation when in June, 1873, General Devereux, whom we have met on the Lake Shore road, became president of the Atlantic and Great Western. Now at this time Peter H. Watson, the president of the South Improve-ment Company, was president of the Erie. The two at once looked into the condition of their joint oil traffic. They found the rebate system abolished a year before again well intrenched. Nevertheless the Erie was not doing much business. The entire shipments of oil over the Erie for 1873 were but 762,000 barrels out of a total of 4,963,000. Naturally they went to work to build up a trade, and their relations being what they had been with the Standard, the company controlling a third of the country's refining capacity, they went to them to see if they could not get a percentage of their seaboard shipments from Cleveland. Mr. Rockefeller was willing to give them shipments if they would make the rates as low as were given to any of his competitors on any of the roads, and if they would deliver his oil at Hunter's Point, Brooklyn, where he had oil yards, and where the Central delivered, or if they would not do that if they would lease their own oil yards to him. There was an excellent business reason for making that latter demand, which Mr. Blanchard explained to the Hepburn Commission:

"The Standard," said Mr. Blanchard, "had a force of men, real estate, houses, tanks and other facilities at Hunter's Point for receiving and coopering the oil ; and they had their cooperage materials delivered over there. The arrangement prior to that time was that the Erie Company performed this service for its outside refiners at Weehawken, for which the Erie Company made specific charges and added them to their rates for freight. The Standard Company said to us: 'We do the business at low cost at Hunter's Point because we are expert oil men and know how to handle it; we pay nobody a profit, and cannot and ought not to pay you a profit for a service that is not transportation any more than inspecting flour or cotton; and the New York Central delivers our oil at that point. Now if you will deliver our oil at Hunter's Point and permit us to do this business, you may do so; we want to do that business, and we cannot pay to the Erie Railway Company at Weehawken a profit on all of those staves, heads, cooperage, filling, refilling and inspection, for we have our own forces of men and our own yards necessary for this work in another part of the harbour of New York; and it is not a part of your business as a carrier, anyway.'

"In lieu thereof and for the profits that we could have made from the aggregate of these charges, we said to them: 'If you will pay us a fixed profit upon each one of these barrels of oil arriving here, you may take the yards and run them subject to certain limitations as to what you shall do for other people who continue to ship oil to the same yards.' They were only able to make this arrangement with us because of their controlling such a large percentage of shipment, and because of permanent facilities in Brooklyn; if the larger percentage of shipments had belonged to outside parties, and they had had no yards of their own, we would probably have retained the yards ourselves."

A contract was signed on April 17, 1874. By it the Standard agreed to ship fifty per cent. of the products of its refineries by the Erie at rates "no higher than is paid by the competitors of the Standard Oil Company from competing Western refineries to New York by all rail lines," and to give all oil patrons of the Erie system a uniform price and fair and equal facilities at the Weehawken yards.^[6] It was a very wise business deal for both parties. It made Mr. Rockefeller the favoured shipper of a second trunk line (the Central system was already his) and it gave him the control of that road's oil terminal so that he could know exactly what other oil patrons of the road were doing—one of the advantages the South Improvement contract looked out for, it will be remembered. As for the Erie, it tied up to them an important trade and again put them into a position to have something to say about the division of the oil traffic, the bulk of which outside of the Standard Oil Company the Pennsylvania was handling. In connection with the Central the Erie now said to the Pennsylvania that henceforth they proposed to maintain their position as oil shippers.

The natural result of the determination of the Central and Erie to get from the Pennsylvania a percentage of its freight was, of course, increased cutting, and it looked as if a rate war was inevitable. At this juncture Colonel Potts of the Empire Transportation Company, handling all of the Pennsylvania freight, suggested to his rivals that it would be a favourable time for the three trunk lines to pool their seaboard oil freight. In the discussions of this proposition, which, of course, involved a new schedule of rates, there being now practically none, it was suggested that henceforth freights be so adjusted that they would be equal to all refiners, on crude and refined from all points. Such an equalisation seems at first glance an unsolvable puzzle. The agents found it intricate enough. Throughout the summer of 1874 they worked on it, holding meetings at Long Branch and Saratoga and calling into their counsels a few of the leading refiners, pipe-line men and producers whom they could trust to keep quiet about the project.

By the first of September they had an agreement worked out by which each of the three roads was to have a fixed percentage of Eastern shipments. The rates to the seaboard were to amount to the same for all refiners wherever located. That is, to use one of the illustrations employed by Mr. Blanchard in explaining the scheme to the Hepburn Commission: "Suppose 100 barrels of refined oil to have been sent from Cleveland to New York by rail; the consignee was required to first pay freight therefor at New York upon delivery $1.90; to make this quantity of refined oil at that time, he had already paid freight on say 133½ barrels of crude oil from the pipes to

FLEET OF OIL BOATS AT OIL CITY IN 1864

Cleveland at thirty-five cents per barrel or say $46.67; he had therefore paid out from the pipes to the refinery and thence to New York by transportation only, on 100 barrels refined and the quantity of crude oil required to make it, $236.67 or $2.37 per barrel; therefore, at the end of the month we refunded the $46.67 already paid on the crude oil. So that the rate paid net was $1.90 to him and all other refiners."

In case of the refineries situated at the seaboard the cost of carrying from the Oil Regions the 133½ barrels of crude oil required to make 100 barrels of refined was made exactly the same as carrying the 100 barrels of refined made in the West and transported East. This really amounted to charging nothing for getting the crude oil to a refinery wherever it was situated, as the following clause in the agreement shows: "The roads transporting the refined oil shall refund to the refiners as a drawback the charges paid by them upon the crude oil reaching their refineries by rail." This paragraph provided for this crude rebate contained a second clause, which read: "And the roads transporting through crude oil to the Eastern seaboard shall refund to the shippers twenty-two cents per barrel; both of said drawbacks to be paid only on oil reaching the initial points of rail shipment, through pipes, the owners of which maintain agreed rates of pipage." The paragraph announced two new and startling intentions on the part of the oil-carrying roads: first, that they intended to strip the Oil Regions of the advantage of geographical position at the wells by sending oil free to Cleveland and Pittsburg, New York and Philadelphia, at the same time leaving these cities the advantages accruing from their position as manufacturing centres and close to domestic markets; second, that they had entered into a combination with certain pipe-lines to drive certain others out of existence.

Mr. Blanchard gave the reasons of these two revolutionary moves to the Hepburn Committee. It was "urgently represented to the trunk lines," he said, "by some refiners at the West as well as by others at the seaboard, and also by crude shippers and receivers and by owners of pipe-lines, that it was in every way desirable that the refiners of Cleveland and Pittsburg, and those at the seaboard be put upon a basis of equalisation in the gross rates of transportation to and from the refineries." Now to do this the element of distance had to be disregarded. Cleveland was 150 miles west of the Oil Regions, but she must be treated as if she were at the same distance from the seaboard. As soon as the proposition was made, certain of the refiners and producers objected unless the railroads went further and equalised rates on coal, acids, cooperage, etc. This, however, the roads declined to do.

As for the second clause—the rebate on all oil coming from pipes which kept up a fixed pipage—it came about in this way. While the railroad men were in conference at Long Branch, Henry Harley, the president of the Pennsylvania Transportation Company, came to them and said that he believed the scheme of equalisation could not be carried out unless some kind of an alliance was made with the pipe-lines. There had been a large increase in the number of pipes in the four or five years preceding, and a situation had arisen not unlike that in every other branch of the oil business. There was perhaps twice the pipe capacity needed for gathering all the oil produced, and as the pipes were under at least a dozen different managements, each fighting for business, the result was, of course, just what it had been on the railroads and in the markets—severe cutting of prices, rebates, special secret arrangements, confusion and loss. It had been only nine years since the first pipe-line had been a success, and considering the phenomenal growth of the business and the important part the pipe played in it, it was of course a situation natural; enough. Like the overgrowth of refining and of production, it was something only time and solidification of business could remedy.

Mr. Harley laid the situation before the railroad men and said to them: "We want you to help us keep up an even and equal pipage rate. Here we are representatives of the nine most important lines in the Oil Regions. We want to put a stop to cutting and keep up a rate of thirty cents. Can't you help us?" Now up to this time the railroad had had nothing to do with pipe-line charges. It was, and still is, the custom for the buyer of the oil to pay the pipage, that is, the oil producer on running the oil into the pipe-line received a credit certificate for the oil. If he held it in the line long he paid a storage charge. When he sold the oil, the line ran it, and the buyer paid the charge for running. Now the United Pipe Lines proposed to the railroads a through rate from the wells to the seaboard as low as they currently made from the receiving points on the railway, the pipes to get twenty per cent. of this through rate. The railroads were to agree not to receive oil from buyers except at as high a rate as the pipes charged; and to allow no pipe-line outside of the alliance a through rate from the wells. The memorandum said squarely that the intent and purpose of this was to make the United Pipes the sole feeders of the railroads. It was a plan not unlike the South Improvement Company in design—to put everybody but yourself out of business, and it had the merit of stating its intent and purpose with perfect candour.^[7]

The railroad men seem not to have objected to the purpose, only to the terms of the proposed arrangement. Mr. Blanchard told the pipe committee that he regarded it as the most violent attempt on the part of the tail to wag the dog that he had ever seen, and the representatives of the other roads agreed. They saw at once, however, how much more solid their own position would be if they could be sure that no pipe-line delivering to them would cut its rate, if there could be in effect a through rate from the wells, and after some discussion they proposed to the pipe-lines to add twenty-two cents a barrel to the rail charges; that is, if the rate to the seaboard was $1.25, to collect from the shipper $1.47, and in case he could show that he had taken his oil from one of the United Pipes to give him a rebate of twenty-two cents. Mr. Blanchard said that they proposed to do this until proof was had that the associated pipe-lines were acting in good faith. Of course this arrangement did not change the pipe-lines' methods of collecting in the least. It simply forced a uniform charge, and this charge was to be, it should be noticed, regardless of distance. The charge for collecting and delivering oil was to be thirty cents a barrel whether it was carried one or ten miles—a practice which prevails to-day.

While these negotiations were going on, the Oil Regions as a whole was troubled by a vague rumour that freight rates were to be advanced. In the two years since the Oil War the region, as a whole, had adjusted itself to the tariff schedule of March 25, 1872, and was doing very well though working on a very much smaller margin of profits than ever before. The margin was sufficient, however, to keep the refineries in the valley running most of the time, and several of the large ones were increasing their plants. Detailed accounts of the condition of the works are to be had in the newspapers of the day. Thus, in the summer of 1874 an editor of the Oil City Derrick made a tour of the creek refineries and reported all of the larger ones in Titusville and Oil City as prosperous and growing, and the small ones in the little towns between these two points as "jogging along pleasantly." The keen competition between the different refining points made it necessary to do business with economy, and a rumour of a raise of freight rates naturally was looked on with dread. It was not until September 12, however, that the new arrangements were made known, and this was some time earlier than was intended. The slip came about in this way. The general freight agent of the New York Central road, James H. Rutter, sent out on September 9 a private circular announcing the new arrangement,^[8] an advance of fifty cents a barrel on refined oil shipped to the seaboard, no corresponding advance for Cleveland and Pittsburg, a rebate of the cost of getting oil to the refineries and a rebate of twenty-two cents to those who patronised certain pipe-lines. And to this new schedule was appended this consoling paragraph: "You will observe that under this system the rate is even and fair to all parties, preventing one locality taking advantage of its neighbour by reason of some alleged or real facility it may possess. Oil refiners and shippers have asked the roads from time to time to make all rates even and they would be satisfied. This scheme does it and we trust will work satisfactorily to all." Among the refiners to whom the circular went was M. N. Allen of Titusville. Now Mr. Allen was the editor of an aggressive and lively newspaper—the Courier. He had fought rings and deals from the beginning of his career as a refiner and as an editor. He had been one of the strong opponents of the South Improvement Company and of the Refiners' Association which followed, and he saw at once the cloven foot in the Rutter circular and hastened to denounce it in a strong editorial:

If by an agreement of the New York Central, the Erie, and the Pennsylvania Railway Companies, crude oil—delivered from the Titusville pipe—should be hauled from Titusville to Chicago, and there refined, and the refined product then hauled to New York, all at two dollars a barrel, for the refined thus carried, it would be placing, by the railway companies, Chicago refiners upon the same level with the Titusville refiners who, on and after October 1, shall ship to New York refined made from crude oil taken from the Titusville pipe. The new freight arrangement does not make such provision for refiners at Chicago. But a Cleveland refiner may come to Titusville and buy oil for delivery from the Titusville, the Pennsylvania, the Church Run, or the Octave pipes, at this point, take it to Cleveland, and, after refining, carry the product to the seaboard at the same expense of freight, all told, that a refiner here, taking his crude oil directly from the above pipes, would have in placing his refined oil at the seaboard. This is stating the matter exactly, and we see no necessity for comment hereupon.

Again, 1,000 barrels of crude oil are to be carried to the seaboard for the same amount of money that will be required for carrying there 715 barrels of refined, notwithstanding that crude oil is a much more hazardous article of freight, from fire, than refined. If this is not a very large discrimination in favour of seaboard refiners, for which there is no compensation given to refiners in the Oil Region, our perceptions are utterly weak.

Now, before putting into effect this new freight arrangement, it may be well for the railway officials having the matter in charge to take into consideration a certain little article of agreement, which the people of Pennsylvania, on the 16th day of December last, entered into among themselves, respecting railroads in this state. In Article 17, Section 7, of our new constitution is the following decree of the sovereign people of this commonwealth: "No discrimination in charges or facilities for transportation shall be made between transportation companies and individuals, or in favour of either, by abatement, drawback or otherwise."

Petroleum is a product of this state, and transportation companies in taking it away must respect the fundamental law of the state. And, while we ask for no favours, always supporting free trade from principle, speaking in behalf of the refining interests of the Oil Region, we do not propose quietly to submit to any discrimination by transportation companies, doing business in the state, against our interests. If by reason of our position we possess advantages for refining oil here, over refiners outside, we have strong objections against the action of the railway companies in taking from us such advantages, by requiring us to pay for hauling a given quantity of oil as much as they require of Cleveland refiners for hauling the same amount of oil 300 miles greater distance; or for requiring us to pay as much for hauling 715 barrels of refined oil as they require for hauling 1,000 barrels of crude oil the same distance. If the railroad companies will make all expenses of refining oil equal to all points, we shall be satisfied. If they will make the price of sulphuric acid 1½ cents a pound, the same as it is in New York, instead of 2½ cents; if they will deliver caustic soda here free of freight from New York; if they will put paints and glues here at the same prices as those articles sell for in New York; if they will put staves and heading and hoops for barrels here at the same figures those articles cost in Cleveland, whether they do all these by giving us rebates sufficient to cover all differences now against us, or in any other way that will bring the same results, we will accept the new arrangement without complaint. Until this shall be done we shall ask the railway companies in hauling oil to confine themselves to legitimate business, and to obey the new constitution, in letter and spirit. It will behoove our citizens to see that their new constitution is carefully respected.

We are opposed to the new arrangement for the large advance in the price of freight upon oil. If the railroad companies have lost money in carrying oil for the Cleveland refineries during several years past, let not the whole petroleum interest, in its depressed condition, be required to sustain the penalty. We submit to the railway managers whether it is not right to charge for hauling goods in proportion to the distance hauled, allowing a small discount, perhaps, upon the rate per mile for the greater distance.

Our remarks upon this subject may have the colour of assurance, but, from the large majority given last winter in favour of the new constitution of this state, we have great confidence that the people will not part with their sovereign rights, nor allow themselves to be ruled by King Pool.

At first the Oil Region was puzzled by the Rutter circular. It certainly was plausible. Was it not true that every man shared equally under it? As the days passed, the dazed mental condition into which it had thrown the oil men cleared up. Mr. Allen's editorials began to take effect. The pipe-lines left out of the pool began to ask how it could be legal that the railroads should enter into an arrangement which obviously would drive them out of business. The creek refiners began to ask by what right the advantage of geographical position at the wells should be taken from them, and Cleveland be allowed to retain the advantages of her proximity to the Western market; Pittsburg her position on the Ohio River and the market it commanded; all of the cities the advantage of their proximity to great local markets and to such necessary supplies as barrels and acids. Besides, was it constitutional for the railroads thus to regulate interstate commerce? Was not the arrangement, as far as the Pennsylvania was concerned, plainly prohibited by the new constitution of the state of Pennsylvania? The producers slowly began to realise, too, that the Rutter circular, like the South Improvement charter and contracts, did not recognise them as a body. The contract of March 25, 1872, provided that the rates fixed should not be "liable to any change either for increase or decrease without first giving to William Hasson, president of the Producers' Union, at Oil City, at least ninety days' notice in writing of such contemplated change." This agreement was totally ignored. It was an "insolent equalisation," the oil men concluded, and the sum total of their dissatisfaction finally found expression at a mass-meeting at Parker's Landing, on October 2. Directly after this meeting a committee appointed sent to Messrs. Scott, Vanderbilt and Jewett, the new president of the Erie, letters calling their attention to the Rutter circular, and stating the objections of the producers to it. These letters sent on October 6 received no attention from any of the railroad presidents addressed for over three weeks, when the following was received from the Pennsylvania:

Gentlemen:—Your communication of the 6th inst., to Thomas A. Scott, president, was received, and has been referred to me.

In establishing the recent rates and arrangements for the transportation of oil, the object which was at all times kept in view was to place all interests on an equality, giving to no one an undue advantage over any other.

We believe that this object has been accomplished, and that by adhering to our present rates the interests both of the producers, refiners and transporters will be promoted.

Very truly yours,

A. J. Cassatt

"Brief, tardy and unsatisfactory," was the Derrick's characterisation of Mr. Cassatt's letter. It was evidence to the oil men that if anything was to be done to break the new tariff it would have to be done in court, for the railroads meant to stand by their creation.

In this discussion of the Rutter circular Mr. Rockefeller's name scarcely appeared. It was known that he had been admitted to the conferences at which the tariff was arranged. This was taken as a matter of course. There was nothing which concerned the oil business which John Rockefeller was not on the inside of. Mr. Blanchard later stated that the "crude equivalent" scheme was suggested by certain Western refiners. The tremendous advantage Cleveland secured by the new arrangement, practically 300 miles of free transportation, seemed to prove, too, that Mr. Rockefeller had not been inactive during the conference. Whether he had or had not suggested the points in the "Rutter circular" so advantageous to his interests, he used them now to aid him in accomplishing one of the shrewdest and most far-reaching moves of his life—the move which was to lead at last to the realisation of his Great Purpose—the concentration of the oil business in his own hands. For Mr. Rockefeller, quiet as he had been since the breaking up of the Refiners' Association in the summer of 1873, had by no means given up the idea of doing for the refining interest of the whole country what he had done for that of Cleveland through the South Improvement Company.

Mr. Rockefeller has shown repeatedly in his conquering business career remarkable ability to learn from experience. The breaking up of the Refiners' Association may have seemed a disaster to him. He did not allow it to be a profitless disaster. He extracted useful lessons from the experience, and, armed with this new wisdom, bent his whole mind to working out a third plan of campaign. He now knew that he could not hope to make again so rich a haul as he had made through the defunct South Improvement scheme. The experience of the past year with the refiners convinced him that it would take time to educate them to his idea of combination; but he had learned who of them were capable of this education. As for the producers, the alliance attempted with them was enough to demonstrate that they would never endure long the restraints of any association. Besides, the bulk of them still held the, to him, unpractical belief that rebates were wrong. Mr. Rockefeller had also re-learned in these eighteen months what he knew pretty well before, that the promise to give or take away a heavy freight traffic was enough to persuade any railroad king of the day to break the most solemn compact.

With all these reflections fresh in mind, Mr. Rockefeller again bent over a map of the refining interests of the United States. Here was the world he sighed to conquer. If we may suppose him to have begun his campaign as a great general with whom he has many traits in common—the First Napoleon—used to begin his, by studding a map with red-headed pegs marking the points he must capture, Mr. Rockefeller's chart would have shown in and around Boston perhaps three pegs, representing a crude capacity of 3,500 barrels; in and around New York fifteen pegs, a capacity of 9,790 barrels; in and around Philadelphia twelve pegs, a capacity of 2,061 barrels; in Pittsburg twenty-two pegs, a capacity of 6,090 barrels; on the creek twenty-seven pegs, a capacity of 9,231 barrels.^[9] His work was to get control of this multitude of red pegs and to fly above them the flag of what the irreverent call the "holy blue barrel."^[10]

Some time in the summer of 1874, after it had become certain that Colonel Potts's plan for an equalisation of oil freights would be carried out, Mr. Rockefeller wrote to his former colleague in the South Improvement Company, W. G. Warden, of Philadelphia, telling him he wanted to talk over; the condition of the oil business with him, and inviting him to bring Charles Lockhart, of Pittsburg, to that Mecca of American schemers, Saratoga, for a conference with him and Mr. Flagler. Mr. Warden hesitated. He had been much abused for his relation with the South Improvement Company. He had seen the National Refiners' Association fail. He had begun to feel a distaste for combination. Besides, he

GEORGE H. BISSELL

GEORGE H. BISSELL

Founder of the first oil company in the United States.

JONATHAN WATSON

JONATHAN WATSON

One of the owners of the land on which the first successful well was drilled for oil.

SAMUEL KIER

SAMUEL KIER

The first petroleum refined and sold for lighting purpose was made by Mr. Kier in the '50s in Pittsburg.

JOSHUA MERRILL

JOSHUA MERRILL

The chemist and refiner to whom many of the most important processes now in use in making illuminating and lubricating oils are due.

was doing very well in Philadelphia. However, after some hesitation, he and Mr. Lockhart went to Saratoga. The four gentlemen breakfasted together and later strolled out to a pavilion. Here they discussed again, as they had nearly three years before, when they prepared the South Improvement assault, the condition of the oil business.

Mr. Rockefeller now had something besides a theory to present to the gentlemen he wished to go into his third scheme. He had the most persuasive of all arguments—an actual achievement. "Three years ago," he could tell them, "I took, over the Cleveland refineries. I have managed them so that to-day I pay a profit to nobody. I do my own buying, I make my own acid and barrels, I control the New York terminals of both the Erie and Central roads, and ship such quantities that the railroads give me better rates than they do any other, shipper. In 1873 I shipped over 700,000 barrels by the Central, and my profit on my capitalisation, $2,500,000, was over $1,000,000. This is the result of combination in one city. The railroads now have arranged a new tariff, by which they mean to put us all on an equal footing. They say they will give no rebates to anyone, but if we can join with Cleveland the strongest forces in other great shipping points, and apply to them the same tactics I have employed, we shall become the largest shipper, and can demand a rebate in return for an equal division of our freight. We proved in 1872-1873 that we could not do anything by an open association. Let us who see what a combination strictly carried out will effect unite secretly to accomplish it. Let us become the nucleus of a private company which gradually shall acquire control of all refineries everywhere, become the only shippers, and consequently the master of the railroads in the matter of freight rates." It was six hours before the gentlemen in conference left the pavilion, and when they came out Mr. Warden and Mr. Lockhart had agreed to transfer their refineries in Philadelphia and Pittsburg to the Standard Oil Company, of Cleveland, taking stock in exchange. They had also agreed to absorb, as rapidly as persuasion or other means could bring it about, the refineries in their neighbourhood. Their union with the Standard was to remain an absolute secret—the concerns operating under their respective names.^[11]

On October 15, 1874, Mr. Rockefeller consummated another purchase of as great importance. He bought the works of Charles Pratt and Company, of New York city. As before, the purchase was secret. The strategic importance of these purchases for one holding Mr. Rockefeller's vast ambition was enormous. It gave him as allies men who were among the most successful refiners, without doubt, in each of the three greatest refining centres of the country outside of Cleveland, where he ruled, and of the creek, where he had learned that neither he nor any member of the South Improvement Company could do business with facility. To meet these purchases the stock of the Standard Oil Company was increased, on March 10, 1875, to $3,500,000.^[12] The value of the concern as a money-earner at this early date, 1874, is shown by the fact that Pratt and Company paid not less than 265 for the Standard stock they received in exchange for their works.^[13]

The first intimation that the Oil Region had that Mr. Rockefeller was pushing another combination was in March of 1875, when it was announced that an organisation of refiners, called the Central Association, of which he was president, had been formed. Its main points were that if a refiner would lease to the association his plant for a term of months he would be allowed to subscribe for stock of the new company. The lease allowed the owner to do his own manufacturing, but gave Mr. Rockefeller's company "irrevocable authority" to make all purchases of crude oil and sales of refined, to decide how much each refinery should manufacture, and to negotiate for all freight and pipe-line expenses. The Central Association was a most clever device. It furnished the secret partners of Mr. Rockefeller a plausible proposition with which to approach the firms of which they wished to obtain control.

Little as the Oil Regions knew of the real meaning of the Central Association, the news of its organisation raised a cry of monopoly, and the advocates of the new scheme felt called upon to defend it. The defense took the line that the conditions of the trade made such a combination of refineries necessary. Altogether the ablest explanation was that of H. H. Rogers, of Charles Pratt and Company, to a reporter of the New York Tribune:

{{blockquote| "There are five refining points in the country," said Mr. Rogers, "Pittsburg, Philaelphia, Cleveland, the Oil Regions and New York city. Each of these has certain local advantages which may be briefly stated as follows: Pittsburg, cheap oil; Philadelphia, the seaboard; Cleveland, cheap barrels, and canal as well as railroad transportation; the Oil Regions, crude oil at the lowest figure; and all the products of petroleum have the best market in New York city. The supply of oil is three or four times greater than the demand.^[14] If the oil refineries were run to their full capacity, the market would be overstocked. The business is not regular, but spasmodic. When the market is brisk and oil is in demand, all the oil interests are busy and enjoy a fair share of prosperity. At other times, the whole trade is affected by the dullness. It has been estimated that not less than twenty millions of dollars are invested in the oil business. It is therefore to the interest of every man who has put a dollar in it to have the trade protected and established on a permanent footing. Speculators have ruined the market. The brokers heretofore have been speculating upon the market with disastrous effects upon the trade, and this new order of things will force them to pursue their legitimate calling, and realise their profits from their industry and perseverance. Two years ago an attempt was made to organise an oil refiners' association, but it was subsequently abandoned. There was no cohesion of interests, and agreements were not kept. The movement at the present time is a revival of the former idea, and, it is believed, has already secured fully nine-tenths of the oil refiners in the country in its favour. I do not believe there is any intention among the oil men to 'bull' the market: The endeavour is to equalise all around and protect the capital invested. If by common consent, in good faith, the refiners agree to reduce the quantities to an allotment for each, made in view of the supply and demand, and the capacity for production, the market can be regulated with a reasonable profit for all. The price of oil to-day is fifteen cents per gallon. The proposed allotment of business would probably advance the price to twenty cents. To make an artificial increase, with immense profits, would be recognised as speculative instead of legitimate, and the oil interests would suffer accordingly. Temporary capital would compete with permanent investment and ruin everything. The oil producers to-day are bankrupt. There have been more failures during the last five months than in five years previously. An organisation to protect the oil capital is imperatively needed. Oil to yield a fair profit should be sold for twenty-five cents per gallon. That price would protect every interest and cover every outlay for getting out the crude petroleum, transporting by railroad, refining and the incidental charges of handling, etc. The foreign markets will regulate the price to a great extent, because they are the greatest consumers. The people of China, Germany, and other foreign countries cannot afford to pay high prices. Kerosene oil is a luxury to them, and they do not receive sufficient compensation for their labour to enable them to use this oil at an extravagant price. The price, therefore, must be kept within reasonable limits." }}

The Oil Regions refused flatly to accept this view of the situation. The world would not buy refined at twenty-five cents, they argued. "You injured the foreign market in 1872 by putting up the price. Our only hope is in increasing consumption. The world is buying more oil to-day than ever before, because it is cheap. We must learn to accept small profits, as other industries do." "The formation of the Refiners' Association has thrust upon the trade an element of uncertainty that has unsettled all sound views as to the general outlook," said the Derrick. "The scope of the Association," wrote a Pittsburg critic, "is an attempt to control the refining of oil, with the ultimate purpose of advancing its price and reaping a rich harvest in profits. This can only be done by reducing the production of refined oil, and this will in turn act on crude oil, making the stock so far in excess of the demand as to send it down to a lower figure than it has yet touched."

"The most important feature of this contract," said a "veteran refiner," "is perhaps that part which provides that the Executive Committee of the Central Association are to have the exclusive power to arrange with the railroads for the carrying of the crude and refined oil. It is intended by this provision to enable the Executive Committee to speak for the whole trade in securing special rates of freight, whereby independent shippers of crude oil, and such refiners as refuse to join the combination, and any new refining interest that may be started, may be driven out of the trade. The whole general purpose of the combination is to reap a large margin by depressing crude and raising the price of refined oil, and the chief means employed is the system of discrimination in railroad freights to the seaboard."

"The veteran refiner" was right in his supposition that Mr. Rockefeller intended to use the enormous power his combination gave him to get a special rate. As a matter of fact he had seen to that before the "veteran refiner" expressed his mind. It will be remembered that in April, 1874, Mr. Rockefeller had made a contract with the Erie by which he was to ship fifty per cent. of his refined oil over that road at a rate as low as any competing line gave any shipper and he was to have a lease of the Weehawken oil terminal. Now this contract remained in force until the first of March, 1875, when a new one was made with the Erie guaranteeing the road the same percentage of freight and giving the Standard a ten-per-cent. rebate on whatever open tariff should be fixed. This rebate Mr. Blanchard says was quite independent of what the Central might be giving the Standard. He says that one reason the Standard was given the rebate was that it was suspected the Pennsylvania was allowing the Empire Transportation Company an even larger one. If true, this would not affect any refiner necessarily as the Empire was not a refiner in March, 1875. The real reason, of course, was what Mr. Blanchard gives later—that by this rebate they kept the Standard trade, now greatly increased by the purchase of the outside works already mentioned, although it should be noticed the Erie officials knew nothing of the Standard having control of any other refinery than that of Charles Pratt and Company. The announcement of the Central Association put an altogether new feature on oil transportation. If this organisation succeeded, and the refiners in it claimed nine-tenths of the capacity of the country—it gave Mr. Rockefeller "irrevocable authority" to negotiate freights. The Pennsylvania road immediately felt the pressure. The oil they had carried for big firms like those of Charles Lockhart in Pittsburg and of Warden, Frew and Company in Philadelphia was in the hands of the Standard Oil Company, and Mr. Rockefeller asked a rebate of ten per cent. on open rates. The road demurred. Colonel Potts objected strenuously. Three years later in a paper discussing this rebate and its consequences he said:

"The rebate was a modest one, as was its recipient. Yet the railway Cassandras prophesied from it a multitude of evils—a gradual destruction of all other refiners and a gradual absorption of their property by the favourite, who, with this additional armament, would rapidly progress towards a control of all cars, all pipes, all production, and finally of the roads themselves. Their prophecies met but little faith or consideration. The Standard leaders themselves were especially active in discouraging any such radical purpose. Their little rebate was enough for them. Everybody else should prosper, as would be shortly seen. They needed no more refineries; they had already more than they could employ—why should they hunger after greater burdens? It was the railroads they chiefly cared for, and next in their affections stood the 100 rival refineries. Such beneficent longings as still remained (and their bosoms overflowed with them) spread out their steady waves toward the poor producers whom, not to be impious, they had always been ready to gather under their wings, yet they would not.

"This unselfish language soothed all alarm into quiet slumbering. It resembles the gentle fanning of the vampire's wings, and it had the same end in view—the undisturbed abstraction of the victim's blood."

Colonel Potts's argument against the rebate—doubtless clothed in much less picturesque language in 1875 than his feelings stirred him to in 1878, for a good enough reason, too, as we shall see—failed to convince the Pennsylvania officials. They decided to yield to the Standard. Mr. Cassatt, then third vice-president of the road, in charge of transportation, said in 1879 that the rebate was given because they found the Standard was getting very strong, that they had the backing of the other roads, and that if the Pennsylvania wanted to retain its full share of business and at fair rates they must make arrangements to protect themselves.

No one of the roads knew certainly what the others were doing for the Standard until October 1, 1875. The freight agents then met to discuss again the freight pool they had formed in 1874. It had not been working with perfect satisfaction. The clause granting the rebate of twenty-two cents to the pipe-lines which sustained an agreed rate of pipage had been abandoned after about five months' experiment. It was thought to stimulate new pipes. The roads in making a new adjustment made no effort to regulate pipe-line tariffs. The "crude rebate" as it was called — carrying oil to a refinery for nothing—was left in force. At this meeting Mr. Blanchard found that both of the Erie's big rivals were granting the Standard a ten per cent. rebate. He also found that he was not getting fifty per cent. of the Standard's business as the contract called for—that the Standard controlled not only the Cleveland and New York works of which he knew, but large works in Pittsburg and Philadelphia.^[15]

Mr. Rockefeller was certainly now in an excellent condition to work out his plan of bringing under his own control all the refineries of the country. The Standard Oil Company owned in each of the great refining centres, New York, Pittsburg and Philadelphia, a large and aggressive plant run by the men who had built it up. These works were, so far as the public knew, still independent and their only relation that of the "Central Association." As a matter of fact they were the "Central Association." Not only had Mr. Rockefeller brought these powerful interests into his concern; he had secured for them a rebate of ten per cent. on a rate which should always be as low as any one of the roads gave any of his competitors. He had done away with middlemen, that is, he was "paying nobody a profit." He had undeniably a force wonderfully constructed for what he wanted to do and one made practically impregnable as things were in the oil business then, by virtue of its special transportation rate.

As soon as his new line was complete the work of acquiring all outside refineries began at each of the oil centres. Unquestionably the acquisitions were made through persuasion when this was possible. If the party approached refused to lease or sell, he was told firmly what Mr. Rockefeller had told the Cleveland refiners when he went to them in 1872 with the South Improvement contracts, that there was no hope for him; that a combination was in progress which was bound to work; and that those who stayed out would inevitably go to the wall. Naturally the first fruits to fall into the hands of the new alliance were those refineries which were embarrassed or discouraged by the conditions which Mr. Rogers explains above. Take as an example the case of the Citizens' Oil Refining Company of Pittsburg, as it was explained in 1888 to the House Committee on Manufactures in its trust investigation. A. H. Tack, a partner in the company, told the story:^[16]

"We began in 1869 with a capacity of 1,000 barrels a day. At the start everything was couleur de rose, so much so that we put our works in splendid shape. We manufactured all the products. We even got it down to making wax, and using the very last residuum in the boilers. We got the works in magnificent order and used up everything. We began to feel the squeeze in 1872. We did not know what was the matter. Of course we were all affected the same way in Pennsylvania, and of course we commenced shifting about, and meeting together, and forming delegations, and going down to Philadelphia to see the Pennsylvania Railroad, meeting after meeting and delegation after delegation. We suspected there was something wrong, and told those men there was something wrong somewhere; that we felt, so far as position was concerned, we had the cheapest barrels, the cheapest labour, and the cheapest coal, and the route from the crude district was altogether in our favour. We had a railroad and a river to bring us our raw material. We had made our investment based on the seaboard routes, and we wanted the Pennsylvania Railroad to protect us. But none of our meetings or delegations ever amounted to anything. They were always repulsed in some way, put off, and we never got any satisfaction. The consequence was that in two or three years there was no margin or profit. In order to overcome that we commenced speculating, in the hope that there would be a change some time or other for the better. We did not like the idea of giving up the ship. Now, during these times the Standard Oil Company increased so perceptibly and so strong that we at once recognised it as the element. Instead of looking to the railroad I always looked to the Standard Oil Company. In 1874 I went to see Rockefeller to find if we could make arrangements with him by which we could run a portion of our works. It was a very brief interview. He said there was no hope for us at all. He remarked this—I cannot give the exact quotation—'There is no hope for us,' and probably he said, 'There is no hope for any of us'; but he says, 'The weakest must go first.' And we went."

All over the country the refineries in the same condition as Mr. Tack's firm sold or leased. Those who felt the hard times and had any hope of weathering them resisted at first. With many of them the resistance was due simply to their love for their business and their unwillingness to share its control with outsiders. The thing which a man has begun, cared for, led to a healthy life, from which he has begun to gather fruit, which he knows he can make greater and richer, he loves as he does his life. It is one of the fruits of his life. He is jealous of it—wishes the honour of it, will not divide it with another. He can suffer heavily his own mistakes, learn from them, cor-rect them. He can fight opposition, bear all—so long as the work is his. There were refiners in 1875 who loved their business in this way. Why one should love an oil refinery the outsider may not see; but to the man who had begun with one still and had seen it grow by his own energy and intelligence to ten, who now sold 500 barrels a day where he once sold five, the refinery was the dearest spot on earth save his home. He walked with pride among its evil-smelling places, watched the processes with eagerness, experimented with joy and recounted triumphantly every improvement. To ask such a man to give up his refinery was to ask him to give up the thing which, after his family, meant most in life to him.

To Mr. Rockefeller this feeling was a weak sentiment. To place love of independent work above love of profits was as incomprehensible to him as a refusal to accept a rebate because it was wrong! Where persuasion failed then, it was necessary, in his judgment, that pressure be applied—simply a pressure sufficient to demonstrate to these blind or recalcitrant individuals the impossibility of their long being able to do business independently. It was a pressure varied according to locality. Usually it took the form of cutting their market. The system of "predatory competition" was no invention of the Standard Oil Company. It had prevailed in the oil business from the start. Indeed, it was one of the evils Mr. Rockefeller claimed his combination would cure, but until now it had been used spasmodically. Mr. Rockefeller never did anything spasmodically. He applied underselling for destroying his rivals' market with the same deliberation and persistency that characterised all his efforts, and in the long run he always won. There were other forms of pressure. Sometimes the independents found it impossible to get oil; again, they were obliged to wait days for cars to ship in; there seemed to be no end to the ways of making it hard for men to do business, of discouraging them until they would sell or lease, and always at the psychological moment a purchaser was at their side. Take as an example the case of the Harkness refinery in Philadelphia, a story told to the same committee as that of Mr. Tack:

"I was the originator of the enterprise," said William W. Harkness, "believing that there was no better place than Philadelphia to refine oil, particularly for export. We commenced then, as near as I can now recollect, about 1870, and we made money up to probably 1874. We managed our business very close and did not speculate in oil. We bought and we sold, and we paid a great deal of attention to the statistical part of our business so as to save waste, and we did a nice business. But we found in some years that probably five months out of a year we could not sell our oil unless it would be at a positive loss, and then we stopped. Then when we could sell our oil, we found a difficulty about getting cars. My brother would complain of it, but I believed that the time would come when that would be equalised. I had no idea of the iniquity that was going on; I could not conceive it. I went on in good faith until about 1874, and then the trouble commenced. We could not get our oil and were compelled to sell at a loss. Then Warden, Frew and Company formed some kind of running arrangement where they supplied the crude, and we seemed to get" along a little better. After a while the business got complicated, and I got tired and handed it over to my brother; I backed out. That was about 1875. I was dissatisfied and wanted to do an independent business, or else I wanted to give it up. In 1876—I recollect that very well, because it was the year of the Centennial Exposition—we were at the Centennial Exposition. I was sitting in front of the great Corliss engine, admiring it, and he told me there was a good opportunity to get out. Warden, Frew and Company, he said, were prepared to buy us out, and I asked him whether he considered that as the best thing to do; whether we had not better hold on and fight it through, for I believed that these difficulties would not continue; that we would get our oil. I knew he was a competent refiner, and I wanted to continue business, but he said he thought he had better make this arrangement, and I consented, and we sold out; we got our investment back."^[17]

Here we have a refiner discouraged by the conditions which Mr. Rockefeller claims his aggregation will cure. Under the Rutter circular and the discrimination in freight to the Stạndard which followed, his difficulty in getting oil increases, and he consents to a running arrangement with Mr. Rockefeller's partner in Philadelphia, but he wants to do an "independent business." Impossible. As he sits watching the smooth and terrible power of that famous Corliss engine of 1876, an engine which showed to thousands for the first time what great power properly directed means, he realised that something very like it was at work in the oil business—something resistless, silent, perfect in its might—and he sold out to that something. Everywhere men did the same. The history of oil refining on Oil Creek from 1875 to 1879 is almost uncanny. There were at the beginning of that period twenty-seven plants in the region, most of which were in a fair condition, considering the difficulties in the business. During 1873 the demand for refined oil had greatly increased, the exports nearly doubling over those of 1872. The average profit on refined that year in a well-managed refinery was not less than three cents a gallon. During the first half of 1874 the oil business had been depressed, but the oil refiners were looking for better times when the Rutter circular completely demoralised them by putting fifty cents extra freight charges on their shipments without an equivalent raise on competitive points. It was not only this extra charge, enough to cut off their profits, as business then stood, but it was that the same set of men who had thrown their business into confusion in 1872 was again at work. The announcement of the Central Association with Mr. Rockefeller's name at its head confirmed their tears. Nevertheless at first none of the small refiners would listen to the proposition to sell or lease made them in the spring of 1875 by the representative first sent out by the Central Association. They would have nothing to do, they said bluntly, with any combination engineered by John D. Rockefeller. The representative withdrew and the case was considered. In the mean time conditions on the creek grew harder. All sorts of difficulties began to be strewn in their way—cars were hard to get, the markets they had built up were cut under them—a demoralising conviction was abroad in the trade that this new and mysterious combination was going to succeed; that it was doing rapidly what its members were reported to be saying daily: "We mean to secure the entire refining business of the world." Such was the state of things on the creek when in the early fall of 1875 an energetic young refiner and oil buyer well known in the Oil Regions, J. D. Archbold, appeared in Titusville as the representative of a new company, the Acme Oil Company, a concern which everybody believed to be an offshoot of the Standard Oil Company of Cleveland, though nobody could prove it. As a matter of fact the Acme was capitalised and controlled entirely by Standard men, its stockholders being, in addition to Mr. Archbold, William Rockefeller, William G. Warden, Frank Q. Barstow, and Charles Pratt. It was evident at once that the Acme Oil Company had come into the Oil Regions for the purpose of absorbing the independent interests as Mr. Rockefeller and his colleagues were absorbing them elsewhere. The work was done with a promptness" and despatch which do great credit to the energy and resourcefulness of the engineer of the enterprise. In three years, by 1878, all but two of the refineries of Titusville had "retired from the business gloriously," as Mr. Archbold, flushed with victory, told the counsel of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1879, when the state authorities were trying to find what was at work in the oil interests to cause such a general collapse. Most of the concerns were bought outright, the owners being convinced that it was impossible for them to do an independent business, and being unwilling to try combination. All down the creek the little refineries which for years had faced every difficulty with stout hearts collapsed. "Sold out," "dismantled," "shut down," is the melancholy record of the industry during these four years. At the end practically nothing was left in the Oil Regions but the Acme of Titusville and the Imperial of Oil City, both of them now under Standard management. To the oil men this sudden wiping out of the score of plants with which they had been familiar for years seemed a crime which nothing could justify. Their bitterness of heart was only intensified by the sight of the idle refiners thrown out of business by the sale of their factories. These men had, many of them, handsome sums to invest, but what were they to put them in? They were refiners, and they carried a pledge in their pockets not to go into that business for a period of ten years. Some of them tried the discouraged oil man's fatal resource, the market, and as a rule left their money there. One refiner who had, according to popular report, received $200,000 for his business, speculated the entire sum away in less than a year. Others tried new enterprises, but men of forty learn new trades with difficulty, and failure followed many of them. The scars left in the Oil Regions by the Standard Combination of 1875-1879 are too deep and ugly for men and women of this generation to forget them.

In Pittsburg the same thing was happening. At the beginning of the work of absorption—1874—there were between twenty-two and thirty refineries in the town.^[18] As we have seen, Lockhart and Frew sold to the Standard Oil Company of Cleveland some time in 1874. In the fall of that year a new company was formed in Pittsburg, called the Standard Oil Company of Pittsburg. Its president was Charles Lockhart; its directors William Frew, David Bushnell, H. M. Flagler, and W. G. Warden—all members of the Standard Oil Company and four of them stockholders in the South Improvement Company. This company at once began to lease or buy refineries. Many of the Pittsburg refiners made a valiant fight to get rates on their oil which would enable them to run independently. To save expense they tried to bring oil from the oil fields by barge; the pipe-lines in the pool refused to run oil to barges, the railroad to accept oil brought down by barge. An independent pipe-line attempted to bring it to Pittsburg, but to reach the works the pipe-line must run under a branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. It refused to permit this, and for months the oil from the line was hauled in wagons from the point where it had been held up, over the railroad track, and there repiped and carried to Pittsburg. At every point they met interference until finally, one by one they gave in. According to Mr. Frew, who in 1879 was examined as to the condition of things in Pittsburg, the company began to "acquire refiners" in 1875. In 1877 they bought their last one; and at the time Mr. Frew was under examination he could not remember but one refinery in operation in Pittsburg not controlled by his company.

Nor was it refiners only who sold out. All departments of the trade began to yield to the pressure. There was in the oil business a class of men known as shippers. They bought crude oil, sent it East, and sold it to refineries there. Among the largest of these was Adnah Neyhart, whose active representative was W. T. Scheide. Now to Mr. Rockefeller the independent shipper was an incubus; he did a business which, in his judgment, a firm ought to do for itself, and reaped a profit which might go direct into the business. Besides, so long as there were shippers to supply crude to the Eastern refineries at living prices, so long these concerns might resist offers to sell or lease.

Some time in the fall of 1872 Mr. Scheide began to lose his customers in New York. He found that they were making some kind of a working arrangement with the Standard Oil Company, just what he did not know. But at all events they no longer bought from him but from the Standard buyer, J. A. Bostwick and Company. At the same time he became con-vinced that Mr. Rockefeller was after his business. "I knew that they were making some strenuous efforts to get our business," he told the Hepburn Commission in 1879, "because I used to meet Mr. Rockefeller in the Erie office." At the same time that he was facing the loss of customers and the demoralising conviction that the Standard Oil Company wanted his business, he was experiencing more or less disgust over business conditions in New York. "I did not like the character of my customers there," Mr. Scheide told the committee. "I did not think they were treating us fairly and squarely. There was a strong competition in handling oil. The competition had got to be so strong that 'outside refiners,' as they called themselves then, used to go around bidding up the price of their works on the Standard Oil Company, and they were using me to sell their refineries to the Standard. They would say to refiners: 'Neyhart will do so and so, and we are going to continue running.' And they would say to us that the Standard was offering lower prices. I recollect one instance in which they, after having made a contract to buy oil from me if I would bring it over the Erie Railway, broke that contract for the 1-128th part of a cent a gallon. I sold out the next week." When Mr. Scheide went to the freight agent of the Erie road, Mr. Blanchard, and told him of his decision to sell, Mr. Blanchard tried to dissuade him. During the conversation he let out a fact which must have convinced Mr. Scheide more fully than ever that he had been wise in determining to give up his business. Mr. Blanchard told him as a reason for his staying and trusting to the Erie road to keep its contracts with him that the Standard Oil Company had been offering him five cents more a barrel than Mr. Scheide was paying them, and would take all their cars, and load them all regularly if they would throw him over and give them the business. It is interesting to note that when Mr. Scheide sold in the spring of 1875, it was, as he supposed, to Charles Pratt and Company. Well informed as he was in all the intricacies of the business—and there were few abler or more energetic men in trade at the time—he did not know that Charles Pratt and Company had been part and parcel of the Standard Oil Company since October, 1874.

Of course securing a large crude shipping business like Mr. Neyhart's was a valuable point for the Standard. It threw all of the refiners whom he had supplied out of crude oil and forced several of them to come to the Standard buyer—a first step, of course, toward a lease or sale. At every point, indeed, making it difficult for the refiner to get his raw product was one of the favourite manæuvres of the combination. It was not only to crude oil it was applied. Factories which worked up the residuum or tar into lubricating oil and depended on Standard plants for their supply were cut off. There was one such in Cleveland—the firm of Morehouse and Freeman. Mr. Morehouse had begun to experiment with lubricating oils in 1861, and in 1871 the report of the Cleveland Board of Trade devoted several of its pages to a description of his business. According to this account he was then making oils adapted to lubricating all kinds of machinery—he held patents for several brands and trade marks, and had produced that year over 25,000 barrels of different lubricants besides 120,000 boxes of axle grease. At this time he was buying his stock or residuum from one or another of the twenty-five Cleveland refiners. Then came the South Improvement Company and the concentration of the town's refining interest in Mr. Rockefeller's hands. Mr. Morehouse, according to the testimony he gave the Hepburn Commission in 1879, went to Mr. Rockefeller, after the consolidation, to arrange for supplies. He was welcomed—the Standard Oil Company had not at that time begun to deal in lubricating oils—and encouraged to build a new plant. This was done at a cost of $41,000, and a contract was made with the Standard Oil Company for a daily supply of eighty-five barrels of residuum. Some time in 1874 this supply was cut down to twelve barrels. The price was put up too, and contracts for several months were demanded so that Mr. Morehouse got no advantage from the variation in crude prices. Then the freights went up on the railroads. He paid $1.50 and two dollars for what he says he felt sure his big neighbour was paying but seventy or seventy-five cents (there is no evidence of any such low rate to the Standard from Cleveland to New York by rail). Now it was impossible for Mr. Morehouse to supply his trade on twelve barrels of stock. He begged Mr. Rockefeller for more. It was there in the Standard Oil works. Why could he not have it? He could pay for it. He and his partner offered to buy 5,000 barrels and store it, but Mr. Rockefeller was firm. All he could give Mr. Morehouse was twelve barrels a day. "I saw readily what that meant," said Mr. Morehouse, "that meant squeeze you out—buy your works. They have got the works and are running them; I am without anything. They paid about $15,000 for what cost me $41,000. He said that he had facilities for freighting and that the coal-oil business belonged to them; and any concern that would start in that business, they had sufficient money to lay aside a fund to wipe them out—these are the words."^[19]

At every refining centre in the country this process of consolidation through persuasion, intimidation, or force, went on. As fast as a refinery was brought in line its work was assigned to it. If it was an old and poorly equipped plant it was usually dismantled or shut down. If it was badly placed, that is, if it was not economically placed in regard to a pipe-line and railroad, it was dismantled even though in excellent condition. If it was a large and well-equipped plant advantageously located it was assigned a certain quota to manufacture, and it did nothing but manufacture. The buying of crude, the mak-ing of freight rates, the selling of the output remained with Mr. Rockefeller. The contracts under which all the refineries brought into line were run were of the most detailed and rigid description, and they were executed as a rule with a secrecy which baffles description. Take, for example, a running arrangement made by Rockefeller in 1876, with a Cleveland refinery, that of Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle. The members of this concern had all been in the refining business in Cleveland in 1872 and had all handed over their works to Mr. Rockefeller, when he notified them of the South Improvement Company's contracts. Mr. Shurmer declared once in an affidavit that he alone lost $20,000 by that manoeuvre. The members of the firm had not stayed out of business, however. Recovering from the panic caused by the South Improvement Company, they had united in 1875, building a refinery worth $65,000, with a yearly capacity of 180,000 barrels of crude. On the first year's business they made $40,000. Although this was doing well, they were convinced they might do better if they could get as good freight rates as the Standard Oil Company, and in the spring of 1876 they brought suit against the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the New York Central and Hudson River Railroads for "unlawful and unjust discrimination, partialities and preferences made and practised . . . in favour of the Standard Oil Company, enabling the said Standard Oil Company to obtain to a great extent the monopoly of the oil and naphtha trade of Cleveland." The suit was not carried through at the time. Mr. Rockefeller seems to have suggested a surer way to the firm of getting the rates they wanted. This was to make a running arrangement with him. He seems to have demonstrated to them that they could make more money under his plan than outside, and they signed a contract for a remarkable "joint adventure." According to this document Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle put into the business a plant worth at that time about $73,000 and their entire time. Mr. Rockefeller put in $10,000 and his rebates! That is, he secured for the firm the same preferential rates on their shipments that the Standard Oil Company enjoyed. The firm bound itself not to refine over 85,000 barrels a year and neither jointly nor separately to engage in any other form of oil business for ten years—the life of the contract. Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle were guaranteed a profit of $35,000 a year. Profits over $35,000 went to Mr. Rockefeller up to $70,000; any further profits were divided.

The making of this contract and its execution were attended by all the secret rites peculiar to Mr. Rockefeller's business ventures. According to the testimony of one of the firm given a few years later on the witness stand in Cleveland the contract was signed at night at Mr. Rockefeller's house on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, where he told the gentlemen that they must not tell even their wives about the new arrangement, that if they made money they must conceal it—they were not to drive fast horses, "put on style," or do anything to let people suspect there were unusual profits in oil refining. That would invite competition. They were told that all accounts were to be kept secret. Fictitious names were to be used in corresponding, and a special box at the post-office was employed for these fictitious characters. In fact, smugglers and house-breakers never surrounded their operations with more mystery.

But make his operations as thickly as he might in secrecy, the effect of Mr. Rockefeller's steady and united attack on the refining business was daily becoming more apparent. Before the end of 1876 the alarm among oil producers, the few independent refineries still in business, and even in certain railroad circles was serious. On all sides talk of a united effort to meet the consolidation was heard.

1. See Appendix, Number 3.
2. See Appendix, Number 14.
3. See Appendix, Number 18. Testimony of George R. Blanchard on rebates granted by the Erie Railroad.
4. See Appendix, Number 19. Testimony of W. T. Scheide.
5. See Appendix, Number 20. Statements of amounts paid for overcharges and rebates on oil during the year 1873 by the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad.
6. See Appendix, Number 21. Agreement of 1874 between the Erie Railroad system and the Standard Oil Company.
7. See Appendix, Number 22. Agreement of 1874 between the railroads and pipe-lines.
8. See Appendix, Number 23. The Rutter circular.
9. These figures are from Henry's "Early and Later History of Petroleum," published in 1873.
10. The barrels of the Standard Oil Company are painted blue.
11. This account of the meeting at Saratoga was given to the writer by Charles Lockhart, of Pittsburg.
12. See Appendix, Number 24. Standard Oil Company's application for increase of capital stock to $3,500,000 in 1875.
13. See Appendix, Number 25. Henry M. Flagler's testimony on the union of the Standard Oil Company with outside refiners in 1874.
14. Mr. Rogers is mistaken here. The production in 1874 was 10,926,945 barrels, the shipments 8,821,500, the stocks at the end of the year 3,705,639. In 1875, the year in which he is speaking, more oil was consumed than produced.
15. See Appendix, Number 26. George R. Blanchard's testimony on the breaking up of the Pipe Pool of 1874.
16. Condensed from Mr. Tack's testimony.
17. Condensed from Mr. Harkness's testimony.
18. J. T. Henry, in his "Early and Later History of Petroleum," gives twenty-two; E. G. Patterson, in a list presented in court in 1880, gives the number at the beginning of this combination as thirty.
19. Condensed from testimony of Mr. Morehouse before the special committee on railroads, New York Assembly, 1879.