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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3173072 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60473 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60473) diff --git a/old/60473-8.txt b/old/60473-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 420fc80..0000000 --- a/old/60473-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,24052 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Wealth against commonwealth, by Henry Demarest Lloyd - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Wealth against commonwealth - -Author: Henry Demarest Lloyd - -Release Date: October 12, 2019 [EBook #60473] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH *** - - - - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH - - - BY - - HENRY DEMAREST LLOYD - - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1894 - - - - - Copyright, 1894, by Henry Demarest Lloyd. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. "THERE ARE NONE"--"THEY ARE LEGION" 1 - - II. CUT OFF FROM FIRE 9 - - III. PROHIBITION THAT PROHIBITS 20 - - IV. "SQUARE EATERS" 30 - - V. STRIKING OIL 38 - - VI. "NOT TO EXCEED HALF" 61 - - VII. "YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE" 73 - - VIII. "NO!" 84 - - IX. WHO PIPED AND WHO DANCED 104 - - X. CHEAPENING TRANSPORTATION 118 - - XI. SONG OF THE BARREL 128 - - XII. UNFINISHED MARCH TO THE SEA 152 - - XIII. PURCHASE OF PEACE 166 - - XIV. "I WANT TO MAKE OIL" 182 - - XV. SYMPATHETICAL CO-OPERATION 199 - - XVI. "TURN ANOTHER SCREW" 212 - - XVII. IN THE INTEREST OF ALL 227 - - XVIII. ORDINARY SUPPLY AND DEMAND 243 - - XIX. THROUGH THE WOMAN'S EYES 257 - - XX. TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE 272 - - XXI. CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION 285 - - XXII. ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES 299 - - XXIII. FREEDOM OF THE CITY 313 - - XXIV. HIGH FINANCE 326 - - XXV. A SUNDAY IN JUNE 341 - - XXVI. TOLEDO VICTOR 352 - - XXVII. "YOU ARE A--SENATOR" 369 - - XXVIII. FOR "OLD GLORY" AND AN--APPROPRIATION 389 - - XXIX. "THE COMMODITY IS NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE"--_Coke_ 405 - - XXX. "TO GET ALL WE CAN" 420 - - XXXI. ALL THE WORLD UNDER ONE HAT 432 - - XXXII. "NOT BUSINESS" 455 - - XXXIII. THE SMOKELESS REBATE 474 - - XXXIV. THE OLD SELF-INTEREST 494 - - XXXV. AND THE NEW 516 - - APPENDIX--PARTIAL LIST OF TRADE COMBINATIONS, OR TRUSTS 537 - - INDEX 545 - - - - -WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH - - - - -CHAPTER I - -"THERE ARE NONE"--"THEY ARE LEGION" - - -Nature is rich; but everywhere man, the heir of nature, is poor. Never -in this happy country or elsewhere--except in the Land of Miracle, -where "they did all eat and were filled"--has there been enough of -anything for the people. Never since time began have all the sons -and daughters of men been all warm, and all filled, and all shod and -roofed. Never yet have all the virgins, wise or foolish, been able to -fill their lamps with oil. - -The world, enriched by thousands of generations of toilers and -thinkers, has reached a fertility which can give every human being -a plenty undreamed of even in the Utopias. But between this plenty -ripening on the boughs of our civilization and the people hungering for -it step the "cornerers," the syndicates, trusts, combinations, with -the cry of "over-production"--too much of everything. Holding back the -riches of earth, sea, and sky from their fellows who famish and freeze -in the dark, they declare to them that there is too much light and -warmth and food. They assert the right, for their private profit, to -regulate the consumption by the people of the necessaries of life, and -to control production, not by the needs of humanity, but by the desires -of a few for dividends. The coal syndicate thinks there is too much -coal. There is too much iron, too much lumber, too much flour--for this -or that syndicate. - -The majority have never been able to buy enough of anything; but this -minority have too much of everything to sell. - -Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty. "The splendid -empire of Charles V.," says Motley, "was erected upon the grave of -liberty." Our bignesses, cities, factories, monopolies, fortunes, -which are our empires, are the obesities of an age gluttonous beyond -its powers of digestion. Mankind are crowding upon each other in the -centres, and struggling to keep each other out of the feast set by the -new sciences and the new fellowships. Our size has got beyond both our -science and our conscience. The vision of the railroad stockholder is -not far-sighted enough to see into the office of the General Manager; -the people cannot reach across even a ward of a city to rule their -rulers; Captains of Industry "do not know" whether the men in the -ranks are dying from lack of food and shelter; we cannot clean our -cities nor our politics; the locomotive has more man-power than all the -ballot-boxes, and mill-wheels wear out the hearts of workers unable to -keep up beating time to their whirl. If mankind had gone on pursuing -the ideals of the fighter, the time would necessarily have come when -there would have been only a few, then only one, and then none left. -This is what we are witnessing in the world of livelihoods. Our ideals -of livelihood are ideals of mutual deglutition. We are rapidly reaching -the stage where in each province only a few are left; that is the -key to our times. Beyond the deep is another deep. This era is but a -passing phase in the evolution of industrial Cæsars, and these Cæsars -will be of a new type--corporate Cæsars. - -For those who like the perpetual motion of a debate in which neither -of the disputants is looking at the same side of the shield, there are -infinite satisfactions in the current controversy as to whether there -is any such thing as "monopoly." "There are none," says one side. -"They are legion," says the other. "The idea that there can be such a -thing is absurd," says one, who with half a dozen associates controls -the source, the price, the quality, the quantity of nine-tenths of a -great necessary of life. But "There will soon be a trust for every -production, and a master to fix the price for every necessity of -life," said the Senator who framed the United States Anti-Trust Law. -This difference as to facts is due to a difference in the definitions -through which the facts are regarded. Those who say "there are none" -hold with the Attorney-General of the United States and the decision -he quotes from the highest Federal court which has yet passed on this -question[1] that no one has a monopoly unless there is a "disability" -or "restriction" imposed by law on all who would compete. A syndicate -that had succeeded in bottling for sale all the air of the earth -would not have a monopoly in this view, unless there were on the -statute-books a law forbidding every one else from selling air. No -others could get air to sell; the people could not get air to breathe, -but there would be no monopoly because there is no "legal restriction" -on breathing or selling the atmosphere. - -Excepting in the manufacture of postage-stamps, gold dollars, and a -few other such cases of a "legal restriction," there are no monopolies -according to this definition. It excludes the whole body of facts -which the people include in their definition, and dismisses a great -public question by a mere play on words. The other side of the shield -was described by Judge Barrett, of the Supreme Court of New York. A -monopoly he declared to be "any combination the tendency of which is -to prevent competition in its broad and general sense, and to control -and thus at will enhance prices to the detriment of the public.... Nor -need it be permanent or complete. It is enough that it may be even -temporarily and partially successful. The question in the end is, Does -it inevitably tend to public injury?"[2] - -Those who insist that "there are none" are the fortunate ones who came -up to the shield on its golden side. But common usage agrees with -the language of Judge Barrett, because it exactly fits a fact which -presses on common people heavily, and will grow heavier before it grows -lighter. - -The committee of Congress investigating trusts in 1889 did not report -any list of these combinations to control markets, "for the reason -that new ones are constantly forming, and that old ones are constantly -extending their relations so as to cover new branches of the business -and invade new territories." - -It is true that such a list, like a dictionary, would begin to be -wrong the moment it began to appear. But though only an instantaneous -photograph of the whirlwind, it would give an idea, to be gained -in no other way, of a movement shadowing two hemispheres. In an -incredible number of the necessaries and luxuries of life, from meat -to tombstones, some inner circle of the "fittest" has sought, and very -often obtained, the sweet power which Judge Barrett found the sugar -trust had: It "can close every refinery at will, close some and open -others, limit the purchases of raw material (thus jeopardizing, and in -a considerable degree controlling, its production), artificially limit -the production of refined sugar, enhance the price to enrich themselves -and their associates at the public expense, and depress the price when -necessary to crush out and impoverish a foolhardy rival." - -Corners are "acute" attacks of that which combinations exhibit as -chronic. First a corner, then a pool, then a trust, has often been -the genesis. The last stage, when the trust throws off the forms of -combination and returns to the simpler dress of corporations, is -already well along. Some of the "sympathetical co-operations" on record -have no doubt ceased to exist. But that they should have been attempted -is one of the signs of the time, and these attempts are repeated again -and again until success is reached. - -The line of development is from local to national, and from national -to international. The amount of capital changes continually with the -recrystallizations in progress. Not less than five hundred million -dollars is in the coal combination, which our evidence shows to have -flourished twenty-two years; that in oil has nearly if not quite two -hundred millions; and the other combinations in which its members are -leaders foot up hundreds of millions more. Hundreds of millions of -dollars are united in the railroads and elevators of the Northwest -against the wheat-growers. In cattle and meat there are not less than -one hundred millions; in whiskey, thirty-five millions; and in beer -a great deal more than that; in sugar, seventy-five millions; in -leather, over a hundred millions; in gas, hundreds of millions. At -this writing a union is being negotiated of all the piano-makers in -the United States, to have a capital of fifty millions. Quite beyond -ordinary comprehension is the magnitude of the syndicates, if there is -more than one, which are going from city to city, consolidating all -the gas-works, electric-lighting companies, street-railways in each -into single properties, and consolidating these into vast estates for -central corporations of capitalists, controlling from metropolitan -offices the transportation of the people of scores of cities. Such -a syndicate negotiating in December, 1892, for the control of the -street-railways of Brooklyn, was said by the New York _Times_, "on -absolute authority, to have subscribed $23,000,000 towards that end, -before a single move had been made or a price set on a single share -of stock." It was in the same hands as those busy later in gathering -together the coal-mines of Nova Scotia and putting them under American -control. There are in round numbers ten thousand millions of dollars -claiming dividends and interest in the railroads of the United -States. Every year they are more closely pooled. The public saw them -marshalled, as by one hand, in the maintenance of the high passenger -rates to the World's Fair in the summer of 1893. - -Many thousands of millions of dollars are represented in these -centralizations. It is a vast sum, and yet is but a minority of our -wealth. - -Laws against these combinations have been passed by Congress and by -many of the States. There have been prosecutions under them by the -State and Federal governments. The laws and the lawsuits have alike -been futile. - -In a few cases names and form of organization have been changed, in -consequence of legal pursuit. The whiskey, sugar, and oil trusts had -to hang out new signs. But the thing itself, the will and the power to -control markets, livelihoods, and liberties, and the toleration of this -by the public--this remains unimpaired; in truth, facilitated by the -greater secrecy and compactness which have been the only results of the -appeal to law. - -The Attorney-General of the national government gives a large part of -his annual report for 1893 to showing "what small basis there is for -the popular impression" "that the aim and effect of this statute" (the -Anti-Trust Law) "are to prohibit and prevent those aggregations of -capital which are so common at the present day, and which sometimes -are on so large a scale as to practically control all the branches -of an extensive industry." This executive says of the action of the -"co-ordinate" Legislature: "It would not be useful, even if it were -possible, to ascertain the precise purposes of the framers of the -statute." He is the officer charged with the duty of directing the -prosecutions to enforce the law; but he declares that since, among -other reasons, "all ownership of property is a monopoly, ... any -literal application of the provisions of the statute is out of the -question." Nothing has been accomplished by all these appeals to the -legislatures and the courts, except to prove that the evil lies deeper -than any public sentiment or public intelligence yet existent, and is -stronger than any public power yet at call. - -What we call Monopoly is Business at the end of its journey. The -concentration of wealth, the wiping out of the middle classes, are -other names for it. To get it is, in the world of affairs, the chief -end of man. - -There are no solitary truths, Goethe says, and monopoly--as the -greatest business fact of our civilization, which gives to business -what other ages gave to war and religion--is our greatest social, -political, and moral fact. - -The men and women who do the work of the world have the right to the -floor. Everywhere they are rising to "a point of information." They -want to know how our labor and the gifts of nature are being ordered -by those whom our ideals and consent have made Captains of Industry -over us; how it is that we, who profess the religion of the Golden Rule -and the political economy of service for service, come to divide our -produce into incalculable power and pleasure for a few, and partial -existence for the many who are the fountains of these powers and -pleasures. This book is an attempt to help the people answer these -questions. It has been quarried out of official records, and it is a -venture in realism in the world of realities. Decisions of courts and -of special tribunals like the Interstate Commerce Commission, verdicts -of juries in civil and criminal cases, reports of committees of the -State Legislatures and of Congress, oath-sworn testimony given in legal -proceedings and in official inquiries, corrected by rebutting testimony -and by cross-examination--such are the sources of information. - -One important exception is in the description of the operations of -a great international combination in England, Germany, Holland, and -elsewhere in Europe; this has had to be made from unofficial material. -The people there are neither economically nor politically developed -to the point we have reached in America, of using the legislative -investigation and the powers of the courts to defend livelihoods and -market rights, and enforce the social responsibilities of industrial -power. Full and exact references are given throughout for the guidance -of the investigator. The language of witnesses, judges, and official -reports has been repeated verbatim, except for the avoidance of the -surplusage and reduplication usual in such literature, and that, to -permit the use of the dialogue form, the construction has been changed -from the third person to the first in quotations from evidence. With -these qualifications, wherever quotation marks have been used, the -transcription is word for word. Evidence from such sources is more -exact, circumstantial, and accurate than that upon which the mass of -historical literature is founded. - -To give the full and official history of numbers of these -combinations, which are nearly identical in inspiration, method, and -result, would be repetition. Only one of them, therefore, has been -treated in full--the oil trust. It is the most successful of all the -attempts to put gifts of nature, entire industries, and world markets -under one hat. Its originators claim this precedence. It was, one of -its spokesmen says, "the parent of the trust system."[3] It is the best -illustration of a movement which is itself but an illustration of the -spirit of the age. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -CUT OFF FROM FIRE - - -Rome banished those who had been found to be public enemies by -forbidding every one to give them fire and water. That was done by -all to a few. In America it is done by a few to all. A small number -of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but themselves to supply -the people with fire in nearly every form known to modern life and -industry, from matches to locomotives and electricity. They control -our hard coal and much of the soft,[4] and stoves, furnaces, and steam -and hot-water heaters; the governors on steam-boilers and the boilers; -gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and gas-pipes; electric lighting, -and all the appurtenances. You cannot free yourself by changing from -electricity to gas, or from the gas of the city to the gas of the -fields. If you fly from kerosene to candles, you are still under the -ban. - -The report adopted by the National Association of Stove Manufacturers, -at the Thirteenth Annual Convention, 1884, said: "While it is true -that iron is a dollar or two lower than last year, and that the cost -of labor has also been reduced, your committee is confident that there -is not a manufacturer present who can truthfully say he can afford to -reduce the price of his goods." "It is a chronic case," the President -said in 1888, "of too many stoves, and not enough people to buy them." - -The match company, by whose consent all the fires in the United States -and Canada are lighted, was organized, as stated, by the Supreme Court -of Michigan, for the purpose of controlling the manufacture and trade. -Thirty-one manufacturers, owning substantially all the factories -where matches were made in the United States, either went into the -combination, or were purchased by the match company, and out of this -number all were closed except about thirteen. - -One of the company, who has been a conspicuous candidate for a -nomination to the presidency of the United States, testified that the -price of matches was kept up to pay the large sums of money expended -to exclude others from the match business, remove competition, buy up -machinery and patents, and purchase other match factories. This was -told in a suit between two stockholders on a question of their relative -rights; but the court, of its own motion, declared the combination -illegal, and took notice of the public interests involved.[5] - -"Such a vast combination is a menace to the public," said the court. -"It is no answer to say that this monopoly has, in fact, reduced the -price of friction-matches. That policy may have been necessary to -crush competition. The fact exists that it rests in the discretion of -this company at any time to raise the price to an exorbitant degree." -"Indeed, it is doubtful if free government can long exist in a country -where such enormous amounts of money are allowed to be accumulated in -the vaults of corporations, to be used at discretion in controlling the -property and business of the country against the interest of the public -and that of the people, for the personal gain and aggrandizement of a -few individuals." - -Within the last thirty years, 95 per cent. of the anthracite coal of -America--practically the entire supply, it was reported by Congress in -1893--has passed from the ownership of private citizens, many thousands -in number, into the possession of the railroads controlling the -highways of the coal-fields. - -These railroads have been undergoing a similar process of -consolidation, and are now the property of eight great corporations. -This surrender of their property by the individual coal-mine owners is -a continuing process, in operation at this moment, for the complete -extinction of the "individual" and the independents in this field. It -is destined, according to the report of Congress of 1893,[6] to end -"in the entire absorption ... of the entire anthracite coal-fields and -collieries by ... the common carriers." - -Anthracite coal is geographically a natural monopoly contained in three -contiguous fields which, if laid close together, would not cover more -than eight miles by sixty. But bituminous coal, although scattered -in exhaustless measures all over the continent, is being similarly -appropriated by the railroads, and its area is being similarly limited -artificially by their interference. - -"Railroad syndicates," says the investigation of 1888,[7] "are buying -all the best bituminous coal lands along their lines in Missouri, -Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, and other Western -States and Territories, no doubt with a view of levying tribute upon -the people's fuel and the industrial fires of the country." - -Canada remains unannexed politically, but its best coal deposits -have become a part of the United States. In 1892 a syndicate of -American capitalists obtained the control of the principal bituminous -coal-mines of Nova Scotia. Among them were men connected both with the -anthracite pool and with the combination which seeks control of the oil -market of Canada and of the United States. - -The process of consolidation is shown by official and judicial -investigations to have been in progress in the bituminous fields at -least as far back as 1871, with the same purposes, methods, and results -as in the anthracite fields, though more slowly, on account of the -greater number and vastness of the deposits. From Pennsylvania to the -Pacific coast these are narrowed to the territory along the railroads, -and narrowed there again to the mines owned or favored by the railroad -managers. - -The investigations by Congress in 1888 and 1893 both state that the -railroads of the country are similarly becoming the owners of our iron -and timber lands, and both call upon the people to save themselves. A -new law of industry is rising into view. Ownership of the highways ends -in ownership of everything and everybody that must use the highways. - -The railroads compel private owners to sell them their mines or all the -product by refusing to supply cars for their business, and by charging -rates for the transportation of coal so high that every one but -themselves loses money on every ton sent to market. When the railroads -elect to have the output large, they furnish many cars; when they elect -to have the output small, they furnish few cars; and when they elect -that there shall be no output whatever, they furnish no cars. - -One of the few surviving independent coal producers, who is losing -heavily on every ton he sends to market, but keeps on in the hope that -the law will give him redress, was asked by a committee of Congress why -he did not sell out and give up the business? He was willing, he said, -to abide the time when his rights on the railroad could be judicially -determined. There was another reason. "It might be considered a very -sentimental one. I have spent, sir, considerable time and a large -amount of energy and skill in building up my business, and I rather -like to continue it." - -"In other words, you don't want to be forced to sell out?" - -"No, sir; I don't want to be forced to sell my product, any more than I -want to be forced to sell my collieries."[8] - -Though coal is an article of commerce greater in volume than any other -natural product in the United States carried on railroads, amounting to -not less than 130,000,000 tons a year; and though the appliances for -its transportation have been improved, and the cost cheapened every -year, so that it can be handled with less cost and risk than almost any -other class of freight, the startling fact appears in the litigations -before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the investigations by -Congress, that anthracite freight rates have been advanced instead of -being decreased, are higher now than they were in 1879, and that coal -is made by these confederated railroads to pay rates vastly higher -than the average of all other high and low class freight, nearly -double the rate on wheat or cotton. These high freight rates serve -the double purpose of seeming to justify the high price of coal, and -of killing off year by year the independent coal-producers. What the -railroad coal-miner pays for freight returns to its other self, the -railroad. What the independent coal-producer pays goes also to the -railroad, his competitor. "This excess over just and reasonable rates -of transportation constitutes an available fund by which they (the -railroads) are enabled to crush out the competition of independent -coal-producers."[9] - -By these means, as Congress found in 1888,[10] the railroad managers -have forced the independent miners to sell to them or their friends -at the price they chose to pay. They were the only possible buyers, -because only they were sure of a supply of cars, and of freight rates -at which they could live. - -The private operators thus being frozen out are able, as the -investigation by the New York Legislature in 1878 showed, to produce -coal more economically than the great companies, because not burdened -with extravagant salaries, royalties, and leases, interest on -fictitious bonded debts, and dividends on false capitalization of -watered stock. By the laws of supply and demand they would compete out -the unwieldy corporations, but these administer a superior political -economy in their supply and demand of cars and freight rates. The -unfittest, economically, survives. - -"The railroad companies engaged in mining and transporting coal -are practically in a combination to control the output and fix the -price.... They have a practical monopoly of the production, the -transportation, and sale of anthracite coal."[11] This has been the -finding in all the investigations for twenty years. "More than one, if -not all, of the anthracite monopolies," Congress reported in 1888, "run -several of their mines in the name of private operators to quiet the -general clamor against carrying companies having a monopoly of mining -also." - -The anthracite collieries of Pennsylvania could now produce 50,000,000 -tons a year. The railroads restrict them to 40,000,000 or 41,000,000 -tons,[12] nine or ten million tons less than they could furnish to ward -off the frosts of winter and to speed the wheels of the world, and this -creation of artificial winter has been in progress from the beginning -of the combination. - -In the ten months between February and November, 1892, the price of -coal in the East, as investigated by Congress in 1893,[13] was advanced -by the coal railroads as much as $1.25 and $1.35 a ton on the kinds -used by house-keepers, and the combinations, the report of Congress -says, "exercise even a more baleful influence on the production and -transportation of coal for the Western market." The extortion in the -price fixed by the coal railroads was found by Congress, in 1888, to -be an average of one dollar a ton--"considerably more than a dollar -a ton"--on all consumed in the United States, or $39,000,000 in that -year, and now $40,000,000 to $41,000,000 a year. The same investigation -found that between 1873 and 1886 $200,000,000 more than a fair market -price was taken from the public by this combination.[14] - -This in anthracite alone. How many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of -millions more have been taken by the railroads which control the -bituminous coal-fields from Pennsylvania to the Pacific, there are no -adjudicated means of estimating. - -By the same power which has crushed out the independent coal-miner, -the retailer in the cities has been reduced from a free man to -an instrument to despoil his neighbors--with whom he is often a -fellow-victim--for the benefit of absentee capitalists; he is hounded -by detectives; by threats of cutting off his supply, is made a -compulsory member of a secret oath-bound society to "maintain prices." -"Combinations exist," says the Canadian report, "among coal-dealers -in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and London. Detectives are employed -and the dealers placed under surveillance.... Oaths of fidelity to -the constitution and rules are required not only of the members, but -also of their salesmen, and the oaths in the cases of these employés -are made in some instances retroactive as well as prospective. All -violations of oaths are adjudicated upon by the executive committee -referred to, the penalties being heavy fines or expulsion.... In -accordance with arrangements made with the American coal-dealers, those -who were in default in membership, either from inability to pay fines -or from other causes, were prevented from purchasing coal in the United -States."[15] - -The retailer dare not tell his wrongs even in the committee-rooms -of Congress. "Your committee," says the report of 1893 to Congress, -"experienced great difficulty in obtaining testimony from retail -coal-dealers, who apparently labor under fears of injury to their -business in case they should appear and give evidence." - -"During the first forty years," Congress reported in 1888, "the -mines were worked by individuals, just as are farms. The hundreds of -employers were in active competition with each other for labor. The -fundamental law of supply and demand alike governed all parties. As to -engagement, employer and employé stood upon a common level of equality -and manhood. Skill and industry upon the part of the miner assured to -him steady work, fair wages, honest measurement, and humane treatment. -Should these be denied by one employer many other employers were ready -to give them. The miner had the same freedom as to engagement, the same -reward for faithful service, and protection against injustice that -the farm-hand possesses because of the competition between farmers -employing hands.... This virtual combination of all employers into one -syndicate has practically abolished competition between them as to -wages; and gradually, but inexorably, the workmen have found themselves -encoiled as by an anaconda until now they are powerless."[16] - -There was an investigation of the coal combination by the Pennsylvania -Legislature in 1871, the testimony taken in which showed that when, -after a thirty days' strike by the men, a number of private coal-mine -owners acceded to their terms, and wished to reopen their mines and -send coal again to market, the railroads, by which alone they could get -to market, raised their freights, as their men were still on strike, -to three times the previous figures. These great corporations had -determined not to yield to their men, and as they were mine-owners and -coal-sellers as well as carriers, they refused to take coal for their -competitors.... The result was that the price of coal was doubled, -rising to $12 a ton; the resumption by the private mine-owners was -stopped; and they, the workmen, and the consumer were all delivered -over to the tender mercies of the six great companies.[17] - -The coal companies in the anthracite regions keep thousands of -surplus laborers on hand to underbid each other for employment and -for submission to all exactions; hold them purposely ignorant when -the mines are to be worked and when closed, so that they cannot -seek employment elsewhere; bind them as tenants by compulsion in the -companies' houses, so that rent shall run against them, whether wages -run on or not, and under leases by which they can be turned out with -their wives and children on the mountain-side in midwinter if they -strike; compel them to fill cars of larger capacity than agreed upon; -make them buy their powder and other working outfit of the companies at -an enormous advance on the cost; compel them to buy coal of the company -at the company's price, and in many cases to buy a fixed quantity, -more than they need; compel them to employ the doctor named by the -company, and to pay him whether sick or well; "pluck" them at the -company's stores, so that when pay-day comes around the company owes -the men nothing, there being authentic cases where "sober, hard-working -miners toiled for years or even a lifetime without having been able to -draw a single dollar, or but a few dollars, in actual cash," in "debt -until the day they died;" refuse to fix the wages in advance, but pay -them upon some hocus-pocus sliding scale, varying with the selling -price in New York, which the railroad slides to suit itself; and, most -extraordinary of all, refuse to let the miners know the prices on which -their living slides--a fraud, says the report of Congress, "on its -face."[18] - -The companies dock the miners' output arbitrarily for slate and other -impurities, and so can take from their men five to fifty tons more in -every hundred than they pay for.[19] - -In order to keep the miners disciplined and the coal-market -under-supplied, the railroads restrict work so that the miners often -have to live for a month on what they can earn in six or eight days; -and these restrictions are enforced upon their miners by withholding -cars from them to fill, as upon competitors by withholding cars to go -to market.[20] - -Labor organizations are forbidden, and the men intentionally provoked -to strike, to affect the coal-market. - -The laboring population of the coal regions, finally, is kept -"down" by special policemen enrolled under special laws, and often -in violation of law, by the railroads and coal and iron companies -practically when and in what numbers these companies choose. These -coal and iron policemen are practically without responsibility to any -one but their employers, are armed as the corporations see fit with -army revolvers, or Winchester rifles, or both, are made detectives -by statute, and not required to wear their shields. They provoke the -people to riot, and then shoot them legally.[21] - -"By the percentage of wages," says the report of Congress, "by false -measurements, by rents, stores, and other methods, the workman is -virtually a chattel of the operator." It says, to summarize: "The -carrier drives out both operator and owner, obtains the property, works -the mine, 'disciplines' the miner, lowers wages by the importation of -Huns and Italians, restricts the output, and advances the price of coal -to the public. It is enabled to commit such wrongs upon individuals -and the public by virtue of exercising absolute control of a public -highway."[22] - -The people of Pennsylvania, in 1873, adopted a new Constitution. To -put an end to the consolidation of all the anthracite coal lands into -the hands of the railroads, this Constitution forbade common carriers -to mine or manufacture articles for transportation over their lines, -or to buy land except for carrying purposes. These provisions of the -Constitution have been disobeyed "defiantly." "The railroads have -defiantly gone on acquiring title to hundreds of thousands of acres of -coal, as well as of neighboring agricultural lands." They have been -"aggressively pursuing the joint business of carrying and mining coal." -So far from quitting it, they "have increased their mining operations -by extracting bituminous as well as anthracite."[23] - -Instead of enacting "appropriate legislation," as commanded by the -new Constitution, to effectuate its prohibitions, the Legislature has -passed laws to nullify the Constitution by preventing forever any -escheat to the State of the immense area of lands unlawfully held by -the railroads. Every effort breaking down to meet the evil by State -action, failure was finally confessed by the passage in 1878, by the -Pennsylvania Legislature, of a joint resolution asking Congress to -legislate "for equity in the rates of freight." - -In 1887 Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Law, and established -the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce justice on the railway -highways. The independent mine-owners of Pennsylvania appealed to -it. Two years and a half were consumed in the proceedings. The -Commission decided that the rates the railroad charged were unjust -and unreasonable, and ordered them reduced.[24] But the decision has -remained unenforced, and cannot be enforced. The railroads treat the -Commission with the same contumely they visit on the Constitution of -Pennsylvania, and two years after the decision Congress in 1893 found -their rates to be 50 cents a ton higher than what the Commission had -declared to be just and equitable.[25] The Interstate Commerce Law -provides for the imprisonment in the penitentiary of those guilty of -the crimes it covers. But the only conviction had under it has been of -a shipper for discriminating against a railroad. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -PROHIBITION THAT PROHIBITS - - -That which governments have not yet been equal to has been accomplished -by the private co-operation of a few citizens. They decree at their -pleasure that in this town or that State no one shall manufacture -alcohol, and they enforce the decree. Theirs is the only prohibition -that prohibits. - -From the famous whiskey ring of 1874 to the pool of 1881 and the -trust of 1887, and from the abandonment of that "trust" dress and -the reorganization into one corporation in 1890 down to the present, -this private regulation of the liquor traffic has gone on. It is -a regulation of a good deal more than the liquor traffic. Through -its control of alcohol it is a power over the arts and sciences, -the manufacture and the preparation of medicines, and a power -over politics. More than one chapter of our history exhibits the -government itself holding to these rectifiers relations suggestive -of anything but rectification. The report of the investigation by -Congress in 1893 notes the fact that on the strength of a rumor that -the internal-revenue tax was to be increased by Congress, the Trust -raised its prices 25 cents a gallon. This would amount to a profit of -$12,500,000 on its yearly output. - -By February, 1888, all the important distilleries in the Northern -States--nearly eighty--were in the Trust, excepting two, the larger of -which was in Chicago. The cases of these irreconcilable competitors -were set for consideration, according to the _Chicago Tribune's_ -report, at a private meeting of the trustees February 3d. In April -the Chicago distillery firm published the fact that they had caught a -spy of the Trust in their works. He had given them a confession in -writing. In September it was discovered that the valve of a vat in this -distillery had been tampered with in such a way as to have caused an -explosion had it not been found out in time. The next month its owners -made known that they had been offered and refused $1,000,000 from the -Trust for their works. In December the country was startled by the -news that this distillery had been the scene of an awful explosion of -dynamite. All the buildings in the neighborhood were shaken and many -panes of glass were broken. A jagged hole about three feet square was -torn in the roof. There were 15,000 barrels of whiskey stored under -the roof that was torn open, and if these had been ignited a terrible -fire would have been added to the effect of the explosion. A package of -dynamite which had failed to explode, though the fuse had been lighted, -was found on the premises by the Chicago police. - -The Chicago representative of the whiskey combination ridiculed the -idea that the Trust had had anything to do with this. "Such a thing," -he said, "is contrary to the genius of a trust." - -The wholesale liquor-dealers threatened, at a conference in 1890 -with the president of the Trust, to manufacture for themselves, to -escape the advance which had been made in the price of high-wines. The -president said, as reported in the _Wine and Spirit Gazette_: - -"I do not believe there is a spirits distillery in the country that you -can buy. We own nearly all of them, and have at present seventy-eight -idle distilleries." - -February 11, 1891, the explosion of December, 1888, was recalled by -the unexpected arrest of the secretary of the combination in Chicago -by the United States authorities. The Grand Jury of Cook County found -an indictment, February 17th, against the prisoner. April 20th he was -indicted by the Federal Grand Jury. The crime of which he was charged -was attempting to bribe a government gauger to blow up the troublesome -distillery. The gauger whom the secretary endeavored to enlist had -been loyal to his trust, the government, and had made known to his -superiors the offer and purpose of the bribe. - -If the explosion had been carried out 150 men at work in the distillery -would have been destroyed. The evidence given Congress afterwards -tended to show that part of the plan was that the bribed gauger who -was to set and explode the infernal-machine was not to be allowed to -survive to claim his reward and perhaps repent and tell. The fuse was -fixed so that the explosion would be instantaneous instead of giving -the time promised him to get out of the way. - -In a statement to the press, February 15th, the president of the Trust -said, as the result of a conference of the trustees: - -"We have unanimously agreed to stand by the secretary." - -Early in June rumors were in circulation in New York that the Chicago -independent had sold out; and soon after the confirmation of the -report, with full details, was authoritatively published. - -June 8th the judge of the United States Court in Chicago quashed the -Federal indictment, on the ground that it is not a crime under any of -the United States laws for an internal-revenue officer to set fire to -a distillery of his own volition and impulse, and that it is not a -crime against the United States for another person to bribe him to do -such an act. He held that the offender could be punished only through -the State courts. The United States had property in the distillery -to the extent of $800,000 due for taxes, which was a legal lien on -the property; but the United States District Attorney and the judge -could find no Federal law under which, for the gauger to destroy this -property of the United States, or for the Whiskey Trust to bribe him -to do so, it was a crime. When the indictments framed by the State -Attorney of Chicago came before the State courts, three of the four -were found defective and were quashed. The Chicago correspondent of -the New York _World_ telegraphed that he had been told by the State -Attorney, at the time the Federal proceedings were quashed, that of his -four indictments he relied most upon that for conspiracy; "but in court -yesterday the State Attorney let the charge of conspiracy fall to the -ground because, as he said, there was not evidence enough to secure a -conviction." - -"We haven't the evidence of the gauger; I don't know where he is," the -State Attorney said. - -But this witness declared in a public letter in February, 1893, "Myself -and others with positive evidence were always ready to testify, and I -have the facts to-day." - -The judge of the State court held the motion to quash until July, and -then announced that he would make no decision until August. He withheld -his ruling until October. Then he held the secretary for trial on -two counts, charging conspiracy to bribe the gauger and destroy the -independent distillery; but remarked "informally," the newspapers said, -that conviction would be difficult. - -When the case was called March 22, 1892, a delay was granted "until -next Monday," to enable the prisoner's counsel to read the "bill of -particulars" to find out what he was charged with. The secretary did -not trouble himself to attend court. His case was not heard of again -until June 24th, when he was released on a nolle prosequi entered by -the State Attorney because the evidence was insufficient, and became a -free man. That was the end. - -Owing to this success of State and United States attorneys in being -unsuccessful, the people have never had an opportunity of hearing in -court the evidence on which the Government acted in making the arrest, -and on which the grand juries found the indictments. But the gauger -through whom the secretary of the Trust had attempted to execute his -plans was called as a witness before the Committee of Congress which -investigated the Trust in 1893, and he told again the story of the -infernal-machine. It was as follows, in his own words, omitting names -and unnecessary details: - -"I was United States internal-revenue gauger from 1879 until after -Mr. Cleveland's election, and I was reappointed in 1889, and have -been continuously since that time. Late in December, 1890, I received -a letter from the secretary of the whiskey combination at Peoria, -telling me that he would like to meet me at the Grand Pacific Hotel on -New-year's Day. I met him. He said, 'You may be able to do considerable -good here; not only for us, but of considerable advantage to yourself. -Your $1500 a year is nothing to what you would get by helping us. You -can get $10,000 by assisting us in this thing; in fact, to make matters -right, you could get in three months $25,000.'" The gauger reported -this to his superiors, who told him to go on. "Be particular, and -after every interview with him make a note of everything that passes -between you while it is fresh in your mind." "I did that," the witness -continued, "and I have the original notes in my pocket. There are the -original notes," exhibiting them to the committee. "They have never -left my possession. I have kept them on my person right along." After -some correspondence and another interview, he met the secretary again -January 25th. "Now," said the latter, "I can give you something which, -if put under a cistern, will in three or four hours go off, and no -person know what it was or who did it, and all the trouble that has -been caused us will be stopped at once, the sufferings of many people -stopped, and no loss to those folks, as they are well insured." "When I -recovered from my surprise I asked if it was an explosive. He replied, -'No; a simple but effective thing which would shoot a ball into a tub -through the bottom. You will have $10,000 for your work of placing -this under a cistern of high-proof, either alcohol or spirits, or what -is better than cash, 200 shares of stock.' I asked at what they sold. -He said, 'Forty-seven, but it would be up ten points at once,' and I -could profit by the raise. 'This will raise a big row.' 'Yes,' he said, -'one cistern well caught, all would go, and it would be right into the -warehouse and stop everything at once. It is the most effective way to -help us and make a clean job, and you having access to all parts of the -distillery and unsuspected is why you could do it so easily.' He had -then, in room 35, powder and four steel elongated balls, solid, turned, -and with long points. The principal article, however, was a kind of -yellowish liquid, which when exposed to sixty-five degrees temperature -would produce a flame caused by evaporation. I remarked that there -was probably no hurry about this thing, and he said, 'The sooner the -better; you may be ordered away from here, and I am come all prepared; -everything is ready to load, and that can be done quickly.'" - -The gauger reported all this to his superior and told him that "I -proposed to take the infernal apparatus." His superior said, "Of -course." "I then returned to Grand Pacific, room 35; found loading just -completed and much material scattered about, oakum in can saturated -slightly with kerosene and alcohol to give good start. The secretary -said that three fuses were attached to the gun, one of which would go -off under water. He had one steel shell which had been shot through -three inches of wood in experimenting. He showed me particularly -how to place can; to feel underneath for timbers; put it where ball -will enter tub. Also, that in stopping over to meet the president -of the combination to-morrow he would have a chance to buy up stock -reasonably before our work caused the raise. He expected to buy 1000 -shares. Friday, the 30th of January, I rather anticipated a visit from -the secretary at my hotel, but I received a letter from him instead -of a visit, and Judge Hart, the solicitor of the Internal-Revenue -Department, who was there in Chicago, when he read the letter thought -that the evidence was certainly conclusive." On Sunday, the 8th, the -gauger surrendered the box containing the infernal-machine, which was -sealed, to a high official who had come on from New York. "The reason -why he came on is that the authorities would not believe my testimony. -They did not think it was possible a gentleman in the secretary's -position would undertake so heinous a crime, and they did not know -but what I was a crank. On Monday, the 9th, I was instructed to write -a letter. The thing was to arrest in a proper way. The next day I -received a despatch: 'Will be at Pacific to-morrow (Wednesday) morning.' - -"Wednesday morning the secretary was arrested, as he was about to enter -the hotel, by a deputy marshal, and conducted to the Marshal's office -in the Government building. There was a bottle of this composition -found in his grip. He had told me it would go off in three or four -hours. I was in the anteroom of the city grand jury after the chemist -had given his testimony. The chemist said that it was his opinion -it would have or might have gone off in three seconds. Fire would -cause the shooting of the ball, and the ball making a hole in the -tub--alcohol or high-proof spirits--coming down, of course all would -have gone up. It could not have helped it, and the explosion would -have followed at once, not from the machine, but from the contents of -the cistern. They are very explosive indeed, alcohol and high-proof -spirits."[26] - -What the Government authorities thought of all this is shown in a -letter which is spread upon the records of the Treasury Department. It -is addressed by the Commissioner of Internal-Revenue to the gauger. -After thanking him for his "highly commendable" conduct in relation to -the bribe the Commissioner says to Mr. Thomas S. Dewar: - - "While your rejection of the offer was just what was expected - from you, considering your official and personal standing, yet I - realize that you have done more than simply reject the offer. You so - conducted the affair as to place the guilty party, it is hoped, in a - position in which he will be punished for this violation of law. The - proposition was not only to attempt to corrupt an honest officer of - the Government, but was to induce you, by the offer of a large sum of - money, to commit a most heinous and inhuman act." - -No attempt was made by the representatives of the Trust before -the committee to deny this testimony. They simply disclaimed any -responsibility for what their associate and employé had done. "Whatever -there was in that," testified the president of the Whiskey Trust, "was -with the former secretary of this company, if there be anything of -it."[27] - -The Trust increased the number of plants under its control from -"nearly eighty" to eighty-one or eighty-two, the number reported by -the investigation of Congress in 1893. Its annual production was then -50,000,000 gallons; about 7,500,000 gallons of it alcohol, 42,500,000 -spirits. It is evident, says the report, that the company will soon -have within its grasp the entire trade, and be able to dictate prices -to consumers at pleasure. - -"How do you account for spirits going up and corn going down at the -same time in two or three instances?" the treasurer was asked. - -"Simply because the distillers were getting in a position whereby they -ran less than their capacity."[28] - -The experience of mankind has always found, as Lord Coke pointed out, -that monopoly adulterates. - -The report of Congress states that unquestionably the largest part of -the product of the combination finds its way into the open markets in -the form of "compounded"--or artificial--bourbon and rye whiskeys, -brandies, rums, gins, cordials. The testimony establishes the fact -that about one half of the whiskey consumed in the country is of -this compound product. These compounded liquors are supplied from -the drug-stores to the sick as medicine. One of the expert witnesses -summoned to explain the process of this adulteration appeared before -the committee with two demijohns, one containing pure alcohol and the -other spirits, and a number of bottles containing essential oils, -essences, etc., with which he proposed to make some experiments. "The -basis here, this white product, is what is known as 'spirits' in the -trade. With the use of these essential oils and essences now before -you any kind of imitation liquor can be produced at almost a moment's -notice. My first experiment will be with Jamaica rum. I put a drop of -Jamaica-rum essence into this white spirits, a few drops of coloring -matter, and some sugar syrup. Try of it and smell of it. Does it -smell like rum and taste like it? If they want to make it cheaper, -they reduce it with water. I will reduce it with water, and you will -now notice that the bead has disappeared from it. I will reproduce -the bead by the use of bead oil. I put one drop in, and here is the -result. Now, using rye-whiskey essence instead of Jamaica-rum essence, -I will flavor this spirits. I will now put some prune juice into it to -tone it. I will put some raisin oil in it to age it, and I will now -commence to color it. This first exhibit" (holding it up before the -committee) "is about the color of one-year-old whiskey that has been -properly bonded. I will now color it so it will imitate a two-year-old -whiskey. This is about the three-year-old now" (exhibiting it). "I will -now give this the color of 'velvet whiskey,' which is sold as high as -$4 a gallon" (exhibiting it). "The present price of spirits, to-day, -I think, is $1.30 a gallon. The utilization of any of these essential -oils and essences and coloring matter to make the transfer does not -exceed a cost of one and a half cents a gallon. I am prepared to make -imitations of any of these liquors at any time with this spirits -basis--all the different whiskeys, Scotch and Irish whiskeys, the -foreign gins and rums and brandies, after-dinner cordials and liqueurs. -These materials as you have them exhibited before you of essential oils -and essences are part and parcel of the stock in trade of every man -in the United States of America who has got a rectifying license as a -wholesale liquor dealer.... They are very generally and extensively in -use throughout our entire country, in every hamlet and village, in all -the branches of trade, the wholesale liquor dealer, the grocer having -a liquor dealer's license, and retail druggists.... When a doctor -prescribes French brandy, he expects to get a production which is a -distillation of wine made from the grape. In that imitation brandy made -from spirits and cognac oil he gets a crude product of corn, defeating -entirely his purpose in the prescription. The same applies to gin, rum, -and other articles wherever the imitations are found."[29] - -Some of the substances named by witnesses as occurring in the oils and -essences used for this adulteration are sulphuric acid, prussic acid, -fusel oil, creosote, nitro-benzol--all poisons, and some of them so -virulent that a teaspoonful would kill. - -"I have been warned when in the employ of these people not to take -the crude material into my mouth," said one of the witnesses. Another -witness denied that there was any danger in the infinitesimal portions -used of the flavoring matter. - -"The only result," said one of the members of the committee, "of the -testimony and hearing of the committee will be to educate the public to -the Trust methods. It will have no effect on the Trust." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -"SQUARE EATERS" - -"By Heaven, square eaters, more meat I say!" - - --_Beaumont and Fletcher._ - - -A delegate to one of the millers' national conventions said, "We want -cheaper wheat and dearer flour." - -The Canadian Parliament reports that "the Biscuit Association," -which had been in existence six years, had kept up the prices of its -products, "although the prices of the ingredients used have in that -time very materially decreased." - -An Associated Press despatch from Chicago announced that at "a joint -meeting of all the cracker bakers between Pittsburg and the Rocky -Mountains, held this morning, it was unanimously agreed to advance the -price of crackers." - -A "Bread Union" has been formed in London for the amalgamation of -concerns controlling hundreds of shops. Its chairman instructed the -stockholders that by concentrating a large number of shops under one -management in any district it could "quickly stifle the opposition of -any small unprincipled trader bent on reducing prices for competition -purposes." The Dominion Parliament, in condemning the Grocers' Guild as -"obnoxious to the public interest in limiting competition, in enhancing -prices," pointed out that "no reasonable excuse exists for many of its -arbitrary acts and agreements. The wholesale grocery trade had been for -many years in a flourishing condition; failures were almost unknown." - -But though prosperous the grocers formed this guild, admitting some, -proscribing others, and established by private legislation the profits -they desired. The profits were "afterwards increased, and in no -instance lowered, though values generally had fallen." - -At Minneapolis, the seat of the greatest flour-manufacturing industry -in the world, the elevators and railroads have united against the -wheat-growers in a way which does much to realize the dream of the -miller, of "cheaper wheat and dearer flour." A committee of the -Minnesota legislature investigated this combination in 1892. The -majority stopped short of reporting that it fixed the prices of wheat, -but admitted that some of the testimony tended that way, and that -the evidence "would seem to establish" that one of the most powerful -railroads had done so, and "had attempted to coerce compliance with -its requirements in the matter of prices by threats to embarrass the -business of local buyers."[30] A report from a minority of the same -committee was more outspoken. It summarizes the evidence, which shows -that the railroads and the elevator companies united to enforce a -uniform price for wheat. This price was six and a quarter cents below -what it should be. All the railroads adjusted their freight rates to -the artificial "list-price," and though rivals, they all charged the -same rates. The elevator companies, owning an aggregate of fifteen -hundred elevators, had a common agent who sent word daily, by telegram -and letter, to all wheat-buyers as to the price to be paid the farmers. -The report calculates the amount thereby taken from the wheat-growers -by the elevators at from four to five millions of dollars a year. - -The findings of this report were ratified by the adoption of its -suggestions for a remedy. "There is," it said, "no agency but the State -itself adequate to protect, now, the producer of wheat in Minnesota -and the Northwest from the influence of this combine." It therefore -recommended the erection and operation of elevators by the State. This -was approved by the Legislature and by the Governor, appropriations -were made, and the officials of the State went forward with the plan -until the Supreme Court of the State stopped them on the ground of -"unconstitutionality." - -That which we see the national associations of winter-wheat millers and -spring-wheat millers, and the fish, and the egg, and the fruit, and the -salt, and the preserves, and other combinations reaching out to do for -a "free breakfast table," to put the "square meal" out of the reach of -the "square eater," has been achieved to the last detail in sugar and -meat. Every half-cent up or down in the price of sugar makes a loss or -gain to the sugar combination at the rate of $20,000,000 a year. When -it was capitalized for $50,000,000 it paid dividends of $5,000,000 a -year. The value of the refineries in the combination was put by the New -York Legislative Investigation of 1891 at $7,000,000. - -The Hon. Wm. Wilson, of the committee of Congress investigating trusts -in 1888, and the framer of the tariff bill of 1893, in a public -communication quoted figures showing that this Trust had a surplus of -$10,000,000 at the end of 1888, after paying its 10 per cent. dividend. -The profits for the next five and a half months were $13,000,000. This -surplus of one year and net profits of less than half a year together -amount to $23,000,000, nearly half the then nominal capital, and -several times more than the real value of all the concerns, as given -above. These profits so conservative a paper as the New York _Daily -Commercial Bulletin_ called "plunder," and it reaffirmed that epithet -when called to account. Stock was issued for this "fabulous valuation" -of $50,000,000, put on this $7,000,000 of original value, and was made -one of the specialties of the stock market. - -"There has been an enormous and widespread speculation in the -certificates of the trust," says the report of the New York Senate. "It -was plainly one of the chief purposes of the trust to provide for the -issue of these certificates, affording thereby an opportunity for great -speculation in them, obviously to the advantage of the persons managing -the trust. The issue of $50,000,000 certificates was amply sufficient -for a speculation of many hundreds of millions of dollars."[31] - -Since this investigation by the New York Legislature, the Sugar Trust -has been reorganized into a single corporation. The capital of this -is $75,000,000, all "water," since the value of the plants is fully -covered by the bonds to the amount of $10,000,000. The actual value of -the refineries in the Trust, excluding those which have been closed or -dismantled, was investigated by the New York _World_, January 8, 1894, -and put at $7,740,000. On this actual value of $7,740,000 in operation -the Trust paid in regular and extra dividends in 1893 no less than -$10,875,000, and acknowledged that there was in addition a surplus of -$5,000,000 in the treasury. This was in addition to the interest on the -$10,000,000 of bonds. - -When a farmer sells a steer, a lamb, or a hog, and the house-keeper -buys a chop or roast, they enter a market which for the whole -continent, and for all kinds of cattle and meats, is controlled by the -combination of packers at Chicago known as "the Big Four."[32] This had -its origin in the "evening" arrangement, made in 1873 by the railroads -with preferred shippers, on the ostensible ground that these shippers -could equalize or even the cattle traffic of the roads. They received -$15 as "a commission" on every car-load of cattle shipped from the West -to New York, no matter by whom shipped, whether they shipped it or had -anything to do with it or not. The commission was later reduced to -$10. They soon became large shippers of cattle; and with these margins -in their favor "evening" was not difficult business.[33] By 1878 the -dressed-beef business had become important. As the Evener Combine had -concentrated the cattle trade at Chicago, the dressed-beef interest -necessarily had its home at the same place. It is a curious fact that -the Evener Combine ceased about the time the dressed-beef interest -began its phenomenal career.[34] - -The committee appointed by the United States Senate to investigate -the condition of the meat and cattle markets fixed upon St. Louis, -Mo., and November 20, 1888, as the time and place of meeting, because -the International Cattle Range Association and the Butchers' National -Protective Association assembled at the same time and place. It was -supposed that prominent members of these associations would avail -themselves of the opportunity to appear before the committee. Some of -them did testify frankly, but the presence of antagonistic influences, -especially in the International Cattle Range Association, immediately -became apparent, and industrious efforts were made to prevent the -inquiries of the committee from affecting injuriously the dressed-beef -interest at Chicago. The committee found that under the influence -of the combination the price of cattle had gone down heavily. For -instance: In January, 1884, the best grade of beef cattle sold at -Chicago for $7.15 per hundred pounds, and in January, 1889, for $5.40; -Northwestern range and Texas cattle sold in January, 1884, at $5.60, -and in January, 1889, at $3.75; Texas and Indian cattle sold in 1884 at -$4.75, the price declining to $2.50 in December, 1889. These are the -highest Chicago prices for the months named. - -"So far has the centralizing process continued that for all practical -purposes," the report says, "the market of that city dominates -absolutely the price of beef cattle in the whole country. Kansas -City, St. Louis, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg are subsidiary to -the Chicago market, and their prices are regulated and fixed by the -great market on the lake."[35] This great business is practically in -the hands of four establishments at Chicago. The largest houses have -a capacity for slaughtering 3,500 cattle, 3,000 sheep, and 12,000 -hogs every ten hours. When the Senate committee visited Chicago, -it was found impossible to obtain the frank and full testimony of -either the commission men doing business at the Union Stock Yards, or -of the employés of the packing and dressed-beef houses. The former -testified reluctantly, and were unquestionably under some sort of -constraint as to their public declarations. In private they stated -to the members of the committee that a combination certainly existed -between the "Big Four;" but when put on the stand as witnesses they -shuffled and prevaricated to such a degree as, in many cases, to excite -commiseration. The committee reported that the overwhelming weight of -testimony from witnesses of the highest character, and from all parts -of the West, is to the effect that cattle-owners going with their -cattle to the Chicago and Kansas City markets find no competition among -buyers, and if they refuse to take the first bid are generally forced -to accept a lower one. - -As to the effect upon retailers, local butchers, and consumers, it was -admitted by the biggest of the Big Four "that they combined to fix -the price of beef to the purchaser and consumer, so as to keep up the -cost in their own interest."[36] They combined in opening shops and -underselling the butchers of cattle at places all over the country, in -order to force them to buy dressed meat. They combined in refusing to -sell any meat to butchers at Washington, D.C., because the butchers -had bid against them for contracts to supply with meats the Government -institutions in the District of Columbia. - -The compulsion put upon local butchers is illustrated in the S---- -case. The following telegram was sent from the office of one of the -combination at Chicago to an agent in Pennsylvania: "Cannot allow -S---- to continue killing live cattle. If he will not stop, make other -arrangements, and make prices so can get his trade." - -S---- was a local butcher. He testified that he was approached by -the agent with a proposition that he should sell dressed-beef. He -refused, and was then informed that he would be broken up in business. -Notwithstanding this threat, he continued to butcher, and made his -purchases of cattle at Buffalo. From the time of his refusal to sell -dressed-beef as proposed, he could not buy any meat from Chicago, -and could not get any cars from the Erie Railroad to ship his cattle -from Buffalo. He was boycotted for his refusal to discontinue killing -cattle.[37] One of the combination, when testifying to this matter, -disclaimed responsibility for the despatch, but stated that he did not -think a butcher should be permitted to kill cattle and at the same time -sell dressed-beef. "He could not serve both interests." "We have no -hesitation in stating as our conclusion, from all the facts," says the -report, "that a combination exists at Chicago between the principal -dressed-beef and packing houses, which controls the market and fixes -the price of beef cattle in their own interest." - -When pork is cheap, less beef is eaten. Beef monopoly must therefore -widen into pork monopoly. This has happened. There is a combination -between the pork-packers at Chicago and the large beef-packers. It -began in 1886. The existence of such an arrangement was admitted by its -most important member; and it is found to have seriously affected the -prices of beef cattle, both to the producer and consumer. It was shown -that one of the companies of the Big Four made in 1889 profits equal -to 29 per cent. on its capital stock--which may, or may not, have been -paid in--and this was not the largest of the companies. As to the idea -that other capitalists might enter into competition with those now in -possession, the report says: "The enormous capital of the great houses -now dominating the market, which each year becomes larger, enables them -to buy off all rivals." - -The favoritism on the highways, in which this power had its origin in -1873, has continued throughout to be its main stay. The railroads give -rates to the dressed-beef men which they refuse to shippers of cattle, -even though they ship by the train-load--"an unjust and indefensible -discrimination by the railroads against the shipper of live cattle." -The report says: "This is the spirit and controlling idea of the great -monopolies which dominate the country.... No one factor has been more -potent and active in effecting an entire revolution in the methods -of marketing the meat supply of the United States than the railway -transportation."[38] There have been discriminations by the common -carriers of the ocean as well as by the railroads. The steamship -companies exclude all other shippers, by selling all their capacity to -the members of the beef combine, sometimes for months in advance. It is -useless for any other shipper to apply. - -Property is monopoly, the Attorney-General of the United States says. -Those who own the bread, meat, sugar, salt, can fix the price at which -they will sell. They can refuse to sell. It is to these fellow-men we -must pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." And when we have broken -bread for the last time, we can get entrance to our "long home" only -by paying "exorbitant" toll for our shrouds and our coffins to the -"Undertakers'" and the "National Burial Case" associations.[39] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -STRIKING OIL - - -It was an American idea to "strike oil." Those who knew it as the -"slime" of Genesis, or used it to stick together the bricks of the -Tower of Babel, or knelt to it in the fire temples, were content to -take it as it rose, the easy gift of nature, oozing forth on brook or -spring. But the American struck it. - -The world, going into partial eclipse on account of the failing supply -of whale oil, had its lamps all ready for the new light, and industries -beyond number needed only an expansion of the supply. - -De Witt Clinton, with the same genius that gave us the Erie Canal, -suggested as early as 1814 the use of petroleum for light. Reichenbach, -the great German chemist, predicted in 1830 that petroleum would yield -an illuminating oil equal to the finest. Inventors and money-makers -kept up close with scientific investigators in France, Great Britain, -and America. - -As early as 1845 the manufacture of coal-oil, both for light and -other purposes, had become important in France. Selligue had made -himself master of the secrets of petroleum. His name, says one of his -chroniclers, "must forever remain inseparably connected with that of -the manufacture of light from oil, and to his researches few have been -able to add."[40] - -The name of this genius and benefactor of humanity has remained almost -unknown, except within a small scientific world. He was a member of the -French Academy, and almost every year between 1834 and 1848 he came to -it with some new discovery. On one occasion he reminds his associates -that he holds a patent, granted in 1832, for making illuminating oil -from coal, and declares that the business can be developed to any -extent which commerce or the arts may require. By 1845 he had unlocked -nearly every one of the hidden places in which this extraordinary -product has stored its wonders. He found out how to make illuminating -oil, illuminating gas, lubricating oil, colors, paraffine for candles, -fertilizers, solvents for resin for painters, healing washes, -chemicals. He had three refineries in operation in the Department -Saône-et-Loire, as described in the report of a committee of the French -Academy in 1840. He exhibited his oils in the London Exhibition of -1851, and twelve years before, in the Parisian Industrial Exhibition of -1839, he had crude and refined oils and paraffine to show. "Among the -most important objects of the exhibition," said its German historian, -Von Hermann, "if they can be prepared economically." This Selligue -accomplished. Between 1837 and 1843 he refined more than 4,000,000 -pounds of oil, and 50 per cent. of his product was good illuminating -oil. - -Before 1850, the Scotch had succeeded in getting petroleum, called -shale oil, out of bituminous coal, had found how to refine it, and had -perfected lamps in which it would burn. Joshua Merrill, the pioneer of -oil refining in this country, with his partners, successfully refined -petroleum at Waltham, Mass., where they established themselves in 1853. -The American manufacturers were making kerosene as early as 1856 from -Scotch coal,[41] imported at a cost of $20 to $25 a ton, and getting -experts like Silliman to analyze petroleum, in the hope that somehow -a supply of it might be got. By 1860 there were sixty-four of these -manufactories in the United States. "A crowd of obscure inventors," -says Felix Foucon, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, "with unremitting -labors perfected the lamp--when it was premature to dream that -illumination by mineral oil should become universal." All was ready, -as the eminent English geologist, Binney, said, "for the start of the -vast American petroleum trade." It was not a lack of knowledge, but -a lack of petroleum, that hampered the American manufacturer before -1860.[42] The market, the capital, the consumer, the skilled labor, the -inventions, and science were all waiting for "Colonel" Drake. - -With Drake's success in "striking oil" came to an end the period, -lasting thousands of years, of fire temples, sweep and bucket, Seneca -oil; and came to an end, also, the Arcadian simplicity of the old -times--old though so recent--in which Professor Silliman could say, "It -is not monopolized by any one, but is carried away freely by all who -care to collect it." - -The oil age begins characteristically. As soon as Drake's well had -made known its precious contents, horses began running, and telegrams -flying, and money passing to get possession of the oil lands for the -few who knew from those who did not know. The primitive days when "it -was not monopolized by any one" were over. Thousands of derricks rose -all over the territory, and oil scouts pushed with their compasses -through the forests of the wilderness in all directions. Wells were -bored all over Europe, as well as America, wherever traces of oil -showed themselves, sometimes so close together that when one was pumped -it would suck air from the other. - -As soon as the petroleum began to flow out of the ground, refineries -started up at every available place. They were built near the wells, -as at Titusville and Oil City, and near the centres of transportation, -such as Pittsburg and Buffalo, and near the points of export, as -Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York. Numbers of little establishments -appeared on the Jersey flats opposite New York. - -There was plenty of oil for every one; at one time in 1862 it was only -ten cents a barrel. The means of refining it had long before been -found by science and were open to all; and even poor men building -little stills could year by year add on to their works, increase their -capital, and acquire the self-confidence and independence of successful -men. The business was one of the most attractive possible to capital. -"There is no handsomer business than this is," said one of the great -merchants of New York. "You can buy the (crude) oil one week, and sell -it the next week refined, and you can imagine the quantity of business -that can be done." Men who understood the business, he said, "if they -had not the capital could get all of the money they wanted."[43] - -Whatever new processes and contrivances were needed the fertile -American mind set about supplying. To carry the oil in bulk on the -railroads tubs on flat cars were first used; but it was not long before -the tub was made of iron instead of wood, and, laid on its side instead -of bottom, became the tank of the cylinder car now so familiar. - -The fluid which lubricates so many other things on their way through -the world is easily made to slip itself along to market. General S.D. -Karns was the author,[44] in 1860, of the first suggestion of a pipe -line. He planned only for oil to run down hill. Then Hutchinson, the -inventor of the Hutchinson rotary pump, saw that oil could be forced -through by pressure, and the idea of the pipe line was complete. -The first successful pipe line, put down by Samuel Van Syckel,[45] -of Titusville, in 1865, from Pithole to Miller's Farm, four miles, -has grown into a net-work of thousands of miles, running through the -streets of towns, across fields and door-yards, under and over and -beside roads, with trunk lines which extend from the oil regions to -Pittsburg, Cleveland, Buffalo, Baltimore, New York, Williamsport, -Chicago, and the Ohio River. - -There was a free market for the oil as it came out of the wells -and out of the refineries, and free competition between buyers and -sellers, producers and consumers, manufacturers and traders. Industries -auxiliary to the main ones flourished. Everywhere the scene was of -expanding prosperity, with, of course, the inevitable percentage of -ill-luck and miscalculation; but with the balance, on the whole, of -such happy growth as freedom and the bounty of nature have always -yielded when in partnership. The valleys of Pennsylvania changed into -busy towns and oil fields. The highways were crowded, labor was well -employed at good wages, new industries were starting up on all sides, -and everything betokened the permanent creation of a new prosperity for -the whole community, like that which came to California and the world -with the discovery of gold. - -But shadows of sunset began to creep over the field in its morning -time, and the strange spectacle came of widespread ruin in an industry -prospering by great leaps. Wherever men moved to discover oil lands, to -dig wells, to build refineries or pipe lines, to buy and sell the oil, -or to move it to market, a blight fell upon them. - -The oil age began in 1860. As early as 1865 strange perturbations were -felt, showing that some undiscovered body was pulling the others out of -their regular orbits. - -Before the panic of 1873--days of buoyant general prosperity, with -no commercial revulsion for a cause--the citizens of this industry -began to suffer a wholesale loss of property and business among the -refineries in New York, Pittsburg, Cleveland, and elsewhere, the wells -of the oil valleys, and the markets at home and abroad. - -To the building of refineries succeeded the spectacle--a strange one -for so new a business--of the abandonment and dismantling of refineries -by the score. The market for oil, crude and refined, which had been a -natural one, began to move erratically, by incalculable influences. It -went down when it should have gone up according to all the known facts -of the situation, and went up when it should have gone down. This sort -of experience, defying ordinary calculations and virtues, made business -men gamblers. - -"We began speculating in the hope that there would be a change some -time or other for the better," testified one who had gone into the -business among the first, and with ample capital and expert skill.[46] - -The fright among the people was proportionate to the work they had -done and the value of what they were losing. Since the first well was -sunk the wilderness had become a busy region, teeming with activity -and endowed with wealth. In ten years the business had sprung up from -nothing to a net product of 6,000,000 barrels of oil a year, using a -capital of $200,000,000 and supporting a population of 60,000 people. -The people were drilling one hundred new wells per month, at an average -cost of $6000 each. They had devised the forms, and provided the -financial institutions needed in a new business. They invented many -new and ingenious mechanical contrivances. They had built up towns and -cities, with schools, churches, lyceums, theatres, libraries, boards of -trade. There were nine daily and eighteen weekly newspapers published -in the region and supported by it. All this had been created in ten -years, at a cost of untold millions in experiments and failures, and -the more precious cost of sacrifice, suffering, toil, and life. - -The ripe fruit of all this wonderful development the men of the oil -country saw being snatched away from them.[47] - -More than once during these lean years, as more than once later, the -public alarm went to the verge of violent outbreak. This ruinous -prosperity brought stolid Pennsylvania within sight of civil war -in 1872, which was the principal subject before the Pennsylvania -Legislature of that year, and forced Congress to make an official -investigation. - -The New York Legislature followed Congress and the Pennsylvania -Legislature with an investigation in 1873. - -"There was great popular excitement.... It raged like a violent fever," -was the description it heard of the state of things in Pennsylvania.[48] - -There were panics in oil speculation, bank failures, defalcations. -Many committed suicide. Hundreds were driven into bankruptcy and insane -asylums. - -Where every one else failed, out of this havoc and social disorder -one little group of half a dozen men were rising to the power and -wealth which have become the marvel of the world. The first of them -came tardily into the field about 1862. He started a little refinery -in Cleveland, hundreds of miles from the oil wells. The sixty and -more manufacturers who had been able to plant themselves before 1860, -when they had to distil coal into petroleum before they could refine -petroleum into kerosene, had been multiplied into hundreds by the -arrival of petroleum ready made from below. Some of the richest and -most successful business men of the country had preceded him and were -flourishing.[49] He had been a book-keeper, and then a partner, in a -very small country-produce store in Cleveland. As described by his -counsel some years later, he was a "man of brains and energy without -money." With him were his brother and an English mechanic. The mechanic -was bought out later, as all the expert skill needed could be got for -wages, which were cheaper than dividends.[50] Two or three years later -another partner was added, who began life as "a clerk in a country -store,"[51] and had been in salt and lumber in the West. A young -man, who had been in the oil region only eleven years, and for two -of the eleven had been errand-boy and book-keeper in a mixed oil and -merchandise business,[52] a lawyer, a railroad man, a cotton broker, -a farm laborer who had become refiner, were admitted at various times -into the ruling coterie. - -The revolution which revolved all the freemen of this industry down -a vortex had no sooner begun than the public began to show its -agitation through every organ. The spectacle of a few men at the -centre of things, in offices rich with plate glass and velvet plush, -singing a siren song which drew all their competitors to bankruptcy -or insanity or other forms of "co-operation," did not progress, as it -might have done a hundred years ago, unnoticed save by those who were -the immediate sufferers. The new democracy began questioning the new -wealth. Town meetings, organizations of trades and special interests, -grand juries, committees of State legislatures and of the United States -Senate and House of Representatives, the civil and criminal courts, -have been in almost constant action and inquiry since and because. - -It was before the Committee of Commerce of the National House of -Representatives in 1872 that the first authentic evidence was obtained -of the cause of the singular ruin which was overwhelming so fair a -field. This investigation in 1872 was suppressed after it had gone -a little way. Congress said, Investigate. Another power said, Don't -investigate. But it was not stopped until the people had found out that -they and the production, refining, and transportation of their oil--the -whole oil industry, not alone of the valleys where the petroleum was -found, but of the districts where it was manufactured, and the markets -where it was bought and sold, and the ports from which it was shipped -abroad--had been made the subject of a secret "contract"[53] between -certain citizens. The high contracting parties to this treaty for the -disposal of an industrial province were, on one side, all the great -railroad companies, without whose services the oil, crude or refined, -could not be moved to refineries, markets, or ports of shipment on -river, lake, or ocean. On the other side was a body of thirteen men, -"not one of whom lived in the oil regions, or was an owner of oil wells -or oil lands," who had associated themselves for the control of the oil -business under the winning name of the South Improvement Company.[54] - -By this contract the railroads had agreed with this company of citizens -as follows: - -1. To double freight rates. - -2. Not to charge them the increase. - -3. To give them the increase collected from all competitors. - -4. To make any other changes of rates necessary to guarantee their -success in business. - -5. To destroy their competitors by high freight rates. - -6. To spy out the details of their competitors' business. - -The increase in rates in some cases was to be more than double.[55] -These higher rates were to be ostensibly charged to all shippers, -including the thirteen members of the South Improvement Company; but -that fraternity only did not have to pay them really. All, or nearly -all, the increase it paid was to be paid back again--a "rebate."[56] -The increase paid by every one else--"on all transported by other -parties"--was not paid back. It was to be kept, but not by the -railroads. These were to hand that, too, over to the South Improvement -Company. - -This secret arrangement made the actual rate of the South Improvement -Company much lower--sometimes half, sometimes less than half, what all -others paid. The railroad officials were not to collect these enhanced -freight rates from the unsuspecting subjects of this "contract" to -turn them into the treasury of the railroads. They were to give -them over to the gentlemen who called themselves "South Improvement -Company." The "principle" was that the railroad was not to get the -benefit of the additional charge it made to the people. No matter how -high the railroads put the rates to the community, not the railroads, -but the Improvement Company, was to get the gain. The railroads -bound themselves to charge every one else the highest nominal rates -mentioned. "They shall not be less," was the stipulation. They might be -more up to any point; but less they must not be.[57] - -The rate for carrying petroleum to Cleveland to be refined was to be -advanced, for instance, to 80 cents a barrel. When paid by the South -Improvement Company, 40 cents of the 80 were to be refunded to it; when -paid by any one else, the 40 cents were not merely not to be refunded, -but to be paid over to his competitor, this aspiring self-improvement -company.[58] The charge on refined oil to Boston was increased to -$3.07; and, in the same way, the South Improvement Company was to get -back a rebate of $1.32 on every barrel it sent to Boston, and on every -barrel any one else sent. The South Improvement Company was to receive -sums ranging from 40 cents to $1.32, and averaging a dollar a barrel on -all shipments, whether made by itself or by others. This would give the -company an income of a dollar a day on every one of the 18,000 barrels -then being produced daily, whether its members drilled for it, or piped -it, or stored it, or refined it, or not. - -To pay money to the railroads for them to pay back was seen to be a -waste of time, and it was agreed that the South Improvement Company -for its members should deduct from the ostensible rate the amount to -be refunded, and pay the railroads only the difference. Simplification -could not go further. The South Improvement Company was not even to be -put to the inconvenience of waiting for the railroads to collect and -render to it the tribute exacted for its benefit from all the other -shippers. It was given the right to figure out for its members what the -tribute would amount to, and pay it to them out of the money they owed -the railroads for freight, and then pay the railroad what was left, -if there was any left.[59] The railroads agreed to supply them with -all the information needed for thus figuring out the amount of this -tribute, and to spy out for them besides other important details of -their competitors' business. They agreed to make reports every day to -the South Improvement Company of all the shipments by other persons, -with full particulars as to how much was shipped, who shipped, and to -whom, and so on.[60] - -The detective agency thus established by the railroads to spy out -the business of a whole trade was to send its reports "daily to -the principal office" of the thirteen gentlemen. If the railroads, -forgetting their obligations to the thirteen disciples, made any -reduction in any manner to anybody else, the company, as soon as it was -found out, could deduct the same amount from its secret rate.[61] If -the open rate to the public went down, the secret rate was to go down -as much. For the looks of things, it was stipulated that any one else -who could furnish an equal amount of transportation should have the -same rates;[62] but the possibility that any one should ever be able to -furnish an equal amount of transportation was fully taken care of in -another section clinching it all. - -The railway managers, made kings of the road by the grant to them of -the sovereign powers of the State, covenanted, in order to make their -friends kings of light, that they would "maintain the business" of the -South Improvement Company "against loss or injury by competition," so -that it should be "a remunerative" and "a full and regular business," -and pledged themselves to put the rates of freight up or down, as -might be "necessary to overcome such competition."[63] Contracts to -this effect, giving the South Improvement Company the sole right for -five years to do business between the oil wells and the rest of the -world, were made with it by the Erie, the New York Central, the Lake -Shore and Michigan Southern, the Pennsylvania, the Atlantic and Great -Western, and their connections, thus controlling the industry north, -south, east, west, and abroad. The contracts in every case bound all -the roads owned or leased by the railroads concerned.[64] The contracts -were duly signed, sealed, and delivered. On the oil business of that -year, as one of the members of the committee of Congress figured out -from the testimony, the railroad managers could collect an increase of -$7,500,000 in freights, of which they were to hand over to the South -Improvement Company $6,000,000, and pay into the treasury of their -employers--the railways--only $1,500,000. - -The contract was signed for the New York Central and Hudson River -Railroad by its vice-president, but this agreement to kill off a whole -trade was too little or too usual to make any impression on his mind. -When publicly interrogated about it he could not remember having seen -or signed it.[65] - -"The effect of this contract," the vice-president of the Erie Railway -Company was asked, "would have been a complete monopoly in the -oil-carrying trade?" - -"Yes, sir; a complete monopoly."[66] - -Of the thirteen members of the South Improvement Company which was to -be given this "complete monopoly," ten were found later to be active -members of the oil trust. They were then seeking that control of the -light of the world which it has obtained. Among these ten were the -president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, and a majority of -the directors of the oil trust into which the improvement company -afterwards passed by transmigration. Any closer connection there could -not be. One was the other. - -The ablest and most painstaking investigation which has ever been -had in this country into the management of the railroads found and -officially reported to the same effect: - -"The controlling spirits of both organizations being the same."[67] - -The freight rates were raised as agreed and without notice. Rumors had -been heard of what was coming. The public would not believe anything so -incredible. But the oil regions were electrified by the news, February -26, that telegrams had been sent from railroad headquarters to their -freight agents advising them of new rates, to take effect immediately, -making the cost of shipping oil as much again as it had been. The -popular excitement which broke out on the same day and "raged like a -violent fever" became a national sensation. The Titusville _Morning -Herald_ of March 20, 1872, announces that "the railroads to the oil -regions have already put up their New York freight from $1.25 to -$2.84, an advance of over one hundred per cent." Asked what reason -the railroads gave for increasing their rates, a shipper said, "They -gave no reason; they telegraphed the local roads to put up the rates -immediately." This advance, the superintendents of the railroads told -complaining shippers, had been made under the direction of the South -Improvement Company, and they had been instructed to make their monthly -collections of oil freights from that concern. - -The evidence even seems to show that the South Improvement Company was -so anxious for the dance of death to begin that it got the freight -agents by personal influence to order the increased rates before the -time agreed upon with the higher officials. Strenuous efforts were -made to have the public believe that the contracts, though sealed, -signed, delivered, and put into effect, as the advance in rates most -practically demonstrated, had really not been put into effect. The -quibbles with which the president of the South Improvement Company -sought to give that impossible color to the affair before the committee -of Congress drew upon him more than one stinging rebuke from the -chairman of the committee. - -"During your whole examination there has not been a direct answer given -to a question." "I wish to say to you," said the chairman, "that such -equivocation is unworthy of you." - -The plea needs no answer, but if it did, the language of the -railroad men themselves supplies one that cannot be bettered. To the -representatives of the people, who had telegraphed them for information -"at once, as the excitement is intense, and we fear violence and -destruction of property," General McClellan, of the Atlantic and Great -Western, replied that the contract was "cancelled;" President Clark, -of the Lake Shore, that it was "formally abrogated and cancelled;" -Chairman Homer Ramsdell, of the Erie, that it was "abrogated;" -Vice-president Thomas Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, that it was -"terminated officially;"[68] Vice-president Vanderbilt, of the New York -Central and Hudson River Railroad, that it was "cancelled with all the -railroads." - -Contracts that were not complete and in force would not need to be -"cancelled" and "abrogated" and "terminated." These announcements were -backed up by a telegram from the future head of the oil trust then -incubating, in which he said of his company: "This company holds no -contracts with the railroad companies."[69] But in 1879 its secretary, -called upon by the Ohio Legislature to produce the contracts the -company had with the railroads, showed, among others, one covering the -very date of this denial in 1872.[70] - -Before Congress the South Improvement Company sought to shelter -themselves behind the plea that "their calculation was to get all the -refineries in the country into the company. There was no difference -made, as far as we were concerned, in favor of or against any refinery; -they were all to come in alike." - -How they "were all to be taken in" the contract itself showed. It bound -the South Improvement Company "to expend large sums of money in the -purchase of works for refining," and one of the reasons given by the -railroads for making the contract was "to encourage the outlay." Upon -what footing buyer and seller would meet in these purchases when the -buyer had a secret arrangement like this with the owners of the sole -way to and from wells, refineries, and markets, one does not need to -be "a business man" to see. The would-be owners had a power to pry the -property of the real owners out of their hands. - -One of the Cleveland manufacturers who had sold was asked why he did so -by the New York Legislature. They had been very prosperous, he said; -their profits had been $30,000 to $45,000 a year; but their prosperity -had come to a sudden stop.[71] - -"From the time that it was well understood in the trade that the South -Improvement Company had ... grappled the entire transportation of -oil from the West to the seaboard ... we were all kind of paralyzed, -perfectly paralyzed; we could not operate.... The South Improvement -Company, or some one representing them, had a drawback of a dollar, -sometimes seventy cents, sometimes more, sometimes less, and we were -working against that difference."[72] - -It was a difference, he said, which destroyed their business. - -He went to the officials of the Erie and of the New York Central to try -to get freight rates that would permit him to continue in business. -"I got no satisfaction at all," he said; "I am too good a friend of -yours," said the representative of the New York Central, "to advise you -to have anything further to do with this oil trade." - -"Do you pretend that you won't carry for me at as cheap a rate as you -will carry for anybody else?" - -"I am but human," the freight agent replied. - -He saw the man who was then busily organizing the South Improvement -Company. He was non-committal. "I got no satisfaction, except 'You -better sell, you better get clear.' Kind of _sub rosa_: 'Better sell -out, no help for it.'" - -His firm was outside the charmed circle, and had to choose between -selling and dying. Last of all, he had an interview with the president -of the all-conquering oil company, in relation to the purchase of their -works. "He was the only party that would buy. He offered me fifty cents -on the dollar, on the construction account, and we sold out.... He made -this expression, I remember: 'I have ways of making money that you know -nothing of.'" - -For the works, which were producing $30,000 to $45,000 a year profit, -and which they considered worth $150,000, they received $65,000. - -"Did you ascertain in the trade," he was asked, "what was the average -rate that was paid for refineries?" - -"That was about the figure.... Fifty cents on the dollar." - -"It was that or nothing, was it not?" - -"That or nothing." - -The freight rates had been raised in February. This sale followed in -three weeks. - -"I would not have sold out," he told the Legislature, "if I could have -got a fair show with the railways. My business, instead of being an -enterprise to buy and sell, became degraded into running after the -railways and getting an equal chance with others."[73] - -"The only party that would buy" gave his explanation a few years later -of the centralization of this business. - -"Some time in the year 1872," he swore, "when the refining business of -the city of Cleveland was in the hands of a number of small refiners, -and was unproductive of profit,[74] it was deemed advisable by many of -the persons engaged therein, for the sake of economy, to concentrate -the business, and associate their joint capital therein. The state -of the business was such at that time that it could not be retained -profitably at the city of Cleveland, by reason of the fact that points -nearer the oil regions were enjoying privileges not shared by refiners -at Cleveland, and could produce refined oil at a much less rate than -could be done at this point. It was a well-understood fact at that -time among refiners that some arrangement would have to be made to -economize and concentrate the business, or ruinous losses would not -only occur to the refiners themselves, but ultimately Cleveland, as a -point of refining oil, would have to be abandoned. At that time those -most prominently engaged in the business here consulted together, and -as a result thereof several of the refiners conveyed" to his company, -then as always the centre of the centralization, "their refineries, and -had the option, in pay therefor, to take stock" in this company, "at -par, or to take cash." This company, he continued, "had no agency in -creating this state of things which made that change in the refining -business necessary at that time, but the same was the natural result -of the trade, nor did it in the negotiations which followed use any -undue or unfair means, but in all cases, to the general satisfaction of -those whose refineries were acquired, the full value thereof, either in -stock or cash, was paid as the parties preferred."[75] - -The producers were not to fare any better than the refiners. The -president of the South Improvement Company said to a representative of -the oil regions substantially: "We want you producers to make out a -correct statement of the average production of each well, and the exact -cost per barrel to produce the oil. Then we propose to allow you a fair -price for the oil." - -Within forty-eight hours after the freight rates were raised, according -to programme, "the entire business of the oil regions," the Titusville -_Herald_, March 20, 1872, reported, "became paralyzed. Oil went down -to a point seventy cents below the cost of production. The boring of -new wells is suspended, existing wells were shut down. The business in -Cleveland stopped almost altogether. Thousands of men were thrown out -of work." - -The people rose. Their uprising and its justification were described -to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1873 by a brilliant -"anti-monopolist," "a rising lawyer" of Franklin, Venango Co. -The principal subject to which he called the attention of his -fellow-members was the South Improvement Company, and the light it -threw on the problems of livelihood and liberty. Quoting the decision -of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Sanford case,[76] he said: - - "That is the law in Pennsylvania to-day. But in spite of this - decision, and in spite of the law, we well know that almost every - railroad in this State has been in the habit, and is to-day in the - habit, of granting special privileges to individuals, to companies in - which the directors of such railroads are interested, to particular - business, and to particular localities. We well know that it is their - habit to break down certain localities, and build up others, to break - down certain men in business and to build up others, to monopolize - certain business themselves by means of the numerous corporations - which they own and control, and all this in spite of the law, in - defiance of the law. - - "The South Improvement Company's scheme would give that corporation - the monopoly of the entire oil business of this State, amounting to - $20,000,000 a year. That corporation was created by the Pennsylvania - Legislature along with at least twenty others, under the name - of improvement companies, within a few years past, all of which - corporations contain the names as original corporators of men who may - be found in and about the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, - in Philadelphia, when not lobbying at Harrisburg. The railroads - took but one of those charters which they got from the Legislature, - and by means of that struck a deadly blow at one of the greatest - interests of the State. Their scheme was contrary to law, but before - the legal remedy could have been applied, the oil business would - have lain prostrate at their feet, had it not been prevented by an - uprising of the people, by the threatenings of a mob, if you please, - by threatening to destroy property, and by actually commencing to - destroy the property of the railroad company, and had the companies - not cancelled the contract which Scott and Vanderbilt and others had - entered into, I venture to say there would not have been one mile of - railroad track left in the County of Venango--the people had come to - that pitch of desperation.... Unless we can give the people a remedy - for this evil of discriminations in freight, they will sooner or later - take the remedy into their own hands."[77] - -Soon after this attorney for the people was promoted from the poor -pay of patriotism to a salary equal to that of the President of the -United States, and to the place of counsel for the principal members of -the combination, whose inwardness he had descried with such hawk-eye -powers of vision. Later, as their counsel, he drafted the famous trust -agreement of 1882. - -The South Improvement Company was formed January 2d. The agreement -with the railroads was evidently already worked out in its principal -details, for the complicated contracts were formally signed, sealed, -and delivered January 18th. The agreed increase of freights went into -effect February 26th. The pacific insurrection of the people began -with an impromptu mass-meeting at Titusville the next day, February -27th. Influential delegations, or committees, on transportation, -legislation, conference with press, pipe lines, arresting of drilling, -etc., were set to work by the organization thus spontaneously formed -by the people. A complete embargo was placed on sales of oil at any -price to the men who had made the hateful bargain with the railroads. -The oil country was divided into sixteen districts, in each of which -the producers elected a local committee, and over all these was -an executive committee composed of representatives from the local -committees--one from each. No oil was sold to be used within any -district except to those buyers whom the local committee recommended; -no oil was sold to be exported or refined outside the district, except -to such buyers as the executive committee permitted. One cent a barrel -was paid by each producer into a general fund for the expenses of the -organization. - -Steps were taken to form a company with a capital of $1,000,000, -subscribed by the producers, to advance money, on the security of their -oil, to those producers who did not want to sell. - -Able lawyers were employed and sent with the committees to all the -important capitals--Harrisburg, Washington, the offices of the railway -companies. The flow of oil was checked, the activities of the oil world -brought near a stop. - -Monday, March 15th, by the influence of the Washington committee, -a resolution was introduced into the House of Representatives by -Representative Scofield, ordering an investigation of the South -Improvement Company. Immediately upon this the frightened participants -cancelled the contracts. By the 26th of March the representatives -of the people had secured a pledge in writing from the five great -railroads concerned of "perfect equality," and "no rebates, drawbacks, -or other arrangements," in favor of any one thereafter. March 30th, -Congress began the investigation which brought to light the evidence -of the contracts, and meanwhile the committees on legislation and pipe -lines were securing from the Pennsylvania Legislature the repeal of -the South Improvement Company charter, and the passage of a "so-called" -Free Pipe Line law, discovered afterwards to be worthless on account of -amendments shrewdly inserted by the enemy. - -It was an uprising of the people, passionate but intelligent and -irresistible, if the virtue of the members held good. Until April 9th -the non-intercourse policy was stiffly and successfully maintained. But -by that time one man had been found among the people who was willing -to betray the movement. This man, in consideration of an extra price, -violating his producer's pledge, sold to some of those concerned in -the South Improvement Company a large quantity of oil, as they at once -took pains to let the people know. The seller hoped to ship it quietly, -but, of course, the object in buying and paying this additional price -was to have it shipped openly, and the members of the South Improvement -Company insisted that it should be done so.[78] - -This treachery had the effect planned. Every one became suspicious -that his neighbor would be the next deserter, and would get the price -he would like to have for himself. To prevent a stampede, the leaders -called a mass-meeting. Reports were made to it of what had been done in -Congress, the Legislature, and the other railway offices; the telegrams -already referred to were read affirming the cancellation of the -contracts. Amid manifestations of tumultuous approbation and delight -the embargo on the sale of oil was declared raised. - -"We do what we must," says Emerson, "and call it by the best name -possible." The people, as every day since has shown, grasped the shell -of victory to find within the kernel of defeat. - -The committee of Congress noticed when the contracts were afterwards -shown to it, that though they had been so widely declared to be -"cancelled," they had not been cancelled, but were as fresh--seals, -stamps, signatures and all--as the day they were made. This little -circumstance is descriptive of the whole proceeding. Both parties -to this scheme to give the use of the highways as a privilege to a -few, and through this privilege to make the pursuit of livelihood a -privilege, theirs exclusively--the railroad officials on one side, and -their beneficiaries of the South Improvement Company on the other--were -resolute in their determination to carry out their purpose. All that -follows of this story is but the recital of the sleuth-like tenacity -with which this trail of fabulous wealth has been followed. - -The chorus of cancellation from the railroads came from those who -had meant never to cancel, really. In their negotiations with the -representatives of the people they had contested to the last the -abandonment of the scheme. "Their friendliness" to it "was so -apparent," the Committee of the Producers reported, "that we could -expect little consideration at their hands,"[79] and the committee -became satisfied that the railroads had made a new contract among -themselves like that of the South Improvement Company, and to take -its place. Its head frankly avowed before the Investigating Committee -of Congress their intention of going ahead with the plan. "They are -all convinced that, sooner or later, it will be necessary to organize -upon the basis on which the South Improvement Company was organized, -including both producers and refiners." - -This conviction has been faithfully lived up to. Under the name of the -South Improvement Company the arrangement was ostentatiously abandoned, -because to persist in it meant civil war in the oil country as the -rising young anti-monopolist lawyer pointed out in the Constitutional -Convention. Mark Twain, in describing the labors of the missionaries -in the Sandwich Islands, says they were so successful that the vices -of the natives no longer exist in name--only in reality. As every page -will show, this contract no longer exists in name--only in reality. -In the oil world, and in every other important department of our -industrial life--in food, fuel, shelter, clothing, transportation,[80] -this contract, in its various new shapes, has been kept steadily at -work gerrymandering the livelihoods of the people. - -The men who had organized the South Improvement Company paid the public -revolt the deference of denial, though not of desistance. The company -had got a charter, organized under it, collected twenty per cent. of -the subscription for stock, made contracts with the railroads, held -meetings of the directors, who approved of the contracts and had -received the benefits of the increase of freights made in pursuance of -the agreement. This was shown by the testimony of its own officers.[81] - -But "the company never did a dollar's worth of business," the Secretary -of the Light of the World told Congress,[82] and "there was never the -slightest connection between the South Improvement Company and the -Standard Oil Company," the president of the latter and the principal -member of both said in an interview in the New York _World_, of March -29, 1890. "The South Improvement Company died in embryo. It was never -completely organized, and never did any business. It was partly born, -died, and was buried in 1872," etc. - -Still later, before a committee of the Legislature of New York, in -1888, he was asked about "the Southern Improvement Company." - -"There was such a company?" - -"I have heard of such a company." - -"Were you not in it?" - -"I was not."[83] - -So help me God! - -At almost the moment of this denial in New York, an associate in this -and all his other kindred enterprises, asked before Congress who made -up the South Improvement Company, named as among them the principal -members of the great oil company, and most conspicuous of them all was -the name of this denier.[84] - -The efficiency with which this "partly born" innocent lived his little -hour, "not doing a dollar's worth of business," was told in a summary -phrase by one of the managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, describing -the condition of the oil business in 1873:[85] - -"All other of our largest customers had failed." - -When the people of the oil regions made peace after their uprising it -was, as they say, with "full assurance from the Washington committee -that the throwing off the restrictions from trade will not embarrass -their investigation (by Congress), but that the Sub-Committee of -Commerce will, nevertheless, continue, as the principle involved, and -not this particular case alone, is the object of the investigation."[86] - -The Committee of Commerce did not "continue." The principal witness, -who had negotiated the contracts by which the railroads gave over -the business of the oil regions to a few, refused in effect, beyond -producing copies of the contract, to be a witness. Permission was given -by the Committee of Congress during its first zeal to the Committee -of Producers from Pennsylvania to copy the testimony as it was taken, -but no official record of its discoveries exists. This transcript was -published by the producers, and copies are possessed by a few fortunate -collectors. The committee did not report, and in the archives of the -national Capitol no scrap of the evidence taken is to be found. All has -vanished into the bottomless darkness in which the monopoly of light -loves to dwell. - - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -"NOT TO EXCEED HALF" - - -Notwithstanding the ceremonial treaty of equal rights on the railroads -to all, which had been secured by the uprising of the people against -the South Improvement Company in 1872, the independents, one after the -other, continued to be side-tracked by an unseen power. Four years -later, on the 20th of July, 1876, their only two important survivors in -Cleveland, frightened by the high death-rate of the business, and by -a deepening pressure on themselves, answered a summons to come to the -palace of the President of the Light of the World. The contract which -was then made was afterwards produced in court.[87] It was called an -"Agreement for an Adventure," in something like "the merry sport" in -which the good Antonio gave a bond for a pound of his flesh. - -A few years after this "adventure" with his competitors and his efforts -to have them closed by the courts, the President was asked if his trust -had sought in any way to diminish the production of refineries in -competition with it. - -"Oh no, sir," he replied. - -"Nothing of the kind?" - -"Oh no, sir."[88] - -He was asked the question again, and again the denial was repeated. - -"Done nothing of the sort?" - -"Not at all." - -But now he said, You must bind yourselves for ten years to refine only -85,000 barrels of oil a year.[89] - -They had refined 120,000 barrels the year before, and could have done -180,000, and were growing up with the country. "The prospects were much -better for the future."[90] - -But they agreed. - -You must give me and my associates all the profits you make during this -period above $35,000 a year, until we too have got $35,000 a year out -of your business, and we will guarantee you $35,000 a year, if we let -you run. - -They had made $41,000 the year before, but they agreed. - -You must divide with "us," after each has got $35,000 a year, all the -additional profits. - -They had to put into this "adventure" all their buildings and -machinery, valued at $61,760.42, all their time and attention, and -$10,000 in cash, while their conquerors put in only $10,000 cash and no -plant and no time. But they agreed to this demand for "half." - -You must stop refining altogether, and let us take out our $10,000 -whenever we send you notice that through competition, or a decrease or -change in the production of petroleum, Cleveland can "barely compete" -with other places. You must sell the kerosene you manufacture, and buy -the petroleum you make it of at the prices we fix. - -The combination could make the business unprofitable whenever it chose, -and under the previous stipulation could close them up at its own -pleasure, until the ten years had rolled by. But they agreed. - -You must resume again after any such suspension, and let us take half -the profits whenever we give you notice. You must let us enter or -withdraw, throw our $10,000 in or out, suspend or resume, again and -again, as we choose! They agreed. - -You must make us monthly reports of all your transactions. You must not -enlarge nor contract your works without our consent. They agreed. - -You must not go into the manufacture of petroleum, nor any other new -business anywhere else in the world during this adventure! You must -ship your products by such routes as we direct! They agreed. - -You must keep this adventure secret. Our name must not appear, and even -if you all die, you must agree that we may continue the business in -your name, or any other name we choose. - -"The firm name," as their counsel pointed out, "was to be kept up even -when the members were mouldering in their graves. But the public were -to understand that the business of that firm, as it had been conducted -in the lifetime of those men, was still being carried on." - -You are to be thus tied up for ten years, limited at the best to half -the profit on half your capacity, with a right in us to close you up -altogether, or to close and resume whenever we choose, with no right in -you to start or stop or withdraw. But we are to be left free, in our -own refineries, to refine all the oil the market will take, and keep -all the profit, and enlarge our works and extend our business. - -And, finally, you must put your hand and seal to a statement that you -do this to "reconcile interests that have seemed to conflict" and -"equalize the business," and that this agreement gives you your "due -proportion thereof." - -This "free contract" two of the three men who were to make it knew -nothing of until their consent was demanded. - -One of the partners had secretly been won over. Through him all -preliminary negotiations had been conducted. - -"I was not consulted," testified one of the other two, until after the -contract was "all drawn and prepared," and at first he refused to sign -it. The plan was concocted "secretly and unknown to me." - -"I was at first opposed to the arrangement," declared the other.[91] - -But this was not all the contract. The President, who, as he -testified, "conducted most of the negotiations," and "had been familiar -with the dealings thereunder," supplemented the written documents with -oral instructions:[92] - -You must not seem to be prosperous. You must not put on style,[93] he -cautioned them; above all, you must not drive fast horses or have fine -rigs; you must not even let your wives know of this arrangement.[94] - -A false account was opened on the books to conceal the nature and -origin of this transaction from their own book-keepers. In the name of -that account false and fictitious checks were drawn, bills made out, -balances struck. A box was taken out at the Cleveland post-office--box -125--in the name of an imaginary "Mr. G.A. Mason," and through this -box the correspondence of the "adventure" was carried on. Each of the -three parties to the "adventure" continued to march and fight under -its own flag as before. All possible pains were taken to conceal the -fact that they had ceased competition with each other. They kept up -every appearance to the public of being actively engaged in competitive -business. The inevitable spy appears in this scene as in every other -in the play. The "reconciler," to enforce the provisions that the -"reconcilees" should not engage in business elsewhere, extended a -system of espionage over them, and followed their movements, and kept -watch what they did with their money, and made oath to the courts of -the results of these "inquiries and investigations." The espionage -continued after this. - -A year or two after this contract had been broken by the help of -the courts, the then secretary of the great oil company, through an -intermediary, approached the book-keeper of the firm which had been -freed from the trust. - -"Would you not like to make some money?" - -"He inclined to let him believe he did want to make some money," his -employer afterwards told Congress. "He came and told me about it. I -requested that he continue and find out what information they wanted. -He was to have had so much per year, but he was to have been paid a -down payment; he got $25." - -"What service was he to render for that?" - -"I have a memorandum. There were so many things he was to do that I -cannot carry it in my head." - -"One of the questions was, 'What was the result of last year's -business?' The other was, 'A transcript of the daily shipments, with -net prices received from the same; what is the cost for manufacturing -outside of the crude; the kind of gasoline and naphtha made, and -the net prices received for the same; what they do with tar and the -percentages of the same; what per cent. of water white and what per -cent. of Michigan water white; how much oil exported last year?' This -information, as fast as received, to be mailed to Box 164, Cleveland -post-office.... He (the book-keeper) made an affidavit of it, and I -took the money back myself personally."[95] - -When orders came in for more oil than the limit put upon them, the -"reconcilees," asserting their commercial manhood, went on refining -to supply the demands of the public instead of the commands of the -clique. They contended that they were not bound by the limitation, and -in this were afterwards upheld by the court; but, meanwhile, they were -called to account and frightened into another "reconciliation." He was -present, the chief reconciler told the court, at the interview in which -they "agreed to diminish their manufacture ... to bring the entire -amount within the terms" of the contract. - -But again they began to refine to supply the needs of the people -evidenced by the market demand. Then their supply of crude was shut -off. Their suzerain owned the pipe line to Cleveland. When its escaping -victims got around that difficulty, it took its "contract" to the -courts. - -To shut these competitors down to half their capacity, and to reconcile -and equalize interests by taking half of all they made on that was -merely an incident, collateral to the grander plan, the vaster -"adventure," of getting all the profits of that greater field out -of which these competitors were barred altogether. Such contracts as -these, its counsel said, were made with refiners all over the country. -The chief profit of the adventure lay, not in the divided profits of -the picayune business it let the vassals do, but in the undivided -profits of the empire kept for itself. Why should the reconciler hurry -with expensive lawyers into court for a summary injunction to prevent a -"reconcilee" from making more oil, when the reconciler, who toiled not -nor spun, was to get half of the gain of $2.05 on every barrel of it? -Why, but that every "co-operative" barrel so made would displace in the -markets a barrel, all the profits of which went to it. - -The "reconcilees" were called into court. A judge was asked to issue -an injunction forbidding them to depart from the strict letter of the -contract. - -They have been refining more than 85,000 barrels of oil a year, was the -complaint. - -They "threaten to distil crude petroleum without regard to -quantity."[96] They are "parties in rebellion," said the lawyers. The -judge said, No. This is a contract in restraint of trade, and released -those who were in its toils. - -The immediate effect of this "equalization" was an advance in the rates -of profit. The year before the independent refiners had made a profit -of only 34 cents a barrel.[97] - -The first year of the "adventure" the profits jumped up to $2.52 -a barrel. The dividends rose from $41,000 to $222,047, while the -production fell from 120,000 to 88,085 barrels. For the four years the -average profit was $2.05 a barrel, or 500 per cent. advance. The lowest -profit was $1.37. - -"Refined oil advanced to an average of $8 per barrel for that year" -(1876), says the counsel of the trust.[98] - -These great winnings were made in the depth of the depression following -the panic of 1873. - -While a world-compelling decline not only of prices but of profits, -was in progress, the authors of this arrangement kept up kerosene to a -point at which $630,691 was made in four years out of an investment of -$81,000, half of which went to those who put in $10,000 and their power -over freight agents. - -This "adventure," as was said by the Hon. Stanley Matthews, who -appeared as counsel for the victimized refiners, was better than a -gold-mine. It was a mint. Without giving any personal supervision or -any time, without any expenditure except the insignificant investment -of $10,000, made as a mere stalking-horse, these men took a share of -the profits of "the party of the second part," which is not to be -calculated by ordinary percentage, but by multiplications, over and -over again, every year, of the money they put in it. - -By reducing the volume of business one-half, by increasing the profit -from 34 cents a barrel to $2.05, the reconcilers pocketed $315,345.58 -in four years, on an investment of $10,000, with no work. This was the -fact. The theory with which the fact was hidden from the people is -given to the New York Legislature in 1888. The principle on which the -trust did business, its president said, was: - -"At a limited profit; a very small profit on an extremely large volume -of business."[99] - -When its secretary was before Congress, he was asked about the -operations of himself and his associates in these years, 1876, 1877, of -wonderful profits. He had been participating during that time in not -only this profit of $2.05 a barrel, but in divided profits rising to -$3,000,000 in a year on $3,000,000 of capital, and in undivided profits -which rolled up $3,500,000 of capital into $70,000,000 in five years. -But he said: - -"The business during those years was so very close as to leave scarcely -any margin of profit under the most advantageous circumstances."[100] - -The effect on the consumer appears from the statement in this case of -one of the best-known producers and refiners in the oil regions, one -intimately associated with the members of the combination. He showed -that oil which was selling at twenty cents a gallon retail could be -sold at a large profit at twelve cents a gallon. - -As to the effect on the working-man, the demand for labor declined, -wages went down, and the number of unemployed increased. - -When there was competition in Cleveland the great company could not -afford to have its skilled workmen idle, because they would seek -employment with the other refineries; but now, having the refining -business all in its own hands, when it was temporarily to its advantage -to refine oil in Pittsburg, Oil City, or other points, in preference -to Cleveland, it could with impunity let its hands remain idle in -Cleveland, knowing that when it wanted them it could easily secure -them, as there are no other refineries in Cleveland to employ them, and -"that has been a very serious injury to working-men."[101] - -There was no pretence that the design of this contract was not to make -oil scarce--_i.e._, dear. - -In the affidavit which was made in support of the injunction the -principal reconciler showed that his company had restricted itself -as much as it restricted these competitors. He urged as the reason -why the contract had been made and why the courts should sustain it, -that "the capacity of all the refineries in the United States is -more than sufficient to supply the markets of the world, and if all -the refineries were run to their full capacity they would refine at -least twice as much oil as the markets of the world require; that -this difference between the capacity of refineries and the demands of -the market has existed for at least seven years past, and during that -period the refineries" of his company "have not been run to ... exceed -one-half of their capacity." - -When these surviving independents of Cleveland were forced into this -adventure, in 1876, the source of the power which could compel "free" -citizens in this age of individualism to execute such a bond was not -known. The appalling mortality among the independents showed that -something was seriously wrong. There was something, however, in this -"Agreement for an Adventure" which pointed straight to it. That was -a clause which guaranteed those who became vassals that they should -have the same freight rates and get back the same rebates as the -monopoly.[102] "Had the monopoly the power," said the Hon. Stanley -Matthews, "to procure freights on better and more advantageous terms -than the rest of the public engaged in the same business?... And -if they had such power, how did it get it?... If this or any other -corporation is allowed to exalt itself in this way and by these means -above competition, it is also exalted above the law." - -The great lawyer, who soon afterwards became a justice of the Supreme -Court of the United States, could not answer the questions he raised. -The facts were hidden in secret contracts with the railroads. As -regards Cleveland, they did not come out until five years later, in -1885. It then became an adjudicated fact that in 1875, the year before -this "Agreement for an Adventure," the Lake Shore Railroad had made -a contract with the oil combination to drive these very competitors -and all others out of business, just as the same road had done for -the South Improvement Company in 1872. When they escaped from their -"reconciler," they brought this railroad and the contract into court. -The case was fought up to the Supreme Court. - -That tribunal found that the Lake Shore road had contracted with this -company to carry its products ten cents per barrel cheaper than for any -other customers. It showed that this made a difference to the victims -of the "Adventure" equal to more than 21 per cent. a year on their -capital. - -"The understanding," the court said, "was to keep the price _down_ for -the favored customers, but _up_ for all the others, and the inevitable -tendency and effect of this contract was to enable the Standard Oil -Company to establish and maintain an overshadowing monopoly, to ruin -all other operators, and drive them out of business." The course of the -railroad the court declared to be one of "active participation in the -unlawful purposes" of the oil company. The Lake Shore was to have all -its business out of Cleveland, but, a competing railroad being built, -the Lake Shore made a contract to give this new line a part of the -plum, to induce it to unite in the policy of keeping freights _down_ -for the favored customer, and _up_ for all others. When the President -of the trust was asked afterwards by the New York Legislature if there -had been no arrangement by which it got its transportation cheaper than -others could, he replied, "No, sir." And later he reiterated that in -their arrangements for freight there was "nothing peculiar."[103] - -But the Supreme Court of Ohio, in describing this arrangement, -diversify the staid rhetoric of their legal deliverance with the -unaffected exclamation: - -"How peculiar!" - -They declared the contract between the two railroads "void," and "not -only contrary to a sound public policy, but to the lax demands of -the commercial honesty and ordinary methods of business." They also -pronounced the contract between the railroad and the oil company as -"made to build up a monopoly," and as "unlawful."[104] - -The great lawyer, we have said, could not answer the questions he -asked. The facts, we have said, were hidden in a secret contract. And -yet the answers to the questions, the facts, had been all brought to -the verge of disclosure by the investigation by Congress early in the -same year, 1876. - -Although the investigation, in consequence of the "I object" of the -Hon. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland,[105] had been referred to the -Committee of Commerce, and though the railroad and oil clique men -would not answer, and the committee would not press them, there was a -volunteer witness from Cleveland, who began to upset all the plans to -smother. This willing witness was a Cleveland refiner, a shrewd man, -as would easily be believed by those who knew that he was the brother -of an organizer of the oil combination. He, too, had been a member of -it, but for some reasons was now "out," and was one of the swimmers -who felt themselves being drawn down. He betook himself for relief to -Congress. He dodged no subpoenas, but, going before the Committee of -Commerce, he began to tell more fully than any other witness had ever -done, or had ever been able to do, the story of the relations between -the combination and the railroads, which he knew of his personal -knowledge. When he began talking in this free way to the public -authorities, his former associates saw that they had underestimated -his abilities as a refiner. They began to feel that it might be well -to make some concessions to this particular brother, though not to the -Brotherhood of Man. - -The investigation was summarily suspended,[106] and his testimony -was spirited away. With the only power that could have interfered -thus silenced, the surviving independents were corralled as we have -described. This was done two short months after the first move was -made, May 16th, for the investigation which might have saved the -independents at Cleveland and elsewhere from the duress which drove men -to death or adventures of reconciliation. - -All over the oil regions the combination has followed this policy of -"not to exceed half."[107] - -Nineteen pages of the testimony of a member in the suit begun by the -Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are taken up with the operations of one -of its constituent companies in the purchase or leasing of competing -refineries, many of which were shut down or pulled down. - -This witness could name only one refinery out of the score of -independent concerns once flourishing in Pittsburg, which was not under -its control.[108] - -"Dismantled," was the monotonous refrain of many of his answers to the -questions as to what had been done with the refineries thus got under -control. Asked why these works had been thus dismantled or shut down, -he explained it variously as due to unfavorable location or worn-out -machinery or some such disadvantage. - -If these works were so badly situated and so illy fitted for the -business and so old, why did it purchase them? "Can you give good -commercial reasons why it would buy all unprofitable junk?" he was -asked.[109] - -"I cannot give any reason why they bought the works," was the helpless -answer. - -From the beginning to the end the language used by the founders of -the combination proves scarcity to have been their object. "There is -a large number of refineries in the country--a great deal larger than -is required for the manufacture of the oil produced in the country, or -for the wants of the consumers in Europe and America," said one of the -principal members in 1872.[110] - -This is almost identical with the language used in 1880 in the effort -to enjoin Cleveland refiners who "threatened to distil." - -In 1887 we will see the same power putting its hand and seal to an -agreement to enforce the doctrine that there was too much oil in the -earth. - -In 1872 there were more refineries than were needed for the oil; in -1887 there was too much oil. The progression is significant. And down -to the present pool with the Scotch refiners we will see the same men -enforcing abroad, year by year, the same gospel of want.[111] - -"The producers in America are quite alive to the wisdom of not -producing too much paraffine, and are already adopting measures to -restrict it," said the chairman at the annual meeting of one of the -principal Scotch companies.[112] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -"YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE" - - -In the obituary column of the Cleveland _Herald_, of June 6, 1874, was -given the news of the death of one of the pioneer manufacturers of -Cleveland. He began the refining of petroleum in that city in 1860, -several years before any of those who afterwards became the sovereigns -of the business had left their railroad platforms, book-keeping stools, -and lawyers' desks. He was married in the same year, and from that -time until his death, in 1874, gave his whole life to his refinery and -his family, and was successful with both. The _Herald_ said of him -editorially: - - "He was well known in Cleveland and elsewhere as a business man of - high character. He was a prominent member of the First Presbyterian - Church, was at one time President of the Young Men's Christian - Association, and was active in all enterprises of a religious and - benevolent character. He was about forty years of age, and leaves a - wife and three children." - -His enterprise had been "very profitable," his wife said afterwards -in court, in narrating how she and her children fared after the death -of the husband, father, and bread-winner. "My husband devoted his -entire energies and life to the business from about 1860 to the time -of his death, and had acquired through his name a large patronage. My -husband went into debt just before his death," she continued, "for the -first time in his life. For the interest of my fatherless children, as -well as myself, I thought it my duty to continue the business. I took -$75,000 of the $100,000 of stock, and continued from that time, 1874, -until November, 1878, making handsome profits, during perhaps the -hardest business years of the time since my husband had begun."[113] - -The business received from her the most thorough and faithful -attention, and she maintained the prosperity her husband had founded by -making a profit of about $25,000 a year. - -A representative of one of the oil combination came to her, she -continued, "with a proposition that I should sell to them." This -agent was "a brother manufacturer," who, but a short time before in -a conference with her, had agreed that in view of the dangers which -seemed to threaten them, he and she should mutually watch out for each -other, and that no arrangement should be made by either without letting -the other know. The next she saw of her ally he pounced upon her in her -office with the news that he was in the oil combination, that the head -of it had told him he meant to have control of the refining business -if it took him ten years, but he hoped to have it in two. He went on -to warm the woman's heart by the declaration that since he had become -acquainted with the secrets of the organization he wondered that he and -she had been able to hold out so long. After which preliminaries he -proposed that she, too, should sell to it. With sagacity and spirit she -declined point-blank to have any negotiation with him. - -She declined to deal with subordinates, and said she did not want to -sell. The principal then called upon her at her residence. This was -in 1878, and these were dark days for "outside" refiners. One by one -they were sinking out of sight, and slipping under the yoke like the -victims of the "reconciliation" and "equalization" described in the -last chapter. - -For six years word had been passing from one frightened lip to -another that they were all destined for the maw or the morgue, and -the fulfilment of the word had been appalling. He knew the members of -the oil combination, one of the best-known veterans of the oil region -testified in this case, naming them; "I have heard some of them say, in -substance, 'that they intended to wipe out all the refineries in the -country except their own, and to control the entire refining business -of the United States.'" - -"The big fish are going to eat the little fish," one of the big fish -told a neighbor and competitor. When one of the little fish said he -"would not sell and was not afraid," he was told, "You may not be -afraid to have your head cut off, but your body will suffer!" - -The woman was brave with love and enthusiasm for the memory of her -husband and the future of her children. She had had a great success, -but she knew the sea she was swimming. She saw strong men going down on -every side. She herself afterwards told in court of her great anxiety -as she would hear of one refinery after another surrendering, feeling -sure that that would eventually be the fate of her company. - -All that the witnesses just quoted had reported, all that was said -of the same tenor by the witnesses before Congress in 1876, and much -more, had been filling the hearts of the business men of Cleveland, -Pittsburg, Titusville, New York, with a reign of terror ever since -1872. It was with a full realization of all this that she went down -to her parlor to receive the great man of commerce, who passes the -contribution-box for widows' mites outside the church as well as -within. This gentleman was in her house in pursuance, practically, of -his own motion. She did not want to sell; the suggestion of a sale had -come from the other side. "I told him," the widow said to the judge, -"that I realized that my company was entirely in the power" of his -company. "All I can do," I said to him, "is to appeal to your honor -as a gentleman, and to your sympathy, to do the best with me that you -can. I beg of you to consider your wife in my position, left with this -business and with fatherless children, and with a large indebtedness -that my husband had just contracted for the first time in his life. I -felt that I could not do without the income arising from this business, -and I have taken it up and gone on, and been successful in the hardest -years since my husband commenced." "I am aware," he replied, "of what -you have done. My wife could never have accomplished so much." She had -become alarmed, the woman of business resumed, because his company was -"getting control of all the refineries in the country." - -He promised, with tears in his eyes, that he would stand by her. It -should never be said, he cried, that he had wronged the widow of his -fellow-refiner. "He agreed that I might retain whatever amount of stock -I desired. He seemed to want only the control. I thought his feelings -were such that I could trust him, and that he would deal honorably -with me." This was the last she saw of him. He promised to come to -see her during the negotiations, but did not do so. He promised to -assist and advise her, but did not do so. He declined to conduct the -negotiations with her in person as she requested, "stating to her," -he said, in giving his version of the affair to the court, "that I -knew nothing about her business or the mechanical appliances used in -the same, and that I could not pursue any negotiations with her with -reference to the same; but that if, after reflection, she desired to -do so, some of our people familiar with the lubricating-oil business -would take up the question with her.... When she responded, expressing -her fears about the future of the business, stating that she could -not get cars to transport sufficient oil, and other similar remarks, -I stated to her that though we were using our cars, and required them -in our own business, yet we would loan her any number she required, or -do anything else in reason to assist her, and I saw no reason why she -could not prosecute her business just as successfully in the future -as in the past." This assurance to his widow-competitor that he would -let her have cars was, of itself, enough to justify all her alarm, and -show that there was no hope for her but in making the best surrender -possible. It was proof positive that he did control the transportation, -that the well-defined report that no one but he and his could get -their business done by the railroad was true. Permission to go upon -the highways by the favor of a competitor is too thin a plank for even -a woman to be got to walk. Withdrawing from direct connection, but -managing the affair to the end as he testifies, he sent back to her the -agent she had refused to talk with. - -Negotiations were accordingly resumed perforce with this agent. He -submitted to his principals a statement in her behalf of the value of -the property, but did not waste time over the form of letting her see -it, or consulting with her before submitting it in her name. - -This statement she never authorized, never heard of, and never read -until it was produced in court against her.[114] - -One interesting feature of the contract which was the subject of the -"adventure" described in the chapter "Not to Exceed Half" was repeated -here. The representative who "took up this matter" with the widow -carried on his bargaining in great part with the minor stockholders, -one of whom claimed afterwards that all he had done was under her -directions, and "to her entire satisfaction." But she was entirely -unaware of either her "directions" or her "satisfaction." "He never -had the slightest authority from me to represent me in any way in the -sale."[115] - -Another of the minor stockholders also busied himself in representing -her without her knowledge. On behalf of the widow agents were making -figures, though she knew nothing of their agency or the figures. -By these combined efforts a sale was finally concluded at figures -which, though she owned seven-tenths of the property, she had never -authorized, and were far below the only figures she had given as those -she was willing to take. - -Compelled to deal with a subordinate against her will, fearing to -remain in so hazardous an occupation, and yet needing for her children -the income it brought her, this woman manufacturer's position was most -harassing. All through, as her cashier and treasurer told the court, -she was dissatisfied, felt that she was compelled to sell though she -wanted to retain her property. - -"In my hearing," her confidential clerk said, "she declared she sold -because she was compelled to do so." - -She told her fellow-stockholders that she had been informed by the -agent who was dealing with her, that if they did not sell out it would -only be a question of time before they would be forced to sell out, as -he intended to place oil like that made by her company in the hands of -all their agents, to undersell them and close them out. This decided -them to sell. - -"Inasmuch as the managers of the Standard Oil Company appeared to have -made up their minds to obtain this property, and not to give them the -chance they had before in competition," the stockholders, as one of -them testified, "concluded it better to sell the property at such price -as they could then get, rather than to run the risk of a still greater -loss in the future, not one of the stockholders desiring to part with -the property at all, but rather choosing with fair competition to -retain their interest in the property."[116] - -She had made 15 per cent. in the last six months, and, aside from -these threats, the business looked prosperous, for the orders were -becoming more numerous every day. But the widow could refuse to sell -only by braving threats which had broken more than two out of three -of all the men about her. She put upon the property a price warranted -by its income, $200,000, which was adopted by the directors of the -company in a formal motion authorizing a sale at that figure. But in -her name a proposition was made by the agent to sell for $71,000. "I -never heard of the figure of $71,000," she says, "and cannot imagine -where it originated. The only proposition that was ever made was that -of $200,000." What the stock was worth in her estimation and that -of her employés who had inside knowledge is seen in the evidence of -her confidential clerk. Though he was her nephew also, he had with -difficulty, he says, bought stock at par. - -She had refused to sell at par to others. Now the only offer she could -get was $60,000 for the works and good-will, the purchasers paying in -addition the cash value of the material in stock, and at that price she -had to let them go. She asked to be allowed to remain an owner to the -extent of $15,000 in the business into which she and her husband had -built their lives. "No outsider can have any interest in this concern," -was the reply. The combination "has dallied as long as it will over -this matter," its agent continued. "It must be settled up to-day or go." - -The power of this business to produce a profit of $25,000 a year was -worth almost $400,000, according to the valuations maintained for -the stock of the oil trust on the New York Stock Exchange by the men -who bought out the widow. One hundred dollars in oil trust stock -producing $12 a year has sold as high as $185. If $12 a year was -worth $185, $25,000 a year was worth nearly $400,000. It was part of -the agreement that the oil company should go on as before. "It was -particularly enjoined," testified the cashier and treasurer, "that the -sale should be kept a profound secret."[117] It was intended that the -company should go on as before as far as the public was concerned. The -purchasers agreed to continue to employ the hands already at work, but -stipulated that not a word should be said to any one of them to reveal -that the company was not as independent as it had been.[118] - -"And you are not to engage in the refining business," is the concluding -phrase of an agreement between the oil combination and a once -competitor whom it had forced to sell out in 1876.[119] - -"You are not to engage in refining," the same power said in 1877 to the -Pennsylvania Railroad, and now to this widow: You must sign this bond -not to go into business again for ten years. - -The bond is given in full in the record of the case. It put the widow -under a forfeit of five thousand dollars for ten years, that-- - - "I will not directly, or indirectly, in any way, either alone or in - company with any person, or as a share-holder in any corporation, - engage in or in any way concern myself or allow knowingly any capital - or moneys to be employed in the business or trade of refining, - manufacturing, producing, piping, or dealing in petroleum, or any of - its products, within the county of Cuyahoga, and State of Ohio, nor at - any other place whatsoever."[120] - -Their secret of success, the president swore in this very case, is "the -very large volume" of purchases, "long continuance in the business," -"experience," "knowledge of all the avenues of trade," "skill of -experienced employés," and so forth. But with all this they did not -dare leave this middle-aged woman free to challenge them again on -the field of competition. The purchase was made in the name of three -members of the great oil company, and it was paid for by the check of -that concern. - -Of these men one was among the "trustees" indicted and tried in 1885 -for complicity in the plot to blow up a rival refinery, but let go by -the judge. - -At the time the sale was concluded the widow refiner declared, "The -obtaining of her stock was no better than stealing." When the papers -were brought to her to sign she "hesitated," and said, "It is like -signing my death-warrant. I believe it will prove my death-warrant." -"The promises made by the president," she testifies, "were none of them -fulfilled." - -Being only a woman, and not understanding "business," for all her -brilliant success in stepping into her husband's place, and doing -the double work of home-maker and bread-winner, the widow could not -restrain herself from giving a most uncommercial piece of her mind -to those who had got possession of her property for a sum which they -would recover out of its profits in two or three years. She sent the -following letter: - - "November 11, 1878, Monday Morning. - - "SIR,--When you left me at the time of our interview the other - morning, after promising me so much, you said you had simply dropped - the remarks you had for my thought. I can assure you I have thought - much and long as I have waited and watched daily to see you fulfil - those promises, and it is impossible for me to tell you how utterly - astonished I am at the course you have pursued with me. Were it not - for the knowledge I have that there is a God in heaven, and that you - will be compelled to give an account for all the deeds done here, and - there, in the presence of my husband, will have to confess whether you - have wronged me and his fatherless children or not--were it not for - this knowledge I could not endure it for a moment, the fact that a - man, possessed of the millions that you are, will permit to be taken - from a widow a business that had been the hard life work and pride - of herself and husband, one that was paying the handsome profit of - nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, and give me in return - what a paltry sum, that will net me less than three thousand dollars; - and it is done in a manner that says, Take this or we will crush you - out. And when, on account of the sacred associations connected with - the business, and also the family name it bears, I plead that I may be - permitted to retain a slight interest (you having promised the same - at our interview), you then, in your cold, heartless manner, send - me word that no outsider can hold a dollar's worth of stock in that - concern. It seems strange to be called an outsider in a business that - has been almost entirely our own and built up at the _cost_ it has to - ourselves. It is impossible for us to find language to express our - perfect indignation at such proceedings. We do not envy you in the - least when this is made known in all its detail to the public. One of - your own number admits that it is a great _moral_ wrong, but says as - long as you can cover the points legally you think you are all right. - I doubt, myself, very much the legality of all these things. But do - not forget, my dear sir, that God will judge us morally, not legally, - and should you offer him your entire monopoly, it will not make it - any easier for you. I should not feel that I had done my entire duty - unless, before I close, I drop a remark for your thoughts. In my poor - way I have tried, by my life and example, with all those I have come - in contact with in a business way, to persuade them to a higher, - purer, and better life. I think there is no place in the world that - one has such opportunities to work for good or evil as in a business - life. I cannot tell you the sorrow it has caused me to have one of - those in whom I have had the greatest hopes tell me, within the last - few days, that it was enough to drive _honest_ men away from the - Church of God, when professing Christians do as you have done by me." - -In reply to this she received a letter in which her charge that her -business had been taken from her was repelled as "a most grievous -wrong," and "a great injustice." She was reminded that two years -before she had consulted with the writer and another member of the -oil combination "as to selling out your interest, at which time you -were desirous of selling at _considerably less price_, and upon time, -than you have now received in cash, and which sale you would have been -glad to have closed if you could have obtained satisfactory security -for the deferred payments. As to the price paid for the property, it -is certainly three times greater than the cost at which we could now -construct equal or better facilities." - -The letter concluded with an offer to return the works upon the return -of the money, or, if she preferred, to sell her one hundred, or two -hundred, or three hundred shares of the stock at the price that had -been paid her. These propositions were left open to her for three days. - -The "cost of the works" is not the standard of value in such -transactions. Six millions of dollars, according to a member of the -committee of Congress which investigated the oil trust in 1888, is the -value of the "works" on which they issued $90,000,000 of stock, which -sold in the stock market at a valuation of $160,000,000. - -The offer to sell back the refinery was like the offer to let her have -cars. To accept it was to pass openly and consciously into slavery. -Two years before, when she was weak with grief, inexperience, and the -fear that she might not succeed in her gallant task of paying her -husband's debts and saving the livelihood of the children, she had -thought of selling out at a sacrifice. They knew this because she had -asked their advice, and now cheapened her down by reference to the -valuation of that moment of despair. All the life energies of herself -and her husband, the various advantages of position, the benefit of -their pioneership since 1860, and of having established a place in so -lucrative a business, all the good-will of customers, all the elements -that contributed to the ability to earn the nearly $25,000 a year she -was making, were brushed out of the bargain by the mere assertion of -a figure at which it was alleged better works could be built. By the -time the offer was made she had, moreover, put the sum she had received -into such investments, she told the court, as she had been able to -find, and the money to accept the offer was no longer in her hands. -Indignant with these thoughts, and the massacred troop of hopes and -ambitions that her brave heart had given birth to, she threw the letter -into the fire, where it curled up into flames like those from which -a Dives once begged for a drop of water. She never reappeared in the -world of business, where she had found no chivalry to help a woman save -her home, her husband's life-work, and her children. But when the men -who had divided her property among them invoked the assistance of the -law to complete the "equalization" told of in the previous chapter, -she went into court and told her story to save her friends from ruin. -There, under the gathering dust of years, this incident has remained -buried in the document-room of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga -County, until now brought forth to give the people a glimpse into what -the real things are which our professors of market philosophy cover -with their glittering generalities about the cost of production and the -survival of the fittest. - -This episode and that of the "Agreement for an Adventure" in the -preceding chapter have been written up by the author from the original -papers on file in the Court of Common Pleas at Cleveland, which he -visited for that purpose in 1891. Certified copies of the documents -were procured from the clerk of the court. Lately, the astounding fact -was ascertained that all the documents except two or three formal -pleadings were gone from the records of the court. But for these -certified copies there would now be no authentic record of these cases. -This disappearance bears a strong likeness to the suppression of the -investigation by the Committee of Commerce of Congress in 1872, and the -theft of the testimony taken by the House Committee of Commerce[121] -in 1876, and the mutilation of the transcript submitted to Congress in -1888 of the evidence taken in the Buffalo Explosion Case.[122] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -"NO!" - - -There has never been any real break in the plans revealed, "partly -born," "and buried" in 1872. From then till now, in 1893, every fact -that has come to the surface has shown them in full career. If they -were buried, it was as seed is--for a larger crop of the same thing. - -The people had made peace, in 1872, on the pledge of "perfect equality" -on the highways. Hardly had they got back to their work when they -began to feel the pinch of privilege again. The Pennsylvania road -alone is credited with any attempt to keep faith, and that only "for -some months." "Gradually," as a committee of the people wrote to the -managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, "the persons constituting the -South Improvement Company were placed by the roads in as favorable -a position as to rates and facilities as had been stipulated in the -original contract with that company."[123] - -As soon as pipe lines were proved practicable they were built as -rapidly as pipes and men to put them in the ground could be had, but -there was some lubricant by which they kept constantly slipping into -bankruptcy. - -They were "frozen out," as one of their builders said, "summer as well -as winter." - -By 1874, twenty pipe lines had been laid in the oil country. Eighty per -cent. of them died off in that and the following year.[124] The mere -pipes did not die, they are there yet; but the ownership of the many -who had built them died. - -There were conservatives in the field to whom competition was as -distasteful as to the socialists. To "overcome such competition," and -to insure them "a full and regular" and "remunerative business" in -pipe lines, in the language of the South Improvement Company contract, -all that was needed was to put into operation the machinery of that -contract which no longer existed--in name. The decease of the name was -not an insuperable obstacle. - -In exact reproduction of the plan of 1872, the railroads, in October, -1874, advanced rates to the general ruin, but to the pool of lines -owned by their old friends of the South Improvement Company they paid -back a large rebate. That those who had such a railroad Lord Bountiful -to fill their pockets should grow rich fast was a matter of course.[125] - -Getting this refund they got all the business. Oil, like other things, -follows the line of least resistance, and will not flow through pipes -where it has to pay when it can run free and get something to boot. -Nobody could afford to buy oil except those who were in this deal. They -could go into the market, and out of these bonuses could bid higher -than any one else. They "could overbid in the producing regions, and -undersell in the markets of the world."[126] - -This was not all. In the circular which announced the bounty to the -pet pipes there was another surprise. It showed that the roads had -agreed to carry crude oil to their friends' refineries at Pittsburg and -Cleveland without charge from the wells, and to charge them no more for -carrying back refined oil to the seaboard for export than was charged -to refineries next door to the wells and hundreds of miles nearer the -market. "Outside" refiners who had put themselves near the wells and -the seaboard were to be denied the benefit of their business sagacity. -The Cleveland refiners, whose location was superior only for the -Western trade, were to be forced into a position of unnatural equality -in the foreign trade. In short, the railroads undertook to pay, instead -of being paid, for what they carried for these friends, and force them -into an equality with manufacturers who had builded better than they. - -Evidently they who had contrived all this had their despondent moments, -when they feared that its full beneficence would not be understood by a -public unfamiliar with the "science of transportation." - -To the new rules was attached an explanation which asserted the right -of the railroads to prevent persons and localities from enjoying the -advantage of any facility they may possess, no matter how "real." - -"You will observe that under this system the rate is even and fair to -all parties, preventing one locality taking advantage of its neighbor -by reason of some alleged or real facility it may possess."[127] - -Meanwhile good society was shuddering at its reformers, and declaring -that they meant to stop competition and "divide up property." - -"Do you do that in any business except oil?" the most distinguished -railroad man of that day was asked. "Do you carry a raw product to -a place 150 miles distant and back again to another point like that -without charge, so as to put them on an equality?" - -To which he replied--it was he who could not remember that he had ever -seen the South Improvement Company contract he signed in 1872--"I don't -know."[128] - -"Could any more flagrant violation of every principle of railroad -economy and natural justice be imagined than this?" the report of the -New York Legislature asks.[129] - -An expert introduced by the railroads defended this arrangement. He -insisted that all pipe lines had a chance to enter the pool and get the -same refund.[130] But a witness from the pipe-line country, who was -brought to New York to testify to the relations of the railroads and -the oil combination, let out the truth. - -"Why didn't they go into the pool?" he was asked, in reference to one -of the most important pipe lines. - -"Because they were not allowed to. They wanted to freeze them out. They -were shut out from the market practically."[131] - -For these enterprises, as they failed one after the other, there was -but one buyer--the group of gentlemen who called themselves the South -Improvement Company in 1872, but now in the field of pipe-line activity -had taken the name of United Pipe Line, since known as the National -Transit Company, and then and now a part of the oil trust. - -"The United Pipe Line bought up the pipes as they became bankrupt one -after another," testified the same friendly witness.[132] - -Then came a great railroad war in 1877. A fierce onslaught was made on -the Pennsylvania Railroad by all the other trunk lines. - -In this affair, as in all dynastic wars, the public knew really nothing -about what was being done or why. The newspapers were filled with the -smoke of the battles of the railroad kings; but the newspapers did not -tell, for they did not then know, that the railroads were but tools of -conquest in the hands of greater men. - -The cause of the trouble was that the managers of the Pennsylvania -Railroad had begun to reach out for the control of the oil trade. -They had joined in the agreement in 1872 to give it to the oil -combination, but now they wanted it for themselves. Through a mistletoe -corporation--the Empire Transportation Company--they set to work -building up a great business in oil cars, pipe lines, refineries. - -"We like competition; we like our competitors; we are neighbors and -friends, and have been all these years," the president of the oil -trust testified to the New York Legislature,[133] but he served notice -upon this competitor to abandon the field.[134] He and his associates -determined to do more than compel the great railroad to cease its -competition. They determined to possess themselves of its entire oil -outfit, though it was the greatest corporation then in America. This, -the boldest stroke yet attempted, could be done only with the help of -the other trunk lines, and that was got. - -The ruling officials of the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore -and Ohio, the Lehigh Valley, the Reading, the Atlantic and Great -Western, the Lake Shore railroads, and their connections, were made to -believe, or pretended to believe, that it was their duty to make an -attack upon the Pennsylvania Railroad to force it to surrender.[135] -"A demand," says the New York Legislative Committee of 1879, "which -they"--the railroads--"joined hands with the Standard Oil Company and -proceeded to enforce by a war of rates, which terminated successfully -in October of that year" (1877).[136] - -The war was very bitter. Oil was carried at eight cents a barrel less -than nothing by the Pennsylvania.[137] How low the rates were made by -the railroads on the other side is not known. The Pennsylvania was the -first to sue for peace. Twice its vice-president "went to Canossa," -which was Cleveland. It got peace and absolution only by selling its -refineries and pipe lines and mortgaging its oil cars to the oil -combination. It "was left without the control of a foot of pipe line to -gather, a tank to receive, or a still to refine a barrel of petroleum, -and without the ability to secure the transportation of one, except -at the will of men who live and whose interests lie in Ohio and New -York."[138] - -It was only seven years since the buyers had organized with a -capital of $1,000,000. Now they were able to give their check for -over $3,000,000 for this one purchase. "I was surprised," said Mr. -Vanderbilt to the New York Legislative Committee of 1878, speaking -of this transaction, "at the amount of ready cash they were able to -provide." They secured, in addition to the valuable pipe lines, oil -cars, and refineries in New York and Pennsylvania, the more valuable -pledge given by the Pennsylvania Railroad that it would never again -enter the field of competition in refining, and also a contract -giving the oil combination one-tenth of all the oil freights received -by the Pennsylvania Railroad, whether from the combination or its -competitors--an arrangement it succeeded in making as well with the New -York Central, Lake Shore, and other railroads.[139] - -One of the earliest members of the oil combination was present at the -meeting to consummate this purchase. Something over $3,000,000 of his -and his associates' cash changed hands. The meeting was important -enough to command the presence of a brigade of lawyers for the great -corporations, and of the president, vice-president, and several -directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, representing the Poor -Man's Light, the vice-president, the secretary, and five of the leading -members of the combination, besides himself.[140] - -But when asked in court about it he could not remember any such -meeting. Finally, he recalled "being at a meeting," but he could not -remember when it was, or who was there, or what it was for, or whether -any money was paid.[141] - -Three years later this transaction having been quoted against the -combination in a way likely to affect the decision of a case in -court,[142] the treasurer denied it likewise. "It is not true as stated -... directly or indirectly...."[143] - -Eight years later, when the exigencies of this suit of 1880, in -Cleveland, had passed away, and a new exigency demanded a "revised -version," the secretary of the combination told Congress that it was -true.[144] - -"The pleasures of memory" are evidently for poets, not for such -millionaires. That appears to be the only indulgence they cannot -afford. - -The managers of the Pennsylvania road went back with the zeal of -backsliders reconverted to their yoke in the service of the men who had -given them this terrific whipping. They sent word to the independent -refiners, whom they had secured as shippers by the pledge of 1872 of -equal treatment, that equal rates and facilities could be given no -longer. The producers and refiners did not sit down dumb under the -death sentence. They begged for audience of their masters, masters of -them because masters of the highway. - -The third vice-president, the official in charge of the freight -business, was sent to meet them. - -"As you know," they began by reminding him, "we have been for the past -year the largest shippers of petroleum the Pennsylvania Railroad has -had." - -He acknowledged it. - -"Shall we, after the 1st of May, have as low a rate of freight as -anybody else?" they then asked. - -"No," he said; "after the 1st of May we shall give the Standard Oil -Company lower rates than to you." - -"How much discrimination will we have to submit to?" the poor -"outsiders" asked. - -"I decline to tell you," was the reply. - -"How much business must we bring your road to get as good rates as the -combination?" they then asked, and again-- - -"I decline to tell you," was the only answer they got. - -"If we will ship as much, will you give us as low freight rates?" - -"No." - -"We have been shipping over the Pennsylvania Railroad a year," they -persisted, "why can we not continue?" - -"It would make them mad; they are the only people who can make peace -between the railroads." - -"I think," said he, "you ought to fix it up with them. I am going over -there this afternoon to talk with those people about this matter, and," -he continued, "you will all be happy, and everything will work along -very smoothly." - -"We gave him very distinctly to understand that we did not propose to -enter into any 'fix up' where we would lose our identity, or sell out, -or be under anybody else's thumb; we are willing to pay as high a rate -of freight as anybody, and we want it as low as anybody has it," they -told him. - -But the reply to all of it was, "You cannot have the same rate of -freight." - -As the magnate of the railroad seemed to be determined not to permit -them to move to market along his rails, one of the independents -referred to a plan for a new pipe line then under consideration by -them, the Equitable, as perhaps promising them the relief he refused. - -"Lay all the pipe lines you like," the vice-president retorted, with -feeling, "and we will buy them up for old iron." - -The independents appealed from the third vice-president to the -president; they had to beg repeatedly for a hearing before they got -it. They came together in the June following, the independents coming -on from New York for the purpose. Since their interview with the third -vice-president rates had been advanced upon them, and not only that, -but when they had oil ready to ship at those high freight rates, the -railroad on one pretext or another refused them cars. One of them had -contracts to deliver oil from his refinery in New York to go abroad. -When he ordered the cars that were needed to take the crude oil to New -York to be refined they were refused him. The ships lay idle at the -docks, charging him heavy damages for every day of delay; at the wells -his oil was running on the ground. - -"You had better go and arrange with the Standard Oil Company; I don't -want to get into any trouble with them," the president said. "If you -are business men, you will make an arrangement with them. I will do all -in my power to bring it about." - -"We will never take our freight rates from them," they replied; "we are -not willing to enter into any such arrangement." - -"Why don't you go to the other roads?" the president asked his -suppliants. - -"We have done so. It's of no use. On the New York Central the cars are -owned by the combination, and the Erie is in a like position. We have -been shippers on the Pennsylvania Railroad a long, long while, and -you ought to take care of us and give us all the cars we need. We are -suffering very greatly for the want of them. Can we have the same rate -that other shippers get?" - -"No." - -"If we ship the same amount of oil?" - -"No." - -"If you have not cars enough, will you, if we build cars, haul them?" - -"No. You will not have any peace or prosperity," continued the -president, "until you make terms with the combination." - -Like the third vice-president he offered to intercede with them to get -transportation over his own road for his own customers. Like men they -refused the offer. - -"We were, of course, very indignant," one of them said, in relating -this experience in court.[145] - -A little later a rich and expert refiner, who had sold out in 1876, -made up his mind to try again. The Pennsylvania road had a new -president by this time, but the old "no" was still in force. - -"When I was compelled to succumb I thought it was only temporarily, -that the time would come when I could go into the business I was -devoted to. I was in love with the business. I took a run across the -water; I was tired and discouraged and used up in 1878, and was gone -three or four months. I came back ready for work, and had the plan, -specifications and estimates made for a refinery that would handle -ten thousand barrels of oil in a day. I selected a site near three -railroads and a river; I would have spent about five hundred thousand -dollars, and probably a couple of hundred thousand more. I believed the -time had arrived when the Pennsylvania Railroad would see their true -interest as common carriers, and the interest of their stockholders, -and the business interest of the City of Philadelphia. I called on the -President of the Pennsylvania Railroad; I laid the plans before him, -and told him I wanted to build a refinery of ten thousand barrels' -capacity a day. I was almost on my knees begging him to allow me to do -that. - -"'What is it you want?' he said. - -"'Simply to be put upon an equality with everybody else--especially the -Standard Oil Company. I want you to agree with me that you will give me -transportation of crude oil as low as you give it to anybody else for -ten years, and then I will give you a written assurance that I will do -this refining of ten thousand barrels of oil a day for ten years. Is -not that an honest position for us to be in? I as a manufacturer, you -the president of a railroad.' - -"'I cannot go into any such agreement.' - -"I saw the third vice-president. He said, in his frank way, 'That is -not practicable, and you know the reason why.'"[146] - -After their interviews with the President and Vice-President of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, these outsiders went to the officials of the -other roads, only to hear the same "No!" from all.[147] - -At one time, to get oil to carry out their contracts and fill the -vessels which were waiting at the docks and charging them damages for -the delay, these refiners telegraphed to the oil regions offering the -producers there ten cents above the market price if they could get oil -to them over any of the roads to New York. They answered they could not -get the cars, and none of them accepted the offer.[148] - -All the roads--as in 1872--were in league to "overcome" them. - -Thus, at a time when the entire movement of oil was at the rate of -only 25,000 or 30,000 barrels a day, and the roads had cars enough to -move 60,000 barrels a day, these independent refiners found themselves -shut completely off from the highway.[149] The Pennsylvania Railroad, -the New York Central, the Erie, and their branches and connections in -and out of the oil regions, east and west, were as entirely closed to -them as if a foreign enemy had seized the country and laid an embargo -on their business--which was, indeed, just what had happened. The only -difference between that kind of invasion and what had really come -was, that "the dear people," as the president of the trust called -them,[150] would have known they were in the hands of an enemy if he -had come beating his drums loud enough, and firing off his two-thousand -pounders often enough, and pricking them deep enough with his bayonets; -but their wits are not yet up to knowing him when he comes among them -disguised as an American citizen, although they see property destroyed -and life lost and liberty thrown wherever he moves. - -There was enough virtue in Pennsylvania to begin a suit in the name -of the State against the men who were using its franchises for such -purposes, though there was not enough to push it to a decision. The -Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, when examined as a -witness in this suit, confirmed these statements about the interviews -with himself and the president of the road in every particular about -which he was questioned. - -"We stated to the outside refiners that we would make lower rates to -the Standard Oil Company than they got; we declined to allow them to -put cars of their own on the road."[151] - -His evidence fills seventy-six pages, closely printed, in the report of -testimony. It was clear, full, and candid; remarkably so, considering -that it supplied officially from the company's own records the facts, -item by item, which proved that the management of the Pennsylvania -Railroad had violated the Constitution of Pennsylvania and the common -law, and had taken many millions of dollars from the people and -from the corporation which employed them, and secretly, and for no -consideration, had given them to strangers. - -This testimony is so important that it was reprinted substantially -in full both by the "Hepburn" committee of the New York Legislature -in 1879[152] and the Trust Investigating Committee of Congress in -1888.[153] As instances, it showed that in one case where the rate to -the public was $1.15, this favored shipper was charged only 38 cents. -In another case the trade generally had to pay $1.40 a barrel on crude -petroleum, but the oil combination paid 88-1/2 cents. - -"And then the refined rate was 80 cents?" - -"80 cents net to the Standard." - -"And to all others?" - -"$1.44-1/2." - -"But there were no other outside shippers," he pleaded--how could there -be? - -There was only one important member in Pennsylvania of the oil -combination who could be caught with a subpoena. At his first -appearance in court, on the witness stand, he took lofty ground. - -"I decline to answer."[154] - -Put on the stand again, he was asked: - -"Were you allowed a rebate amounting to 64-1/2 cents per barrel?" - -"No, sir; not to my knowledge."[155] - -Put on the third time and compelled to produce his books, he had to -read aloud in court the entries showing the payment he had thus denied -under oath. - -"There was a total allowance of 64-1/2 cents per barrel."[156] - -And then he shut up again--but too late; and to all other questions -about his rebates said, gloomily, "I decline to answer." - -When the president of the oil trust was asked afterwards by the New -York Legislature if some company or companies embraced within it had -not enjoyed from railroads more favorable freight rates than outside -refineries, he replied: - -"I do not recall anything of that kind." - -"You have heard of such things?" - -"I have heard much in the papers about it."[157] - -But at the time these rates were being made, one of his principal -associates admitted that the president was the person who attended to -the freight rates.[158] This was also put beyond a doubt in the Ohio -investigation by the evidence of his first partner in the little oil -refinery at Cleveland which had grown so great, he who had furnished -the only mechanical and refining knowledge it had started with, and who -had, until within a year, been a fellow-stockholder and director. - -"Do these contracts contain anything of the nature that would -discriminate against the small refiners of the State?" - -"I think they did.... Up to the time I left the company the open rate -was $1.40 to the seaboard. They"--the oil combination--"ship for 80 -cents.... The president told me it was the rate at that time."[159] - -With every known avenue to the sea thus closed to them it certainly -looked as if all was up with the "outsiders." But the men, who had -too much American spunk to buy peace with dishonor by consenting to -a "fix-up" under compulsion, had the wit to find out a loop-hole -of temporary escape. They built tank boats for the canal, and thus -succeeded in getting 200,000 barrels of oil to New York that summer -before the canal closed.[160] - -Since then all chance of escape by the canal has been cut off. The -railroads made a war of freight rates against it, and the only canal -that connected the oil regions with the Erie canal route to the sea was -dried up, and turned into a way for a railroad by a special act of the -New York Legislature. The railroad so built has ever since been managed -as one of the most diligent promoters of the policy of excluding the -common people from the oil business. - -According to the funeral notices given out by the railroad officials -and the members of the South Improvement Company this concern was dead, -but in the quaint phrase of the producers it was really alive and hard -at work, but "with a new suit of clothes and no name." These interviews -between the independent refiners and the railroad officials of the -three trunk lines form one of the most extraordinary scenes which have -taken place between a government and its subjects since the era of -modern democratic liberty. - -The railway officials are, in the world of the highway, the government. -They hold their supreme power to tax commerce, and to open and close -the highways, solely and altogether by grant of the State, and under -the law of the common carrier. It is only by the exercise of the -sovereign power of eminent domain to take the property of a private -individual by force, without his consent, for public use--never for -any other than public use--and only by the grant of the right to cross -city streets and country roads that the railroads come into existence -at all. This says nothing of the actual cash given to the railroad -projectors by the government, which, in New York State alone, amounts -to upwards of $40,000,000.[161] - -The independent refiners represent the people, claiming of the highway -department of their government those equal rights which all citizens -have as a birthright, and the government informs these citizens that -their rights on the highways have been given as a private estate to -certain friends of the ruling administration, much as William the -Conqueror would give this rich abbey or that fertile manor to one of -his pets. - -"We have no franchise that is not open to all," say the "trustees." "It -is a free open market." "There is nothing peculiar to our companies." -"It is as free as air." - -In truth they have had no less a franchise than, as in 1872, the -excluding possession of all the great trunk-lines out of the oil -country, and all their connections east and west, and this franchise -has since widened until, in 1893, it reaches from ocean to ocean, and -from gulf to gulf. - -Their franchise was meant to be as exclusive as if they had had from -the government letters-patent in the old royal fashion of close -monopolies in East Indian trade, or salt, or tobacco at home, giving -them by name the sole right to use the roads, and forbidding all -others, under pain of business death, from setting their foot on the -highway. But with this difference: the exclusive franchise in the -latter case would exist by law; but in this case it was created in -defiance of law, exists in contempt of the law, and in its living the -law dies daily. - -The refiners and producers who were pleading in this way with the -railroads for a chance to live after May 1, never doubted but that, -as they were told, and as their arrangements with the Pennsylvania -road guaranteed, they were having and were to have at worst until that -date, equal and impartial rates and facilities. Under this safe-conduct -they parleyed for the future. But the Pennsylvania Railroad was at -that moment negotiating with the oil combination to collect from the -independents, under the guise of freight, 20 to 22-1/2 cents a barrel -on all they sent to market, and pay it over to the combination. The -payments were made to one of the rings within the oil ring, called the -American Transfer Company. "It is the same instrumentality under a -different name," said the counsel of the New York Chamber of Commerce -before the New York Legislature. The official of the Pennsylvania road -who issued the order to take this money out of the treasury pleaded -in excuse that proof had been given him that other roads were doing -the same thing.[162] Receipted bills were brought to him, showing that -the New York Central and the Erie had been "for many months" paying -these men who called themselves American Transfer Company for having -"protected" their oil business, sums ranging from 20 cents to 35 cents -a barrel on all the oil those roads transported.[163] So deeply was -the watch-dog of the Pennsylvania road's treasury affected by the -proof that his company was doing less than the other roads, that he -instructed the comptroller to give these men three months' back pay, -which was done. Twenty cents a barrel was sent them out of all the oil -freights collected by the Pennsylvania for the three months preceding, -and thereafter the tribute was paid them monthly. Then it was increased -to 22-1/2 cents a barrel. The same amount per barrel was refunded to -them out of their own freight. They received this on all oil shipped -by them, and also on all shipped by their competitors.[164] They who -received this tribute pretended to the railroad officials that they -"protected" the roads from losing business. The railroad men pretended -to believe it. - -The way in which this revenue was given and got shows what a simple -and easy thing modern business really is--not in any way the -brain-racker political economists have persuaded themselves and us. -The representative of the oil combination writes a bright, cheery -letter; the representative of the Pennsylvania answers it, and there -you are; 22-1/2 cents a barrel on millions of barrels flows out of -the cash-box of the railroad into the cash-box of the combination. -In one year, 1878, this tribute, at the rate of 22-1/2 cents on the -13,750,000 barrels of oil shipped by the three trunk-lines, must have -amounted to $3,093,750. The American Transfer Company had a little -capital of $100,000, and its receipts from this rebate in this one year -would amount to dividends of 3093 per cent. annually; the capital of -the oil combination which owned this Transfer Company was at this time -$3,500,000. - -There are reasons to believe that some of the very railroad men who -turned the money of the railroads over to the American Transfer Company -were among its members. But if all the profit went to the combination, -and none of it was for the railway officials through whom they got -it, their revenue from that source alone would have paid in 1878 a -dividend nearly equal to this capital of $3,500,000. In this device of -the American Transfer Company we again see reappear in 1878, in high -working vitality, the supposed corpse of the South Improvement Company -of 1872. The American Transfer Company was ostensibly a pipe line, and -the railroad officials met the exposure of their "nothing peculiar" -dealings with it by asserting that the payment to it of 22-1/2 cents a -barrel and more was for its service in collecting oil and delivering -it to them; but the Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad -admits that his road paid the money on oil which the American Transfer -Company never handled. - -"This 22-1/2 cents (a barrel) paid the American Transfer Company is not -restricted to oil that passed through their lines?" - -"No, sir; it is paid on all oil received and transported by us."[165] - -The American Transfer Company was not even a pipe line. By the -Pennsylvania laws all incorporated pipe lines must report their -operations and condition monthly to the State. But the publisher of the -petroleum trade reports, and organizer of a bureau of information about -petroleum, with offices in Oil City, London, and New York, issuing -daily reports, testified that the American Transfer Company was not -known in the oil regions at all as a pipe line. It published none of -the statements required by law. "They do not," he said, "make any runs -from the oil-wells." It had once been a pipe line, but "years ago it -was merged in with other lines," and consolidated into the United Pipe -Line, owned and operated by the combination.[166] - -When this arrangement was exposed to public view by the New York -legislative investigation, the "expert" who appeared to explain it away -in behalf of the railroads and their beneficiaries, paraded a false map -of the pipe-line system, drawn and colored to make it seem that the -American Transfer Company was a very important pipe-line.[167] This was -the same "expert" who, as we saw, defended the pipe-line holocaust of -1874 by asserting that "all were to be taken in alike." - -There are three kinds of liars, an eminent judge of New York is fond of -saying--liars, damned liars, and experts. - -When the assistant secretary of the oil combination was asked about -this "transfer" company, he replied, "I don't know anything about -the organization."[168] He had described himself to the committee as -"a clamorer for dividends"; but he declared he knew nothing about an -organization which was "transferring" him dividends at the rate of -$3,093,750 a year on $100,000 of capital. Almost at the very moment -of this denial, receipts were being produced in court in Pennsylvania -which had been given by the cashier of himself and his associates to -the railroads for this money.[169] - -Even if the independents succeeded in saving their oil from wasting on -the ground, and got it into pipe lines, and had it refined, and were -lucky enough to be given cars to carry it to the seaboard, they found -that in leaving the oil regions they had not left behind the "no." Up -to the very edge of the sea were the nets spread for them. - -Part of the bargain of 1872 had been that the brothers of the South -Improvement Company should provide the terminal facilities at the -seaboard.[170] Railroad companies are usually supposed to have their -own yards, storehouses, wharves, and the like, and, as a matter of -fact, the railroads had these. The agreement of 1872 that the South -Improvement Company should furnish the terminal facilities meant--it -was discovered by the New York Legislature in 1879--that such terminals -as the road already had should be turned over to that concern, and that -thereafter nobody should be allowed to build or use terminals except as -it permitted. - -The New York Legislature found, in 1879, that the oil combination -thus owned and controlled the oil terminal facilities of the four -trunk-lines at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. - -"They can use the power here given, and have used it to crush out -opposition."[171] - -"Of course, there is in the Erie contract a statement that every -shipper of oil over the road shall be treated with 'fairness' by the -Standard Oil Company, and our attention was drawn to that," the counsel -of the Chamber of Commerce said.... "In the first place, they have the -exclusive shipment of oil, and therefore nobody could ship oil, and -there was no oil handled for anybody else; but if the Erie Company -should send some for somebody else, why, the sloop could not get to the -dock, and the machinery at the dock would not and could not work by -any possibility so as to get that oil out of that dock and into a ship -(except at the end of a lawsuit)."[172] - -Evidently the "cancellation" of 1872 had not cancelled anything of -substance. Indeed, the "no" of 1878 was wider than the embargo of 1872, -for the fourth great trunk-line, the Baltimore and Ohio, was not one of -the signatories then; but by 1878 it had, like all the others, closed -its port to the people--farming it out as the old régime farmed out the -right to tax provinces. - -He used to meet the president of the oil combination "frequently in the -Erie office," a friend and subordinate has recalled.[173] Railroad -offices are pleasant places to visit when such plums are to be gathered -there as this of the sole right to the freedom of all ports and control -of the commerce of three continents. - -Down to this writing, when the little group of independents who remain -masters of their own refineries along Oil Creek seek to send their oil -in bulk abroad, or to transship it at any one of the principal ports -for other points on the coast, the same power still says the same "no" -as twenty years ago.[174] - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -WHO PIPED AND WHO DANCED - - -Thus, by 1878, the independent producers and refiners found themselves -caught in a battue like rabbits driven in for the sport of a Prince of -Wales. - -If the richest person then in America--that artificial but very real -person the Pennsylvania Railroad--could not keep its pipe lines, nobody -could. The war for the union, which ended with its surrender in 1877, -closed the pipe-line industry to the people. The unanimous "no" of all -the railroads which followed completed the corral. - -Oil, when it got to market, found that those who had become the owners -of the pipe lines were also the owners of most of the refineries, and -so the only large buyers.[175] "Practically to-day there is but one -buyer of crude oil for us.... We take our commodity to one buyer; we -take the price he chooses to give us without redress, with no right of -appeal."[176] - -Then the sole carrier--the pipe-line company--refused to take the oil -into its pipes--the oil as it came out of the wells--unless first sold -to its other self, the oil combination. This was called "immediate -shipment." Forced to waste or sell his oil, the producer, under this -compulsion, had to take what he could get.[177] The Hon. Lewis Emery, -Jr., a member of the State Senate of Pennsylvania, gave the authorities -of the State an account of the "immediate shipment" evolution of -American market liberty. "We go down," he said, "to the office and -stand in a line, sometimes half a day--people in a line reaching out -into the street--sixty and seventy of us. When our turn comes we go in -and ask them to buy, and they graciously will take it. I am an owner in -six different companies, and we all suffer the same." - -To educate the producer to sell "always below the market," the Pipe -Line let his oil spill itself on the ground for a few days. "We lost a -considerable amount of oil, probably several thousand barrels," another -producer said. - -"Will you state at what price as compared with the market price, -whether above or below, you sold that oil?" - -"It was always below." - -Asked why he sold it below the market, he said: - -"Because the line would not run it until it was sold."[178] - -The hills of Pennsylvania began to growl and redden as in 1872. - -The Secretary of Internal Affairs was hung in effigy. Mass meetings -were held--some tumultuous, others quiet; processions of masked men -marched the streets, and groaned and hooted in front of the newspaper -offices and the business places of the combination. In the morning the -streets and sidewalks were frequently found placarded with cabalistic -signs and letters, and occasionally printed proclamations and warnings. -Most of the lending newspapers of the region had been either absolutely -purchased by the oil combination or paid to keep silence. Others -occasionally broke forth in violent articles advising the use of -force.[179] - -In the McKean County field the people rose in rebellion. They got up a -Phantom Party, in its provocation and spirit much like a phantom party -which, contrary to law and order, boarded some ships in Boston harbor a -century before. One thousand men, wrapped in white sheets, marched by -night from Tarport to Bradford, the headquarters in that province of -the sole buyer. Not a word was spoken. - -It was not enough to make the people sell under compulsion. A day -came when the only buyer would not buy and the only piper would not -pipe. This brought the Parker district to the verge of civil war. The -citizens were in a state of terrible excitement; the pipe lines would -not run oil unless it was sold; the only buyers--viz., the agents of -the oil combination--would not buy oil, stating that they could not get -cars; hundreds of wells were stopped to their great injury. Thousands -more, whose owners were afraid to stop them for fear of damage by salt -water, were pumping the oil on the ground. The leaders used all the -influence they had to prevent an outbreak and destruction of railroad -and pipe lines. The most important of them went over to the Allegheny -Valley Railroad office and telegraphed to the president: "The refusal -to run oil unless sold upon immediate shipment and of the railroad to -furnish cars has created such a degree of excitement here that the -most conservative part of the citizens will not be able to control the -peace, and I fear that the scenes of last July will be repeated on an -aggravated scale."[180] - -Three of the highest officials of the road sought an immediate -interview with this leader of the producers. He warned them, and the -Pennsylvania road which controlled their oil business, that unless -immediate relief were furnished there would be an outbreak in the -oil regions, because, as he told them, "The idea of a scarcity of -cars on daily shipments of less than 30,000 barrels a day was such an -absurd, barefaced pretence, that he could not expect men of ordinary -intelligence to accept any excuses for the absence of cars, as the -preceding fall, when business required, the railroads could carry day -after day from 50,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil."[181] The warning was -heeded. Thousands of empty cars, which the combination and its railroad -allies had said couldn't be had anywhere, suddenly appeared hastening -to Parker, blocking up the tracks in all directions, deranging the -passenger business of the road. "They looked like mosquitoes coming -out of a swamp." The sole buyer began buying again, and for the whole -week, after having declared themselves unable to buy or move any, the -railroads moved 50,000 barrels a day.[182] Producers under such rule -saw their prices decrease and their land pass out of their possession, -as was inevitable. - -Ten years later in the Ohio oil-field all the substantial features -of the plan we saw culminate at Parker are to be found in full play. -There, also, the oil combination, Congress was told, is the only -purchaser, and it fixes the price to suit itself. The production of -the Ohio fields was between 18,000 and 20,000 barrels a day, but it -could easily produce between 30,000 and 32,000. Because the only buyer -refused to take care of the oil, wells have been shut back. Wells, -which if opened up would run 1000 or 2000 or even more, were shut in -four days out of the week.[183] - -This culmination of 1878 made the people act. The producers were being -ground to powder by the fact that an enemy had possession of their -local pipes, their tankage, and their railways. "I am the unfortunate -owner," said one of them, "of interests in nearly one hundred pumping -wells. I have produced over half a million barrels of oil."[184] Oil -was running out of the ground at the rate of 15,000,000 barrels a year, -but the New York refiners who were in command of plenty of capital, -said: - -"We don't dare build large refineries, for we don't know where we could -get the oil."[185] - -At last the people organized the Tidewater Pipe Line. This was the -first successful attempt to realize the idea often broached of a pipe -line to the seaboard. It was the last hope of the "outsiders"--the -"independents." "Nothing short of the ingenuity that is born of -necessity and desperation" produced that pipe line. It was well -contrived and well manned, and had plenty of money. It was organized in -1878, with a capital of $1,000,000, which increased in a few years to -$5,000,000. It built a pipe from the oil regions to Williamsport--105 -miles--on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, whence the oil -was carried in cars by that company and over the Jersey Central to -Philadelphia and New York. - -Unlimited capital and strategy did all that could be done against the -Tidewater. At one place, to head it off, a strip of land barring its -progress was bought entirely across a valley. It escaped by climbing -the hills. At another point it had to cross under a railroad. The -railroad officers forbade. Riding around, almost in despair, its -engineer saw a culvert where there was no watercourse. It was for a -right of passage which a farmer, whose land was cut in two by the -railroad, had reserved in perpetuity for driving his cattle in safety -to pasture. It did not take long to make a bargain with the farmer for -permission to lay the pipe there. - -The pipe line was finished and ready to move oil about the 1st of June, -1879. On June 5th a meeting was held at Saratoga of representatives -of the four trunk-line railroads and of members of the oil trust. The -meeting decided that the new competitor should be fought to the death. -The rate on oil, which had been $1.15 a barrel, was reduced to 80, -then to 30, to 20, to 15 cents by the railroads, to make the business -unprofitable enough to ruin this first attempt to pipe oil to the -seaboard. Finally the roads carried a barrel, weighing 390 pounds, 400 -miles for the combination for 10 cents or less.[186] The representative -of the Tidewater offered to prove to Congress, in 1880, if it would -order an investigation--which it would not--that "the announced and -ostensible object of the conference at Saratoga was to destroy the -credit of the Tidewater, and to enable the oil combination to buy up -the new pipe line, and that a time was fixed by the combination within -which it promised to secure the control of the pipe line--provided -the trunk-lines would make the rates for carrying oil so low that all -concerned in transportation would lose money.[187] There can be no -doubt," he continued, "that, taking the avowed and ostensible object of -the Saratoga meeting as the true one, it constituted, on the part of -the willing participants, a criminal conspiracy of the most dangerous -character." - -One of the chief officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad testified to -the competition which his road had carried on with the Tidewater. -"It certainly was fought," he said; "the rates were considerably -reduced."[188] Rates were put down to points so low that the railroad -men would never tell what they were. I have no knowledge--I have no -recollection--was all the president and general freight agent of the -Pennsylvania Railroad could be got to say, when before the Interstate -Commerce Commission.[189] "Not enough to pay for the wheel grease," -said the general freight agent.[190] The oil trust also cut the prices -of pipeage by its local lines from 20 cents to 5 cents a barrel, -turning cheapness into the enemy of cheapness. - -But the Tidewater was strong enough to withstand even so formidable -an assault as this. As its business was small, its losses were small; -but the railroads, making this war on it for the benefit of others, -suffered heavily. The trunk-lines, it has been calculated, wilfully -threw away profits equal to $10,000,000 a year for the sake of -inflicting a loss of $100,000 on the pipe lines.[191] Enough revenue -was lost to pay dividends of 2-1/2 to 5 per cent. on the total capital -of the roads. - -One effect that followed this reduction in rates was a corresponding -decline in the price of oil at New York, in which the cost of freight -is a constant element. The Committee of the New York Legislature found -in the testimony it heard reason to believe that the members of the oil -trust took advantage of their advance knowledge to sell at high prices, -to those who did not know, all they would buy for future delivery. - -The "Hepburn" report of the New York Legislature of 1879 gives special -prominence to the computations that $1,500,000 were the profits of this -speculative deal.[192] - -The customers of the Tidewater, the independent refiners in -Philadelphia, were charged by the Pennsylvania Railroad on oil -that came through the Tidewater 15 cents a barrel for one mile of -hauling. The utmost the law allowed them was half a cent a mile, and -they were carrying oil 500 miles to New York for the same charge of -15 cents a barrel, and less. Under such pressure these independent -refineries, which the Tidewater had been built to supply, sold out -one after another. The Tidewater was then in the position of a great -transporting company, that had spent a large amount of money to -bring a great product to its Philadelphia terminus, and found that -refining establishments which had been begging it to give them oil had -become the cohorts of its opponent. To meet this the Tidewater built -refineries of its own at Chester, and at Bayonne, New Jersey, on New -York waters. - -When asked for a rate to another point, the Pennsylvania gave one that -was three and four times as much as they would charge the oil trust, -but added, "we cannot make a rate on the empty cars returning." That -is, as it was interpreted, "we will carry the oil, but we will not -permit the empty cars to come over the roads to get the oil. They must -be taken on a wheelbarrow, or by canal, or by balloon."[193] The war -went on. Attempts were made to seduce the officials of the Tidewater. -A stockholder, who had been too poor to pay for his stock, received a -large sum from the oil combination and began a vexatious suit for a -receivership.[194] A minority forced their way into the offices of the -company, and took violent possession of it by a "farcical, fraudulent, -and void" election, as the court decided in annulling it. Its financial -credit was attacked in the money market and by injunctions against its -bonds. - -Affidavits were offered from members of the oil combination denying -that they had had anything to do with these proceedings. In reference -to these affidavits, the representative of the Tidewater reminded the -court that that combination was a multifarious body. "One-half of -them," he said, "do a thing, and the other half swear they know nothing -about it. In pursuance of this Machiavelian policy, they have eight or -ten gentlemen to conduct negotiations, and eight or ten to say they do -not know anything about them." - -Then, with no visible cause, the capacity of the pipe fell below the -demands upon it. This insufficient capacity was pleaded in court as -one of the reasons why the pipe should be taken out of the hands of -its owners. One day the cause was discovered--a plug of wood. Some -mysterious hand had been set to drive a square block of wood into the -pipe so as to cut down its capacity to one-third. The representative -of the Tidewater declared in court his belief that this plug had been -placed by "people on the other side who have made affidavits in this -case." A similar deed, but much worse, as it might have cost many -lives, was done during the contest with Toledo, nine years later.[195] - -The Tidewater was successful, but not successful enough. It owned 400 -miles of pipe, including the 105 miles of the trunk-line, and had -control of nearly 3,000,000 barrels of tankage. It did a great work -for the people. "It was," the Philadelphia _Press_ said, in 1883, -"the child of war. It has been a barrier between the producers and -the monopoly which would crush them if it dared." While these words -of exultation were being penned, a surrender was under negotiation. -The Tidewater's managers were nearly worn out. These tactics of -corrupting their officers, slandering their credit, buying up their -customers, stealing their elections, garroting them with lawsuits -founded on falsehoods, shutting them off the railroads, and plugging -up their pipe in the dark, were too much. They entered into a pool. -The two companies in the summer of 1883 "recognized" each other, as -the trunk lines do, and agreed to divide the business in proportions, -which would net the Tidewater $500,000 a year. The announcement that -this pool had been forced on the Tidewater fell like a death-blow -on the people of the oil regions. "The Tidewater," the Philadelphia -_Press_ said, editorially, "will probably retain a nominal identity -as a corporation, but its usefulness to the public and its claim to -popular confidence and encouragement were extinguished the instant it -consented to enter into alliance with the unscrupulous monopoly which -resorts to that means of conciliating and bribing what it had failed -to destroy." As was anticipated by the _Press_, the Tidewater retained -its nominal identity, but that was all. Its surrender was admitted by -its principal organizer, Mr. Franklin B. Gowen. The officials of the -Pennsylvania Railroad have testified to it. "They made an arrangement -of some kind, the conditions of which I never knew; one swallowed the -other or both swallowed the other, or something, and settled up their -difficulties,"[196] said the general freight agent. The president said: -"The competition between these pipe lines ceased."[197] - -The attorney of the Tidewater was asked if there were any negotiations -which resulted in a compromise of the differences with the oil -combination. - -"If by differences," he replied, "you mean competition in trade, I -answer the question, yes. That resulted in a written contract.... The -purpose of the contract was to settle the rivalry in business between -the two companies, each company to take a percentage of transportation -and gathering, and each to do with the oil as it saw fit."[198] - -The treasurer of the Tidewater, who had been in its service since 1880, -corroborated its attorney. A contract had been made between the two; -the date of it was October 9, 1883. Copies of the contracts are in the -author's possession. - -The Interstate Commerce Commission in 1892 judicially found the same -fact. It says: "About December, 1883, the pipe lines, with the view of -getting better rates, adjusted their differences, and the competition -between them ceased. The pipe-line business appears then to have passed -into the control of the National Transit Company."[199] All but 6 -per cent. of the National Transit Company is owned by the oil trust. -It formed practically one-third the imposing bulk of the $70,000,000 -of the trust of 1882.[200] If anything can be made certain by human -testimony this evidence proves that these pipe lines stopped competing -in 1883. The witnesses are the men who negotiated the contract, -and upon whose approval it depended. But when the president of the -trust was asked under oath, in 1888, if there were any pipe lines to -tide-water competing with it, he named, as "a competing company," "the -Tidewater Pipe Line." - -"The Tidewater Company? Does that compete with your company?" - -"It does." - -"It is in opposition to it?" - -"It is in opposition to it."[201] - -In the same spirit he denied, in 1883, that he had anything to do with -the company which had represented the oil trust in this "swallowing or -something" of the Tidewater. This, the National Transit Company, was -the most important member of the trust. Under its cover, by means like -those described, from New York to West Virginia and Ohio, almost all -the pipes for gathering and distributing oil have been brought into one -ownership. Millions yearly of the earnings of this company were pooled -with all the others in the trust, and the president was receiving -his share of them four times a year. He was the sole attorney[202] -authorized to sign contracts for the trustees, who thus held all the -combined companies in a common control. These trustees, of whom he was -the chief, not only controlled but owned as their personal property -more than half the stock of every company represented. But these facts -were not then known to the public. It was not intended that they should -be known, as the struggle to conceal them from the New York Legislature -five years later--in 1888--showed. - -"Have you any connection with the National Transit Company?" he was -asked, after taking the oath. - -"I have not."[203] - -When the Tidewater passed under this alien control, Mr. Franklin B. -Gowen severed all his connection with it. He did not hold himself -for sale to any man who had money to pay fees. He stood at a height -where the profession of law was immeasurably above prostitution in the -temples of justice--the odious aspect in which the sacrifice of purity -in the ancient temples of Aphrodite is reproduced in our courts. It -would have been impossible for him to combine the functions of a great -law reformer and procurer of judicial virtue for railroad corporation -wreckers. He never forgot what some successful lawyers seem never to -remember--that the lawyer is, as much as the judge, an officer of the -court and of justice. While he lived he was proud to be recognized -as the chief defender in the courts of the rights of those whom it -was sought to crush in this industry, although he thus allied himself -with the poor and heavy laden. He could have used his anti-monopoly -eloquence as an advertisement of his value to monopoly; but he would -not sell his soul to fill his stomach. His heart revolted against the -wicked cruelty with which he saw the strong misuse the weak, and his -penetrating vision saw clearly the ruin to which overgrown power and -conscienceless greed were hurrying the liberties of his country. In his -speech before the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1883, advocating a law to -prevent the use of railway power by railway officials to redistribute -the property of the people among their favorites, he said, speaking of -what had been done in the oil regions of Pennsylvania: "If such a state -of facts as I now call your attention to had been permitted by any -government in Europe or Asia for a six months, instead of the sixteen -years it has existed in this Commonwealth, the crown and sceptre of -its ruler would have been ground into the dust, and yet the good, -honest, patient, long-suffering people have submitted to it in this -Commonwealth until the time has come that if we hold our peace the very -stones will cry out. - -"I for one intend to submit to it no longer. You may say it is unwise -for me to attack this wrong, but I have attacked it before and I will -attack it again. If I could only throw off the other burdens that rest -upon my shoulders, I would feel it to be my duty to preach resistance -to this great wrong, as Peter the Hermit preached the crusade. I would -go through this State from Lake Erie to the Delaware; I would go into -every part of this Commonwealth and endeavor, by the plain recital -of the facts, to raise up such a feeling and such a power as would -make itself heard and felt, and by the fair, open, honest, and proper -enforcement of the law, right the wrong, and teach the guilty authors -of this infamous tyranny - - "'That truth remembered long: - When once their slumbering passions waked, - The peaceful are the strong.'" - -Mr. Gowen bravely fulfilled his pledge not to submit. His principal -occupation became the championship in the courts and the Interstate -Commerce Commission of those who were oppressed by this crushing -power. His incorruptible lance was always in place, until the morning -he was found dead in his room in Washington. - -The oil combination had, up to this time, sent all its oil east by -rail as it had no pipe line, and its faithful fools, the railroads, -therefore burned their fingers with joy to roast the Tidewater for so -good a customer. But while the railroad officials were wasting their -employers' property to destroy the combination's new competitor, its -astute managers, seeing how good a thing pipe lines were, quietly -built a system of their own to the seaboard. The railroads had helped -them get hold of the pipe lines--had in repeated cases, as the Erie, -the Atlantic and Great Western, the Pennsylvania, the Cleveland and -Marietta did, allowed them to lay their pipes on the lands of the -railroads--and were now to see the pipe lines used to replace the -railroads in the transportation of oil. These oil men saw what the -railroad men had not the wit to see--or else lacked the virtue to live -up to--that the pipe line is an oil railway. It requires no cars and -no locomotives; it moves oil without risk of fire or loss; it is very -much cheaper than the ordinary railway, for this freight moves itself -after being lifted up by pumps. The pipe line was the sure competitor -of the railway, fated to be either its servant or master, as the -railroad chose to use it or lose it. The railways sentimentally helped -the trust to gather these rival transportation lines into its hands; -then the trust, with the real genius of conquest, threw the railroads -to one side. A system of trunk-line pipes was at once pushed vigorously -to completion in all directions. While the members of the oil trust -were building these pipe lines to take away the oil business of the -railroads, the officials of the latter were giving them by rebates the -money to do it with. At the expense of their own employers, the owners -of the railroads, these freight agents and general managers presented -to the monopoly, out of the freight earnings of the oil business, the -money with which to build the pipe lines that would destroy that branch -of the business of the roads. - -It was the Tidewater that proved the feasibility of trunk pipe lines. -The trunk pipe lines the combination has built were in imitation. -Extraordinary pains have been taken to sophisticate public opinion -with regard to all these matters--for the ignorance of the public is -the real capital of monopoly--and with great success. The history we -have transcribed from the public records is refined by one of the -combination into the following illuminant: - -"About 1879 or 1880 it was discovered that railways were inadequate to -the task of getting oil to the seaboard as rapidly as needed. Combined -capital and energy were equal to the emergency. No need to detail how -it was done. To-day there reaches,"[204] etc., etc. It must have been -on some such authority that this, from one of our leading religious -journals, was founded: "Only by such union"--of the refiners--"could -pipe lines have been laid from the oil wells to the tide-water, -reducing to the smallest amount the cost of transportation."[205] An -account of the pipe-line system in the New York _Sun_, of December 14, -1887, describing the operations of the great pumps that force the oil -through the pipes, says: "Every time the piston of the engine passes -forward and back a barrel of oil is sent seaward. A barrel of oil is -forced on its way every seven seconds of every hour of the twenty-four. -Every pulsation of the gigantic pumps that are throbbing ceaselessly -day and night is known and numbered at headquarters in New York at the -close of each day's business." This heart of a machine, beating at the -headquarters in New York, and numbering its beats day and night, stands -for thousands of hearts whose throbs of hope have been transmuted into -this metallic substitute. This heart counts out a gold dollar for every -drop of blood that used to run through the living breasts of the men -who divined, projected, accomplished, and lost. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -CHEAPENING TRANSPORTATION - - -Through all the tangle of this piping and dancing one thread runs -clear. The oil combination had up to this time been dependent on the -railroads for transportation, but it emerged out of the fracas the -principal transporter of oil, made so by the railroads. It now had two -trunk pipe lines to the sea-coast--the one it had conquered and the one -it had built--and the railroads had made it a present of both of them. - -The Tidewater--the first seaboard pipe line--had been built only -because the Pennsylvania and other trunk lines had said "no" to every -entreaty and demand of the oil regions for a road to the sea. That line -the railroads had conquered for the combination, as they conquered for -it the pipe lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1877. The second -seaboard pipe line was built by the combination with the railroads' -money to take away the railroads' business, and best--or worst--of all, -while the railroads were hard at work driving the Tidewater into its -net. Such is the business genius of our "railroad kings." - -This campaign closed, the duty of the hour for the oil ring was to get -rates advanced by rail as well as pipe. - -"Then they"--the pipe lines--"were anxious to get good paying -rates,"[206] so that they could make a good thing out of the business -of their own pipe and of the Tidewater which they had guaranteed -$500,000 a year. The advent of the independent Tidewater had brought -rates down. The restoration of exclusive control by its capture put -rates up. But it was not enough for the oil combination to advance -their own rates. It must induce the railroads to do the same. The -railroads had furnished the means for the acquisition of both pipes, -and they must now be got to drive business away from themselves to -these competing oil railways. This would seem to be a delicate matter -to achieve, but there was no trouble about it. - -"It is our pleasure to try to make oil cheap,"[207] the president of -the oil trust told Congress, but it did not use its new facilities -to take in hand at reduced cost the carriage of all oil, and give -the industry the economic advantage of the pipe-line idea. Quite the -contrary. It united with the railroads to increase the cost. Under this -new blow the independent refiners and producers whom the Tidewater -had been built to keep afloat grounded again. Then the railroads--the -Pennsylvania especially--repented of what they had done to these their -oldest customers, and sent ambassadors to them to renew the broken -promises of 1872, that if they would rebuild they should forever -have equal rates and fair treatment. One of the highest officials of -the Pennsylvania was sent to them to say: We recognize our error in -permitting your refineries to be abandoned and the traffic destroyed. -We wish to build up and maintain independent refining in the oil -regions. We will give you every encouragement. We will insure you equal -rates, on which you can ship and live.[208] - -These invitations and guarantees were repeated and pressed. They were -renewed by the officials of the Erie also: "You need have no hesitation -in building up your business," said the officials of the Erie; "You -shall have living rates."[209] - -The independents listened and believed. They rebuilt their works and -prospered.[210] This meant the return of cheapness--cheapness of -transportation over the railroads, to enable the refiners they had -invited back to life to compete in the market--cheapness of light. -Thereupon, incredible as it seems, the Pennsylvania and the other -railroads were influenced to declare war again upon the men who had -reinvested their money and their life energy in response to these -solicitations. This new war began with a secret contract, in 1885, for -an advance in rates against the independent refiners, who, in trustful -reliance on the pledged faith of the railroads, had developed their -capacity to 2,000,000 barrels a year.[211] - -This campaign has lasted from 1885 until the present writing, 1894. In -it the pipe lines, the oil combination, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and -all the other great carriers between the independents and their markets -in New England, Europe, and Asia, have been mobilized into a fighting -corps for the annihilation of the independents. This case illustrates -nearly every phase of the story of our great monopoly: dearness instead -of cheapness; willingness of the managers of transportation to deny -transportation to whole trades and sections; administration of great -properties like the Pennsylvania Railroad in direct opposition to -the interests of the owners--to their great loss--for the benefit -of favorites of the officials; great wealth thereby procured by -destruction, as if by physical force, of wealth of others, not at -all by creation of new wealth to be added to the general store; -impossibility of survival in modern business of men who are merely -honest, hard-working, competent, even though they have skill, capital, -and customers; subjection of the majority of citizens and dollars to -a small minority in numbers and riches; subservience of rulers of the -people to a faction; last and most disheartening, the impotence of the -special tribunal created to enforce the rights of the people on their -highways. - -This secret contract of 1885 was thus described by the counsel of the -refiners before the Interstate Commerce Commission: "It is a contract," -he said, "so vicious and illegal that the Pennsylvania Railroad -refuses to bring it into court for fear a disclosure of its terms might -subject it to a criminal prosecution." - -The courts have never been allowed to see it, but its provisions are -known. Some of them were admitted before the Interstate Commerce -Commission to be what was charged, and others were described on the -trial by the counsel of the independents from personal knowledge. By -this contract the railroad and the oil combination bound themselves to -advance rates, and to keep them the same by pipe and rail. In return -for this pledge by the railroad not to compete it was guaranteed -one-quarter--26 per cent.--of the oil business to the seaboard. The -Pennsylvania Railroad made no attempt to deny that it had made this -contract. It admitted that it had an arrangement "substantially the -same as stated."[212] - -The combination was the largest shipper of oil, and yet it wanted -freight rates advanced. It had pipe lines which could easily take to -the seaboard all the oil that went thither, and yet it gave up a large -part of the business to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania -Railroad knew that the pipe line was a competitor for the carriage of -oil, and yet allowed it to dictate an arrangement by which the railroad -got only one-quarter of the business, and signed away its rights to win -a larger share if it could. - -The railroad had persuaded the independent refiners to settle along its -line by solemnly promising them fair and living rates, and yet now put -its corporate seal to an agreement to make those rates whatever their -enemy wanted them to be. Such was its honor. As for its shrewdness, -that had at last brought it to this humiliation in a business where -it had once been chief, of confining itself to this insignificant -quarter of a restricted traffic instead of a competitive share of a -traffic enlarged by freedom to the widest correspondence to the wants -of the people. The mastery of the railroad men by the oil people was -thorough. The latter did not agree to give the railroad one-quarter -of their business. Not at all. All the traffic that came of itself to -the railroad, or which its freight solicitors drummed up, must be put -to the credit of the guarantee. All that was promised the railroad was -that its total should amount to one-quarter of the whole traffic. All -the rest the oil combination kept for itself. - -The contract went at once into vigorous operation. Freight rates to -the seaboard, which had been 34 cents, and, as was proved before the -Interstate Commerce Commission, were profitable, were advanced to 52 -cents a barrel--an increase of one-half. The railroad and the pipe line -made the raise in concert, as had been agreed, and when the rates were -changed again it was to still higher figures. Why should the clique, -which had its principal refineries at the seaboard--to which it had -to transport large quantities of oil--scheme in this way to raise the -rates of transportation? Because it paid this excessive rate on only a -small part of its own shipments, and compelled its rivals to pay it on -all of theirs. The independents had no pipe line of their own, but the -combination sent its own oil east by its own pipe line, excepting only -the quantity it needed to add to the shipments over the Pennsylvania to -make good its guarantee to that railroad of one-quarter of the traffic. - -The cost of the pipe-line service to its owners is very small. When the -manager of the pipe lines was before the Interstate Commerce Commission -the lawyers of the railroads, as zealous for the oil combination, -though it was not a party in the case, as for their own clients, fought -through eleven pages of argument against having him compelled to tell -the cost of pumping oil through the pipe to the seaboard; and when -the Commission finally said, "Go on," all the general manager of the -pipe lines had to say was, "I do not believe that it is possible to -know."[213] - -Finally, he was cornered into an estimate that the cost of pumping was -6 or 7 cents a barrel. His questioner, who had been the organizer and -manager of a great pipe line--the Tidewater--knew that oil had been -pumped through for 4 cents a barrel, but he could not get his witness, -who, no doubt, had done it still cheaper, to admit anything of the kind. - -The net effect of this pool with the railroad was that the oil -combination succeeded in making its rivals pay 64 cents a barrel to -reach the East and the seaboard, while it paid only 16[214]--except on -the traffic guaranteed the Pennsylvania Railroad--a difference against -competition of 48 cents a barrel, a difference not for cheapness. "It -only costs the pipe line 7 cents," the independents explained to the -Interstate Commerce Commission, "and the published rate is 52. They are -willing to pay 52 or even 70 cents on some of their product if they can -make the other people pay 52 upon the whole of theirs." - -So much of the contract as we have referred to was admitted. Why was -it, then, the counsel for the railroad fought against showing it, even -to the point of pleading that it might incriminate his client?[215] -It was asserted, as of his personal knowledge, by the counsel of the -independents that this was because another part of the bargain gave the -proof that the rates which had been made under the agreement to put -them up and keep them up were extortionate; that by a bargain within -the bargain the oil combination carried oil for the railroad for the -280 miles for which they ran practically side by side, and for this -charged it only 8 cents a barrel. The public, shipping either by the -railroad or by the pipe line, had to pay 52 cents a barrel for 500 -miles; but by this arrangement between themselves the two carriers -would do business at 8 cents a barrel for 280 miles, at which rate the -charge to the public to the seaboard should have been not quite 15 -cents instead of 52 cents. - -The statement was also made that the oil combination, instead of -giving the railroads the business it has guaranteed them, makes its -obligation good by turning over to them periodically a check for the -profits they would have had on hauling that amount of traffic. As the -guarantee was made as a consideration for the maintenance of high -freight rates, such a payment by it would amount, in cold fact, to -paying those in charge of the highways a large bribe to deny the use of -them to the people. - -This declaration of the provisions of the bargain was made by the -counsel for the refiners seeking relief from the Interstate Commerce -Commission. In his argument demanding the production of the document -he said: "I have had it in my hand and read every word of it, and know -exactly what it contains."[216] - -The sharpest legal struggle of the case was made on the demand that -this paper be produced. The Commission decided that it was "wholly -immaterial," although the chairman had previously said: "It seems to us -that we cannot exclude this evidence." It was a document establishing -interstate rates, and these are required by law to be published, and -the Commission had always before this been liberal in compelling the -production of papers which related to the making of rates.[217] The -Commission had shortly before been threatened in this case by the -counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad with extinction if it insisted -upon evidence of the cost of piping oil which the oil combination -refused to give. - -"It is possible that the powers of this Commission may be tested,"[218] -bullied the counsel of the railroad. The members of the Commission -laughed ostentatiously, but, for whatever reason, they gave the -powerful corporations on trial no cause thereafter to "test their -powers," which have slept while justice tarried, and the victims of -this "contract" were kept under its harrow for three long years more, -where they still lie. - -The tax levied upon the consumers of oil by this agreement for high -freights amounts to millions a year. This agreement is at this writing -still in force. There is reason to believe that similar arrangements -exist with the other trunk-lines. The result is the surprising fact -that "oil rates are very much higher than they were twelve years ago, -and when there was no pipe-line competition!"[219] This is true also -in the field of local pipeage--the transportation of the oil from the -wells to refineries and railroads. Under the caption of "cheapening -transportation" the counsel of the oil trust said, before the New York -Legislature in 1888: "In 1872 the pipe-line system was in its infancy. -A number of local lines existed. Their service was inefficient and -expensive. There was no uniform rate. The united refiners undertook to -unite and systemize this business. They purchased and consolidated the -various little companies into what was long known as the United Pipe -Line System. The first effect of this combination was a reduction of -price of all local transportation to a uniform rate of at first 30, and -soon after 20 cents per barrel."[220] - -"The united refiners" and "to unite and systemize" are smooth phrases, -full of the unction of good-fellowship and political economy. When -the "united refiners" took possession of the pipe lines which had -been forced into bankruptcy or "co-operation," they did not reduce -rates--they advanced them. "The uniform rate of 20 cents," for -instance, is an advance of 300 per cent. on the rate of 5 cents made -by the trust's pipe-line system during the war with the Tidewater, -and over the similar rates made during the earlier pipe-line -competition.[221] The nominal rate, Congress learned from one of the -oil-country men, was 30 cents for that service, but by competition the -actual rate was down to 5 or 10 cents. "They consolidated and placed it -at 20 cents, and it has remained at 20 cents, I think, since the year -1876.... The whole process of transportation has been cheapened. Pipe -that cost 45 cents a foot has in that time been got for 10 cents. The -quality of the pipe was improved, so that there is not the leakage or -the wastage. There are all those improvements and inventions that have -cheapened it. We pay the same now as we did fifteen years ago. We have -reduced the cost of our wells at least 50 per cent. They have reduced -nothing."[222] From other sources, once in a while, facts have come to -light showing how much less than cheap the local charge of 20 cents -a barrel is. For instance, it was shown before Congress that a line -which, with its feeders, had fifty miles of pipe, and cost $70,000, -made a clear profit in its first six months of $40,000, charging -sometimes less than this rate of 20 cents a barrel.[223] - -It is impossible to compute how much the defeat of legislation to -regulate charges, or to allow the construction of competing lines, has -cost the people. The Burdick Bill alone, to regulate prices of pipeage -and storage in Pennsylvania, it was calculated by conservative men, -would have saved at least $4,000,000 a year. The killing of it was in -the interest of keeping up the high prices of the pipe lines, which -finally rest in the price of oil. - -When the combination got possession of the pipe line to Buffalo, which -others had built in spite of every obstacle it could interpose, it -raised the rates of pipeage to 25 cents a barrel from 10 cents,[224] -and as happened in Pennsylvania in 1885, the railroads to Buffalo in -1882 raised their rates simultaneously with the pipe line. Pittsburg -had the same experience. When its independent pipe line was "united -and systemized" by being torn up and converted into "old iron," as the -Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad had told its projectors -it would be, the rates of transportation for oil went up.[225] The -same thing happened at Cleveland. At the rate at which the Lake Shore -road carries oil from Cleveland to Chicago--357 miles for 38 cents a -barrel--it should charge less than 15 cents for the 140 miles between -Oil City and Cleveland; but as late as 1888 it charged 25 cents. -Why? The effect of the railroad charge is that little oil comes by -rail to Cleveland from the oil regions; it goes by the pipe line of -those whom the Lake Shore has been "protecting" ever since the South -Improvement contract of 1872. There have been 3,000,000 barrels of -this business yearly. The railroad officials exercise their powers to -drive traffic from the railroad to a competing line. Why? We can see -why the combination, which, by the possession of this pipe line, is a -competitor of the Lake Shore, should desire such an arrangement; but -it exists by the act of the Lake Shore Railroad. Why? The theories of -self-interest would lead one to expect that the stockholders of the -road would find out why.[226] - -The pipe lines are the largest single item in the property of the oil -combination. Here its control has been the most complete; and here the -reduction of price has been least. This is a telltale fact, soon told -and soon understood. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -SONG OF THE BARREL - - -Genius could take so unspeakable a thing as a shirt and sing it -into an immortal song, but a barrel--and an oil-barrel, greasy and -ill-smelling--even genius could do nothing with that. But the barrel -plays a leading rôle in the drama of the great monopoly. Out of it -have flown shapes of evil that have infected private fortunes, the -prosperity of more than one industry, the fiduciary honor of great -men, the faithfulness of the Government to its citizens. Perhaps -a part of what genius could do for the shirt--force a hearing for -the wronged--may be done for this homely vessel of the struggling -independent by the kindly solicitude of the people to learn every -secret spring of the ruin of their brothers. - -The market--the barrel that went to market--the freight rate that -stopped the barrel that went to market--the railway king who made the -rate that stopped the barrel that went to market--the greater king who -whispered behind to the railway king to make the rate that stopped the -barrel that went to market--this is the house that Jack unbuilt. - -Such is the superiority of a simple business organization, where -"evolution" has not carried the details of the industry out of sight -of the owner, and where the master and man, buyer and seller, are in -touch, that the independent refiners could overcome the tax imposed -on them by this pooling of the pipe line and the railroads, and not -only survive but prosper moderately. During the three years--from -1885 to 1888--following the first attack upon them under the contract -just described, they state, in their appeal to the Interstate -Commerce Commission in 1888, they were "enabled by their advantages -in the local markets to keep up, maintain, and even increase their -business."[227] These "outsiders" shipped their oil largely in barrels -because the trunk-lines had made it as nearly impossible as they -could for them to ship in tank-cars. They, like all in the trade, -could not live without access to the European market. Out of every -hundred barrels of various kinds of products from the distillation -of petroleum, forty are of an illuminating oil not good enough to be -burned in this country. It must be sold in Europe or not sold at all; -and a manufacturer who cannot get rid of 40 per cent. of his product -must give up manufacturing. To destroy the barrel method of shipment -would destroy those who could use no other; and to close their outlet -to Europe would make it impossible for them to continue to manufacture -for the home supply. The barrel was the only life-raft left to the -sinking independent. - -They who had planned the secret pool of 1885 between the pipe line -and the railroads, and the further advance of rates by both in 1888, -now called upon the railroads to deliver a final stroke against the -independents.[228] The railroads, when directed in previous years to -say "no" to applications for transportation, and "no" to those who -wanted the right to put their own tank-cars on the road, had obeyed; -they obeyed again. - -A pretext for the suppression of the barrel was easily found. It was -a poor one, but poor pretexts are better than none. When the future -"trustees" of the "light of the world" were doing a small fraction -of the business, they got the contract of 1872 from the railroads to -"overcome" all their competitors, on the pretext of "increasing the -trade."[229] When by this contract and those that followed it they had -secured nine-tenths of the trade, they got the railroads to say "no" -to the remaining one-tenth, on the pretext that they could not ship as -much.[230] When the Interstate Commerce law declared it to be a crime -for railroads to forbid persons the road because they could not ship as -much as others, the combination had the railroads shut out its rivals, -on the pretext that they did not use tank-cars,[231] although tank-cars -"are worse than powder." When regular tank-cars were offered by its -competitors for shipment--as to the Pacific coast--the combination -introduced an inferior tank-car, of which it claimed, without warrant, -as the courts afterwards held, that it owned the patent, and so -obtained the sole right of way across the continent, on the pretext -that other shippers did not use this poor car.[232] - -The pretext now used against the refiners of Pennsylvania was the -passing phrase, "He must pay freight on barrels," in a decision of -the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning Southern traffic. This -decision had no relevancy to the oil business of the North. Six months -went by after it was given with no intimation from any one that it -related in any way to the situation in Pennsylvania, and to be so -applied it had to be turned inside out and upside down. In the Rice -case the Commission had decided that freight rates must be reduced on -barrel shipments. This was, in the sharp language of the decision, to -put an end to "the most unjust and injurious discrimination against -barrel shippers in favor of tank shippers," a discrimination which the -Commission has elsewhere said "inured mostly to the benefit of one -powerful combination." - -In ordering this reduction it said: "Even then the shipper in barrels -is at some disadvantage, for he must pay freight on barrels as well as -on oil." - -By "must pay" the Commission meant "was paying." It was, as it -afterwards protested, "rather a statement of a prevailing practice -than a ruling."[233] And the remark furthermore concerned the trade in -the South and Southwest alone, where special circumstances existed not -found at the North. - -Six months after this decision the Pennsylvania and other Northern -roads made these words, "He must pay freight on the barrels," the -occasion of an increase of rates, which stopped the refineries of -the independents. They were carrying free the heavy tanks--"the -most undesirable business we do," in the language of their freight -agent. They had been carrying the barrels of the independents free -for twenty years. Now, continuing to carry the tank-cars free, they -levied a prohibitory transportation tax on the barrels. To cap it all, -they declared, in announcing the new rule, that it had been forced -upon them by the Interstate Commerce Commission. But the President -of the Pennsylvania Railroad is found admitting that it was the oil -combination that dictated the move--"the seaboard refiners insisted." -"Upon your decision" (in the Rice case) "being promulgated," he wrote -the Interstate Commerce Commission, "the seaboard refiners insisted -that we were bound to charge for packages," barrels, not tanks, "as -well as for the oil."[234] - -The seaboard refiners were the members of the oil trust; the others -at the seaboard had been wiped out years before by the help of the -railroads. Though the Pennsylvania Railroad was not a party to the case -before the Commission, though it had not been called upon to change -its practice, which was what it ought to be, it did now change it from -right to wrong. The Commission had ordered that discrimination between -the barrel and the tank should cease. The Pennsylvania, which had not, -strange to say, been practising that forbidden kind of discrimination, -immediately resorted to it, and, stranger still, gave as its reason the -order of the Commission against it. It must have been a keen eye that -could find in a "qualified and incidental remark," as the Interstate -Commerce Commission styles it, in such a decision, a command to charge -for the weight of the barrels and increase freight rates; but such -an eye there was--an eye that will never sleep as long as Naboth's -vineyard belongs to Naboth. - -All the trunk-line railroads to the East took part in the new -regulation--September 3, 1888--that freight must be paid thereafter -on the weight of the barrels as well as on the oil itself, and at the -same rate. This increased the cost of transportation to New York to -66 cents from 52 cents, and to other points proportionately. Freight -rates on the oil of "the seaboard refiners" who shipped in tanks were -left untouched. In the circulars announcing the change it was said to -be done "in accordance with the directions of the Interstate Commerce -Commission."[235] When the refiners whom this advance threatened -with ruin wrote to expostulate, they got the same reply from all the -railroad officials as from President Roberts of the Pennsylvania -Railroad: "The advance in rates ... has been forced upon us by the -Interstate Commerce Commission."[236] - -The Commission immediately called the responsible official of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, which was the leader in this move, "to a -personal interview," "expressed their surprise," and suggested the -withdrawal of the circular and of the increased rates. This was in -August.[237] No attention was paid to this by the road. The Commission -waited until October 10th, and then sent a formal communication to -the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was followed by -correspondence and personal conferences with him. The Commission -pointed out that the statement of the circular was "misleading," "not -true," "decidedly objectionable"; that the Commission had made no -decision with reference to the rates of the Pennsylvania Railroad or -the other Eastern lines; that its decision, applicable solely to the -roads of the South or Southwest, had been that rates on barrels must -be reduced, and that it was not right to use this as an excuse for -increasing the rates on barrels. Finally, the Commission said that -if it had made any ruling applicable to the Pennsylvania Railroad it -would have been compelled to hold that its practice, of twenty years' -standing, of carrying the barrels free, since it carried tanks free, -was "just and proper," and that there was nothing to show that an -advance in its rates was called for.[238] - -The Interstate Commerce Commission was the body specially created by -Congress to interpret the Interstate Commerce Law. The Pennsylvania -Railroad was one of the common carriers under the orders of the -Commission, and its managers were subjects of jurisdiction, not judges. -But its method of running the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as if it -were one of its limited trains, was now applied with equal confidence -to the Interstate Commerce Commission. It insisted that it was itself, -not the Commission, which was the judge of what the latter meant by -its own decisions. The road continued the rates against which the -Commission protested. The Commission demanded that the assertions that -the new rule of charging for the barrels and the advance of rates was -made "in accordance with the directions" of the Interstate Commerce -Commission be withdrawn. The Pennsylvania road responded with another -circular, in which it changed the form but repeated the substance. "The -action referred to was taken for the purpose of conforming the practice -of this company to the principles decided by the Interstate Commerce -Commission." The Commission protested that it was not laying down any -such "principles" but the corporation declared that that was what it -"understood," and held to the advance made on that understanding.[239] - -To the almost weeping expostulations of the Commission in interviews -and letters, to show that it had said nothing which could justify the -action of the roads, the officials made not the slightest concession. -"I did not consider it in that way," said one of them.[240] "That -was their (the Commission's) view of the case, but it was not shared -by us," said the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. "It was -considered best to continue the practice," he said.[241] - -"Why did you not rescind the order?" he was asked before the Interstate -Commerce Commission. - -"We understood their ruling to be a ruling for the whole country," he -incorrigibly replied. - -The railway president studiously withheld any assurance that he would -obey if the Commission issued a direct command, which it had not done, -though it had the authority. - -"We would then take the subject up," he said. - -Change the order to comply with the ruling of the Interstate Commerce -Commission the roads would not and did not.[242] - -All the roads to the seaboard and New England had made the order in -concert, and together they maintained it. It was one hand, evidently, -that moved them all, and though that hand moved them, for the benefit -of a carrier rival of theirs--the pipe line of the trust--against their -own customers, against their own employers, against the authority of -the United States Government, all these railroad presidents and freight -agents obeyed it with the docility of domestic animals. - -These officials were the loyal subjects of a higher power than that of -the United States, higher even than that of their railway corporations. -They serve the greatest sovereign of the modern world--the concentrated -wealth, in whose court the presidents of railways and republics, kings, -parliaments, and congresses are but lords in waiting. - -Thanks to the superior enterprise of their greater need, the -independents of Oil City and Titusville had been able to survive the -blows that had preceded, but this was too much. They had weathered -the surrender in 1883 of the Tidewater Pipe Line, which had promised -them freedom forever. Even the "contract" which made the allied pipe -lines and the railroads in 1885 one, to tax them half as much again -for transportation, had not broken them down. In spite of it they had -been able "to maintain and increase their business."[243] But now they -closed their works. The new attack had been shrewdly timed to spoil -for them in that year--1888--the season of greatest activity in the -export to Europe and Asia. They appealed to the Interstate Commerce -Commission. "The greater proportion of our refineries are idle."[244] -"I have not a customer in the entire New England States. I have not had -since the advance of last September." - -"How was it before the advance?" - -"I had a number of customers."[245] - -Labor, though, as always, the most silent, suffered the most. Three -hundred coopers were thrown out of work in Titusville alone within a -short time, and the loss of employment to the workmen in the refineries -was still more serious. This was not because trade was bad. Exports -were never greater than in 1889. Government statistics reveal as in a -mirror what was being done. - -The exports of refined petroleum increased 21 per cent. in 1889 over -1888. But Perth Amboy, from which the independents shipped for the -most part, showed a decrease of over 18-1/2 per cent. By the stroke of -a freight agent's pen the business of these men was being taken from -them, to be given to others. The general tide was rising, but their -feet were sinking in a quicksand. - -The export business of Boston in oil was given to the "seaboard -refiners" by the same stroke. Freights that had been $100 were now $174 -to Boston, and $188 to New York. These rates were so high as to stop -oil from going through. "The Nova Scotia trade," it was testified, -"goes to New York, and from there by water, whereas they used to buy -in Boston. Boston brokers will ship oil from New York and get it to -Nova Scotia cheaper than if it went from Boston, whereas when we had -the export rate we could compete in that market."[246] Two months -later most of what remained of the business of the independents in -New England was added to the gift of their foreign trade, which had -already been made to the "seaboard refiners." By an order of October -25, 1888, the railroads made it known to these "pestilences," as the -lawyers of the railroads called the independent refiners in court,[247] -that they would not be allowed to send any more through shipments into -New England. This was done, as in Ohio in 1879,[248] without the notice -required by law, though in the meantime a Federal law had been passed -requiring notice.[249] - -This order was the finishing touch in the task of using the freight -tariff to prevent freight shipment. It shut the independents--the -hunted shippers--out of over 150 towns in New Hampshire, Vermont, -Maine, Massachusetts, including Manchester, Burlington, Portland, -Salem, in which they had built up a good business, and it made -it impossible to reach these places except by paying high local -rates--from station to station--which were not required of their -competitor, who shipped on through rates. The railroads would take the -oil of the independents for shipment, but would not tell them what the -rates would be. In this, as in all the moves of this game, we see the -railroad managers of a score of different roads, at points thousands -of miles apart, taking the same step at the same time, like a hundred -electric clocks ticking all over a great city to the tune of the clock -at headquarters that makes and breaks their circuit. - -The independents were saved by a Canadian railroad from the destruction -which American railroads had planned for them. The Grand Trunk gave -them a rate by which they could still do some business in the upper -part of New England, though to do this they had to ship the oil into -Canada and back into the United States. The effect of this abolition of -through rates in "cheapening" oil was that the people of Vermont, for -instance, had to pay 2 cents a gallon more than any other place in New -England.[250] - -While all access for others to New England was cut off, the "seaboard -refiners," sending the oil in free tanks to the seaboard, transshipping -it there into vessels by the facilities of "which they have a -monopoly,"[251] easily made their own the business of their rivals in -the 150 towns from which the latter were thus cut off. No one has been -able to move all the railroads in this way, as one interlocking switch, -to obey a law or accommodate the public. But it was done easily enough -for this kind of work. Possession was got of the railway managers at -the initial points, as was done so successfully in another case,[252] -and all the other railway managers, as far as Boston, followed in their -trail. Reproducing the tactics in Ohio in 1879, it was only against oil -that this attack of the tariff was made. Other freight for export, of -which there was a vast variety, continued to be carried to Boston at -the same rate as before.[253] - -All the freight agent of the initial road had to do with the oil on its -way to Europe was to pass it along to the next line. Whether, after -leaving his road, it went by the way of Boston or that of New York made -no difference to his road, and was in no way his affair. But it made a -great deal of difference to those who wanted all the business of Europe -and America for themselves, and we consequently find him serving them, -and dis-serving his employer (the railroad), by charging 21 cents a -barrel if the oil was going to Boston after leaving his line, but only -15-56/100 cents if it was going to New York. When asked if he thought -he was justified as a railroad man under the law in making the charges -for what he did vary according to what was done by the business after -it left his hands, he refused to answer. - -"You will not answer?" - -"Not at present."[254] - -All the connecting and following roads are on record as having -protested against the measures in which they followed the lead of -the initial lines.[255] The freight agent of the West Shore Railroad -declared that the prohibition of through shipments to the towns of -Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine "occurred simply -through mistake;" but the mistake, he acknowledged, had never been -corrected.[256] This "mistake" and that of September, which preceded -it, put an end to a large business, amounting in 1888 to 900,000 -barrels. The men, whom the railroads began to massacre after having -pledged them full protection, saved a fraction of their trade in -New England, as we have seen, only by taking refuge with a foreign -railroad. The railroads against their will, as they swore, lost -business as well as honor, but the mistake was not corrected. - -It would tax the imagination of a Cervantes to dream out a more -fantastic tangle of sense and nonsense in quixotic combat than that -which these highwaymen spun out of the principles of "scientific -railroading." All that highway control could do to destroy the barrel -shippers for the benefit of the tank shippers was done; and yet the -barrel method is the safer and more profitable for the railroads.[257] -The cars that carry oil in barrels can return loaded; the railroads -have to haul the tank-cars back empty and pay mileage on them.[258] For -a series of years on the Pennsylvania Railroad the damage from carrying -oil in barrels was less than half the damage from the carrying of oil -in tanks.[259] The general freight agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad -Company tells the Interstate Commerce Commission that the carriage of -oil in tank-cars "is the most undesirable business we do." He described -a smash-up at New Brunswick where there was a collision with a line of -tank-cars. The oil got on fire; it ran two squares, got into a sewer, -overflowed the canal, which was then frozen over, and followed the ice -a square or two beyond. Besides having to pay nearly five hundred -thousand dollars damages for the destruction done, the railroad lost -its bridge, which cost two or three hundred thousand dollars. It lost -more money than it could make carrying oil for ten years. "I regard -it," he said, "as worse than powder to carry; I would rather carry -anything else than oil in tanks."[260] Barrel shipments being the best -for the railroads, these princes of topsy-turvydom move heaven and -earth to destroy them.[261] - -There was no end to the "mistakes" made by the railroads for the -"self-renunciation" of their business, though this was in favor of -those whose pipe line made them rivals. They charged more for kerosene -in barrels than for other articles of more value, contradicting -their own rule of charging what the traffic will bear. They let the -combination carry sixty-two gallons in every tank free on the theory -of leakage in transportation. "The practice," said the Commission, "is -so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no discussion of it is -necessary;" and they ordered it discontinued.[262] - -Though the railroads brought back the tanks free, for the return of -the empty barrels they never forgot to charge. This charge was made so -high that at one time it prohibited the return from all points.[263] -"The monopoly uses a large number of barrels in New York City," the -independents said to the Commission; "it is to its interest that empty -second-hand barrels should not be returned to the inland refiner." When -this was brought out the Pennsylvania and other railroads promised to -make reparation, but had not done so years later when the case was -still "hung up" in the Interstate Commerce Commission. - -It was not lack of capital or of diligence that made the independents -use barrels instead of tanks; tanks were useless to them. All the -oil terminal facilities of the railroads at the seaboard had been -surrendered to the combination for its exclusive use.[264] These were -the only places where tank-cars could be unloaded into steamers. "There -are no facilities to which we, as outside refiners, have access to load -bulk oil into vessels," and none where these refiners could send oil in -tank-cars to be barrelled for shipment abroad.[265] No matter how many -tank-cars and tank-vessels the independents might have provided, they -could not have got them together. Between the two were the docks in the -unrelenting grip which held solely for its private use the shipping -facilities of these public carriers. Not even oil in barrels could the -independents get through these oil docks. - -The Weehawken oil docks of the Erie road on New York harbor are the -best in the world. The Erie Railroad has $920,760 invested in them, but -only one shipper can use them either for tanks or barrels. - -The Western traffic manager of the Erie was asked: - -"Would you take a shipment there over the Erie road of independent oil -consigned to the New York docks?" - -"No, sir."[266] - -The Pennsylvania Railroad refuses to haul tank-cars for the -independents to any other point at New York than the terminals so -controlled by the combination. It will not haul them to other docks of -its own. It will not let oil be shipped over its line to the points -at which it connects with other roads for other harbors, though it -will take shipments of anything else than oil.[267] This amounts to a -refusal to allow the independents to use tank-cars or tank-steamers. -Practically the same policy is pursued by all the main trunk-lines. -These independents could get rid of their export oil only by selling -to the combination. Through its other self--the company which controls -the terminals--it has kept an agent in the oil regions for years to -buy for export this refined oil which its owners and makers could not -export themselves. This is the "immediate shipment" of 1878 in another -phase.[268] - -"You have to sell to the Standard Oil Company in order to get your oil -shipped in bulk from Communipaw?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"The independent cannot get his oil into a bulk vessel at Communipaw?" - -"No, sir."[269] - -To meet these disclosures the Pennsylvania presented two affidavits. -One was from its general freight agent that its tank-cars were offered -freely to all; but it did not deny, for it could not deny, any of -these facts about terminals, which explained why the flies did not -walk into its parlor. The other affidavit was from the secretary of -the corporation controlling the terminals for the oil combination, and -it similarly declared that its accommodations were furnished "upon -exactly the same terms to all." How long it had been doing so, or how -long it would continue to do so, it did not state, as the independents -pointed out to the Commission. If this were the truth instead of -being, as the independents hinted, "evidently a situation that has -been recently arranged for the purposes of this application"--to the -Interstate Commerce Commission for further delay--why had none of the -independents, dying for want of export facilities, resorted to it? This -was not explained, for it could not be. The independents explained the -situation to the Interstate Commerce Commission: "The inland refiner -who intrusts his oil to a storage company at the seaboard with a view -to exporting, puts himself completely into the power of such concern. -The exactions that may be unfairly imposed in individual cases for -'loss by leakage,' 'dumping and mixing for off-color or off-test,' -'cost of water white oil for mixing,' 'tares,' 'tares guarantee,' -'commissions on sales,' 'interest on goods until loaded and paid for,' -'incidental expenses,' and many other known matters of charge, may -amount to a partial confiscation of the cargo." - -The corporation which manages this monopoly of the terminals at -Communipaw is a mysterious concern. Who own its stock, and what its -relations with the railroad are, the Interstate Commerce Commission -could not find out. Its president and treasurer were summoned to -testify, but refused to attend. The manager of the oil combination's -pipe lines stated that he knew of stock in the company that was owned -by a member of the trust, though he afterwards qualified that he -did not know it "positively."[270] The charge that this company was -controlled by the monopoly was specifically made before the Interstate -Commerce Commission and was not denied, and the Commission found -that the oil combination "have a monopoly of those facilities to the -exclusion of complainants."[271] It thus reported the same state of -facts in 1892 as the New York Legislature in 1879. - -The barrel was therefore the fountain of life for the independent. -Without barrels he could not get his oil on board ship for export, and -without exporting he could not live and refine for the home market. -The oil combination ships in barrels also. According to the figures -given in this case by one of its "assistant managers" its shipments by -barrel are very large. This testimony was introduced to make it appear -cruel to insinuate that the difference between barrels and tanks was -made by the railroads to favor it, since it as well as the independents -used barrels. The Commission openly expressed its dissatisfaction with -this evidence, and dismissed the subject by the conclusive observation -that the combination gains more by the low tank-car rates than it -loses by the high barrel rates.[272] For the independent, however, the -difference in rates was almost all loss, for he at that time shipped -mostly in barrels. The high prices it made for oil and for freights at -Titusville and Oil City did not hurt the combination. It had only to -close its refineries there and transfer their business for the time to -its establishments elsewhere. This it did, keeping some of them idle -for years.[273] - -Such was the story told to the Interstate Commerce Commission, in many -hundred pages of testimony, by the refiners of Oil City and Titusville, -who appealed to it for the justice "without expense, without delay, and -without litigation" promised the people when the Interstate Commerce -Commission was created.[274] The game, of which you have perhaps -been able to get a dim idea from the printed page, the Commissioners -saw played before them like chess with living figures. For years -the principal subject of their official investigations had been the -manoeuvres of the oil ring. They had been compelled by the law and -the facts to condemn its relation with the railroads in language of -stinging severity, as every court has done before which it has been -brought. Better than any other men in the country, except the men in -the ring, the Commissioners knew what was being done. They comprehended -perfectly who the "seaboard refiners" were whose demand that their -competitors should be shut out of Europe and New England was better law -with the Pennsylvania Railroad than the decisions of the Commission. -They needed no enlightenment as to the purpose of the secret contract -between the members of the oil trust and the Pennsylvania, nor any -instruction that the "pool" between the pipe line and the railroad was -as hostile to the public interest as any pool between common carriers. - -The chairman of the Commission had openly hinted that the relations of -the oil trust and the railroads were collusive, and that the spring -from which they flowed was a secret contract.[275] It was shown to the -Commission that at the same time the railroads advanced their rates the -oil combination bid up the price of the raw material of the Titusville -and Oil City refineries. This is called "advancing the premium."[276] -The raise of the freight rate added 14 cents a barrel to the cost of -production, and the increased price of oil put on 12 cents more, either -item large enough to embarrass competition. The Interstate Commerce -Commission in its decision recognized the practical simultaneity of -the three movements to the disadvantage of the independent refiners: -(1) the bidding up of the price of crude oil against them; (2) the new -rule of charging for the weight of the barrel; and (3) the abrogation -of the through rates to New England. These three things occurred in a -period of about two months. This, the Commission says, lends color to -the charge that there was concert of action between the combination and -the railroad. - -The Commissioners in their sittings had seen that the counsel for the -railroads did not pretend to bring forward any evidence to prove that -their attack on the barrel shippers was just or proper. Although "the -seaboard refiners," for whose pecuniary profit these things had been -done, were not on trial, their witnesses, agents, and attorneys were -in constant attendance, and kept close watch of the testimony and -arguments. The Commission had its attention called specifically to the -fact that the defence of the railroads on trial was being directed by -the same "seaboard refiners" who had "insisted" that the railroads -should violate the law. The counsel for the Erie road was frank -enough to admit that it was they who had prompted that carrier in its -litigation before the Commission. When the Erie appeared before the -Commission to give "further testimony," its representative could not -tell at whose request its application therefor had been made, and said -he had known nothing about the matter until the day before. Three of -the six witnesses then examined were from the offices of the oil trust, -whose members had refused to come when summoned. The only subpoenas -they obey are those issued from their own headquarters. - -The president of the oil combination's pipe lines--who is also -the president of the steamship line in which its members are -interested--and the vice-president of the pipe lines, and the president -and the treasurer of the company which holds for the trust the monopoly -of the terminal facilities, and the President of the New York, Lake -Erie, and Western Railroad, and its vice-president, were all served -with official notice to come and testify. But these gentlemen refused -to appear. "It is for your honors," said the counsel for the refiners, -suggestively, "to determine what obedience shall be paid to your -subpoenas."[277] But the Commission did nothing. - -The defendant corporations, and their lawyers, officers, and witnesses, -made no pretence of treating the Interstate Commerce Commission with -anything more than a physical respect. The representatives of the -railroad companies practically told the Commission that its decisions -were subordinate to theirs, and that they knew better than it what -its rulings meant. Witnesses refused to answer questions they found -awkward, and the lawyers gave the court to understand that if it did -what they did not like they would snuff it out. The Commission heard -one of the refiners who was a petitioner before it assailed with -coarse vituperation, described in open court as a "pestilence,"[278] -because he had dared to write more than once to the railroads for the -reduction of rates which would save him from destruction, and which the -Commission had, not once, but half a dozen times, said the railroads -ought to give to all. - -The Commission had itself, outrunning the complainants, been the first -to "pointedly disapprove" the attempt to destroy the barrel shippers, -and to call upon the railroads to rescind their action. This protest -it had made repeatedly--first with the subalterns, then with the chief -of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in personal interviews, letters, and -finally in an official pamphlet, which was an appeal to the public to -judge between it and the corporation. It had reiterated its protest -in a formal decision rendered September 5, 1890, after deliberating -seven months on the evidence and arguments. In this "they recalled -the fact, now almost ancient history, that" the change was "pointedly -disapproved by the Commission" when first made, and with lamentations -noted that, though almost two years had passed, "the carriers have -failed to comply with the suggestions there made. In charging for -the weight of the barrels as well as the oil, the carriers that make -use of both modes of transportation have disregarded the principles -plainly and emphatically laid down by the Commission in the cases -cited, and have paid no attention to the subsequent official memorandum -explanatory of the decisions in those cases, but have persisted -in maintaining a discrimination against barrel shippers. An order -requiring the discontinuance of the discrimination has therefore become -necessary."[279] - -An order has therefore become necessary. The Commission then ordered -one road concerned in this separate case to "cease and desist" within -thirty days. Although several cases affecting a number of refiners and -a number of roads had been heard and submitted together, as practically -one in traffic, territory, circumstances, and the main question, it -confined its decision to the case which involved only one road, and -that a subordinate. There the Commission stopped; and there it stuck -for more than two years, from September 5, 1890, to November 14, 1892, -refraining from a decision in the case of the principal offender, the -Pennsylvania Railroad. - -The Pennsylvania Railroad is the representative carrier in the oil -traffic. It controls all the oil business that passes over its lines, -no matter how far away it originates. The initial road which led -the attack on the barrel shippers is subsidiary to the Pennsylvania -in the oil business, and the Pennsylvania controls its rates and -regulations.[280] The Pennsylvania has been the head and front of the -railroad attack on these men, and has been the open nullifier of the -law and the Commission in this matter. It was the principal defendant -on trial, and its case was identical with that of the others, except -that it was the most flagrant; but no order would the Commission issue -against it for two years. Wendell Phillips says: "There is no power -in one State to resist such a giant as the Pennsylvania road. We have -thirty-eight one-horse legislatures in this country; and we have a man -like Tom Scott with three hundred and fifty millions in his hands, and -if he walks through the States they have no power. Why, he need not -move at all; if he smokes, as Grant does, a puff of the waste smoke -out of his mouth upsets the legislatures." When the Commission had -ordered a change of rates on barrels in the South, the Pennsylvania did -the Commission the double disrespect of declaring that that order was -binding upon itself against the protest of the Commission, and of using -an order to reduce rates as an excuse for raising them. But now when -the Commission, September 5, 1890, made a decision on the same point in -a case arising in the territory and traffic in which the Pennsylvania -was the chief carrier--a case, too, of a bunch of cases in which the -Pennsylvania was a defendant--that road ignored it. The Commission, -in the Rice, Robinson and Witherop case, in 1890, promulgated the -very rule which the Pennsylvania Railroad established, which it had -been following for twenty years, and which its officers before the -Commission swore was the correct one, but the Pennsylvania refused -now to accept and follow it. The road which was now ordered to go -back to the correct practice, and which had perforce done so, was the -initial road. The Pennsylvania had followed its initiative in adopting -a "false" and "misleading" and "unwarranted" practice, but would not -follow it in changing to the good. - -The attitude in which the Pennsylvania road and the Commission were -thus placed towards each other was this: Shall the Pennsylvania -Railroad be allowed to make a charge which the Commission volunteered -to rebuke it for making, and which it had decided, in the parallel -case of another road in the same situation, was altogether unwarranted -and must cease? They stood thus facing each other more than two years. -There was apparently no excuse for delay the Commission would not -accept. At one time it granted postponement on the plea of a lawyer -that his father was sick. More than the lawyer's father were sick; a -whole community of business men were sick; the entire country was sick, -its industry, law, politics, morals--all. The administration of justice -was sick. If the facts had been uncertain, or the law undetermined, -the course of justice would still have seemed cruelly sluggish; but -here was a matter in which the facts and the law in question had been -settled, and by the Commission itself, over and over again. The only -thing remaining was that the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well as the road -which was its next neighbor, must obey the law. The railroad against -which the Interstate Commerce Commission decided in 1890 on this point -joined the Pennsylvania at Irvineton and Corry. The Commission put the -law into force on one side of those points, but for two years gave -the Pennsylvania Railroad and others "rehearings" and other means of -delay, and did not open its lips to say that the same law must reign on -the other. The conduct of this corporation meant that it intended to -respect neither the Interstate Commerce Commission nor the Interstate -Commerce law; that it recognized the will of cliqued wealth as the -supreme law; that the protestations of loyalty to the law and the -Commission with which it accompanied its defiance of both were not -offered as a disguise of respect, but were chosen as a method which -would most embarrass the people's tribunal in upholding itself and the -rights of the citizens. All that was needed by those who had contrived -and were continuing the wrong was time--they had everything else. Time -they got, and plenty of it. - -July 15, 1891, the refiners said to the Commission: "Two and one-half -years have elapsed since these complaints were filed, and the end -is not yet. We earnestly hoped that we had succeeded in convincing -this Commission that this respondent was inflicting on complainants a -great and unnecessary wrong, which merited the most speedy remedy and -redress possible. If we have failed in this we are unable to ascribe -the failure to a lack of evidence or promptness in presenting it. -It was not thought possible that all this great length of time would -be required to reach a conclusion in these matters, under all these -circumstances, especially after the decision in the Rice, Robinson, -and Witherop case (September 5, 1890). The enemies of the complainants -could scarcely have found or wished for any more effectual way of -injuring complainants than by a long delay of their cause. Further -delay simply means further injury to complainants." The two years -and a half have gone on to more than five years. A decision has been -made, but the end is not yet. The delay prevented the injured men from -going to any other tribunal with their complaint. They have succeeded -in keeping alive, though barely alive, because the price of their raw -material has declined a little, and given them a margin to cling to. -This delay has denied them justice in the special tribunal they were -invited to attend, and has also denied them the relief they could have -got from other courts. - -The Commission heard all this urged by eloquent counsel. It heard the -men who were being crushed tell how their refineries were being closed, -their customers lost, their business wrecked, their labor idle, while -the trade itself was growing larger than ever. It saw the statistics -which proved it. But no practical relief have the independents of -Oil City and Titusville been able to get from it. They have lost the -business, lost the hopes of five years, lost the growth they would have -made, lost five years of life. - -This delay of justice is awful, but it is not the end, for the -decision, though it came at last in November, 1892, has brought no -help. It required the roads to either carry the barrels free or -furnish tank-cars to all shippers, and for the past ordered a refund -of the freight charged on barrels to shippers who had been denied -the use of tank-cars. More than five months after it was rendered -the independents, in an appeal (April 20, 1893) to the Interstate -Commerce Commission, called its attention to the fact that "none of -the railroads in any one of the cases has as yet seen fit to obey -any of its orders save such and to such extent as they found them -advantageous to themselves, although the time for doing so has -expired." More appalling still, it appeared, in an application made -in March, 1893, by the Pennsylvania Railroad for a reopening of the -case, that these years of litigation were but preliminary to further -litigation. The counsel of the railroad, in the spirit in which it -had previously warned the Commission that its powers "may be tested," -now informed it that the road, if the application for further delay -were not granted, would "await proceedings in the Circuit Court for -enforcement of what it believed to be an erroneous order." And in -another passage it referred to the proceedings before the Commission as -being simply proceedings "in advance of any final determination of the -case on its merits." Four years and a half had been consumed when, as -the independents pleaded to the Commission, "it might reasonably have -been expected that as many months would have sufficed," and yet these -are only preliminary to "the final determination of the case on its -merits." - -"The delay suffered has been despairing--killing," was the agonized cry -of the independents in their plea to the Interstate Commerce Commission -not to grant this new delay. "We pray that no more be permitted." -But in November, 1893, more delay was permitted by granting another -application of the Pennsylvania Railroad for "rehearing." This was -limited to thirty days, but these have run into months, and "the end is -not yet." Five years have now passed in this will-o'-the-wisp pursuit -of justice "without delay." - -And another "outsider," who has been a suppliant since March, -1889,[281] before the Interstate Commerce Commission for the same -relief--the free carriage of barrels where tanks are carried free--is -still a suppliant in vain. The Commission consumed three years in -hearings and rehearings, only to report itself unable to decide this -and other important points raised by him. It was "a most perplexing -inquiry," "we are not prepared to hold," "we desire to be made -acquainted with the present situation," and "the results exhibited -by recent experience." "No such intimation is intended," said the -Commission, as that it is right for the roads to charge for barrels -when they carried tanks free--not at all. "We simply refrain" from -stopping the wrong, and "reserve further opinion for fuller information -and more satisfactory inquiry." Perhaps, however, by "voluntary -action"[282] the railroads which had contrived this wrong would be -good enough to stop it, though the Commission was not good enough to -order them to do so! The Commission held that the rates were "unlawful; -but, for want of sufficient data, we do not undertake to point out -the particular modifications and reductions which would satisfy the -demands of justice."[283] "We are not now prepared to determine," "we -feel unable to prescribe," "is not now decided," "reopened for further -evidence and argument," are the phrases with which the Commission -glided away from the settlement of other vital points as to which its -intervention had been invoked for more than three years. Even when it -directed the railroads to reduce their charge it added "to what extent -the Commission does not now determine, and the cases will be held open -for such further," etc. And there his case hangs even unto this day, -for since this "not-now-decided" decision the "outsider" has never -renewed his appeals to the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning -these cases or others,[284] but, hopeless of redress, has let them go -by default. - -The secret contract stands, but the barrel men survive, barely, despite -monopoly, by changing to tank-cars, and getting a pipe-line and some -terminals. They create seaboard facilities and persuade the Jersey -Central to haul their tanks. To meet this road they lay the pipe now to -be described, and, to escape railroads altogether, will build to New -York, if not ruined meanwhile. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -UNFINISHED MARCH TO THE SEA - - -Between May and December, Sherman made his march from Lookout Mountain -to the sea, cutting the Confederacy in two. For thirty years the people -of Pennsylvania have been trying to break a free way to the ocean -through the Alleghanies and the oil combination, and in vain. For ten -years the hope of independent outlet to the sea from the oil-fields -of Pennsylvania lay prostrate under the blow of the surrender of the -Tidewater. Twice the people have tried again, only each time to be -headed off. The first of these two rallies collapsed in the shut-down -of 1887; the second was stopped at the cannon's mouth by an armed force -at Hancock, New York, in the year of peace, 1892. - -By 1887 the people of the oil regions had recovered from the shock of -losing the independent Tidewater Pipe Line,[285] and began to make new -plans for getting to the sea. By some means the committee to whom they -had intrusted the management of the new enterprise was persuaded to go -to New York to confer with the officers of the oil combination, who had -measures of conciliation to propose that would make it unnecessary to -build the new pipe lines. This committee, and finally the constituency -it represented, were made to believe that the cause of the woes of the -oil country was simply and only that there was too much oil--not that -there were too many empty or half-filled lamps. They agreed to cut -down their business one-half, and were lured away from the project of -getting full prices on a full product. The outcome was the "shut-down" -of 1887. The producers were persuaded it would bring back oil to a -dollar a barrel--to stay there; but after a brief and unremunerative -spurt in values, a reaction, lasting to the present, carried prices to -a lower level than ever, and the producers found that the last state of -those who let such spirits enter them is always worse than the first. - -Several times before this the oil producers had tried to imitate the -policy of scarcity, which the most brilliant business successes are -teaching to be the royal road to wealth. It is stated by the report of -the General Council of the Petroleum Producers' Union[286] that the -producers had twice entered into arrangements with the oil combination -to lessen the product and regulate the price of crude petroleum, and -that in each case the arrangement had been violated by the latter -when it seemed about to become profitable to the producer. Hence, -when invited to confer for a third venture of this sort, the Council -declined to do so. But in 1887 the invitation, extended for the fourth -time, was a third time accepted. The producers succeeded in the -restriction, but they did not better their condition. These men gave -the world the spectacle of the producers flirting with the solitary and -supreme buyer of their product, in the belief that he would help them -to raise their price against himself. - -The agreement which was made with the producers was shown before -Congress.[287] The producers were bound for a year from November 1, -1887, "to produce at least 17,500 barrels of crude petroleum less per -day," and to make it, if possible, "30,000 barrels less per day." In -return for this the oil combination agreed to give the speculative -profits on 6,000,000 barrels of oil--the profits on 5,000,000 for -them, and on 1,000,000 for their laborers. This move of those who want -petroleum cheap to make it dear is one of the equivocations of policy -in which princes have always distinguished themselves. The need of -the hour was to stop the building of the competing pipe line. That -was accomplished by the scheme of the shut-down, which amused the -producers, and, as subsequent prices proved, did not hurt the buyer of -their oil; quite the contrary. - -Drills and pumps at once ceased their operations throughout the oil -regions. Working-men were thrown out of employment, stores were closed, -hundreds of families had to subsist on charity. One of the Broadway -producers who made this bargain for the shut-down admitted to the -committee of the New York Legislature that "the oil-producing interest -was abnormally depressed," and "that there was great distress."[288] -The agreement itself recites that the price of petroleum had been -during the preceding year "largely below the cost at which it was -produced." The people of the oil country went to work with desperation -to enforce the policy of oil famine. Committees were formed among the -well-drillers in each district, "whose duty," the formal papers of -organization stated, "shall be to keep a lookout for and endeavor to -prevent the drilling of wells." "We have no way of stopping those who -want to drill wells," one of the officers of the organization said, -"only by good, reasonable talk." The Well-drillers' Union appointed -and paid one of their members to reason with people who insisted upon -digging wells. It is not necessary to question the good faith of the -assurance their officials gave Congress that his duties did not require -the use of nitro-glycerine. But, "unofficially," nitro-glycerine was -freely used to enforce the shut-down. Men who failed to feel the -influence of the "good talk," and went on putting up machinery, and -drilling wells, would find their derricks blown into kindling-wood. -Referring to one of these occurrences, a member of the Well-drillers' -Union told Congress it was a case where no permission had been granted -by the union to drill. - -"Was the rig destroyed?" he was asked. - -"The derrick was blowed up by some kind of compound." - -The quantity of the "compound" was enough to shake windows six miles -distant. The derrick and the machinery were "cheapened" into junk. - -"Did you ever know of a case of any man's derrick and apparatus being -blown up in the oil region before the formation of this association?" -one of the shut-downers was asked. - -"I could not say that I do."[289] - -The owner of the apparatus destroyed, it was stated by the press, had -been repeatedly requested to join the shut-down, but had refused. There -were several such occurrences, recalling the affairs at the Buffalo -refinery in 1885.[290] When the people in Pennsylvania saw apostles of -the gospel of making oil cheap enter into a bargain with them to make -it scarce, it is not surprising that they should have become bewildered -to the point of thinking that the noise of nitro-glycerine was "good -talk," and should have sunk into the depression, monetary and moral, -that alone could make such haggard faces rise among an honest laborious -people. - -We have seen how the refiners who pass under the control of the -trust are compelled to make monthly reports. The same perfectness of -discipline appears at once among the producers in this shut-down. -Every one of them had to make monthly reports of how much oil he had -taken out of the earth. If the mobilization of industry goes on at -the rate of recent years, it will not be long--not later, perhaps, -than the end of the nineteenth century--before all producers, and all -makers, will be sending monthly reports to New York of grain, cattle, -iron, wool, lumber, leather, and the manufactures of them to trustees, -whose "pleasure it is to try to make them"--the men as well as the -commodities--"cheap." The supervision by means of these monthly reports -was so close that over-production, however minute, was immediately -known. If the owner of a well over-produced only the one-hundredth of a -barrel, he got a notice to go slower.[291] - -To the producers engaged in it the result of the shut-down was -that when their representatives at the end of it called on the oil -combination in New York for the profits on the 5,000,000 barrels of -oil set apart for them, as agreed, they were given a check for a sum -between $200,000 and $250,000.[292] This was divided among those who -had co-operated--nearly one thousand--in proportion to their share -in the good work of making the supply of the light of the people so -much "less per day." The drama of industry has not many scenes more -striking than this of these men--the principal producers of the oil -country, which had yielded in the thirty years up to this time more -than 300,000,000 barrels of oil--going to the great syndicate in New -York to buy the privilege of restricting the production of their own -wells, thankfully accepting the scanty profits on a speculative deal -in the oil exchange of 5,000,000 barrels, receiving with emotions of -enthusiasm a check for a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a -year's "co-operation" from the men who had made out of their product -hundreds of millions. - -The shut-down was a great disappointment in prices. The average price -of petroleum at the wells for October, the month before the shut-down, -was 70-7/8 cents a barrel. The highest monthly price reached during -the restriction was 93-5/8, in March, 1888. The average for October, -1888, the last month of the year originally agreed upon, was 90-5/8. -By a subsequent understanding the restriction was continued until -July, 1889. The price then was 95-1/8. At no time during the shut-down -was the coveted dollar mark maintained, and it was barely touched -in March, 1888, after which there was a sharp decline to 71-3/8 in -June, with savage losses to "the lambs." High prices did not come -until the accumulation of 6,000,000 barrels set aside "for the use" -of the producers had been sold out. After that there were in the -winter following--1889-90--a few months in which the price rose, as to -$1.12-1/2 in November, 1889, but it sank the year following to 60-3/4 -in December, 1890, and it continued to go down until crude oil reached -50 cents in October, 1892, the lowest point known since there was an -oil market.[293] - -The men with whom the producers made their bargain, shrewder than they, -and versed in the dynamics of the markets, knew that the effect of -setting apart 6,000,000 barrels of oil would be ultimately depressive -to prices, not stimulating. Not knowing when or at what price this vast -amount would be unloaded, buyers, both for use and for speculation, -would be made timid, and prices would be held in check. The shut-down -produced a great gambling mania. Untold millions were lost by men in -the oil country, who gambled on the exchanges to make the profits -of the expected advance. Local panics, bank failures, ruin in all -its shapes, were the escort of shame and loss which marched with the -shut-down. Curiously enough, it was those who speculated for the rise -who were the losers. There was against them an element which knew -better than they what prices were going to be, for it made them. It -is this ability of insiders to bet on a certainty which has been the -destruction of the oil exchanges. From Pittsburg to New York they are -now practically all dead. - -The amount of the reduction effected by the shut-down, independent of a -natural decline which had set in some months before, has been estimated -at 11,000,000 to 15,000,000 barrels. The production ran down from -25,798,000 barrels in 1886 to 21,478,883 in 1887, and 16,488,688 in -1888. In 1889 it was up to 21,487,435 again, and in 1890, 29,130,910. - -The price of light advanced. When the negotiations were in progress the -producers were told that if the flow of oil glutting the market could -be stopped the price of refined could be advanced, and that for every -eighth of a cent a gallon advance in it the producers could expect an -advance of 4 cents a barrel on their crude oil. Refined advanced during -the shut-down to a price to correspond to which the crude should have -risen to 96 cents a barrel. Instead, its price fell to 78 cents. The -committee went to New York "to protest." Their New York ally said there -was no change in the markets of the world. That they could get the -price for the refined, but they did not propose to hold up the price of -the crude. "If we could not do that, they could not help it." - -"He had refined to sell, and crude to buy?" - -"Yes, sir."[294] - -This shut-down, the New York _Tribune_ said, was "one of the most -interesting economical experiments made in recent years." It was, as -the New York _World_ said, "one of the largest restrictive movements -ever attempted in commerce." The president of the trust, when examined -on February 27, 1888, by the New York Legislature, as to the agreement -for the shut-down, declared positively that nothing of the kind had -been done. - -"There has been no such agreement?" he was asked. - -"Oh no, sir!... Oil has run freely all the time." - -"And no attempt to do that?" - -"No, sir."[295] - -He afterwards recalled these denials, and excused himself on the ground -that as he had been in Europe when the arrangement was made he had -known of it only "incidentally."[296] A "shut-down" on facts is as -necessary to the success of the schemes for scarcity as a shut-down in -oil. There are too many facts, as well as too much oil. - -"By advancing the price of the crude material you necessarily advance -the price of the refined?" another of the combination was asked. - -"Yes, sir."[297] - -The average price of refined at New York for export was 6.75 -cents a gallon in 1887. This rose to 7.50 in 1888, the highest -average price for any year between 1885 and 1893.[298] The effect -of the restriction--"one of the most extensive ever attempted in -commerce"--was thus to make oil and light and all its other products -scarcer and dearer. The producers really got no good. After the -shut-down had been in progress five months, their committee issued -an address congratulating them on the "glorious results" achieved in -the fidelity with which the pledge of restriction had been kept, but -continued, "But prices are not yet remunerative."[299] - -"We do not seem to have gotten it," one of the producers said to -Congress, referring to the assistance they expected in an advance of -the price to profitable figures.[300] No lasting gain came to any one -unless to the monopoly, and it is possibly too soon to tell whether its -gain will be "lasting." - -Part of the speculation was that the profits of 2,000,000 barrels, -contributed equally by the combination and the producers, were to be -distributed among the working-men affected by the loss of employment. -Men who had been earning $12 a day received a dollar a day from this -fund, and lay idle.[301] A blistering picture of the condition of the -region is to be seen in the testimony of one of the producers. - -"The payments that you have made, or that your assembly has made, have -been to individuals?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"State what the character of the occupation of the individuals thus -relieved was in relation to the shut-in." - -"Pumpers and roustabout men who had families sick and impoverished. -That was a source of relief to them, and we did not withhold it. It was -in our community, and we thought we could well afford to allow them -that." - -"For what did you pay them?" - -"For charity's sake." - -"Did you give them any occupation?" - -"We had it not to give; we gave them money instead."[302] - -This was the melancholy end of the great shut-down. But the people -were not broken by their new failure. They did not lie long in the -cul-de-sac into which they had been trapped. There is a magnificent -reserve force of public spirit and love of liberty in the province -of William Penn and the chosen State of Benjamin Franklin. The oil -business has been a thirty years' war. The people have been whipped -until one would suppose defeat had become part of their daily routine, -but there have always been enough good men who did not know they were -beaten to begin fighting again early the next morning. It was so when -the independents of Pennsylvania took the pool of the oil trust's pipe -lines and the railroads before the Interstate Commerce Commission, -only to reap the unexpected demonstration that the tribunal created by -Congress to prevent and punish discrimination was but one more theatre -for litigation and delay.[303] Leaving their cause on the floor of the -Interstate Commerce Commission, these men went forth for the seventy -and seventh time to build a pipe line of their own, on which they are -now busy. Their numbers, resources, and hopes are less, but their will -and courage are undiminished. To-day, in northwestern and western -Pennsylvania this small, determined body of men are going forward with -a new campaign in their gallant struggle for the control of their own -business. Their efforts have been, a friendly observer says, not too -warmly, as heroic and noble and self-sacrificing as the uprising of a -nation for independence. - -Of all this very little has been known outside the oil regions, for -the reason that the newspapers there are mostly owned or controlled -by the oil combination,[304] or fear its power. The last independent -daily in northwestern Pennsylvania became neutral when the threat -was made to place a rival in the field. With sympathy from but few -of the home press, ridiculed by the "reptile" papers, and met at -every turn by crushing opposition, and annoyances great and little -from spies and condottieri, these men are, in 1894, working quietly -and manfully to cut their way through to a free market and a right -to live. Their new pipe line has been met with the same unrelenting, -open, and covert warfare that made every previous march to the sea so -weary. The railroads, the members of the oil combination, and every -private interest these could influence have been united against them. -As all through the history of the independent pipe lines, the officials -of the railways have exhausted the possibilities of opposition. At -Wilkes-barre, where a great net-work of tracks had to be got under, -all the roads united to send seven lawyers into court to fight for -injunctions against the single-handed counsel for the producers. They -pleaded again the technicalities which had been invoked afresh at -every crossing, although always brushed away by the judges, as they -were here again. Though they have allowed their right of way to be -used without charge for pipe lines which were to compete with them, -the railroads refused to allow the independents to make a crossing, -even though they had the legal right to cross. Not content with the -champerty of collusive injunctions, they have resorted to physical -force, and the pipe-layers of the independents have been confronted -by hundreds of armed railroad employés. When they have dug trenches, -the railroad men have filled them up as fast. Appeal to the courts has -always given the right of way to the independents, but the tactics -against them are renewed at every crossing because they cost them heart -and money, and they have not the same unlimited supply of the latter as -of the former. Their telegraph-poles have been cut down, lawyers and -land-agents have been sent in advance of them to make leases of the -farmers for a year or two of the land it was known they would want. For -a few dollars earnest-money to bind the bargain, a great deal of land -can be tied up in such ways. In some cases conditional offers would -be made guaranteeing the owner five times as much as the independents -would give, whatever that might be. Further to cripple them, a bill -was introduced into the Pennsylvania Legislature and strongly pushed, -repealing the law giving pipe-line companies the right of eminent -domain. - -The Erie, which has let the combination lay its pipe lines upon its -right of way, and bore there for oil,[305] has been conspicuous in its -efforts to prevent the new pipe line from getting through. The line at -last reached Hancock, New York; there it had to pass under the Erie -Railroad bridge in the bed of the river. The last Saturday night in -November, 1892, the quiet of Hancock was disturbed by the arrival -of one hundred armed men, railroad employés, by special train. They -unlimbered a cannon, established a day and night patrol, built a beacon -to be fired as an appeal for reinforcements, put up barracks, and left -twenty men to go into winter quarters. Dynamite was part of their -armament, and they were equipped with grappling-irons, cant-hooks, -and other tools to pull the pipe up if laid. Cannon are a part of the -regular equipment of the combination, as they are used to perforate -tanks in which the oil takes fire. To let the "independents" know what -they were to expect the cannon was fired at ten o'clock at night, -with a report that shook the people and the windows for miles about. -These opponents of competition were willing and ready to kill though -their rights were dubious, and there could be no pretence that full -satisfaction could not be got through the courts if any wrong was done. - -For weeks Hancock remained in a state of armed occupation by a private -military force. Referring to this demonstration with a private -army at a moment of profound peace, the Buffalo _Express_ said of -those responsible for it: "They continue to fight with their old -weapons--incendiarism and riot." No case has been come across in which -the railroads made any opposition in the courts to the oil trust -crossing under their tracks with its pipe line. More than once the -railroads have allowed this rival carrier to lay its pipes side by side -with their rails. - -"Now, is your pipe line to New York laid upon the right of way of any -railroad?" - -"It touches at times the Erie road, and crosses the Erie road." - -"Did you pay anything for that to them?" - -"No, sir." - -"Nothing?" - -"Nothing."[306] - -But never have the railroads failed to compel an independent pipe -line to fight through the courts for every crossing it needed. It has -made no difference how often or emphatically the law has sustained the -right of the people to make such crossings. The next attempt would be -resisted on the same ground, and with the same desperate determination -"to overcome competition" for the favorite. The local line laid by the -independents in 1892 between Coraopolis and Titusville had to pass -under the Erie, the Lake Shore, the Pan Handle, the Western New York, -and the Pennsylvania railroads, and in every case had to encounter -needless litigation to do so. It was victorious, for the roads did -not dare go to trial, though the managers, one after the other, to -help cripple competition, spent the money of the stockholders in what -was perfectly well known to be a hopeless opposition. A correspondent -of the Bradford _Record_ wrote: "When the news reached Bradford that -the Erie Railroad had sold her independence to the combination, that -the latter might defeat honorable competition and continue to rob the -people, that one hundred men and a cannon confronted the United States -Pipe Line at Hancock, who could have censured the outraged producers -of Bradford for blowing the great Kinzua viaduct out of the Kinzua -valley? Who could blame the bankrupt producers of the oil country for -destroying every dollar's worth of the combination's property wherever -found? The people are getting desperate; they are ready, like the -blind Samson, to pull down the pillars of the temple, even though they -themselves fall crushed to death amid the ruins." These are wild, even -wicked words, but is it not a portent that such words rise out of the -heart of an honest community? - -This opposition, with show of force and threats of violence, was -successful. In February, 1893, after months of facing the cannon and -the private army which the railroad maintained for the oil combination, -it was publicly announced by the president of the new pipe line that -the route by Hancock must be abandoned. Many thousands of dollars -and time worth even more were lost. "Suppose," said a daily paper of -Binghamton, "that a body of laboring men had unlimbered a cannon and -stationed armed men to suppress competition, what denunciation of the -outrage there would have been!" - -A new way through Wilkes-barre was chosen after the retreat from -Hancock, and by that route the independent producers and refiners, with -hope long deferred, are now seeking to finish their march to the sea. - -The producers are poor men, and their resources for this unequal -contest come from the sale of oil, and day by day the price of oil was -depressed until it sank to the neighborhood of half a dollar a barrel. -There has been some recovery since, but still the lowest prices of -many years are being made, and the producers are finding the burden -of their escape very heavy. "It is the honest belief of all oil men," -says one of them, "that the low price of oil for the year is due to -efforts to make the producer so poor that he cannot carry through his -pipe line." This is the enterprise of the independent refiners as well -as producers. Against these refiners, therefore, the market for refined -oil also is manipulated. Very fantastic have been the operations of the -"unchanging" laws of supply and demand under this manipulation. The -independents found that in the export market of New York, in the spring -of 1894, petroleum, just as it came from the pipe line crude from the -nether earth, was quoted at a higher price a barrel than the same oil -after it had gone through all the processes of refining and was aboard -ship ready for the lamps of Europe or Asia.[307] - -To throw another obstacle in the way of the new line, the oil trust in -1893 began again the game of 1878, of refusing to relieve producers of -their oil with its pipe lines. As in 1878, the oil was left to run to -waste. Then, the object was to compel the producers to sell it "always -below the market";[308] now, it was to force them to sign a contract -not to patronize any other pipe lines. Producers who refused to sign -this contract, in order to be free to join the new line when it was -finished, were refused an outlet, and they had to pump their oil on -the ground while appealing to the courts to compel this common carrier -to do its duty.[309] When they applied for a mandamus the combination -receded from its position without waiting for a trial. - -This has been a warfare on more than a new competitor; it is an -attempt to suppress improvement and invention. A new idea in oil -transportation, which promises a revolution in the industry, was hit -upon by these independents. This was that pipe lines could be used -to send refined oil long distances to market as well as crude. The -announcement of their plans to do this was met with the ridicule of -those who control the existing pipe lines to the seaboard and do not -wish to see their old-fashioned methods of piping crude oil alone -disturbed. But the independents went on with their idea. They have -proved it practicable. Now, for the first time in the history of the -oil industry, a pipe line transports oil ready for the lamp. Refined -oil is piped from Titusville to Wilkes-barre with no loss of quality. -Many hundred thousand barrels of it have been piped for nearly three -hundred miles, and not a barrel has been rejected by the inspection, -either at New York or its destination abroad. The success of the -experiment proves that it can be piped to New York. - -The independents press on. Occasionally one of them, says a local -journal, unhinged by the loss of property, commits suicide or is taken -to an insane asylum, and another goes down out of sight in bankruptcy, -but the others close the ranks and go on, and now about 4000 men, in a -strongly organized association, are marching side by side towards the -sea--the blue and free.[310] - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -PURCHASE OF PEACE - - -Hunting about for tax-dodgers, it was discovered by the authorities -of Pennsylvania some years ago that many foreign corporations were -doing business within the limits of the Commonwealth and enjoying -the protection of her laws, and at the same time not paying for it. -Foremost among these delinquents stood the principal company in the -oil combination with its mammoth capital, practically buying, refining -and controlling nearly the entire oil production of the State, "and -yet failing to pay one cent into the public treasury." So wrote the -Auditor-General to his successor in 1882. The combination, beginning, -like creation, with nothing, had grown, until in 1883 it was so rich -that, according to the testimony of one of its members, it owned -"between $40,000,000 and $50,000,000" in Pennsylvania alone.[311] But -though doing business in Pennsylvania, and legally within the grasp -of the taxing power, as decided by the courts, this company paid no -taxes, and would not give the State the information called for by law -as to its taxable property. It practised "voluntary taxation." "For -eight years," Auditor-General Schell says, "it had been doing business -in this Commonwealth, and had failed in all that time to file a single -report." "It was not necessary for the department to call upon it to -make reports." The law required these reports specifically and in -details that could not be misunderstood, and that was notification -enough. But year after year the Auditor-Generals, whose duty it was to -collect due contribution from each taxpayer, made special demands upon -this one for reports in compliance with the law, but with no effect. - -In 1878 William P. Schell became Auditor-General, and began, shortly -after taking his oath, to see if he could find out what taxes were due -from this concern, and how they could be collected. He sent official -circulars to the company in 1878, 1879, 1880, but "there was no reply -made at any time."[312] His predecessor had had the same experience. -He then sent one of his force to Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York -to investigate. Whenever he could get the names of persons familiar -with the workings of the company he would visit them, to find himself -usually "not much further ahead than when he started."[313] "It was -impossible to get any information. Even the men we talked to deceived -us. Men came to Harrisburg to give us information, and afterwards we -found they were in the interests of the company."[314] The department -found itself, the Auditor-General wrote to his successor, "foiled at -all points, not only by the refusal of the company to respond to the -notices sent to its officers, but also by the great reticence of all -persons in any manner connected with or employed by the company." - -These efforts to find out the nature and character of the business of -the company extended through two or three years. The first workable -indication that the company was taxable in Pennsylvania came when the -Governor of Ohio, in answer to inquiries, sent the Attorney-General a -copy of the charter of the company. The Auditor-General wrote to the -Governor and Auditor-General of New York and the Governor of Ohio for -information. Letters were sent to the president and principal members -of the company at Cleveland, Oil City, New York, and elsewhere. An -answer was finally received from the company's attorney. He said that -the company was not subject to taxation. The department replied the -same day refusing to accept this view, and insisting on reports. Then -the lawyer replied that the books and papers "were at Cleveland, and it -would take some time to prepare reports." The Auditor-General offered -to send his clerk to Cleveland "by first train," to prepare the reports -for the company if assurance was given that he would be permitted to -examine the books of the company when he got there. - -No reply to this request was ever received. Then telegrams were sent, -several days in succession, asking for reports, offering more time -if the company would agree to report within any reasonable time, and -finally warning the company that if it did not comply with the law and -file its reports the Auditor-General would act under the authority -given him by the law, and charge it with taxes estimated on such -"reasonable data" as he could procure. All the department could get -were evasive letters or telegrams from the counsel in New York, such -as "letter explaining on the way." The letter came with the valuable -information that "the officers are out of the city, and the company -will answer on their return." Another "reply" was: "I have failed to -get replies from the absent officers."[315] No reports forthcoming, -the Auditor-General at last, on the best information he could get, -backed by affidavits which were placed on file in the archives of his -office, calculated the taxes due from 1872 to 1881, with penalties, -at $3,145,541.64. This was totalled on an estimate, supported by -affidavit, that the profits of the company had been two to three -millions a year from 1872 to 1876, and ten to twelve millions a year -from 1876 to 1880, figures which what is now known show to have been -near the truth. After fixing upon this amount, and before charging it -against the company, the latter was given still another chance, and -another. Two telegrams were sent notifying that the estimated tax would -be entered up if "the refusal to report" was persisted in. The last -telegram said: "Still hoping that reports will come from the company, -so that we will have some data to act upon." - -No word of reply came. - -Then the Auditor-General formally entered the amount he had estimated -on his books, as the law authorized him to do.[316] His investigations -had consumed his entire term, and the filing of this estimate was -almost his last official act. It is a fact of record that after all -this, officers of the company, in seeking to have this estimate of -taxes due set aside, stated in writing that "there was no neglect -or refusal on the part of said company to furnish any report or -information which could lawfully be required of it by any officer or -under any law of the State of Pennsylvania."[317] - -Suit was now brought by the Attorney-General of the State to recover -this tax, as was his duty, and then the company began to stir -itself. To assist him in procuring and interpreting evidence the -Attorney-General, who knew nothing of the oil business, obtained -the services of a man who knew more about it than any one else in -Pennsylvania. This person was a practical oil man. He was one of the -leaders of the producers and refiners' association, which in the -exciting times of 1872, when law and order in Pennsylvania stood on -the edge of a crater, compelled the railroads to abandon the South -Improvement scheme, "in name," and to give in writing the pledge that -"all arrangements for the transportation of oil after this date shall -be upon the basis of perfect equality to all," though he could not -find a way to make them keep the pledge. He was prominent six years -later in the uprising of the people when they found that all these -promises were being broken, and all their rights on the highways being -violated. It was largely through his influence that the producers -determined to proceed against the oil combination as a criminal -conspiracy, and procured the indictment of its principals in Clarion -County, Pennsylvania, on charges of crime.[318] "When," as was said -before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee of 1883, "the doors of -the penitentiary were gaping wide to receive them; when a true bill had -been found before the Grand Jury; when, if they ever were in jeopardy -before to-day, they were in jeopardy." - -He was chairman of the Committee on Transportation of the Oil -Producers' Association, and was one of the "legal committee" of five -who represented the producers in having the "anti-discrimination suits" -brought and pushed against the Pennsylvania Railroad by the State -in 1879. By these suits the discriminations and favoritisms, which, -though known, it had till then been impossible to prove, were forced -into the light as facts, and the evidence was furnished without which -the indictments just referred to could not have been found. When the -accused, frightened at last, succeeded in getting the aroused producers -to agree not to push the criminal trial, in consideration of a solemn -pledge that all secrecy and favoritism in transportation should be -given up, he withdrew from the negotiations and would not sign the -compromise. He had assisted the Congressional Committees of Commerce at -Washington in 1872 and 1876 in their ill-starred investigations, and -had been active in the effort to get another investigation begun in -1880. He had also been one of the principal witnesses before the New -York Legislative investigation of 1879. For eighteen years he had been -on this quest. With him the Attorney-General now arranged to get the -evidence on which the State could support its claim for taxes. - -The members of the great corporation saw that they must act. In -out-going Auditor-General Schell they had met the first officer of -the people who was as determined to make them pay as they were not to -pay. The policy of silence and nullification was abandoned. One of -the members of the trust came in person to the State capital to see -the Attorney-General. He made an unexpected overture. He volunteered -to furnish the State with a full disclosure of the facts it needed to -prove its claim. - -"I confess," said the Deputy Attorney-General, "that I little knew in -what direction to cross-examine him."[319] He therefore sent for the -expert who had been employed by the Attorney-General. The "trustee" -protested against his presence; but the Deputy Attorney-General said -that he had been employed by the State, and it would be necessary that -he should take part. The representative of the trust, moved, as he -afterwards testified, by the patriotic consideration that "the regular -cumbersome way of taking oral testimony ... would result in great labor -and expense to the State, and would be an obstruction and labor to us -that could be avoided," made a suggestion that the State go to the -trial of the case upon a statement of facts of their business which he -and his associates would make. This offer to become a volunteer witness -was agreed to, and the delinquent corporation and the State went into -court with an "agreement as to facts." The Attorney-General reserved -for the State the right to add to these facts, but did not at any time -during the proceedings do so. - -His expert shrewdly foresaw that another defeat for the people was to -be the result of this policy. "I objected very strenuously," he says. -"It was my pet scheme to examine them orally in court or by commission, -and I gave it up very reluctantly. I told the Attorney-General I could -not believe those gentlemen were in earnest, that I knew I could ask -a string of questions of any one of them which if answered would have -given the case away to the State."[320] But the Attorney-General, -the same who as counsel for the people, in 1879, against the members -of the same corporation, led his clients to defeat, overruled him. -The old campaigner saw the mistake of 1880 about to be repeated, and -an agreement with the offenders substituted for trial and for the -defeat of them he believed would follow. He determined to prevent -the consummation of this second catastrophe. He sent his counsel to -New York to the headquarters of the oil combination with a notice -that he would not adhere to the bargain made by the Attorney-General -at Harrisburg with reference to "the agreement of facts." "I propose -to attack," was the message he sent.[321] He was to have received -compensation from the State. He believed that this gave him an interest -in the matter sufficient to gain a footing in the courts for action by -himself independently of the Attorney-General. In pursuance of this -idea, when the case came up for trial, he appeared with his private -counsel ready to take part in the proceedings if permitted. - -The notice of attack was received "with surprise," but was met with a -characteristic move. "I raised the question with him"--the counsel--"as -to what possible motive" his client "had in the matter," the "trustee" -testifies, "and as to whether it would not be better for him to desist -from it; whether it would not be possible for us, if he was needing -business, to find some position in which he could legitimately earn -a living."[322] The lawyer replied that he had no right to treat on -any such basis, and withdrew from all connection with the case. But -this was the opening of a negotiation which through another lawyer -"resulted," as the expert of the State afterwards confessed, "in peace -between us." He had given notice that he meant to attack, and the -"negotiation" which followed "was whether anybody would give me as much -as there was in my contract with the State if I would not attack."[323] - -Meanwhile the Attorney-General marched gayly to another defeat of his -client--the people--going into court with no other ammunition than the -facts furnished by the men he was suing. He did not put his expert, -nor the Auditor-General, nor his assistant, nor the men on whose -information and affidavits the estimate had been made of taxes due, -nor any one else on the stand. He was "perfectly satisfied," he says, -"that these facts were true," and that the company were "in good faith -doing exactly what they undertook to do--namely, to furnish me with -all the information that was necessary to establish the Commonwealth -case."[324] - -His method was as singular with the argument as with the testimony. -He insisted, in opposition to the opinion of Auditor-General Schell, -that such a corporation must pay taxes on all its capital stock, -whether it represented property in the State or out of it. The court -decided against him. It held that it was taxable "only on so much of -its capital stock as was represented by the business and property of -the company within the State." As to what the amount of this property -and business within the State was the court took the facts furnished -by the delinquent itself, as they were the only ones presented to it -by the Attorney-General. The amount originally charged for taxes by -Auditor-General Schell, who had forced the fighting, was $3,145,541.64. -The Attorney-General, on his mistaken theory of the law and on the -facts volunteered by those he was suing, had "split the difference" and -sued for only $796,642.20. The court cut this down to $33,270.59, and -on appeal this was still further reduced to $22,660.10.[325] - -This decision was not final or conclusive as to either the State or the -company, both of whom afterwards sued out writs of error. The expert, -who had been pushed to one side, at once determined to take what steps -he could to reopen the case and mend the fortunes of the State. The -moment the decision was announced he telegraphed the Attorney-General -again for another conference, and was told to come to Philadelphia. He -told the Attorney-General that he thought "the hope of the State to get -the largest amount of money was to get a rehearing and let us have an -oral examination." But the "satisfied" Attorney-General refused to do -anything but carry the same argument and the same agreement of facts up -to the Supreme Court. He refused to move for a new trial, and not only -told his expert so, but told the "trustee" so. The trustee, by one of -those coincidences which prove how much better it is to be born lucky -than rich, happened to have come at the same time to stay in the same -hotel with the Attorney-General. - -It was in vain that the expert pointed out omissions of property and -facts which he thought "had not been clearly shown in the agreement -as to facts," and afterwards other matters he had discovered. After -the defeat of the State he prepared an affidavit containing additional -facts. He employed an attorney in the preparation of this affidavit and -a petition to the court to have the case reopened. His purpose was "to -get another chance at this trial." - -"To get another trial?" - -"Anything." - -"Another hearing?" - -"Anything." Anything to prevent the miscarriage of this last attempt to -"round up" the men he had been trying for nearly twenty years to bring -to justice. The Attorney-General would not present this petition. After -this, still before the final decision, he saw the Attorney-General -again to renew his pressure for a change of policy. Three times he saw -the Attorney-General to lay his additional facts before him, and urge -that a different method of conducting the case be tried.[326] Some of -the new points he raised the Attorney-General referred and deferred to -the company he was pursuing, and "we showed him how they were fully -included in the statement rendered by us to the State, and he (the -Attorney-General) expressed his entire satisfaction with every point -raised." Others of the new points the Attorney-General declared to be -"immaterial."[327] The Attorney-General showed no wish to bring proof -into the case of any facts except those furnished by the people being -sued. Although the decision of the lower court had been a warning that -the theory on which the State had gone into court was bad, and that -the amount of taxes to be recovered depended on the amount of tangible -property in the State, he refused to use the right he acknowledged he -had--to call other witnesses, to put the men who had made the agreed -statement of facts upon the stand, and cross-examine them. - -From the Attorney-General, who knew little of either the facts, as he -confessed, or the law as the court declared it, who accepted their -statements as gospel, and who asked them whether new facts offered -him should be admitted into his side of the case against them, the -company had nothing to fear. But this old opponent of theirs, whom -the Attorney-General had employed, was at large, and was a dangerous -man. He knew the facts; he had the right theory of the law; he was -tremendously in earnest. The case had only got as far as the first -decision of the lower court. There were still opportunities for all -kinds of legal proceedings. By virtue of this contract he claimed such -an interest in the proceedings as to give him a right to ask the courts -to interfere. He might get a new trial and carry out his "pet scheme -of oral examination." He might rouse the people as he had roused them -before. He might interfere through the Legislature. He might raise a -storm which could not be quieted until in this suit, or some other, his -pet plan might be carried out, of getting these silent gentlemen into a -witness-box. He considered himself to be in the service of the State. -"I was under a contract with the State,"[328] he says. And we find the -Attorney-General in close consultation with him in Philadelphia down to -the very last day. - -The company sees that something must be done, and does it. Its -"trustee" calls upon the expert at his hotel.[329] He renews the -suggestion he had made in New York when word had been sent by -the expert that he would not be bound by the agreement of facts, -and "proposed to attack." He finds his man cast down, utterly -discouraged by the decision of the lower court and the attitude of -the Attorney-General. Time and again he had seen the people denied -justice, and their enemies escape even so much as the necessity of -appearing in court. He had seen, in every one of the proceedings -against them, from 1872 to 1880, committees of Congress, State -governors, judges of the Supreme courts, State legislatures, -attorney-generals, railroad officials, every trustee of the people, -wilt, like green leaves in a fire, before this flashing wealth. His -resolution gave way. He was to have received, under his agreement -with the Attorney-General, in salary and commissions, $23,000, or -less, according to the amount recovered. That he saw fading out of -sight in consequence of the, to him, inexplicable course of the -Attorney-General. Every one else who had tried to stand up for the -people against this power had gone down; why should he be quixotic and -poor? - -"We want peace," the "trustee" said, and the, till then, faithful -friend of the people sold him all he had of that commodity for $15,400, -to be paid in instalments, and a salary of $5000 for a year. - -"I proposed to reopen it"--the case--"and I did not." - -"Why did you not?" - -"Simply because I was assured I should have just as much money out of -the transaction as my original contract would have paid me." - -This confession made on the stand, under the strain of -cross-examination in a civil suit in which he was a witness, startled -the country with its first hint of the real cause of the failure of -the great tax case, and led to an investigation by the Legislature of -Pennsylvania.[330] - -The first payment was $7500. This was paid, not in a check, as is the -usual method between business men in legitimate transactions, but in -bank-notes--$500's or $1000's.[331] That this method of payment was -inconvenient and unusual was shown by the statement of the recipient, -that he went to the Chemical Bank and got a bank certificate for his -$7500 of bank-notes. "Of course I did not carry that amount of money -around with me.[332] Bank-notes and bank drafts, not the company's -checks, were used in the succeeding payments also. - -"In sending him money to Titusville, where you had a bank account, why -did you not send him a check on your own bank or draft?" - -"Well, there was nobody at Titusville who had any knowledge of the -matter. It was not necessary to acquaint them with it," said the -"trustee."[333] - -This representative of the company was diligent in business, as he -understood business, and was always forehanded. He made the first -moves and kept the lead. He went all the way to Harrisburg to meet the -Attorney-General. He got control of the case by making the overture -to volunteer testimony. He called first on the lawyer sent to New -York with notice of "attack," called first on the State's expert in -Philadelphia and New York, made the first suggestion for "peace," and -got it "cheap."[334] But after he had bought "peace" the next interview -is at the company's office. The other man must walk now. When put on -the stand, the purchaser, of course, denied that this "purchase of -peace" had anything to do with the case against his company, or with -the suppression of the only expert in the employ of the State in that -suit. - -"With reference to the tax case," he said, "the payment of this money -had no bearing whatever." - -"Then why did you pay him the money?" - -"Well, I have already said, two or three times, that I paid him the -money for the purpose of having him desist from further malicious -attacks upon our company." - -The man of whom he had bought "peace" was not then engaged in any -proceedings against "our company," except the tax case. He had been -engaged in nothing for two years, since the proceedings of the -Producers' Association in 1880. There were no other movements in -prospect. The only war, actual or contemplated, was this tax war. -Pressed through several pages of cross-examination, and challenged to -name a single instance of war by this man upon them, at the time of -the purchase of "peace," or since 1880, which would account for their -willingness to pay him so large a sum, he was finally forced to say: "I -cannot do it."[335] - -The Attorney-General, who had thought it unnecessary to collect more -testimony by putting the defendants on the stand under oath, testified, -of course, that there had been no suppression of testimony. The seller -of peace himself, when he was afterwards brought to book before the -Legislature, attempted to stand to a similar denial that he had in -any way been unfaithful to his trust as the expert of the State and -representative of the people. But he broke down. He was asked if his -agreement with the company had any relation to this case. - -"Unquestionably. To all cases--this case and all others." - -"You were to do nothing further for the Commonwealth in this or any -other case?" - -"Precisely." - -"If the Supreme Court had subsequently reversed the case, and it -had gone back for a new trial, and had been tried before a jury, so -that the company's officers could have been subpoenaed and compelled -to testify, would you then, after receiving this money, have been -at liberty to assist in getting that testimony together for the -Commonwealth, and aiding the Commonwealth?" - -"I should say not." - -"You were free to do it prior to your arrangement?" - -"Certainly." - -"By whom was it"--the negotiation--"begun?" he was asked. - -"By the representative of the company," he replied, naming him.[336] - -When this bargain was arranged and the first payment made only an -opinion had been filed. No judgment had been entered. There was still -time to make any one of many moves. Reargument and new trial both were -possible. - -These men seduced this representative of the people only to cast him -aside, as seducers always do. They did not pay him "cash down" when -they bought his "peace," but in instalments, and part of his pay was in -the shape of $5000 for a year's service for which he was to do no work. -This kept the whip-hand of him until the tax matter was finally settled -and irrevocably past reopening. When that had been done they cast him -off with scorching contumely. The secretary of the trust waved him into -obloquy as a black-mailer. - -When the trustee who negotiated the "peace" was before the committee -of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1883 which investigated this -miscarriage of justice in the tax cases, he was asked if the man of -whom he had bought "peace" had used the positions he had held in the -producers' and other associations to further his own ends. He answered: -"I think he would prostitute anything to further his own mercenary -ends."[337] - -The committee of the Legislature appointed to investigate this -"purchase of peace" furnishes in its report the facts we have recited, -which were uncontradicted, but declares that the transactions they -disclose "did not prejudice the rights of the Commonwealth," and that -nobody had done anything wrong. An effort was made after the failure -of the tax case to get the Attorney-General of the State to issue a -warrant against the purchaser of peace, upon which he could have been -held to trial in a criminal court for bribery and corrupt solicitation -of a public officer. An affidavit charging the crime in the usual -form was presented to the Attorney-General. There was by this time a -new Attorney-General, but he ditched this move with the same skill -for the management of his adversaries' case that his predecessor had -exhibited in the tax suit. He demanded that affidavit be made by -some one who could testify to the bribery of his personal knowledge -before the committing magistrate. As the facts were known only to -the two principals, and neither of them could be expected to come -forward to make affidavit and application for his own commitment, the -Attorney-General demanded the impossible.[338] The fact of bribery was -publicly known by the confession under oath of one of these principals, -and the Attorney-General had been presented with the affidavit of a -citizen, prepared in due and regular form, upon which he could have -proceeded to issue a warrant, as is done in the case of less powerful -offenders. Failing with the Attorney-General to have this transaction -taken into the courts, the effort was renewed with the committee -the Legislature had appointed to investigate. It was asked to do as -committees had done before--to send the case to a criminal court and -let it be tried. The distinguished lawyer acting for the people before -the committee offered to appear as a volunteer Attorney-General in the -prosecution of the trustee. "There is not an honest jury," he said, -"in the State of Pennsylvania which upon the testimony would not send -him to the penitentiary for the crime of bribery."[339] The committee -refused to send the matter to the courts. - -Upon the only occasion when the "Trustees" seemed in real danger of -being brought in person and on specific charges to trial, criminally, -the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania saved them. In the Clarion County -cases it took the unprecedented step of interfering with the criminal -jurisdiction of the lower courts. It was in reference to this that Mr. -Gowen said before the Committee of Commerce of Congress in 1880: "I -was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, and I -know that if that convention did anything effectively it was when it -declared that the Supreme Court should not have original jurisdiction -in criminal cases, and yet I have seen three judges of the Supreme -Court lay their hands upon an indictment in a county court and hang it -up." The effect of this interposition of the Supreme Court is summed up -as follows in the history of the contest between the Producers' Union -and their powerful antagonists: "This practically terminated the last -legal proceeding conducted by the general council of the producers of -petroleum." "It was the greatest violation of law," said Mr. Gowen -before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee, "ever committed in the -Commonwealth."[340] - -That some such action might have been expected could be inferred from -the remark in _Leading Cases Simplified_, by John D. Lawson, warning -the student of the law of carriers "not to pay much heed to the -decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania--at least, during the -past ten or fifteen years. The Pennsylvania Railroad appears to run -that tribunal with the same success that it does its own trains."[341] - -Some time after these events the purchaser of this peace gave -some money to a hospital for cancers, and, in recognition of his -philanthropy, was made its president. This hospital was for cancers of -the body--not for moral cancers of the kind propagated for money by -men who corrupt the Commonwealth. It would have been full expiation -in the good old times of the priest and the baron Ruskin describes to -donate to the cure of an evil a fraction of the profits of the culture -of it. The newspapers in May, 1891, chronicled the opening of another -pavilion of this hospital, and the delivery of "an interesting address" -by the new president. One of the journals remarks that "this interest, -combined with his well-known liberality in Church and humane matters -generally, suggests a thought concerning the peculiar development on -this line of many of our very rich men." But what the "thought" was the -journalist did not go on to state. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -"I WANT TO MAKE OIL" - - -At this writing there is an old man named Samuel Van Syckel, over -eighty years of age, partly paralyzed, but still vigorous, living in -an obscure back street of Buffalo, very poor, though his fertile brain -has helped to make millionaires of many others. Van Syckel's life has -been one of ups and downs, possible only in the case of an adventurous -mind seeking the golden-fleece in a new industry and in a new country. -Of all the brave and ingenious men who have experimented, invented, -and pioneered to realize for mankind all the surpassing possibilities -of the coming oil age, he is one of the most notable. He had already -made and lost one or two fortunes when we find him, about 1860, with a -little still in Jersey City, making roof-tar. - -He was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the son of a farmer, and -worked on the farm until he was of age, when he went into business. -The panic of 1857 caught him with sails wing-a-wing, conducting all -at once, and prosperously, grist-mills, linseed-oil mills, grain -distilleries--these he had to take for a debt--several stores, -cooper-shops, and two or three farms. - -He failed because he had gone security for others, but he paid 100 -cents on the dollar, and went to New York City. There he became a -member of the Corn Exchange, and opened a commission-house for the sale -of produce. His country friends had such confidence in his honesty and -judgment that within six months he had done a business of $400,000. -But he discovered that of the 1500 members of the Exchange all but -one had failed, and many of them several times. He saw that he was -in a position where, through the inability of some other dealer to -fulfil his contract, he might be swamped any day, and lose all he had -himself and all the thousands intrusted to him by his friends. He had -old-fashioned notions about losing friends' money, to himself or to any -one else. He left the produce business. He went to making roof-tar in -Jersey City, and in 1860 built one of the first refineries for making -kerosene out of petroleum. When "Colonel" Drake, in 1859, found out -that oil could be got by drilling, Van Syckel was one of those the new -source of supply found waiting for it. He began refining in a small -way, and, with an ardor which he has carried into everything he has -done, he plunged into the study of new ways of refining the oil which -then started to flow with embarrassing riches out of thousands of -wells. The study of oil-refining became his passion, as, fortunately -for us less gifted folk, the study of the effects of heat on clay, -of sulphur on the gum of the caoutchouc-tree, of steam on the lid of -the teakettle, were in their time passions with Palissy, Goodyear, -and Watts. In the work of his life, forcing its secrets out of this -difficult liquid, he has been very successful. Earthly reward the -old inventor has none, but, sitting in his story-and-a-half cottage, -what he mourns most is that he has been and is denied the opportunity -of work. Tortured by restless and inventive energy, which age and -disappointment and betrayal have not sufficed to snuff out, his -continuous word is: "I want to make oil." - -When petroleum from the new wells began to come to New York, dozens -of little stills were built all over the Jersey flats, many of them -by Jews and Greeks. "Stills kept burning up all around," he says to -his visitor. "Almost every day there was an explosion somewhere from -the gases. I told my wife to give me my oldest clothes and send me -my meals. I was going to find out all about this business. There was -a pile of roofing-gravel under a shed by my stills. I went there and -slept and ate, day and night, and watched the stills and the pipes, -the gases, the oils, and all. All the sleep and rest I had for months -was there. It was while watching these work that my greatest idea -came to me, of making oil by a continuous process, so that I could -feed in petroleum at one end and have kerosene running out at the -other in an unceasing stream, day after day, without stopping the -whole establishment, as the oil-refineries still do, every day or two, -to cool off and clean up. By the old process, still in use, when the -charge in the still of perhaps 1000 barrels had been refined, we had to -draw the fires and wait perhaps ten hours--the best part of a day--for -the still to cool off, so that the men could go in with iron chisels to -chop it all loose and clean it out. This would take four or five men -from four to six hours. The still would be idle for a day and a half, -and then the same process would have to be gone through with again with -every charge. All over the flats the Jews and Greeks kept burning up. -The Common Council of Jersey City said we must stop refining. The rest -joined a great combination to fight the Common Council, but I made up -my mind to go where the oil was produced. I went to Titusville in 1865. -I had all the money I could want. Some rich men told me to draw on them -up to $100,000 for anything there was 'snacks in' for them." - -This was about the time the founders of the oil combination began in -Cleveland, with "no money." - -"What makes I found in Titusville!" continued Van Syckel. "I went all -up and down the creek. They were glad to get 65 gallons of kerosene -out of 100 gallons of petroleum, while I could get 80. I think the -head of the oil combination had a little still cocked up in the woods -there--a one-horse, pig-pen kind of a place at the bend of the creek, -a cobbled-up sort of a mud-hole, with a water-trough to bring the -oil to the still. He was not there himself; he stayed in Cleveland. -I didn't ever think anything about him then. I was 'way above him. I -first saw him some years after, about 1872, in a refiner's office. He -was talking up some scheme he had for a combination of refineries. -He said he didn't want to have the market overstocked. He was just a -common-looking kind of a man among the rest of us there. I saw, when I -reached Titusville, that the most money was to be made in shipping oil. -I made a dollar a barrel, and in six months I was $100,000 in pocket. -The land speculation I wouldn't touch. It was wild. It scared me to see -men sitting around on logs, and trading off little pieces of land for -hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was the first man to lay a pipe -line to carry oil up and down the hills of Pennsylvania." - -"The first successful pipe line," says the United States Census -Report of 1885, "was put down by Samuel Van Syckel, of Titusville, in -1865, and extended from Pithole to Miller's Farm, a distance of four -miles."[342] - -"When I first came to the oil country all the oil had to be teamed from -the wells to the railways, over roads with no bottom in wet weather. -Sometimes a line of teams a mile long would be stuck in the mud. Often -the teamsters would dump their load, worth $5 a barrel, and abandon -it. Mules would get so discouraged that they would lie down and die -in the roadway before they could be helped. The teamsters knew their -power. They charged accordingly. They charged for looking at the oil -to see how many barrels their teams could draw. They charged extra for -every mud-hole they struck, and if the wagon-wheels went to the hubs -they doubled their bills. I paid $2 to $4 a barrel for teaming, and -was shipping 4000 barrels a week. The teamsters were making more money -than the well-owners, and didn't care whether they hauled oil or not. -All this set me to thinking. I hit on the pipe line idea, and announced -that I would carry the oil by pipe from the wells to the railroad. That -was too much for the people of the oil regions. Everybody laughed me -down. Even my particular friends, with whom I used to take my meals -at the hotel, jeered and gibed me so that I took to coming and going -through the back door and through the kitchen, and ate by myself. 'Do -you expect to put a girdle around the earth?' was the favorite sarcasm. -I knew it would cost a great deal--$100,000 perhaps; but I had the -money. I built it--two two-inch lines, side by side--between June and -November in 1865, and turned the oil in. The pipe was a perfect success -from the first barrel of oil that was pumped in. It flowed, just as I -expected, up hill and down dale. The line was four miles long--from the -Miller Farm to Pithole--with two or three branches. - -"Then the teamsters threatened to kill any one who worked on the pipe -line or who used it. They would drive astraddle of it, dig down to it, -put logging chains around it and pull it out of the ground, and leave -the oil, worth $4 to $5 a barrel, running to waste out of the holes. I -sent to New York for some carbines, hired 25 men to patrol the line, -and put a stop to that. I put up the line as security for some debts -owed by my partner, under an agreement that when its profits had paid -the debt it was to be returned to me. The debt was wiped out in a few -months, but I never got the line back.... I had no money left to sue -for it. This was the end of my pipe line. It has grown into a system -thousands of miles long, second in importance only to the railroad, -and out of it many, many millions of profit have been made, but not -a cent has it yielded me. Then I went to refining oil, and, with a -partner, built one of the first big refineries in the oil regions. -There has been no oil refined in this country since 1870 without the -help of my improvements. Some I patented, some I did not. The refiners -at Titusville were hard put to it for pure water. I drove pipes through -the river into the second gravel under the river, and got the finest -cold water there could be. This anticipated the 'driven wells' several -years. I put steam into the stills" (this had been done before both -by European and American refiners). "I found out how to burn the -uncondensable gases. I showed one of my neighbors how to do this, and -he saved $20 a day after that in his coal bills, but I got nothing for -it. Each new thing I proposed, up would go everybody's hands and eyes, -and oh, what a rumbling there would be! I never made money so fast as -in this refinery. We did not use the continuous process. I had not -patented it, and I had partners whom it would not have been right for -me to experiment with. Our profits were over a dollar on every barrel. -We sold our product as fast as we could make it. We made $125,000 in -fifteen months, although we paid as high as $8 a barrel for crude. I -worked like a slave to make good the loss of $100,000 in my pipe line. -I worked and watched day and night, and knew I was beating them all -making oil. My partners were church elders, who could never find words -enough to express their indignation about the way my pipe line had been -taken away from me, and so virtuous that they never smoked a cigar nor -drank a drop. I got into no end of lawsuits with them, and I lost my -property again. I sold a part interest in my patent to some one who was -afterwards taken into this oil combination, and it now claims that they -own all my patents. They have frightened off or bought off every one -who has tried to use any of my inventions." - -The rest of the old man's story was told by him under oath in a suit -he brought against members of the combination.[343] "The idea of -continuous distillation, as it was suggested to me at Jersey City, was -always in my brain ever since. I made an attempt to construct such -works in 1876 under Mr. Cary. I run out of money. I had been robbed out -of my pipe line that cost me $100,000, and my oil-refinery in which I -had more than $100,000. Mr. Cary said he was going to build a little -refinery. He said he had $10,000 that we might use in making oil in a -continuous way. We got our lease and broke ground in 1876. We had not -got very far--we got the pipe on the ground and some brick and one -old-fashioned still--when" the representative of the oil combination, -one of its principal members, "came on to the ground ... the 15th -of December, 1876. He asked me if I would not take a salary and not -build these works in opposition to them. I told him 'No.' Then he -wanted I should take a life salary, one that would support me for life -comfortably. I told him I did not want his salary; I wanted to build -this refinery and make oil in a new continuous way. He then wanted me -to let him build it. He said, 'We will build it for you.' I objected -to this. He then said that I could make no money if I did refine oil. -He also said if I did I could not ship it. He said he would say to me -confidentially that they had made such arrangements with the railroads -in reference to freight--in reference to getting cars--he knew I could -make no money if I did make oil." - -Almost on the same day--May 14, 1888--on which Van Syckel was giving -the jury this undisputed account, sustained by the judge and jury, of -how the combination used "arrangements with the railroads" against -its rivals, another pioneer, even more distinguished, was relating -his almost identical experience before the committee of Congress -investigating trusts, May 3, 1888. This was Joshua Merrill, "to whom," -said S. Dana Hayes, State Chemist of Massachusetts, "more than to any -one else, belongs the honor of bringing this manufacture to its present -advanced state."[344] Merrill's inventions and successful labors are -described in the United States Census Report on Petroleum, 1885. He was -at work guessing the riddles of petroleum as long ago as 1854.[345] - -From 1866 to 1888 he and his partners ran a refinery at Boston. - -"What has become of it?" - -"We have recently dismantled it."[346] - -For several years their business had been unprofitable. There were two -causes, he explained. One was that they made a better quality of oil -than the average, at a cost which they could not recoup from the prices -established in the market by poorer oils. The other cause was the -extraordinary charges made against his firm by the railways in Boston -which brought their crude. - -His firm had their own tank-cars, in which their crude oil came from -Pennsylvania. From Olean to Boston his freight cost him the last few -years 50 cents a barrel. From the depot in Boston, to get it over two -miles of track to his refinery, cost him $10 a car, or about $1.25 a -barrel. This was at the rate of about 42-1/2 cents a ton a mile. The -average freight rate for the United States is about half a cent a ton -a mile. His rate was an advance of 8400 per cent. on the average. He -appealed to the Railroad Commission of Massachusetts. - -"We wrote to the commissioners that we thought the charge was very -high, and they ought to interfere to have it reduced. But it was not -done. - -"We made repeated efforts, personal solicitations, to the railroad -officers, and to the railroad commissioners also, but it was the -established rate."[347] - -Two roads participated in this charge of $10 for hauling a car two -miles. One of these was the New York and New England road, whose haul -was a mile and a half, and its charge $6. - -"Who was president of the New York and New England road?" - -The dismantled witness's experience had made him timid. - -"I do not know." - -"Do you not know," he was asked, "that one of the oil trustees is -president?" - -"Yes, sir."[348] - -The same railroad is the principal New England link in the lines of -circumvallation which the combination in coal, hard and soft, American -and Nova Scotian, is drawing about the homes and industries of the -country. His company sold their tank-cars to the oil combination, as -"we no longer had any use for them."[349] - -"I was thirty-two years in the oil business," the veteran said, -mournfully, as he left the stand. "It was the business of my life."[350] - -To return to Van Syckel. After his warning to the inventor that he -could get no cars and make no money, even if his new idea proved a -success, the representative of the combination invited Van Syckel to -put himself in its hands. - -"He said they would furnish the money to test the invention and pay me -all it was worth. I felt a little startled at the rebates, and I knew -it before, but I did not know it was so bad as he had figured it out. -I then asked him who of his company would agree to furnish me money to -test the patent and to pay all it was worth. He asked me who I wanted -to agree with. I then asked him if a man" (naming him) "that I had had -more or less dealings with" (one of the trustees) "would agree to what -he had said. He said he had no doubt he would. He said, 'We will go and -see him, and go at his expense.' He said he would take the works off my -hands at cost, and would satisfy my partner to stop building them if I -would go to New York, and I think it was the next day when we went to -New York." - -They went to the office of the member of the combination whom Van -Syckel had said he would confide in. "He seemed to be very glad to -see me, and very sorry to learn I had been so unfortunate in the oil -regions. He then asked me what these patent works would cost in a small -way to prove that oil could be successfully made under continuous -distillation. I told him it could be done for about $10,000. He said -they would give it, ... and if it proved a success they would give me -$100,000. He said it was worth more. He would give me $125 a month to -support my family during the time I was building and testing it. I -said, 'Let us put what we have agreed upon in writing.' He begged off -for a time. He said it could be done at Titusville just as well. He saw -I was not quite satisfied being cut off in that way, so he took my hand -and said he would give me his word and honor what they had agreed upon -there should be put in writing at Titusville Monday morning. I did not -want to press him any harder. I told him I would take the $125 a month -until the thing was tested. If it proved a failure the whole thing -should come back where it started from, and if it proved a success he -was to pay me $100,000" (for the patents and the business). "He said -we all understood it, then. I went home." Van Syckel called upon the -Titusville member of the trust. "He begged off from me the same as the -other did in New York; said they were pressed with business. He said -they would fix it this afternoon, or words to that effect." Instead -of building for him, as it had agreed, the combination, the moment he -placed himself in its hands, destroyed the building he had already -begun. - -"What did they do with the works when they bought them?" - -"They took the brick that was on the cars and hauled them to other -places, I suppose, and I don't know where they threw the still. They -kept that leased property during the five years for a junk-yard. I went -the next day to see him, and pressed him about it the best I could. -I could not accomplish anything; he appeared to be busy, or kept out -of the way. I kept chasing to his office. I tried to catch him and -talk over what I should depend on, where we were going to build; but -he kept out of the way. He said he had not seen their folks. In July, -1879, more than three years after our contract in New York, he said -they had had a meeting of all their wise-heads, and they had called in -chemists, and they all unanimously agreed that oil could not be made -by a continuous process, and gave that as a reason for not furnishing -the money to build these works. I said, in reply, 'I am not responsible -for the knowledge that the "oil combination" has for refining oil; -neither would I exchange mine for all they have got combined. You said -you would furnish me the money and build these works, and do as you had -agreed to do.' I walked out. That was about the last I had to say to -him on that subject." - -"Did you after that build, or undertake to build, an oil refinery to -test your continuous process?" - -"Yes, sir; in connection with a German. He was going to build a small -refinery. He said he would build it my way, if I would let him use -it in the new way. He constructed it on that principle; but he was -slow--he was a very slow man to deal with. We ran ... twenty days -without stopping" (to clean out the stills). - -"And it actually ran that length of time?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"What became of these works?" - -"Hauled off to the junk-yard"--by one of the companies in the -combination. It "bought them out after we just got them under way, and -then tore them down and hauled them off." - -"You then brought them up to Buffalo, and tried to put them into the -Solar Works?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"What became of those?" - -"They eventually went the same way." - -In court the combination claimed that Van Syckel's was an inferior -process, but it had not left it to die the natural death of the -inferior process. - -"And how about the expense of the two ways?" he was asked. - -"The same help that would make 1000 barrels the old way, to take three -or four days, I would make in the new process in one day; the old way -takes about a ton of coal more and gets less oil, and the oil is not -near so good." - -No contradiction was offered by the defendants of any of these -statements. Uncontradicted evidence showed that the new process was -cheaper and produced better oil than the old processes. Stillmen from -the Herman and Solar refineries, in which Van Syckel tried his new -process after the combination refused to build for him, testified to -the practical success of his method. "We must have run these continuous -works for two months while I was there" (at the Solar).[351] - -"We kept Van Syckel's process running right along continuously for -sixteen days" (at the Herman refinery).[352] - -"We did not have to clean out the patent stills, while by the old -process they would have to be cleaned out about every day or thirty-six -hours."[353] - -A number of residents of Titusville, dealers in oil and consumers, -testified to the superiority of the illuminant Van Syckel produced. -It burned much better than that made by the monopoly, several said. -"The burning qualities was extraordinarily good." "It gave better -satisfaction to my customers." "It did not gum the lamp-wicks, and did -not smell."[354] - -This was done in spite of rusty and choked-up pipes, defective stills -and apparatus. - -One of the owners of the Solar, who was a practical refiner and -the overseer of the works, testified that he had seen Van Syckel's -continuous process run successfully both in Titusville and Buffalo: - -"The result was much beyond my expectation." - -"How long did you run the works?" - -"I think about two weeks." - -"What was the cause of it stopping?" - -"The president of the company, also the treasurer, had been to New -York two or three times; after the second or third visit he came back -seemingly disgusted with the business; afraid of losing his money if he -continued any longer, and quit." - -"Was there a mortgage upon your property?" - -"Yes, sir." It had been foreclosed, he said, in conclusion, by one of -the leading members of the oil combination.[355] - -The only thing Van Syckel can do to carry out his part of the contract -he does. He develops his invention. He is successful in his application -to the United States patent-office. He made his contract with the -combination in 1876, and got four patents thereafter in 1877, 1878, and -1879. - -"Well," it was said in court, "they are a large concern; they would -make money out of this; I should think they would want it if it is -such a good thing." "Why, my dear man, they have got a monopoly of the -business, anyway," Van Syckel replied. "They don't care what kind of -oil they sell; but they have got a plant that has cost them millions -of dollars that they have got to change, and all that sort of thing, if -they take my patent. That is the situation." - -He lived on the $125 a month while he was testing and proving the -invention. In July, 1880, when four years of his life had been thus -wasted, the allowance was changed, without notice or his consent, to -$75 a month. The next month he was refused even that sum "unless I -signed a receipt in full of all demands, and I walked out without it." - -His pipe line has become a part of the net-work of pipe lines of which -the oil combination boasts. His refinery of 1869, one of the largest -built in western Pennsylvania up to that time, passed into its hands. -Three times in succession, after it refuses to build for him as it -agreed, he arranges to put his idea of continuous distillation into -use, and in each case the refinery in which he sets up his pipes and -stills is bought up by it and destroyed. He is kept dangling for years -by its policy of delay. Then his independent efforts are broken up; -capitalists are made afraid of him. He can get no means for building -new works. "Ever since I went into their hands," he said in court, "I -have been just as I am now. I could not make oil; could not build a -refinery; could not get anybody help me to do it; and here I have stood -these last twelve years, and I want to be out. That is just where they -want to keep me, so I cannot make any oil. It is the whole profit of -the whole of it. They hold me to my contract, and they break theirs." - -When twelve years had gone by, and he found that they would neither -build for him as agreed nor let any one else build for him, Van Syckel -turned to the law and sued them for damages. On the trial all the facts -as we have stated were admitted--the abandonment of the enterprise in -consequence of the threats that he would not be allowed to ship and -market his oil; the interviews in New York; the contract; the sale; Van -Syckel's later efforts to make oil in other refineries; his success -in producing better and cheaper oil; its popularity; the purchase and -destruction of the works using the new method. Not a word of evidence -was adduced in disproof. The judge and the jury found all these -questions in Van Syckel's favor. - -The defence was twofold. It was admitted that the two representatives -Van Syckel had dealt with had made the contract as he described it. The -members of the combination did not deny that. But, they argued, it was -not legally binding. "We simply concede," said these great men to the -Court, "that they made a contract, but leaving it to the corporation -itself to decide upon it.... There cannot be the slightest claim that -the company was bound by a contract of that character." On this point -they were defeated in the trial. Their second defence was that there -were no damages. "The trouble is," they said, "that there are no -damages sustained, no damages whatever sustained." They took the ground -that his possessing a creative mind was the cause of Van Syckel's ruin, -not their betrayal of him. "Mr. Van Syckel," they argued to the Court, -sympathetically, "is an instance of what it means to get out a patent, -and deal in patents--in nine cases out of ten. He was an inventive man. -He has got out a good many patents. No question they were meritorious -patents. And what is the result? Poverty, a broken heart, an enfeebled -intellect, and a struggle now for the means of subsistence by this -lawsuit. So that, if your honor please, there is nothing here from -which we can determine what the original value of this patent was." The -jury and the judge decided against them, and held there was a contract, -legal and binding. That brought them face to face with the question of -damages, and here the ruling of the judge saved them, as the decision -of another judge saved other members of the combination in the criminal -case in the same city, about the same time.[356] The judge ordered the -jury to find the damages at six cents, and the jury--in the evolution -of freedom juries appear to have become merely clerks of the Court--did -so. "This direction of a verdict," said the Court to Van Syckel, -"decides every other question of the case in your favor." - -Six cents damages for breach of such a contract, and in Buffalo $250 -fine for conspiracy to blow up a rival refinery! Here are figures with -which to begin a judicial price-list of the cost of immunity for crimes -and wrongs. - -Lawyer Moot, Van Syckel's counsel, deferentially asked the Court to -suggest where was the defect in the proof of damages. It would be "the -wildest speculation and guesswork," the Court said, for the jury to -attempt to compute the damages. - -"Then the Court is unable to suggest any particular defect in the -proof?" - -The Court evaded the point of the counsel, and repeated in general -terms that there was no testimony upon which a jury could assess -damages. - -Those whom he was suing did not disprove that, by threats of making it -impossible for him to get transportation, they had driven Van Syckel -to abandon his own business, and make a contract with them by which -they were to pay him $100,000 for his new process, if successful. The -Court held the contract binding. They had not furnished the money and -works to test the inventions as they had agreed to do; but he had -nevertheless gone on and completed the invention, so that patents -were granted for it by the government. He had tested the invention in -other works, they failing him, and had proved it a success; they had -thereupon purchased and destroyed these works; he was beggared, and -nobody else under these circumstances could be induced to venture money -on his invention. Upon these facts, judicially ascertained, the judge -refused to let the jury compute the damages, and ordered them to find -the damages "nominal," as another judge sentenced their associates in -Buffalo to "nominal" punishment. - -"There are many things known to the law," said Parnell to the president -of the Special Commission trying the Irish members of Parliament, -"which are strange to a non-legal mind." - -This pioneer, inventor, and true Captain of Industry, real creator of -wealth, has ever since had his neck bent to the pressure of hands too -heavy for him. While all over the earth homes are brighter, knowledge -is more easily got, and civilization forwarded, because of what his -head has thought and his hands have done, he has retired to what is, -in fact, a life of penal exile. He has been cut off from the darlings -of his brain. Like the political prisoners of Siberia, he can eat -and sleep and dress, but he cannot go into the world. His mind is at -work there, in every factory and pipe line and lamp; but he must sit, -unknown and unrewarded, in his pine cottage on unpaved Maurice Street, -ploughed up in the prairies on the outskirts of Buffalo. Dearer than -money to him, as to all such creative minds, would be the privilege -of feeding the appealing activities of his brain with work. But he -is banished from work. He has been set down outside the frontier of -industry, and commanded never to return. No one dares buy or sell of -him, nor adventure labor or money with him. He is an outcast. This is -his greatest grief. The day I visited him he came into the sitting-room -from the patch of garden behind the house. "I keep busy," he said, -"to keep my mind off--anything to keep busy, if it is only pulling -weeds." He is glad to see visitors. "I have been knocked out," he -said, "so that nobody now comes to see me." His clear gray-blue eyes, -tall, strong frame, firm mouth, large features and limbs, eager face, -fit the facts of his career. He is one of the type of country-bred, -hard-working American manhood of the last generation. There are -no visionary lines in his face, as in his life there have been no -impracticabilities, except his too great trustfulness. Gambling oil -exchanges, wild oil-land speculations, inside "deals" with railroad -freight agents, have never caught him. He has been a money-maker--not -a money-taker. To-day, at eighty, the only thing he asks is that he -may have the chance to work out his ideas. He talks patiently and -courteously, with perfect intelligence and memory, but every once in -a while breaks in with an outburst of what is evidently an unceasing -refrain within--"I want to make oil." - -The diminutive room we are in is stark in its simplicity and poverty. A -paragraph in the morning paper on the table tells of "a massive oaken -case, similar to a bookcase," which one of the chief reapers where -Van Syckel has sowed is having put into his stable in New York. "It -has doors of polished oak, with brass hinges, and heavy plate-glass. -The inside will be lined with purple plush, and, when completed, the -bits which shine in the mouths of his trotters and coach-horses will -be arranged inside of this magnificent case in rows, ready for use, as -well as an appropriate ornament for the stable." - -It is better to be one of the king's horses than one of the king's -men. But no words of envy pass his lips. He does not seem to repress -them. He simply appears never to feel them. It chanced that as I -left him, standing on the uppermost of the three wooden steps of his -cottage, bleakness all about, "plain living" within, plain enough to -satisfy the hardest climber for "high thinking," it chanced that his -last words to me were--"I want to make oil," with an appeal to seek -for him the opportunity so long denied. These words, plain and homely -as they must seem to those who feed their appetite for the sublime -and heroic with the highly varnished sayings of the battle-field and -illustrious death-beds, will never cease to ring in my ears with a tone -of greatness.[357] - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -SYMPATHETICAL CO-OPERATION - - -Some day, perhaps, when more of our story-readers have learned that -there are things in the world quite as important as the frets, follies, -and loves of boys and girls half-grown, more of our story-tellers will -hold their magic mirror up to the full-pulsed life with which mankind -throbs through the laboring years that stretch along after the short -fever of mating is over. George Rice, coming from the Green Mountains -of Vermont, entered the oil business twenty-nine years ago, when he and -it were young. He was one of the first comers. Beginning as a producer -in the Pithole region, in the days of its evanescent glory, in 1865, -he prospered. Escaping the ruin which overtook those who stayed too -long in that too quick sand, he was one of the first to develop the new -field at Macksburg, Ohio, and to see the advantages of Marietta, on the -Ohio River, as a point for refining. Crude oil could easily be brought -from Ohio and Pennsylvania by barge down the Ohio River. The field he -entered was unoccupied. He drove no one out, but built a new industry -in a new place. In 1876 he had risen to the dignity of manufacturer, -and had a refinery of a capacity of 500 barrels a week, and later of -2000 barrels. Owning wells, he produced, himself, a part of the crude -which he refined. His position gave him access to all the markets by -river and rail. Everything promised him fortune. His family took hold -with him in the work of bread-winning. "The executive part of the -business is done altogether by my family," he says. "One daughter keeps -the books, another daughter does nine-tenths of the correspondence, and -my son-in-law is the general manager."[358] One of the daughters was -a witness in one of her father's cases before the Interstate Commerce -Commission. "She discussed with counsel," said the New York _World_, -"the knotty points involving tank-car rates, mileage, rebates, and the -long and short haul as familiarly as any general freight agent present." - -Several other refiners, seeing the advantages of Marietta, had settled -there. They who elected themselves to be trustees of the light of the -world, thus having the advantages of the place pointed out to them by -practical men, determined that Marietta must be theirs. They bought up -some of the refiners. Then they stopped buying. Their representative -there, afterwards a member of the trust, "told me distinctly that -he had bought certain refineries in Marietta, but that he would not -buy any more.... He had another way," he said, "of getting rid of -them."[359] Of these "other ways" the independents were now to have a -full exposition. In January, 1879, freight rates on oil were suddenly -and without previous notice raised by the railroads leading out of -Marietta, and by their connections. Some of the rates were doubled. The -increase was only on oil. It was--in Ohio--only on oil shipped from -Marietta; it was exacted only from the few refiners who had not been -bought, because there were "other ways of getting rid of them."[360] - -This freight-tariff attack on the independent refiners was arranged by -their powerful rival and the railroad managers at a secret conference, -as the latter admitted. - -"Did you have any consultation or invite consultation with other -manufacturers of oil at Marietta?" - -"No, sir."[361] - -When the representatives of the combination in this market were taxed -by a dealer with getting the benefit of this manipulation of freight, -"they laughed." All the railroads took part in the surprise. Curiously -enough, the minds of the managers of a dozen roads acted simultaneously -and identically, over thousands of miles of country--some, as they -admitted, with suggestion, and some, as they testified, without -suggestion--upon so precise a detail of their business as the rates -on oil at one little point. "I did it at my own instance," said the -freight agent of the Baltimore and Ohio. Freight officials of railways -as far apart east, west, and south, and in interest, as the Baltimore -and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania, and the Lake Shore, which had no direct -connection with Marietta, and reached it only over other lines, stopped -their "wars" to play their part in the move by raising the rate on oil -only, and, most remarkable of all, to a figure at which neither they, -nor the railroad connecting them with Marietta, nor (and this was the -game they were gunning for) the independent refiners could do any -business. From other points than Marietta, as Cleveland, Parkersburg, -Pittsburg, and Wheeling, where the combination had refineries, but the -Marietta independents had none, the railroads left the former rates -unchanged.[362] - -Rice was "got rid of" at Columbus just as effectually as if Ruskin's -"Money-bag Baron," successor of "the Crag Baron," stood across the road -with a blunderbuss. His successful rival had but to let its Marietta -refineries lie idle, and transfer to its refineries at Wheeling its -Marietta business--and Rice's too. By the pooling of the earnings -and of the control of all its refineries--the essential features of -the combination--its business could be transferred from one point -to another without loss. One locality or another could be subjected -to ruinous conditions for the extermination of competitors, and the -combination, no matter how large its works there, would prosper without -check. It gets the same profit as before, but the competitor by its -side is ruined. All its refineries along a given railroad can be closed -by high rates made to "overcome competition," but profits do not cease. -Their business is done elsewhere by its other refineries, and all the -profits go into a pool for the common benefit. - -From Rice's point of view, Marietta was the storm-centre; but the -evidence before the Ohio Legislative Investigation of 1879, before the -Legislative Committee of New York of 1879, before Master in Chancery -Sweitzer in Pennsylvania, and in the suit against the Lake Shore -Railroad, showed that the low barometer there was part of a disturbance -covering a wide area. The demonstration against the independent -refiners of Marietta was only part of a wider web-spinning, in which -those at all points--New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Oil -City, Titusville, Buffalo, Rochester,[363] and Cleveland--were to be -forced to "come in" as dependents, or sell out, as most of them did. - -That rates were not raised from points controlled by the combination -is only part of the truth. At such places rates were lowered. This, -like the increase of rates, was done at a secret conference with the -oil combination and at its instance.[364] Where it had refineries the -rates were to be low; the high rates were for points where it had -competitors to be got rid of without the expense of buying them up. The -independents knew nothing of the increase of freights prepared for them -by the railroad managers and their great competitor until after, some -time after, it had gone into effect. - -The railroad company gave notice to their rivals what the rates were -to be, but withheld that information from them.[365] That was not all. -Before the new rates were given all the old rates were cancelled. "For -a few days," said an independent, "we could not obtain any rates at -all. We had orders from our customers, but could not obtain any rates -of freight." - -As to many places, the withholding of rates continued. "There's many -places we can't obtain any rates to. They just say we sha'n't ship to -these other places at any price."[366] - -When the Ohio Legislature undertook to investigate, it found that the -railroad men professed a higher allegiance to their corporations than -to the State. They refused to answer the questions of the committee, -or evaded them. "I am working under orders from the general freight -agent," said one of them, "and I don't feel authorized to answer that." -The arguments of the committee that the orders of an employer could not -supersede the duty of a citizen to his government, or the obligations -of his oath as a witness, were wasted. "I will tell you just how I -feel," said the witness to these representatives of an inferior power. -"I am connected with the railroad company, and get my instructions from -the general agent, and I am very careful about telling anybody else -anything." The Legislature accepted the rank of "anybody else" to which -it was assigned, and did not compel the witness to answer. - -To a question about the increase in freight: "I object," said another -railroad officer, "to going into details about my own private -business."[367] - -One peculiar thing about the action of the railroads was that it was an -injury to themselves. The Baltimore and Ohio, for instance, by raising -its rate, cut off its oil business with Marietta entirely. "What -advantage is it, then?" the freight agent of the road over which the -Baltimore and Ohio reached Marietta was asked. - -"There is no advantage.... We had revenue before this increase in -rates, and none since." - -"What would be the inducement for her (the Baltimore and Ohio) to do -it, then?" - -"That is a matter I am not competent to answer."[368] - -The railroad men testified positively that the increase affected all -alike at Marietta. It was supposed even by those who thought they saw -to the bottom of the manoeuvre that the combination would close its -Marietta works temporarily, in order to seem to be equally affected -with all the rest. It could do this with no loss whatever, since, as -explained, no raise in rates had been made from Wheeling, Parkersburg, -Pittsburg, Cleveland, where it was practically alone, and it could -reach all its customers from those places as well as from Marietta. But -the combination kept on filling orders from its refineries at Marietta -at the old freight rates, while by its side the men it was hunting down -sat idle because the discriminating rates of freight made it impossible -for them to use the highways. It was so careless of appearances -that oil ordered of its works at Parkersburg would be sent from the -Marietta branch,[369] and at the old rate of 40 cents, while the other -refineries could not ship because the rate to them was 65 cents; the -increase at Marietta was not enforced against it, but only against the -three independents--just as planned in the South Improvement scheme. - -The move was far-reaching--as far as Chicago, the rate to which was -made $1.20 a barrel, instead of 90 cents a barrel. - -"Then they cut you off from the Western trade as well as this State?" - -"Yes, sir; almost entirely.... I was selling in Chicago, and it cut -trade entirely off."[370] - -"Before the rates were changed did you run to your full capacity?" - -"Yes, sir; about that."[371] - -At one stroke the independents lost the business which it had cost them -years of work to get. As the testimony of witness after witness showed, -the merchants who had been their customers in Chicago, Columbus, and -other places, now had to send their orders to those for whose benefit -the railroad men had raised the rates. This sweeping change was not due -to any change in their desire to sell, or of their old customers to -buy. They could still make oil which was still wanted. But they were -the victims of a competitor who had learned the secret of a more royal -road to business supremacy than making a better thing, or selling it -at a better price. Their better way was not to excel but to exclude. -When their "secretary" was called before the Ohio Legislature, after -this freight ambuscade had transferred the bulk of the business of -the independent refineries at Marietta to him and his associates, he -declared that the sole cause of their success was the "large mechanical -contrivances" of the combination, its "economy," and its production of -the "very best oil." "With an aggregation of capital, and a business -experience, and a hold upon the channels of trade such as we have, it -is idle to say that the small manufacturer can compete with us; and -although that is an offensive term, 'squeezing out,' yet it has never -been done by the conjunction of any railroads with us."[372] - -The small manufacturer did compete and flourish until these railroad -men literally switched him out of the market. He competed and got his -share of the business, until the men who wanted monopoly, finding that -they had no monopoly of quality or price or business ability, resorted -to the "large mechanical contrivance" of inducing the managers of -the railroads to derail the independent, throwing him off the track -by piling impassable freight tariffs in his way. The successful men -secured their supremacy by preventing their competitors from entering -the market at all. Instead of winning by "better" and "cheaper," they -won by preventing any competitor from coming forward to test the -questions of "better" and "cheaper." Their method of demonstrating -superiority has been to prevent comparisons. - -All the independent refiners at Marietta, except Rice, died. "Most of -those we received from have gone out of the business," a Cincinnati -dealer told the Legislature. Some had fled; some had sold out.[373] -Rice set himself to do two things: the first, to drag into the light -of day and the public view the secrets of these "better methods"; and -the second, to get new business in the place of what he had lost. He -succeeded in both. It was in January that he had notice served upon him -that he could no longer go to market. In two months he had the Ohio -Legislature at work investigating this extraordinary administration of -the highways. This was a great public service. It did not yield the -fruit of immediate reform, but it did work which is the indispensable -preliminary. It roused the people who were still asleep on these new -issues, and were dreaming pleasant dreams that in George III. they had -escaped from all tyrants forever, and that in the emancipation of the -blacks they had freed all slaves forever. - -Rice knew that the Legislature were planting trees for posterity, and -did not wait for help from them. He set about looking up markets where -the public were free to choose and buy. He could not go West or East or -North. He went South. The little family kept the refinery at Marietta -running, and the father travelled about establishing new agencies in -the South, and studying freight tariffs, railroad routes, and terminal -facilities for loading and unloading and storing. In 1880, through all -the storm and stress of these days, he was able to double the capacity -of his refinery. Again he succeeded in building up a livelihood, and -again his success was treated as trespass and invasion. His bitter -experience in Ohio in 1879 proved to be but an apprenticeship for a -still sterner struggle. Rice was getting most of his crude oil from -Pennsylvania, through a little pipe line which brought it to the -Alleghany. The pipe line was taken up by the oil trust.[374] - -This compelled him to turn to the Macksburg, Ohio, field for most of -his petroleum. He had one tank-car, and he ran this back and forth -faster than ever. Then came the next blow. The railroad over which he -ran his tank-car doubled his freight to 35 cents a barrel, from 17-1/2. -That was not all. The same railroad brought oil to the combination's -Marietta refineries at 10 cents a barrel, while they charged him 35. -That was not all. The railroad paid over to the combination 25 cents -out of every 35 cents he paid for freight. If he had done all the oil -business at Marietta, and his rival had put out all its fires and let -its works stand empty, it would still have made 25 cents a barrel on -the whole output. Rice found a just judge when he took this thing into -court. "Abhorrent," "dangerous," "gross," "illegal and inexcusable -abuse by a public trust," "an unparalleled wrong," are the terms in -which Judge Baxter gave voice to his indignation as he ordered the -removal of the receiver of the railroad who had made this arrangement -with the combination, to enable it, as the judge said, "to crush Rice -and his business."[375] - -In an interview, filling four columns of the New York _World_ of March -29, 1890, the head of the trust which would receive this rebate is -reported to have made this attempt to reverse the facts of this and -similar occurrences: "The railroad company proposed to our agent," -he said. But the judge who heard all the evidence and rendered the -decision, which has never been reversed or impaired, declared that it -"compelled" the railroad to make the arrangement, "under a threat of -building a pipe line for the conveyance of its oils and withdrawing its -patronage." This arrangement was negotiated by the same agent of the -oil combination who engineered the similar "transfer" scheme by which -the trunk-line railroads gave it, in 1878, 20 to 35 cents a barrel out -of the freights paid by its competitors in Pennsylvania, as already -told.[376] - -"I reluctantly acquiesced," the receiver said, writing in confidence -to his lawyer, anxious lest so acquiescing he had made himself legally -liable. The interview describes the arrangement as an innocent thing: -"A joint agreement for the transportation of oil." It was an agreement -to prevent the transportation of oil by anybody else. Judge Baxter -shows that it was a joint agreement, procured by threats, for the -transportation of "$25 per day, clear money," from Rice's pockets into -the pockets of the members of the trust for no service rendered, and -without his knowledge or consent, and with the transparent purpose of -transporting his business to their own refineries. Judge Baxter called -it "discrimination so wanton and oppressive it could hardly have been -accepted by an honest man, and a judge who would tolerate such a wrong -or retain a receiver capable of perpetrating it, ought to be impeached -and degraded from his position."[377] - -This matter was also passed upon by the Select Committee of the United -States Senate on Interstate Commerce. "No comment," the committee say, -"is needed upon this most impudent and outrageous proposition"--by the -oil company to the railroad.[378] - -"Are you going to deny that story?" a great American statesman of the -latter-day type was asked by one of his friends. - -"Not I," was the reply. "The story's false. When you find me taking the -trouble to deny a thing, you can bet it's true!" - -This "agreement for the transportation of oil" had its calculated -effect. It put a stop to the transportation of oil from the Ohio field -by Rice over the railroad, just as the destruction by the same hands -of the pipe line to the Alleghany had cut him off from access to the -Pennsylvania oil-fields. He then built his own pipe line to the Ohio -field. To lay this pipe it was necessary to cross the pipe line of his -great rival. Rice had the pluck to do this without asking for a consent -which would never have been given. His intrepidity carried its point, -for, as he foresaw, they dared not cut his pipe for fear of reprisals. - -In turning to the South, after his expulsion from the Ohio and Western -markets, the Marietta independent did but get out of one hornet's -nest to sit down in another. His opponent was selling its oil there -through a representative who, as he afterwards told Congress, "was very -fortunate in competing." He thought it was "cheaper in the long-run to -make the price cheap and be done with it, than to fritter away the time -with a competitor in a little competition. I put the price down to the -bone."[379] Rice, in the South, ran into the embrace of this gentleman -who had the "exclusive control" of that territory, and whose method of -calling the attention of trespassers to his right was to cut them "to -the bone." The people and the dealers everywhere in the South were glad -to see Rice. He found a deep discontent among consumers and merchants -alike. They perhaps felt more clearly than they knew that business -feudalism was not better, but worse, because newer, than military -feudalism. This representative of the combination assured Congress -that "99.9 of all the first-class merchants of the South were in close -sympathetical co-operation with us in our whole history"--that is, out -of every hundred "first-class merchants" only one-tenth of one merchant -was not with them. This is a picturesque percentage. - -Rice's welcome among the people would not verify his opponent's -estimate that his vassalage included all but one-tenth of one dealer -in every hundred. From all parts came word of the anxiety of the -merchants to escape from the power that held them fast. From Texas: -"Most of our people are anxious to get clear." From Arkansas: "The -merchants here would like to buy from some other." From Tennessee: "Can -we make any permanent arrangement with you by which we can baffle such -monopoly?" From Kentucky: "I dislike to submit to the unreasonable -and arbitrary commands." From Mississippi: "It has gouged the people -to such an extent that we wish to break it down and introduce some -other oils." From Georgia, from different dealers: "They have the -oil-dealers in this State so completely cooped in that they cannot -move." "We are afraid."[380] As Rice went about the South selling oil -the agents of the cutter "to the bone" would follow, and by threats, -like those revealed in the correspondence described below, would coerce -the dealers to repudiate their purchases. Telegrams would pour into -the discouraged office at Marietta: "Don't ship oil ordered from your -agent." "We hereby countermand orders given your agent yesterday." One -telegram would often be signed by all the dealers in a town, though -competitors, sometimes nearly a dozen of them, showing that they were -united by some outside influence they had to obey.[381] - -Where the dealers were found too independent to accept dictation, -belligerent and tactical cuts in price were proclaimed, not to make -oil cheap, but to prevent its becoming permanently cheaper through -free competition and an open market. Rice submitted to Congress -letters covering pages of the Trust Report,[382] showing how he had -been tracked through Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Georgia, Kansas, -Kentucky, Iowa, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama. -The railroads had been got to side-track and delay his cars, and the -dealers terrorized into refusing to buy his oils, although they were -cheaper. If the merchants in any place persisted in buying his oil -they were undersold until they surrendered. When Rice was driven out -prices were put back. So close was the watch kept of the battle by the -generals of "co-operation" that when one of his agents got out of oil -for a day or two, prices would be run up to bleed the public during -the temporary opportunity. "On the strength of my not having any oil -to-day," wrote one of Rice's dealers, "I am told they have popped up -the price 3-1/2 cents."[383] - -The railroad officials did their best to make it true that "the poor ye -have with you always." By mistake some oil meant for the combination -was delivered to Rice's agent, and he discovered that it was paying -only 88 cents a barrel, while he was charged $1.68, a difference of 80 -cents a barrel for a distance of sixty-eight miles. - -"Could you stand such competition as that?" - -"No, sir. Before that I went up there and sold to every man in the -place nearly. They were glad to see me in opposition.... I lost them, -except one man who was so prejudiced that he would not buy from them." - -"Your business had been on the increase up to that time?" - -"Increasing rapidly.... I haul it in wagons now forty miles south of -Manito." - -"The rates against you on that railroad are so high that you can for -a distance of forty miles transport your oil by wagon and meet the -competition better than you can by using their own road?" - -"Infinitely better."[384] - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -"TURN ANOTHER SCREW" - - -A spy at one end of an institution proves that there is a tyrant at -the other. Modern liberty has put an end to the use of spies in its -government only to see it reappear in its business. - -Rice throughout the South was put under a surveillance which could -hardly have been done better by Vidocq. One of the employés of the oil -clique, having disclosed before the Interstate Commerce Commission that -he knew to a barrel just how much Rice had shipped down the river to -Memphis, was asked where he got the information. He got it from the -agents who "attend to our business." - -"What have they to do with looking after Mr. Rice's business?... How do -your agents tell the number of barrels he shipped in April, May, and -June?" - -"See it arrive at the depot." - -"How often do your agents go to the depot to make the examination?" - -"They visit the depot once a day, not only for that purpose, but to -look after the shipment of our own oil." - -"Do they keep a record of Mr. Rice's shipments?" - -"They send us word whenever they find that Mr. Rice has shipped a -car-load of oil." - -"What do their statements show with respect to Mr. Rice's shipments -besides that?" - -"They show the number of barrels received at any point shipped by Mr. -Rice, or by anybody else." - -"How often are these statements sent to the company?" - -"Sent in monthly, I think." - -"It is from a similar monthly report that you get the statement that -in July, August, and September, Mr. Rice shipped 602 barrels of oil to -Nashville, is it?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"Have you similar agents at all points of destination?" - -"Yes, sir."[385] - -This has a familiar look. It is the espionage of the South Improvement -Company contract, in operation sixteen years after it was "buried." -When the representative of the oil combination appears in public with -tabulated statements exhibiting to a barrel the business done by its -competitors for any month of any year, at any place, he tells us too -plainly to be mistaken that the "partly-born," completely "buried" -iniquity, sired by the "sympathetical co-operation" of the trustees and -their railroad associates of easy virtue, is alive and kicking--kicking -a breach in the very foundations of the republic. - -A letter has found the light which was sent by the Louisville man who -was so "fortunate in competing," immediately after he heard that one -of "his" Nashville customers had received a shipment from the Marietta -independent. It was addressed to the general freight agent of the -Louisville and Nashville Railroad. It complained that this shipment, -of which the writer knew the exact date, quantity, destination, and -charges, "slipped through on the usual fifth-class rate." "Please turn -another screw," the model merchant concluded. What it meant "to turn -another screw" became quickly manifest. Not daring to give the true -explanation, none of the people implicated have ever been able to make -a plausible explanation of the meaning of this letter. The railroad man -to whom it was sent interpreted it when examined by Congress as meaning -that he should equalize rates. But Congress asked him: - -"Is the commercial phrase for equalizing rates among railroad people -'turn another screw'?" - -He had to reply, helplessly, "I do not think it is." - -The sender before the same committee interpreted it as a request "to -tighten up the machinery of their loose office."[386] Rice found out -what the letter meant. "My rates were raised on that road over 50 per -cent. in five days." - -"Was it necessary to turn on more than one screw in that direction to -put a stop to your business?" - -"One was sufficient."[387] - -The rates to the combination remained unchanged. For five years--to -1886--they did not vary a mill. After the screw had been turned on, -he who suggested it wrote to the offending merchants at Nashville, -that if they persisted in bringing in this outside oil he would not -only cut down the price of oil, but would enter into competition on -all other articles sold in their grocery. He italicized this sentence: -"_And certainly this competition will not be limited to coal-oil or -any one article, and will not be limited to any one year._"[388] "Your -co-operation or your life," says he. - -"Have you not frequently, as a shipper of oil, taken part in the -competition with grocers and others in other business than oil, in -order to force them to buy oil?" - -"Almost invariably I did that always."[389] - -"The expense and influence necessary for sustaining the market in this -manner are altogether expended by us, and not by the representatives -of outside oil," he further wrote. "Influence," as a fact of supply -and demand, an element of price-making, is not mentioned in any -political economy. And yet the "influence" by which certain men have -got the highways shut to other shippers has made a mark as plain as -the mountains of the moon on our civilization. "If we allow any one to -operate in this manner," he continued, "in any one of our localities, -it simply starts off others. And whatever trouble or expense it has -given us in the past to prevent it we have found it to be, and still -believe it to be, the only policy to pursue."[390] - -They "are threatening," his Nashville agent, after the screw was -turned, wrote Rice, "to ruin us in our business."[391] - -The head of the Louisville "bone-cutters," when a witness before -Congress during the trust investigation, stigmatized the action of his -Nashville victims as "black-mail." They were "black-mailers" because -they had sold a competitor's oil, and refused to continue to sell -his own unless it was made as cheap or cheaper. Competition, when he -practised it on others, was "sympathetical co-operation." Tried on -him, it was "black-mail." "That man wanted us to pay him more than we -paid the other jobbers"--_i.e._, he wanted them to meet the prices of -competitors "because he thought we had the market sustained, and he -could black-mail us into it. I bluffed him in language, and language is -cheap."[392] The "language" that could produce an advance of freights -of 50 per cent. in five days against a competitor was certainly "cheap" -for the man whose rates remained unchanged, and who thereby absorbed -his neighbor's vineyard. The inevitable result followed at last. Rice -fought out the fight at Nashville seven years, from 1880 to 1887; then, -defeated, he had to shut up his agency there. That was "evacuation day" -at Nashville. It was among his oldest agencies, he told Congress, "and -it was shut out entirely last year on account of the discriminations. I -cannot get in there."[393] - -State inspection of oil and municipal ordinances about storage have -been other "screws" that have been turned to get rid of competition. -City councils passed ordinances forbidding oil in barrels to be stored, -while allowing oil in tanks, which is very much more dangerous, as -the records of oil fires and explosions show conclusively. His New -Orleans agent wrote Rice concerning the manoeuvres of his pursuer: "He -has been down here for some time, and has by his engineering, and in -consequence of the city ordinances, cut me out of storage. As matters -now stand, I would not be able to handle a single barrel of oil."[394] -In Georgia the law was made so that the charge to the oil combination -shipping in tank-cars was only half what it was to others who shipped -in barrels. The State inspector's charge for oil in tanks was made 25 -cents a barrel; for oil in barrels it was 50 cents a barrel. But as if -that was not advantage enough, the inspector inspected the tanks at -about two-thirds of their actual capacity. If an independent refiner -sent 100 barrels of oil into the State, he would have to pay $50 for -inspection, while the oil combination sending in the same would pay -but 25 cents a barrel, and that on only 66-2/3 barrels, or $16 in all. -This difference is a large commercial profit of itself, and would -alone enable the one who received it to sell without loss at a price -that would cripple all others. In this State the chief inspector had -the power to appoint inspectors for the towns. He would name them only -for the larger places, where the combination had storage tanks. This -prevented independent refiners from shipping directly to the smaller -markets in barrels, as they could not be inspected there, and if not -inspected could not be sold.[395] All these manoeuvres of inspection -helped to force the people to buy of only one dealer, to take what he -supplied, and pay what he demanded. Why should an official appointed -by the people, paid by them to protect them, thus use all his powers -against them? Why? - -"State whether you had not in your employ the State inspector of -oil and gave him a salary," the Louisville representative of the -combination was asked by Congress. - -"Yes, sir."[396] - -Throughout the country the people of the States have been influenced -to pass inspection laws to protect themselves, as they supposed, from -bad oil, with its danger of explosion. But these inspection laws prove -generally to be special legislation in disguise, operating directly -to deprive the people of the benefit of that competition which would -be a self-acting inspection. They are useful only as an additional -illustration of the extent to which government is being used as an -active partner by great business interests. Meanwhile any effort of -the people to use their own forces through governments to better their -condition, as by the ownership of municipal gas-works, street-railways, -or national railroads and telegraphs, is sung to sleep with the lullaby -about government best, government least. - -This second campaign had been a formidable affair--a worse was to -follow; but it did not overcome the independent of Marietta. With all -these odds against him, he made his way. Expelled from one place and -another, like Memphis and Nashville, he found markets elsewhere. This -was because the Southern people gave him market support along with -their moral support. Co-operation of father and son and daughter made -oil cheaper than the "sympathetical co-operation" opposing them, with -its high salaries, idle refineries, and dead-heads. Rice had to pay no -dividends on "trust" stock capitalized for fifteen times the value of -the property. He did not, like every one of the trustees, demand for -himself an income of millions a year from the consumer. He found margin -enough for survival, and even something more than survival, between the -cost of production and the market price. "In 1886 we were increasing -our business very largely. Our rates were low enough so that we could -compete in the general Southern market."[397] - -Upon this thrice-won prosperity fell now blow after blow from the same -hand which had struck so heavily twice before. From 1886 to the present -moment Rice and his family have been kept busier defending their right -to live in business than in doing the business itself. Their old enemy -has come at them for the third time, with every means of destruction -that could be devised, from highway exclusion to attacks upon private -character, given currency by all the powerful means at his command. The -game of 1886 was that of 1879, but with many improvements gained from -experience and progress of desire. His rates were doubled, sometimes -almost tripled; in some cases as much as 333 per cent. Rates to his -adversary were not raised at all. The raise was secret. Suspecting -something wrong, he called on the railroad officer July 13th, and asked -what rates were going to be. The latter replied that he "had not the -list made out." But the next day he sent it in full to the combination. -Rice could not get them until August 23d, six weeks later, and then not -all of them. As in 1879 the new tariff was arranged at a conference -with the favored shippers.[398] - -This was the first gun of a concerted attack. Rice was soon under fire -from all parts of the field. One road after another raised his rates -until it seemed as if the entire Southern market would be closed to -him. While this was in progress the new Interstate Commerce Law passed -by Congress--in part through the efforts of Rice--to prevent just such -misuse of the highways, went into effect. But this did not halt the -railway managers. A month after it was passed the Senate Committee on -Interstate Commerce was shown that discrimination was still going on, -as it is still. At points as far apart as Louisville, New Orleans, -Atlanta, St. Louis, and San Francisco switches were spiked against -Rice, and the main lines barricaded of all the highways between the -Ohio River, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico. In -the face of the Interstate Commerce Act the roads raised his freights -to points in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and -Mississippi in no case less than 29, and in some cases as high as 150, -168, and 212 per cent. more than was charged the oil combination. Where -the latter would pay $100 freight, he, shipping the same amount to the -same place, would sometimes pay $310--if he got it taken at all.[399] - -The general freight agent of one of the roads, when before the -Interstate Commerce Commission, denied this. When confronted with -written proof of it he could only say, "It is simply an error."[400] - -Rice shows that in some cases these discriminations made him -pay four times as much freight, gallon for gallon, as the -monopoly. The differences against him were so great that even the -self-contained Interstate Commerce Commission has to call them "a -vast discrepancy."[401] The power that pursued him manoeuvred against -him, as if it were one track, all the railroads from Pennsylvania to -Florida, from Ohio to Lake Superior and the Pacific coast. "Through its -representative the oil combination was called before the Interstate -Commerce Commission to explain its relation to this 'vast discrepancy.'" - -"Your company pays full rates?" - -"Pays the rates that I understand are the rates for everybody." - -"Pays what are known as open rates?" - -"Open rates; yes, sir."[402] - -That the increase of rates in 1886, like that of 1879, was made by the -railroads against Rice, under the direction of his trade enemy, is -confirmed by the unwilling testimony of the latter's representative -before Congress. "I know I have been asked just informally by railroad -men once or twice as to what answer they should make. They said, Here -is a man--Rice, for instance--writing us that you are getting a lower -rate." He was asked if he knew any reason, legal or moral, why the -Louisville and Nashville Railroad should select his firm as the sole -people in the United States. "No, sir," the witness replied; but then -added, recovering himself, "I think they did because we were at the -front."[403] The railroads bring the people they prefer "to the front," -and then, because they are "at the front," make them the "sole people." - -Rice did not sleep under this new assault. He went to the -Attorney-General of Ohio, and had those of the railroads which were -Ohio corporations brought to judgment before the Supreme Court of -Ohio, which revoked their action, and could, if it chose, have -forfeited their charters. The Supreme Court found that these railroads -had charged "discriminating rates," "strikingly excessive," which -"tended to foster a monopoly," "actually excluded these competitors," -"giving to the favored shippers absolute control."[404] Rice went to -Cincinnati, to Louisville, to St. Louis, and Baltimore to see the -officials of the railroads. He found that the roads to the South -and West, which took his oil from the road which carried it out of -Marietta, were willing to go back to the old rates if the connecting -road would do so. But the general freight agent of that company would -give him no satisfaction. He wrote, October 3d, to the president of -the road over which he had done all his business for years. He got -no answer. He wrote again October 11th, no answer; October 20th, no -answer; November 14th, no answer. Rice had been paying this road nearly -$10,000 a year for freight, sending all his oil over it. The road had -used its rate-making power to hand over four-fifths of his business -to another, but he has never been able to get so much as a formal -acknowledgment of the receipt of his letters to the head of the road, -asking that his petitions for restoration of his rights on the highway -be considered. A part only of the letters and telegrams which he sent -during these years--to get rates, to have his cars moved, to rectify -unequal charges, to receive the same facilities and treatment others -got--fill pages of close print in the Trust Report of the Congressional -Committee of Manufactures of 1888. - -"Your time is a good deal occupied with correspondence, is it not?" - -"I should say so. If the rates had been more regular, I would not have -had so much correspondence. It takes about all my time to look after -rates."[405] - -Driven off his direct road to market, Rice set to hunting other ways. -The Baltimore and Ohio, he found, was, though very roundabout, the only -avenue left by which he could get his oils into Southern markets. He -began to negotiate with it immediately, but it was not until several -months later--the middle of November--that he succeeded in closing -arrangements. To get to Chattanooga, Tennessee, over this route his -oil had to travel 1186 miles as against 582 miles by the roads which -had been closed to him, and yet the rate was lower over the more than -double distance. Again, he could send a barrel of oil 1213 miles by the -Baltimore and Ohio to Birmingham, Alabama, for $1.22, while the roads -he had been using put his rate up to $2.26, although their line to -Birmingham was only 685 miles. - -All the arrangements had been concluded to the mutual satisfaction -of Rice and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After this thorough -discussion of four months, in which every point had been examined, -Rice sends forward his first shipment December 1st. He is not a little -elated to have blazed his way out of the trackless swamp in which he -had been left by the other roads. His satisfaction is short enough. In -about a fortnight--on December 15th--the then general freight agent of -the Baltimore and Ohio telegraphed him that he could not be allowed -to ship any more. "We will have to withdraw rates on oil to Southern -points, as the various lines in interest"--the connections to which the -Baltimore and Ohio delivered the oil for points beyond its own line, -and which shared in the rates--"will not carry them out." - -This was stunning. It nullified the labor of months which had been -spent in opening a way out of this blockade. It put the cup of ruin -again to the lips of the family at Marietta, innocent of all offence -but that of trying to make a living out of the industry of their -choice, and asking no favors, only the right to travel the public -highway on equal terms, and to stand in the open markets. The excuse -given was heavy-laden with inaccuracy. Rice immediately found out by -wire that the Piedmont Air Line, one of the most important of the -connections, had not refused to carry at the agreed rate. Its traffic -manager telegraphed the Baltimore and Ohio people to reconsider their -action, and continue taking Rice's oil. When asked first by Rice, -and afterwards by Congress, to name the lines which refused, as he -alleged, to carry out the rates he had agreed upon, the general freight -agent of the Baltimore and Ohio could not give one. He escaped from -Congress by promising to send its committee, "within a day or two," -all the correspondence with these other companies. Once out of the -committee-room, he never sent a scrap of paper to redeem his promise, -and the whole matter was lost sight of by the committee.[406] - -Rice, badly shattered, still sought and managed to find a few -long-way-around routes. He presented to Congress in 1888 a table -showing how he still managed to get to some of his markets. To -Birmingham, Alabama--the direct route of 685 miles, as well as the -Baltimore and Ohio, being closed to him--he shipped over seven -different railroads forward and backward 1155 miles. The rates of all -these roads added together made only $2.10 a barrel instead of $2.66, -to which the shorter line had raised its price, for the purpose, as -this comparison shows, not of getting revenue, but of cutting it off. -To get into Nashville he had to go around 805 miles over five different -lines instead of 502 miles, as usual, and still had a rate of $1.28 -instead of $1.60. - -From 1880, the moment he turned to the Southern field, after the -destruction of his business in the West, everything that railroad men's -ingenuity could do was done to prevent him from becoming a successful -manufacturer who might increase the amount to be shipped, open new -markets, and steady the trade by making it move by many minds of -different views and reasons instead of by one. In order barely to live -he was kept writing, telegraphing, travelling, protesting, begging, -litigating, worrying, and agitating by press, prosecutions, private -and public, and by State and national investigation. The ingenuity of -the railroad officials in chasing him down was wonderful. Nothing was -too small if it would hurt. Sometimes the railroad made through rates -so high that it was cheaper for him to ship his oil along by short -stages, paying the local rates from place to place until it reached -its destination. In this way he got a car from Cincinnati to Knoxville -at the rate of 32 cents altogether, when, if it had been shipped at -once all the way on the through rate, it would have cost 40 cents a -hundred. The railroads have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, -used up armies of gifted counsel, and spoiled tons of white paper -with ink to argue out their right to charge more for short hauls than -long hauls; but when some traffic manager wants to crush one of his -employer's customers, no short-haul long-haul consistency stands in -his way.[407] It was not enough to fix his rates at double what others -paid. All kinds of mistakes were made about his shipments. Again and -again these mistakes were repeated; nor were they, the Interstate -Commerce Commission shows, corrected when pointed out.[408] One of -the stock excuses made by railroad managers for giving preferential -rates to their favorites is that they are the "largest shippers," and, -consequently, "entitled to a wholesale rate." But when Rice was the -largest shipper, as he was at New Orleans, they forgot to give him the -benefit of this "principle." When Rice wrote, asking if a lower rate -was not being made, the railroad agent replied: "Let me repeat that the -rates furnished you are just as low as furnished anybody else." "This -lacks accuracy," is the comment of the Interstate Commerce Commission. - -Wishing to know if the Louisville and Nashville would unite with other -roads in making through rates to him, Rice asked the question of -its freight agent. He replied: "I do not see that it is any of your -business." "It was undoubtedly his business," the Interstate Commerce -Commission says, sharply; "and his inquiry on the subject was not -wanting either in civility or propriety." When Rice asked the same road -for rates, the officials refused to give them to him, and persisted in -their refusal.[409] Like Vanderbilt before the New York Legislative -Committee, they seemed to think excuses to shippers were a substitute -for transportation, and evidently thought they had done more than their -duty in answering Rice's letters. But as the Commission dryly observes, -their answers to Rice's letters did not relieve him of the injurious -consequences. In attempting to explain these things to the Interstate -Commerce Commission, the agent of the railroad said: - -"If I have not made myself clear, I--" - -"You have not," one of the Commission interrupted.[410] - -The refusal to give Rice these rates was an "illegal refusal," the -Commission decided; "the obligation to give the rates ... was plain and -unquestionable." This general freight agent was summoned by Congress to -tell whether or not lower rates had been made to the oil combination -than to their competitors. He refused to produce the books and papers -called for by the subpoena. He had been ordered by the vice-president -of the road, he said, to refuse. He declined to answer the questions of -the committee. Recalled, he finally admitted the truth: "We gave them -lower rates in some instances."[411] - -Rice took to the water whenever he could, as hunted animals do. The -Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri were public highways that had -not been made private property, with general agents or presidents to -say "No" when asked permission to travel over them. He began to ship -by river. The chairman of the Committee of Commerce rose in his seat -in Congress to present favorably a bill to make it illegal to ship oil -of less than 150 degrees fire-test on the passenger boats of inland -waters. The reason ostentatiously given was public safety. But, as was -at once pointed out in the press, the public safety required no such -law. The test proposed was far above the requirement of safety. No -State in its inspection laws stipulated for so high a test. Most of the -States were satisfied with oil of 110 degrees fire-test; a few, like -Ohio, went as high as 120 degrees. All but a very small proportion of -the oil sent to Europe was only 110 degrees fire-test. The steamboat -men did not want the law, and were all against it. There was no demand -from the travelling public for such legislation. General Warner, member -of Congress, said, in opposing the bill: "Petroleum which will stand a -fire-test of 110 degrees is safer than baled cotton or baled hay, and -as safe as whiskey or turpentine to be carried on steamers. What is the -object, then? There can be but one, and I may as well assert it here, -although I make no imputation whatever upon the Committee of Commerce, -or any member of it. It will put the whole carrying trade of refined -petroleum into the hands of the railroads and under the control of ... -a monopoly which has the whole carrying trade in the oil business on -railroads, and they will make it as impossible for refiners to exist -along the lakes and the Ohio River as it is impossible for them now to -exist on any of the railroads of the country." Why the trust, though -it was the greatest shipper, should seek to close up channels of -cheapness like the waterways was plain enough. They were highways where -privilege was impossible. With its competitors shut off the railroads -by privilege, and off the rivers by law, it would be competition proof. - -The United States authorities, too, moved against Rice, responsive to -the same "pull" that made jumping-jacks for monopoly out of committees -of commerce and railway kings. When the Mississippi River steamer _U.P. -Schenck_ arrived at Vicksburg with 56 barrels of independent oil, the -United States marshal came on board to serve a process summoning the -officers and owners to answer to the charge of an alleged violation of -law. Several steamboats were similarly "libelled." - -"We were threatened a great many times," the representative of the -steamboat company told Congress.[412] The steamboat men were put to -great expense and without proper cause. When the cases came to trial -they were completely cleared in every instance. But the prosecution had -done its work of harassing competition. The success of the campaign -of 1879 in Ohio was now repeated over a wider field. The attack of -1886, "in a period of five months," Rice said before Congress, "shut up -fourteen of my agencies out of twenty-four, and reduced the towns we -had been selling in from seventy-three to thirty-four."[413] This was a -loss in one year of 79 per cent., or about four-fifths of his business. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -IN THE INTEREST OF ALL - - -The difference in freights against Rice was so great, as the Interstate -Commerce Commission found, after taking hundreds of pages of testimony, -that he had to pay $600 to $1200, "or more," on the same quantity his -opponent got through for $500. These discriminations were made, as the -commissioners say, "on no principle.... Neither greater risks, greater -expense, competition by water transportation, nor any other fact or -circumstance brought forward in defence, nor all combined, can account -for these differences."[414] - -The railroads had, of course, to give some reason, and they put forward -the plea that it was much more expensive and dangerous to carry Rice's -shipments, which were in barrels, than those of the combination, which -were in tank-cars.[415] This excuse for charging him rates at which -he could not ship at all did not stand examination by the Interstate -Commerce Commission. - -But he did not wait for that. When he found the railroads were so fond -of tank-cars, he set about getting them. He wrote the general freight -agent and the president of the road that he would build tank-cars, and -asked what his rate would be then; but he got no answer. He wrote other -roads, but got no answer. He asked the general manager of the Queen -City and Crescent Route the same question. After a correspondence of -five months with him and other officials, in which he was shuttlecocked -from one to another and back again, he had not only not succeeded in -getting any tank-car rates, but at the end of that protracted exchange -of letters the general manager wrote: "I was not aware that you had -asked for rates on oil in tank-cars."[416] Rice wrote the Louisville -and Nashville: "I will build immediately twenty tank-cars if you will -guarantee me ... as low a net rate as accorded any other shipper." -Commenting on his failure to get answers, the commissioners say: -"Complainant did not succeed in obtaining rates. The denial of his -right was plain, and stands unexcused.... What reason there may have -been for it"--the refusal of rates--"we do not know, but find that they -were not just or legal reasons."[417] - -How history is made! One of the reasons given by the solicitor of the -oil trust[418] for its success is its use of the tank-car, with the -obvious inference that its would-be competitors had no such enterprise. -And Peckham, in his valuable and usually correct "Census Report on -Petroleum," in 1885, says that the railroads require shippers to use -tank-cars![419] - -Determined to keep in the field and to have tank-cars, if tank-cars -were so popular with the railroad officials, Rice went to the leading -manufacturers to have some built. He found they were glad to get his -contract. After making arrangements at considerable trouble and expense -to build him the cars, they telegraphed him that they had to give it -up. Bankers, who had promised to advance them money on the security of -the cars, backed out "on account of some supposed controversy which -they claim you have had with the Standard Oil Company and various -railroads in the West. They feared you could not use these cars to -advantage if the railroads should be hostile to your interests."[420] - -Through the all-pervading system of espionage, to which cities[421] -as well as individuals were subject, his plans had been discovered -and thwarted. The espionage over shipments provided for by the -South Improvement scheme has now extended to business between -manufacturer and manufacturer. Why should it stop at unsealing private -correspondence in the post-office in the European style, and making its -contents known to those who need the information for the protection of -their rights to the control of the markets? - -Rice, who was nothing if not indomitable, finally got ten cars from the -Harrisburg works. But this supply was entirely inadequate, and he had -to continue doing the bulk of his business in barrels. What a devil's -tattoo the railroad men beat on these barrels of his! They made him pay -full tariff rates on every pound weight of the oil and of the barrel, -but they hauled free the iron tanks, which were the barrels of his -rivals, and also gave them free the use of the flat-cars on which the -tanks were carried.[422] Hauling the tanks free, on trucks furnished -free, was not enough. The railroads hauled free of all charge a large -part, often more than half, of the oil put into the tanks. In the exact -phrase of the Interstate Commerce Commission, they made out their bills -for freight to the oil combination "regardless of quantity." This is -called "blind-billing." - -Of the 3000 tank-cars of the combination only two carried as little as -20,000 pounds; according to the official figures there were hundreds -carrying more than 30,000 pounds, and the weight ran up to 44,250 -pounds, but they were shipped at 20,000 pounds.[423] A statement put in -evidence showed that shipments in tank-cars actually weighing 1,637,190 -pounds had been given to the roads by the combination as weighing only -1,192,655 pounds. Cars whose loads weighed 44,250, 43,700, 43,500, -36,550 pounds were shipped as having on board only 20,000 pounds. At -this rate more than one-quarter of the transportation was stolen. - -The stockholders of the road were paying an expensive staff of -inspectors to detect attempts of shippers to put more in their cars -than they paid for, but these shippers paid for three car-loads and -shipped from four to six regularly, and were never called to account. -This "blind-billing," the Commission said, was "specially oppressive." -It was done by the roads in violation of their own rule. It had -been mutually agreed among them, and given out to the public, "that -tank-cars shall be taken at actual weight."[424] - -When Rice was trying to get the roads to allow him to use tank-cars, -he asked how the charge on them was calculated. Of those that answered -none answered right. None of them gave him the slightest intimation -that there was any such practice as "blind-billing." On the contrary, -they assured him he would have to pay for every pound he shipped. -The Missouri Pacific replied with a "statement not warranted by the -facts," as the Commission softly put it. They said they charged -for the "actual weight," while, as the Commission shows, they made -shipments "regardless of quantity." Rice asked the Newport News -and Mississippi Valley Railroad for tank-car rates. "A tank-car is -supposed to weigh (carry) 20,000 pounds; if it weighs more, then we -will charge for it." At the same time the agent wrote Rice this, he -was hauling cars containing 35,000 pounds "with no additional charge." -"If this statement was made in good faith," the Commission says, "it -is difficult to account for it, and it is not accounted for." "Had he -(Rice) provided himself with cars for tank shipment, and been charged -as he was told he would be, the discrimination against him would have -put success in the traffic out of the question." - -When they wanted to turn some new screw in freight rates against Rice, -the railroad officials would whip themselves around the stump by -printing a new tariff sheet on a type-writer, and tacking it, perhaps, -as one of the Interstate Commerce Commission said, on some back door in -their offices. This they called "publishing" their rates, as required -by the Interstate Commerce law. To Rice, asking for tank-car rates, -they would send this printed sheet, showing that if he shipped by -tank-car he must pay for every pound, and they held him off with this -printed, official, and apparently authentic tariff, though shipping -44,000 for 20,000 pounds for the trust. This was done after the -Interstate Commerce Act went into force.[425] - -One of these roads assured Rice that its rates had been fixed "by the -special authority of the National Railway Commissioners." The fact was, -as the Commission declares: "The Commission never investigated coal-oil -rates, or gave special authority for their renewal; it never sanctioned -any difference in the rates as between tank-car and barrel shipments, -and had never, up to the date of this letter, had its attention called -to them in any way."[426] - -The representative of the combination was called as a witness before -the Interstate Commerce Commission. "We pay for exactly what is put -in the tanks,"[427] he testified. "In fact, this was never done," -says the Commission.[428] Even the railroad officials, who could go -any length in "blind-billing" for him, could not "go it blind" on the -witness-stand to the extent of supporting such a statement. "Our price -per tank-car was not based on any capacity or weight; they have been -made simply per tank-car."[429] - -"What, generally, is the object of false billing?" - -"I suppose to beat the railroad company."[430] - -In defence of the discrimination against the barrel shippers, a great -deal has been made of danger from fire, damage to cars from leakage, -and trouble of handling in the case of barrel shipments, but the best -expert opinion which the Interstate Commerce Commission could get -went against all these plausible pretences.[431] The manager of the -tank line on the Pennsylvania roads showed that the risks were least -when the transportation was in barrels. Another reason given for the -lower rates on tanks was that they returned loaded with turpentine -and cotton-seed oil from the South; but, as the Interstate Commerce -Commission shows, this traffic was taken at rates so astonishingly low -that it was of little profit;[432] and the commissioner of the Southern -Railway and Steamship Association informed the Commission that the -return freight business in cotton alone, brought back by the box-cars, -to say nothing of other freight, was worth more than these back-loads -of turpentine in the tank-cars.[433] It was, consequently, the box-car -in which barrel shipments were made, and not the tanks, on which the -railroad men should have given a better rate, according to their own -reasoning. Turpentine and cotton-seed oil are worth three or four times -more than kerosene, and it costs no more, no less, to haul one than the -other; but the railroads would carry the cotton-seed oil and turpentine -for one-third or one-fourth the rate they charged for kerosene. The -Commission could not understand why the rates given by the roads on -these back-loads of turpentine and cotton-seed oil were so low. "This -charge, for some reason not satisfactorily explained to the Commission, -is made astonishingly low when compared with the charge made upon -petroleum, although the cotton-seed oil is much the more valuable -article."[434] - -The newspapers of the South have contained many items of news -indicating that the men who have made the oil markets theirs have -similarly appropriated the best of the turpentine trade, but nothing is -known through adjudicated testimony. The trustees of oil have always -denied that there was any connection between them and the Cotton-seed -Oil Trust, although the latter shipped its product in the oil trust's -cars. The reasons, therefore, for the "extraordinarily low" rates made -on the turpentine and cotton-seed oil shipped North in its tank-cars -must remain, until further developments, where the Commission leaves -it--"not satisfactorily explained." The railroads said they made -the rates low for tanks because of the enticing prospects of these -back-loads, in which there was no profit to speak of; but they -extended these special rates to points from which there was no such -back-loading.[435] Rice saw how the cost of sending his oil South could -be reduced by bringing back-loads of turpentine at these "astonishingly -low" rates. He found there was still turpentine in the South he could -buy; but the railroads would not so much as answer his application for -rates. - -"They absolutely refused." - -"Was this refusal since the Interstate Commerce decision in your case?" - -"Yes, sir; since that decision."[436] - -It might have been thought this would have been enough--hauling the -tank itself free; furnishing the flat-cars free for many tanks; -carrying free a quarter to a half, "or more." But there was more than -this. The railroads paid the combination for putting its tank-cars on -their lines. For every mile these cars were hauled, loaded or empty, -the roads paid it a mileage varying from 3/4 to 1-1/2 cents. This -mileage was of itself a handsome revenue, enough to pay a profit of 6 -per cent. on its investment in the cars. But when Rice asked what the -railroads would charge him for hauling back his empty tank-cars, he was -not told that he would be paid for their use, as others were. He was -told that he would be charged "generally a cent and a half a mile," -or, "we make the usual mileage charge on return of empty tanks." "This -last statement," the Interstate Commerce Commissioners say, "was not -warranted by the facts."[437] The vessel which contains the oil of the -combination "receives a hire coming and going," Mr. Rice's lawyer said -before the Committee of Congress on Commerce; "that which contains -Rice's oil pays a tax." When Rice tried to sell his oil on the Pacific -coast he found that if he shipped in tank-cars he would have to pay $95 -to bring the empty car back, which others got back free. - -The representative of the oil combination was questioned about all this -by the Interstate Commerce Commission. - -"Are you allowed mileage on tank-cars?" - -"No, sir." - -"Neither way?" - -"Neither way."[438] - -But the railroad officials again could not "blind-bill" him as far as -this. Asked what mileage they paid him, they replied: - -"Three-quarters of a cent a mile."[439] - -When the freight agents who did these queer things at the expense of -their employers--_i.e._, their proper employers, the stockholders--were -put on the stand before the Interstate Commerce Commission to explain, -they cut a sorry figure. "It was an oversight," "a mistake," said one. -Another could only ring confused changes on "I think it is an error.... -I cannot tell why that is so.... It is simply an error.... I cannot -tell."[440] There were never any errors, suppositions, oversights for -Rice.[441] Referring to this, the Commission says, caustically: - -"The remarkable thing about the matter is that so many of these -defendants should make the same mistake--a mistake, too, that it was -antecedently so improbable any of them would make. The Louisville and -Nashville, the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, the Newport -News and Mississippi Valley, and the Illinois Central companies are -all found giving out the same erroneous information, and no one of -them can tell how or why it happened to be done, much less how so many -could contemporaneously, in dealing with the same subject, fall into so -strange an error. It is to be noted, too, that it is not a subordinate -agent or servant who makes the mistake in any instance, but it is the -man at the head of the traffic department, and whose knowledge on the -subject any inquirer would have a right to assume must be accurate. In -no case is the error excused."[442] - -The cases in which Rice prosecuted the railroads before the -Interstate Commerce Commission are among the most important that -have been tried by the Commission. The charges made by Rice were -conclusively proved, except as to some minor roads and circumstances. -The Commission declared the rates that were charged him to be illegal -and unjust, and a discrimination that must be stopped. It ordered the -roads to discontinue using their power as common carriers to carry -Rice's property into the possession of a rival. "The conclusion is -irresistible that the rate sheets were not considerately made with a -view to relative justice."[443] - -The facts of these discriminations--"unjust," "illegal," and -"abhorrent"--are on the records as judicially and finally determined. -But one of the combination said before the Pennsylvania Legislature, at -Harrisburg, as reported in the Harrisburg _Patriot_, February 19, 1891: - - "I say to you all, in good faith, that since the passage of the - Interstate Commerce law, and the introduction of that system, we have - never taken a rebate. I mean we have taken no advantage over what any - other shipper can get. I make the statement broadly, and I challenge - the statement to the very utmost, and will pay the expenses of any - litigation undertaken to try it." - -When it was found that this practice of charging the preferred shipper -for only 20,000 pounds when it shipped 25,000, 30,000, 40,000, or -44,000, was going to be investigated by the Interstate Commerce -Commission, there were intellects ready to meet the emergency. A pot -of paint and a paint-brush furnished the shield of righteousness. -Each car being known by its number, and only by its number, all the -old numbers of the 3000 tank-cars of the oil trust were painted -out, and new numbers painted on. Whether its mighty men left their -luxurious palaces in New York, and stole about in person after dark, -each with paint-pot and brush, or whether they asked employés to do -such work, the evidence does not state. The device was simple, but -it did. Rice was suing for his rights to use the highways before -the Interstate Commerce Commission, and before the Supreme Court of -Ohio, through the Attorney-General of the State, who had found the -matter of sufficient importance to use his official power to institute -suits in _quo-warranto_ against two railroads. It was necessary that -evidence should be forthcoming in these suits to prove what his rate -was in comparison with the others. The only way this could be done was -by comparing the actual size of the cars with the size given in the -freight bills, or manifests. The cars are known in the bills only by -their numbers, and without its number no car could be identified. The -report of Congress reprints the following from the testimony of the -representative of the trust before the Interstate Commerce Commission: - -"Has there recently been any general change in the numbering of the -cars?" - -"Yes, sir; there has been quite a general renumbering, repainting, and -overhauling." - -"When did that change take place?" - -"I think it was commenced some time in July; it may have been later." - -The result of that renumbering made it practically impossible to -identify any car as connected with any shipment made before that time. -The cars were there, looking as fresh and innocent as good men who -have donned robes of spotless white earned by the payment of generous -pew-rent. The cars showed even to the unassisted eye, as the Interstate -Commerce Commission said, how much larger they were than was pretended. -There were still the accounts of the railroads, showing that these cars -had been "blind-billed" as containing only 20,000 pounds, but the cars -mentioned in the manifesto could no longer be identified with the cars -on the tracks. The sin of "blind-billing" was washed out in paint. Rice -went to the Interstate Commerce Commission with his complaint in this -case in July. Immediately the repainting and renumbering took place. -"It was commenced some time in July; it may have been later."[444] - -In such cases time is money, and more. "Seest thou a man diligent in -business, he shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean -men." - -The members of this combination have many thousand tank-cars engaged -in carrying their oil, and some of them have another kind of tank-car -travelling about the country. Under the head of the "Gospel Car" the -_Daily Statesman_, of Portland, Oregon, printed the following article, -Sunday, December 13, 1891: "THE GOSPEL CAR.--The mission car 'Evangel' -arrived yesterday, and was side-tracked on the penitentiary switch. A -song service attracted many people during the morning. There will be -services at 10.30 this morning, and in the afternoon, at 3 o'clock, a -Sunday-school will be organized. This will be the first Sunday-school -ever organized from the gospel car, which has been on the road since -last spring. The 'Evangel' is sixty feet in length, ten feet wide, and -seats nearly one hundred people. It is the generous gift of"--several -New York millionaires, the most important of them belonging to the -oil trust--" ... to the American Baptist Publication Society. The -reverend gentleman who was in charge of the 'Evangel,'" the _Statesman_ -continued, "will visit the smaller towns along the railway, and conduct -evangelistic meetings in the car." One of these cars was in Chicago -early in 1893, and was admiringly described by the Chicago press. -Though corporations have no souls they are ready to help save the souls -of others, for the railroads give these cars free hauling, and the -messages and the packages of its occupants are franked by the telegraph -and express companies. The contents of this tank-car are distributed -by its donors to the people without money and without price. It is -conceivable that by making it so "cheap" and by multiplying the -"Evangel" into an evangelical tank line of thousands of cars, the -donors might drive the churches, which have no tank-cars, out of the -business, as they have done the tankless refiners, and ultimately add -to their monopoly of the Light of the World that of the Light of the -other World. - -Tho effect of all this on the family co-operation at Marietta does -not need to be described. Its head told Congress that if he had had -no difficulty in getting the same freight as others he could have run -his refinery to its full capacity, and could have increased his works -largely. - -"Are not your expenses less than theirs?" - -"Yes, sir.... I am running very moderately now.... One-third to -one-half generally."[445] - -"I am virtually ruined," he says still later in a statement of his -condition in a circular to the public, urging them to petition -Congress to make the imperfect Interstate Commerce law operative. He -is virtually ruined, though he has won his cases before the Interstate -Commerce Commission, and that Federal tribunal has ordered the roads to -give him his rights on the highways; but it has been a barren victory. -His circular is entitled "My Experience Very Briefly Told." Its opening -sentences give us in a phrase the secret of the significance of Rice's -story, and dignify his appeal to the public. They show how thoroughly -adversity had driven home into this plain man's mind a great civic -truth which his fellow-citizens have not yet learned, probably because -they have not yet had adversity enough. His solitary and fruitless, -although successful, struggle taught him that the citizens of industry -can no more maintain their rights acting singly than the citizens of -government. He had learned that "competition," "supply and demand," -"eternal laws of trade," were catchwords as impotent in the markets to -give individuals their rights, if unassociated, as the incantations of -royalty and loyalty, and law and order, to save people from their king -until they made themselves a People. Persons fail; only a People can -get and keep freedom. This Rice had begun to learn from his failure to -enforce single-handed rights which all the courts declared were his, -but which no court could secure. In his card to the people, he said: -"I am fighting for my rights and for my existence (which happens to be -in the interest of all) single-handed and alone, at my own expense and -time lost.... I am here ... to do what I can to get the Interstate -Commerce Act amended at this present session of the Fiftieth Congress, -to cure existing evils, and all I ask is that you will take hold and -assist me by your signature and approval to the enclosed petition. -You are subject to the same influences, and now is your time, my -fellow-countrymen, to come forward and assist a little to stop this -nefarious work." - -"In the interest of all." This is exactly the relation which the -struggle of this common citizen bears to the general welfare. The -investigation by the Ohio Legislature in 1879;[446] the removal by the -United States Court of the railroad receiver who agreed to pay the -oil trust $25 out of every $35 freight collected from Rice;[447] the -refund ordered by the Supreme Court of Ohio from a pipe-line company -which had charged Rice 15 cents extra on every barrel he shipped to -pay it to his competitors;[448] the successful prosecution, by the -Attorney-General of Ohio before the Supreme Court, of the railroads -discriminating against Rice;[449] the cases before the Interstate -Commerce Commission from its beginning till now, involving hundreds of -railroads, and decided, so far as it did decide, on almost every point -in Rice's favor;[450] the disruption, as far as forms go, of the oil -trust in Ohio by the Supreme Court of the State ousting corporations -from the right to become members of such combinations and to pool their -earnings therein;[451] the investigation of the oil trust by Congress -in 1888 and 1889, devoted in large part to the various aspects of -Rice's experience--these are some only of the public functions which -had to be invoked in the ineffectual attempt to protect this one man on -the high-road and in his livelihood, and they show how little his was -merely a "private affair." - -When the amendment of the Interstate Commerce law was before Congress -in 1889, eminent counsel were employed by Rice to explain the defects -of the law to the committees, and petitions to Congress through his -instrumentality were circulated all over the country, and numerously -signed. Though a poor man, who could ill afford it, he gave time -and money and attention, frequently spending weeks at Washington, -discussing the subject with members, and presenting petitions. The -act was amended in partial accordance with these petitions and -recommendations. - -To obtain the elementary right of a stockholder, never withheld in the -course of ordinary business--to vote and receive dividends on stock in -the oil trust which the trustees had sold and he had bought in the open -market--Rice had to sue through all the New York courts from 1888 to -1892. The Court of Appeals decided that there had been no lawful reason -for the denial of his rights, and ordered that they be accorded him. -This was another barren victory. The trust had meanwhile ostensibly -been dissolved; but the dissolution has every appearance of being like -that of its progenitor, the South Improvement Company, a dissolution -"in name" only; not in reality. In place of the old trust certificates -listed on the New York Stock Exchange, new certificates have been -issued which were selling in the spring of 1894 at about the same -quotation as the former ones. - -In this case the trust asked the New York courts to deny Rice his -rights because he had in other matters, and as to other parties, -appealed to other courts. His other suits had been against the -railroads, not against the oil combination. He acted on the defensive, -and went into court only to save himself from commercial strangulation. -In all of them that went to trial he was successful, with but one or -two exceptions. He was so successful that even the judges who heard his -case and decided in his favor were moved to outbursts of unaffected -indignation on the bench. The only result aimed at or procured was that -the courts decreed that these common carriers must in the future give -this citizen his legal rights on the railways; not that he must have -the same rates as his opponent, but only that the difference in their -favor shall not be "excessive," "illegal," "unjust." - -Because of this attempt to secure the fair use of the highways side by -side with it, the trust pleaded in the Supreme Court of New York that -his appeal to courts as a shipper was a reason why the courts should -withhold his rights as a stockholder. - -In making this plea the trustees described themselves as having been -for years persecuted by the independent of Marietta, and moistened the -dry pages of their legal pleadings with appeals for the sympathy of the -courts and the public. He has "diligently and persistently sought to -become acquainted with" our "methods of business and private affairs;" -"he has used efforts to injure" our "business"; "he is attempting to -harass, injure, and annoy" us; "he has ever since ... 1876, when he -first engaged in business, ... maintained a hostile attitude, and -been engaged in hostile transactions and proceedings against" us, ... -"for the purpose of injuring" us and our "business"; he "has been -uninterruptedly prosecuting ... a series of litigations ... in the -courts, as well as before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and -before an investigating committee of Congress ... for the purpose of -harassing and annoying" us.[452] And when in 1891 Rice was appealing -to the Attorney-General of New York to bring suit in the name of the -State against the oil combination in New York, like that which had been -successfully brought in Ohio, he was publicly stigmatized in court as -a "black-mailer" because he had once named a price at which he was -willing to sell his refinery and quit. So the citizens of Nashville -were called black-mailers for competing, and the citizens of Buffalo -for bringing a criminal conspiracy to justice. - -It is this dancing attendance upon State legislatures, courts, -attorney-generals, Congress, the Interstate Commerce Commission, as -shown in this recital, which the modern American business man must add -to Thrift, Industry, and Sobriety as a condition of survival. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -ORDINARY SUPPLY AND DEMAND - - -"Do I understand you that they have not sought in any way to make the -operations of refineries outside the trust so unprofitable that parties -would either come into the trust or have to abandon the business--has -anything of that sort been done?" - -"They have not; no, sir, they have not," was the triple negative of the -president. - -"They" (the trustees) "have lived on good terms with what I may call -their competitors?" - -"They have; and have to-day very pleasant relations with those -gentlemen." - -"So far as you know," he was asked, "the product of the crude oil and -the manufacture and sale of the refined oil has been absolutely left to -the ordinary rules of supply and demand, has it not?" - -"It has."[453] - -In the winter of 1873 a young farmer living among the blue hills of -Wyoming, in western New York, where he had been born and bred, was -asked by a stranger from Rochester to help him in a search for oil -lands. The old-fashioned quiet of the little community was agitated by -the hope that the milk and honey of their valleys might be replaced -by a more precious flow. The stranger and his son were prosperous oil -refiners, but a little cloud, about the size of a "trustee's" hand, -had crept into their sunshine. As they set about drilling a well on -some "likely-looking" land they had leased, the stranger told the -farmer why he was so anxious to strike oil for his own exclusive use. -The reader is better prepared to understand his explanation than the -then inexperienced agriculturist to whom he gave his confidence. It had -begun to be difficult for him to get a full and regular supply of the -crude petroleum for his works. There were restrictions, he said, about -the shipments.[454] What that meant the young farmer was to learn for -himself. - -There was no oil in Wyoming, and the refiner went back to Rochester, -and, as so many others have done, sold the control of his works, -the Vacuum, to the "successful men" of the combination, and stepped -silently into the minority place. His Wyoming friend, Charles B. -Matthews, had continued in his service, and when the Vacuum was sold -he and two other of its employés made up their minds to go into the -business of refining in Buffalo on their own account. They were under -no obligations or contract to remain, and did not suppose themselves -to have been sold along with the concern. They were capable men, and -showed great business sense in their arrangements. Buffalo, by its -connections by rail and the lake with the market, and its nearness -to the oil supply, was a much better situation than Rochester or -Cleveland. An independent refining company--the Atlas--was then -constructing an independent pipe line from the oil regions to Buffalo. -"This made Buffalo the best point for establishing refining industries -in the country, with its canal and lake transportation for the products -of the factory, and with a pipe line, in the hands of independents, -from the crude oil wells to the city," said the Buffalo _Express_. -Matthews had by this time had several years' experience in the -business. Of the two with him, Albert was a laborer, who had worked -his way up in the Vacuum refinery until he could run the stills, and -had learned how to make oil. He and his thrifty wife had saved a few -thousand dollars. He was ambitious. He had learned at school and in the -army and at Fourth-of-July celebrations that America is a free country -for all, and that there are no classes here, and that any workman -may go to the top. Farmer Matthews had fed his boyhood with stories -of country boys who had gone to the city and matured into business -magnates. He and Albert pooled their visions and their savings, -borrowed some money, and went to work. As for competition, though -they knew it was close, they were not afraid but that they could hold -their own in a fair fight, and of anything but a fair fight they never -dreamed. - -"How are you going to get your crude oil?" Albert and Matthews were -asked when they went to tell their employer what they were going to do. - -"From the Atlas pipe line." - -"You will wake up some day and find that there is no Atlas Oil Company. - -"We have ways," he continued, "of making money you know nothing about," -using, singularly enough, the phraseology employed by a greater man in -the interview with another would-be competitor.[455] - -"As gentlemen," he went on to say, "I respect you, but as to the -Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company I shall do all in my power to injure or -destroy it."[456] - -Afterwards Albert alone was sent for. "Don't you think it would be -better for you to leave these men, and have $20,000 deposited to your -wife's credit than go with these parties?" - -"I went out with them in good faith, and I propose to stay." - -"It will be only a matter of a few days with the Buffalo institution at -the furthest. We will crush them out, and you will lose what little you -have got." - -Albert was shown an elaborate statement of the cost of making oil and -its selling price, proving that there was no money in oil.[457] The -record of dividends was produced in court afterwards. It showed that -just before this--January 18, 1881--a dividend of 50 per cent. had been -paid in one month.[458] Dividends of $300,000 had been paid in 1881 on -the capital of $100,000. "No wonder they did not want competition," -said the New York _World_. - -These negotiations had been with the son. Albert not yielding to this -pressure, and pushing ahead with the construction of the rival stills, -the father, who was in California, came back. At his request Albert -again interrupted the work on the new refinery, which he alone of -the partners could direct, and came from Buffalo to Rochester for an -interview. - -"You have made a grand mistake," said his old employer, "by going out -with those fellows.... The company will not last long.... The result -will be, if you stay with them, you will lose all you have got in -it.... We are going to commence suits against them. We will not only -sue them, but serve an injunction on them and stop their work. The -result of it is that when these suits commence, if you are in it, you -will be responsible, and you have got a little money, and you will lose -it all.... If you come back and work with us everything will be all -right, and we will make everything satisfactory to you." - -"If I leave them it will leave them in bad shape," Albert urged. - -"That is just exactly what I want to do,"[459] his former employer -replied. - -Albert began to weaken. "I had," he afterwards told in court, ... -"about $6000 altogether, or a little more. They had reason to know -that I had some property there."[460] This was all he had to show for -the work of a lifetime, and it began to look as if it were fading away -under these reiterated threats and warnings, which went on from March -to June. Albert gave way. He went to his lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, of -Rochester. "We have come," said his former employer, who accompanied -him, "to see what disposition can be made of Al's property." - -"They are going to bust the company up," said Albert to his lawyer, -when asked why he was going back to the Vacuum Company. "I am an -indorser on one of its notes, and if I do not come back with the -Vacuum, what property and money I have will be taken away from me." - -The lawyer was pressed to tell how Albert could get out of his -arrangement with his company. They could not get along without him, and -were not likely to discharge him. - -"If they won't release him or buy him out, the only other way," said -the lawyer, "is to leave them, and take the consequences. If he has -entered into a contract and violated it, I presume there will be a -liability for damages as well as for the debts." - -"I think there is other ways for Albert to get out of it," said the -representative of the Vacuum method in commerce and morals. - -"I see no way except to back out or sell out; no other honorable way," -persisted the lawyer. - -"Suppose he should arrange the machinery so it would bust up or smash -up, what would the consequences be?" - -"If negligently, carelessly, not purposely done, he would be only -civilly liable for damages caused by his negligence; but if it was -wilfully done, there would be a further criminal liability for -malicious injury to the property of the company." - -"You wouldn't want me, would you," said the poor man to his late -employer and friend, "to do anything to lay myself liable?" - -"You have been police justice," said the Vacuum man to the lawyer, "and -have had some experience in criminal law. I would like to have you look -up the law carefully on that point, and we will see you again."[461] -Or, in effect: "See about how much crime we can commit," District -Attorney Quinby paraphrased it afterwards to the jury. - -In a day or so the two managers of the Vacuum--father and son--came -back again with Albert. - -"Have you looked up that matter, Mr. Truesdale?" asked they. - -"Yes, I have looked it up." - -"What do you think about it?" - -"My impression has not changed. Such a course would involve him in a -criminal liability if he did it on purpose. Everybody who advised or -counselled him in such a course would be equally liable with him. The -consequences, if you follow that course, would be that you would get -into State's prison. If he is an honest man he won't think of taking -any such action as that. I advise him to keep out of any such thing." - -"Such things will have to be found out before they can be punished," -was the Vacuum reply. "They will have to find him before they can do -anything to him. We will take care of him." "Having in mind," said -District Attorney Quinby to the jury, "what happened afterwards--that -they should spirit him away." - -"The suggestion is altogether wrong," persisted the lawyer. "The action -would certainly be very hazardous as well as wrong." - -On leaving, the elder of the two, evidently persisting in his plan, -said to the lawyer, "If you want to communicate with Albert, you can do -so through C.M."[462]--his son. - -These men were too careless to note that the lawyer they were talking -to was not their lawyer, but Albert's. When they were brought to trial -for the crime that followed, and Albert, repentant, told the truth, -the lawyer was free to testify against them. "I am entirely willing," -said Albert in court, "that Mr. George Truesdale shall state what took -place. I withdraw any legal objections I might have." - -The accident which has let us see how the employés of a trust coolly -debated with lawyers the policy of blowing up a competitor's works, -is one of the few glimpses the American public will ever get into the -relations of great legal lights and law-reformers with the mighty -capitalists who wreck railroads and execute wholesale corruption of -courts, legislatures, and trustees, and evade and transgress the laws -with the sure march of those who know that indictments and bail-bonds -and verdicts of "guilty" and the penitentiary are only for men not -rich enough to plan crime "by advice of counsel." When such men went -marauding through the treasury of a great railroad and the courts of -an Empire State, we saw the greatest of law-reformers, with a host -of legal luminaries, picketing and scouting for them. Every sound in -nature is phonographed somewhere, as its waves strike, and Judgment Day -will be rich with the revelations from these invisible rolls of the -confidential conversations between "trustees" and counsel, who are not -honorable lawyers as George Truesdale was, prostituting their functions -as "officers of courts" into those of officers of crime. - -All these trips from Buffalo to Rochester for these interviews made bad -breaks in the construction of the works of the new company at Buffalo. -The partners, who were wholly dependent upon Albert's knowledge and -experience for the building of the refinery, and running it when built, -were mystified and alarmed. Time and again he ran away without a word -to them, and all work would stop until he came back. When he was on -hand his task did not prosper as if his heart were still in it. When -one of the three stills of the refinery had been set up ready for use, -and before any oil was run, Albert went up to Rochester again. At this -rendezvous the sinister suggestion of "doing something" was repeated. -"You go back to Buffalo and construct the pipes and stills so that they -cannot make good oil, and then if you would give them a little scare -... they not knowing anything about the business ... you know how to -do it." Swearing he would not consent, but already succumbing to this -temptation, as he had given way to the threat of ruin, he replied as -before: "I don't propose to do anything to make myself criminally -liable."[463] At their suggestion he took a man they sent all through -the new works, showing him how the stills had been constructed, how the -oil was to be made, and all the details of the refinery.[464] - -The day came at last--long expected, delayed by these unaccountable -absences--when the members of the new company were to have the -happiness of seeing their enterprise set going. The one still that -was ready was filled with crude oil. The morning of the start Albert -weighted down the safety-valve with heavy iron, and packed it with -plaster of Paris. "Fire this still," he said to his fireman, "as heavy -as you possibly can." The fireman did as he was ordered. During the -forenoon Albert came to him. "Damn it!" he said, "you ain't firing this -still half. Fire this still! I want you to fire this still! You ain't -got no fire under it!" He took the shovel himself and threw some coal -in, although there was, as the fireman expressed it, "an inordinary -fire." The fire-box grew cherry red.[465] - -Albert knew well enough what the next chapter in the history of his -associates was likely to be. He had carried a dark-lantern into the -still-room one day when he was superintendent of the Vacuum. "I was -badly burned by the explosion," he testified before the coroner's jury -investigating the explosion in Rochester, in 1887. There were four -explosions in the Vacuum works while he was there. In the second, four -men were burned. As one of them ran to get water, with his clothes -burning, he set fire to the gas coming out of the sewer. Flames flashed -all about him. "There's hell all around!" he exclaimed. The third -explosion came from an overheated condensing-pipe, and destroyed one of -the buildings. The fourth burned up three tanks. Remembering all this, -he now took himself off to the grounds of the Atlas Company, out of -harm's reach. The brickwork about the still cracked apart with the heat. - -But the "smash-up or something" had not been thoroughly arranged. -Despite the heavy weight and the packing of plaster, the safety-valve -lifted itself under the unusual pressure, and was a safety-valve yet. -It was blown open, and a large mass of vapor rose and spread. This -was the real accident: that the safety-valve broke loose instead of -keeping the gases in to explode, as had been planned. The spreading -vapor was not steam, as that had not been admitted to the still, but -the gas of distilling petroleum, as inflammable as gunpowder. There was -danger still, as great almost as that of explosion. A spark of fire, -and it would have wrapped all within its reach in flames. The boiler -fires were but twenty feet distant; not far from them the distilled oil -was being gathered in the "tail-house"; near the tail-house stood the -tanks of crude oil, hundreds of barrels of the fuel that conflagration -loves--the kind of fuel the cooks use who, beginning with kerosene for -kindling, make the whole house into a stove, and cook themselves and -the family with the breakfast. - -The kindly wind of a June day carried the cloud of gas away from the -fire until it passed out of sight. The unsuspecting, inexperienced -men, whose lives and property had been at the mercy of explosion, knew -nothing of their peril until years afterwards. The worst they knew -then was that the "batch" of 200 barrels of petroleum was spoiled, -and that Albert, the only practical man among them, was gone, leaving -them crippled for a year. They waited for him, but he did not come. -They looked for him, but could not find him. Matthews went to the -depot night after night, sometimes at midnight, or later, to watch the -trains, but Albert never came. - -"What would be the consequences?" Albert was asked afterwards in court, -when he was telling about "the pretty heavy fires" he had made under -the still--"what would be the consequences in case too hot fires were -applied, and the gas should blow off the pipes and become ignited?" - -"The consequences would be that, if ignited, there would be a -fire."[466] - -An Associated Press despatch from Louisville, Kentucky, June 30, 1890, -describing an explosion in an oil refinery there, and the "five acres -of fire" that followed, reproduces for us the picture which it had been -planned to paint at Buffalo as part of the panorama of "the ordinary -rules of supply and demand." A tank-car had been opened to run some oil -out. As the workmen lifted the cap from the manhead of the tank a cloud -of gas poured forth. It had been generated simply by the heat of the -summer sun, without the aid of an "inordinary" hot fire. The men jumped -and ran. Before they had taken a dozen steps the vapor, spreading over -the ground and moving with the wind, had reached one of the sheds near -by in which there was a fire. There was a flash. The men were bathed in -a lake of fire. They ran with the flames streaming from them. At the -infirmary their bodies were found to be charred in spots, literally -roasted alive, and the flesh dropped off as their clothing was removed. -Three men died and several were injured. - -Several years after the Buffalo explosion, when those convicted for -their part in it were fighting for stay of proceedings, new trial, -anything to escape sentence, and were trying by every means in their -power to impress upon the public the altogether innocent character of -the little incident at the works of their rival, something happened -at their own works--the Vacuum in Rochester--which gave the people -an appalling sense of the terrors of the new school of supply and -demand. Naphtha is one of the by-products of petroleum distillation, -and is used by the gas companies in the manufacture of the greased -air they furnish under the name of gas. The Vacuum Company were -selling their naphtha to the Rochester Gas Company. It was delivered -to the gas company through a pipe line. On the afternoon of December -21, 1887, there was an explosion on Platt Street, Rochester, tearing -away the pavement, shattering the basement of a building, and filling -the air with missiles. In a few seconds another explosion occurred -a short distance away, making a hole in the street several feet in -diameter, from which came large volumes of smoke and flame. A third -and fourth "bust-up" rapidly followed, and then a fifth, in the -Clinton Flouring Mill, tearing away a considerable portion of the -building, blowing off the roof and upper stories of the Jefferson -Mill adjoining, and shattering the Washington Mill. The Jefferson and -Clinton and Washington mills were burned to the ground. People were -killed by flying débris, burned to death, smashed by falling walls, -crippled by jumping from the upper stories of factories and mills on -fire. "There is probably no chemical product," says Professor Joy, of -Columbia College, "which has occasioned the loss of so many lives and -the destruction of so much property as naphtha.... From its highly -explosive and inflammable nature it has proved little better in the -hands of ignorant people than so much gunpowder." - -"The counsel for the defence," said District Attorney Quinby, in -summing up the case before the jury, "laughed at the idea of Matthews -and his associates coming to Buffalo with a little money to compete. -I congratulate him that instead of defending for conspiracy he is -not here to-day pleading for the defendants' lives. If a person had -been killed, and it had been under the advice and instruction of his -clients, he would have been differently situated from what he is -to-day. How well you men may be thankful that the gases from this still -did not flow down and, becoming ignited, explode and kill the fireman! -You ought to get down on your knees and thank your God that Providence -prevented any such terrible thing as that for you." - -After the "bust-up" had been planned, and before it was done, one of -the Vacuum managers went to New York, where the "trustees" for whom -he was managing the company were. After the "bust-up" Albert heard by -telegram from New York, as had been arranged, and went to meet his -old employer. "What do you say to going down to Boston?" he was asked -on his arrival. Later a man came in and was introduced by the name -of one of the three trustees who purchased and directed the Vacuum. -On leaving, this "trustee" said: "I will see you again if you do not -go to Boston." He thus showed that he knew of the plan that Albert -should be taken away, and that they should go to Boston. The manager -of the Vacuum now gave the world a genuine illustration of the harmony -of labor and capital. He couldn't let Albert out of his sight. They -went to Boston on the Fall River boat. The representative of a hundred -millions took the laborer into his own state-room, and at Boston -carried him into the splendors of Young's Hotel, where he registered, -naming himself "and friend," and they shared one bedroom. They went to -church together, and to Nantasket Beach, his friend introducing Albert -to those whom they met under an assumed name. "You don't want to be -known here," he said, "and I will introduce you by the name of Milner." - -"That is the name I was known by while I was there." - -"Albert has nothing to fear," said District Attorney Quinby on his -trial. "He had never been in Boston before in his life. He had no -acquaintance there. There was no reason why he should be registered -'and friend' at the hotel. There was no reason, so far as he was -concerned, that he should be introduced under a fictitious name, except -that his employer had been schooled in the wonderful university known -as" the oil combination. In Boston, on a Monday, on the Common, within -sight of the equestrian statue of the Father of his Country, his former -employer made a contract with Albert to pay him $1500 a year for doing -nothing except staying away from Buffalo. - -"You won't have much to do, and you can stay here in Boston, and keep -away from those fellows, and we will protect you." - -"Who's going to make up if those fellows come on and sue me for -damages? Who will make up this loss that I have been going to by -sacrificing my property?" - -"Leave that to me; I will fix that all right. You do just as I tell -you, and you will come out all right.... Go wherever you like, stop -where you like, and we will pay all your expenses while you are -here."[467] - -Albert loafed about Boston several weeks, sometimes helping to roll -a barrel of oil in the Vacuum's store. When he wanted money he asked -for it and got it. He had once been a hard drinker. Destruction was -as carelessly invited upon the soul of a poor brother as upon the -lives and property of competitors. He hung around Boston and Rochester -nearly a year. Then his old employer, who was in California, sent for -him to come there to help in a fruit cannery, his salary continuing -as before. From the moment he deserted his partners, as Judge Edward -Hatch, the counsel for Matthews, stated in the civil suit for damages -in this conspiracy, Albert "never earned enough to cover the end of -your knife-blade with salt at your dinner. But they pay him, in salary -and bonus, over $4000. Why? To get him away, and to stifle lawful, -legitimate, and honest competition; to stifle that which brings into -every poor man's home an article of necessity at a cheaper rate." -He stayed in California a few months, and, finally, sickened of the -disgraceful part he was playing, turned at bay, and gave notice that -he was going to leave. "This is kind of sudden," the agent of his -employers replied, but said he would write to the principal director in -New York and advise that he release him. "You will give me time, won't -you? You know it takes a couple of weeks or longer to do business from -here to New York." Albert waited, and in time the word came from New -York. "I have heard from these parties, and they are willing to release -you."[468] - -Albert, who had put himself into the extraordinary position in which -he was on the repeated pledges of the tempters that they would make it -"all right" with him, and protect him from loss and harm, found that -he had put his "trust in princes." When he came to settle he expected -that those for whom he had sacrificed his honor, his property, and his -career would make him some compensation. In answer to the question how -much they ought to make up to him, he named $5000 or $10,000, which -was certainly little enough, in view of the fact that the business -he had sacrificed to them was one in which, as the Vacuum's career -showed, $100 shares came to be worth $2666 each. But the representative -of the trust declared he could not think of such a thing, and in full -of all obligations gave him nothing but the balance due of the wages -agreed on. Then he asked Albert to hold himself still further at their -service. As they parted, he said: "Now we have settled up; now we are -good friends.... If anything ever comes up in this matter I would like -to have you stand by us.... We will see that you are paid all right, -and give you $25 a day while we need your services." Albert replied -that he did not feel under any obligations to the oil combination. -"I do not know as my interest lays that way. I do not think I shall -do anything to benefit them; they have injured me all that they can; -they have switched me all around, all over the country; they have got -me out of employ, not given me anything to do, which I sought to have -them do. I do not think they have used me right, and I have sacrificed -considerable money by this transaction, and you have always promised -that it would be made good, and you have not done so."[469] - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -THROUGH THE WOMAN'S EYES - - -Matthews knew nothing and suspected nothing about the worst part of -the plot against him until Albert's lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, nearly four -years later, was called upon to testify in the suit Matthews brought -for damages against the Vacuum people. This suit was to recover from -them for having enticed Albert away, and having persecuted Matthews -with false and malicious suits; but Truesdale's evidence at once -revealed that there had been a deeper damnation still in the conspiracy -against him. Mr. Matthews, one day on the street in Buffalo, ran across -Albert, who had just come back from California. - -"No man ever used another meaner than I have you," said the now -repentant man to him, volunteering all the information he had, -and agreeing to testify if called on. This revelation made the -farmer-refiner a reformer. This was the public's business. If such -things could be plotted and done with impunity by one man against -another, there was an end forthwith of every liberty the republic -boasted. Especially menacing was such a conspiracy when concerted by -the rich fanatic of business against the poorer citizen to prevent -the latter from disputing the claim that a great market was a private -preserve, and that the right to trade in it is a privilege which -"belongs to us."[470] Matthews could have used his discovery as an -irresistible weapon to force his enemy to his knees, but he laid his -evidence before the district attorney. This official presented it to -the grand-jury, which found that the facts warranted indictments. -When the first indictment was quashed on technical grounds a second -grand-jury, sifting the facts, agreed with the first that the accused -should be held to answer in the criminal courts. This was six years -after the crime. The five persons indicted were the two former owners -of the Vacuum, now the resident managers of it for the combination, -and the three members of the oil trust, as the combination then called -itself, who had bought the Vacuum for it, and had been elected by the -trustees directors to manage it for them, and had so managed it even -to the most picayune details. The case caught the ears of the world, -not because crime was charged against men who had dazzled even the -gold-filmed eyes of their epoch by the meteor-like flash of their -flight from poverty into a larger share of "property"--the property -of others--than any other group of millionaires had assimilated in an -equal period; not for that, but because the charges of crime against -these quickest-richest men were to be brought to trial. Members of the -combination had been often accused; they had been indicted. This was -the first time, as District Attorney Quinby said in his speech to the -jury, that they had found a citizen honest enough and brave enough to -stand up against them--the only one. "There is no man," he said, "so -respected to-day in Buffalo as he for the method he has used to bring -these men to justice." He succeeded in doing alone what the united -producers of the oil regions failed to do, although their resources -were infinitely greater. The people of the entire oil country failed -utterly to do so much as get the members of the oil combination, when -indicted for conspiracy in 1879, to come into court to be tried. All -its principal men were indicted--the president, the vice-president, -the secretary, the cashier, and others. They could not even be got to -give bail. One of them had said when the indictments were found, that -the case would never be tried, and it never has been. The Governor -would not move to have those of the accused who were non-residents -extradited, as he would have done, does daily, in the case of poor -men, and the courts so tangled up the questions of procedure that the -people withdrew, and left the indictments, as they remain to this day, -on file in the Clarion County court, swinging like the body of some -martyr on a road-side gibbet in the pagan days, polluting the air and -mocking justice.[471] - -That the trust was thoroughly alarmed, and saw the necessity of -rallying all its resources to save itself, was apparent from the -formidable display with which it appeared in the court-room. Present -with the five defendants, as if also on trial--a solid phalanx--were -its president, the vice-president, the manager of its pipe-line system, -the principal representatives of the trust in Buffalo, and many others. -Their regular attorney of New York was present with two of the leading -lawyers of Buffalo. Besides these there was a distinguished man from -Rochester, reputed the ablest lawyer in western New York, whose voice -is often heard in the Supreme Court at Washington. He had two important -members of the Rochester bar as assistants, one of them in the summing -up unmercifully scored by the District Attorney for fixing witnesses; -and, not least, a well-known United States District Attorney, who made -the convention speeches by which a distinguished citizen of Buffalo -was nominated, successively and successfully, for Sheriff, Mayor, -Governor, and President. The defendants come here, said the people's -attorney, with the best legal talent the country affords, the best -the profession can furnish; for the trust--"they are practically the -defendants in this action--with its great wealth, has the choice of -legal talent." Other eminent lawyers were also consulted, but were not -present. Never was a weak defence made the most of with more skill -than these gentlemen exhibited upon the trial.... But great as was the -ability of the defence, Mr. George T. Quinby, the District Attorney, -and his assistant, William L. Marcy, proved a match for them. Every -political and moneyed influence that could be brought to bear was used -to mislead the District Attorney, but all to no purpose. The jury -could see that the complainant, Charles B. Matthews, did not get the -indictment to sell out, otherwise he would have sold it out and not -have insisted upon a trial. The fact that the case was on trial, at a -cost of many thousands of dollars to the defendants, was conclusive -upon that point. An emissary, trying to get Matthews to call off the -District Attorney and to hush up this criminal prosecution, said the -oil trust could "give him anything, even to being governor of a Western -territory."[472] "You will have a chance," Matthews told the District -Attorney, "to line the street from your house to the City Hall with -gold bricks." But this public prosecutor had no price. He grasped the -full scope of this extraordinary case, which involved not only a crime -against persons and against the people, but against that true commerce -of reciprocal and equal service on which alone the new civilization of -humanity can rest. - -The room in the Buffalo court-house, where the case was being heard, -was bright with the sunshine of a May day, putting out the shadows of -indictments and verdicts lurking in corners and pigeon-holes. Although -it was a criminal case, the on-looker saw, strange as it seemed, that -whatever strain there was in the situation appeared to be felt least -by the accused, and most by the public and the jury. The nearer the -eyes of the on-looker travelled towards the prisoners, the lighter -and brighter was the scene. Close to the accused sat a bench full of -notables, evidently friends lending moral support. That the bench was -occupied by men of importance was evident. They were supported by -platoons of eminent counsel and detectives. Only the judge betrayed -no consciousness of the presence of the herd of millionaires. The -whisperings and pointings and namings by one spectator to another -showed that the people's curiosity was greatly excited by the -sight of the richest men in the country, if not in the world, with -attendant millionaire esquires in or about the dock of a criminal -court. On this particular day the notables and their suite had come -in specially good-humor. Nods of kindly recognition went about and -smiles rippled everywhere as, settled into their seats, they listened -to the recital by the witnesses. It had been as good as a play to hear -the working-man, Albert, tell on the stand how he had been bribed and -threatened with ruin until he yielded to the suggestion that he should -"bust up" the works of his friends, partners, and employers, and run -away. There had been nothing funny to Albert in those threats: "We will -ruin you," "We will crush you," "You will lose what little you have got -left."[473] - -"Then the compensation you got was $300 and the pleasure of selling -out your friends?" Albert was asked by one of the great lawyers.[474] -Albert did not smile, but "they seemed to enjoy hugely," reported -the press, "the idea that men could be bought so cheap." The eminent -counsel of the prisoners took the cue from their clients, and treated -the proceedings as a farce. When the State's Attorney was questioning -his witnesses, they objected to his questions with laughs and sneers -until he became indignant, and asked, with considerable emphasis, to -have the joke explained to him--a need the jury also felt, as their -verdict showed. When the Boston agent of the trust told that his -instructions from headquarters were that if there was to be any selling -at a loss to let the new competitor have the loss,[475] they all -laughed again. - -So all the morning there had been fine sport in the court-room, and -the good-humor had risen higher with every fresh incident in the -entertainment until Albert's wife took her place in the witness-box. -She, too, raised a laugh, but it was not she who laughed. Serious -enough she was when taking her place on the witness-stand. She had to -face these gentlemen, before whose hundreds of millions her husband's -little venture had withered, but, as she herself afterwards said: "I -wasn't afraid of them, but I was nervous. But as soon as I got talking -I didn't care anything for them, although they all sat there in front, -in a row, looking straight at me." - -The wife's story to the jury showed how such an adventure appeared -when looked at and experienced from the woman's stand-point--the -home-maker's and the home-keeper's--which the smiling row before her -were as little able to grasp as the participants in a pigeon-shooting -match to look upon that vision of flames, demons, and death-dealing -thunder from the point of view of the hapless birds. A bright-faced, -brown-eyed, pleasant-looking woman, as she took the stand she looked -what she was--an artisan's honest wife. "My husband," she said, "had -been employed in the Vacuum oil works at Rochester thirteen or fourteen -years, and we had accumulated some property--mortgages and money -and real estate. We moved to Buffalo, April 5, 1881, where he was -superintending the building of the Buffalo works."[476] After Albert -had yielded to the threats and the temptation, and had fixed the stills -and the fires for an explosion, he fled without a word to his wife -or his associates, hid, under an assumed name, in Boston, and then -travelled over the continent for a year--from Buffalo to Boston, to -Rochester, to San Francisco. - -"When you left Buffalo did you leave any word with Matthews where you -were going?" - -"No, sir." - -"Or your wife?" - -"No, sir." - -While the wife was in Buffalo wondering what had become of her husband, -he was in New York with his venerable ex-employer, getting lessons -like the following in the secrets of building up a great commercial -enterprise: - -"The best thing you can do, Albert," said the latter, "is to go and -write a telegram, and tell your wife to go back to Rochester." - -"You'd better write it; I am a poor writer," said Albert. - -"No," he said; "I do not want to appear in this case at all. Write it -so," he continued, "that she can move on the Fourth of July, and they -can't attach her things."[477] - -The first word she got from her husband was this telegram to move -between two days, and back to Rochester the dutiful woman packed -herself and her things. - -"It was two or three weeks before I heard from him direct or knew just -where he was," she said. - -"I asked Charles"--one of the two managers--"how Al was, and he said Al -was all right." - -"Would he tell you where he was?" the State's Attorney asked. - -"No, sir; when I wrote to my husband I left the direction blank, and -gave the letter to Charley. I got an answer through Charley."[478] - -For three weeks they would not let her know where her husband was. -"Think of that," said the District Attorney. "She had to go and take -her poor little letter to her husband, thinking, perhaps, if he was -away from her tender care he might get to drinking, because he does -drink some; but when with his wife they lived year in and year out -without his tasting a drop; ... afraid that he might get to drinking, -and that she could not watch over him.... It was a cruel thing to do." - -"C. told me to go to the real-estate agents," Albert's wife continued, -"and try to sell our property and get it into money. He made out a list -of real-estate agents from the city directory. I guess that is all he -did about assisting me in the sale of the property." - -"I asked C. if my husband could not come home from Boston. I was sick. -He said 'Yes.' Al came home and stayed a week or two. Then he went back -to Boston. C. told me they did not want the Buffalo company to know -where Al was."[479] - -Albert was a man infirm under temptation. The employer knew, by -fourteen years' acquaintance, the weakness this man had acquired in his -service in the army. He gave him idleness, money, temptation, and an -assumed name to go to the devil with, if that agent of the trust was to -be found in Boston. - -"You want to take good care of Al," said the good old man to his clerk -in Boston, "and not let him get homesick. If he wants any money, let -him have it." Albert travelled the broad way made smooth for him. - -"Of course I never went around with him," said the clerk, in a -deposition; "a porter that I had was the party that went around with -him in the evening. I would hear what was going on, and I could judge -about the size of Al's head when he came around in the morning." - -With all Albert's faults he kept one dignity to the end which makes -him tower above his seducers--the dignity of the laborer. A life's -discipline in daily toil had made his whole fibre too honest to enjoy -idleness, even at the rate of $1500 a year. He was free to come and go -amid the gaudy joys of a great city, as irresponsible under the assumed -name given him as if he wore the ring of Gyges. He had money for the -asking, and boon companions. But the habit of a lifetime of honest, -hard manual work was too deeply ingrained into the very substance of -his nature for him to become a cheap American Faust, revelling in -a pinchbeck paradise. This simple son of poverty had all his life -handled only real things, and had at every point had the mind's native -wantonness and riot checked by the hard surface which had calloused -his hands, and the outer air which had cooled him as he worked. His -were dreams of honest rest earned by honest work, and of family joys. -The self-indulgence that was revealed by the "size of his head in the -morning" was an animal exuberance that, as the result showed, did but -stain the "rose-mesh of his flesh," and went no deeper. Albert could -not stand the idleness of his Boston life. He went back to Rochester. - -"I want something to do." - -"What brings you here?" said his employer. "Go back." - -After hanging around the office in Boston a few weeks longer, the -workman's nature reasserted itself again. He went back again to -Rochester. "I want something to do." "We have not got anything for you -to do just now," he was told. "You are all right."[480] - -Months of idleness were interrupted only by odd jobs, like -superintending the digging of a ditch or the sinking of a salt-well. -Time and again, though he was drawing his pay of $125 a month, he went, -as he told the story in court, to repeat the plea for "something to -do." Finally, the elder of the managers, who was in California, sent -for him. He was to be made "an independent man," the new promise ran, -but really, as the sequel showed, was, if possible, to be kept out of -the way of too inquisitive juries and prosecuting attorneys. The wife, -treated as a mere pawn in the game, protested vehemently. "I went down -to the Vacuum Oil Company's office, and asked C. to give Al something -else to do. I didn't want him to go to California. He said that there -was not anything that he knew that he could do." - -"I don't want Al to go. I won't go. Give him something else to do." - -"I have nothing else."[481] - -She had to yield, and her husband left her to go to California. His -employer persuaded Albert to buy a piece of land in California. "He -seemed to be very anxious to locate me there."[482] Albert sent to -his wife for the money, but the shrewd little woman sent only half. -"I thought I would let him pay it out of his pay." With the same good -sense the wife had not sold all the property when sent out alone among -the real-estate men. "I did not sell the real estate," she said; "I -thought there was too much expense."[483] She was not with her husband -when the rupture came in California. The first news the anxious wife -had of a change in her husband's affairs was when "Charley" came to -her, as she was sitting one summer evening on the porch of a neighbor's -house, and told her "Al" had quit them. "I do not know what to make of -it," he continued: "I think he must be crazy or something."[484] - -It was not until his return that she learned the details of the painful -experience he had been through. When it was heard that Albert, upon -his return from California, had made restitution as far as he was able, -by telling what he knew to the authorities, to aid them in bringing -the principals in the crime to justice, there was consternation in the -trust. One of its detectives had been captain of the company Albert -was in during the Civil War. The captain now presented himself before -Albert as he went to his work in Corry, Pennsylvania, where he had -gone after his return from California, and became sociable rapidly. -He had great plans for Albert, and came to the house to discuss them -confidentially. Albert and his wife had been simple folks to start -with, but they had learned a thing or two by this time. The captain's -desire for confidential talk with his old comrade was so intense that -it would have been rude in Albert's wife to thwart it. She packed off -her daughter on an errand, and announced that she had a call up the -street, and would leave them to themselves; but she did not add, as she -might have done, that during her absence she would be represented by -the Chief of Police, whose appetite for confidential communications was -as keen as the captain's, but whose retiring disposition kept him in -the dark seclusion of an adjoining room, with his ear to the crack of -the door. - -"Wouldn't Albert like to go to Russia?" the captain asked his dear -friend the private, whose existence he had never personally recognized -when they were so close together during the Civil War. "If the Court -will allow me to show by this witness," said the prosecuting attorney, -"that the captain came there as a detective for the oil trust, and made -a proposition, after the indictments were found, to Albert to flee the -country, and go with him to Russia." One of the army of trust lawyers -was instantly on his feet with "I object." The judge sustained him, and -the testimony was shut out. - -Albert's wife kept close to his side, and held him steady. No, Albert -did not care to go to Russia. Advertisements of an alum-mine in Corry -then began to appear in newspapers where Albert's attention could -be called to them. By a lucky chance the captain happened to know -the capitalists whose boundless powers of enterprise could find -full outlet only by developing the hitherto unsuspected resources of -Corry for supplying the nations of the earth with alum. By a joyful -coincidence, these capitalists wanted for superintendent of their -bottomless alum-mines just such a man as the captain knew his dear -Albert to be. Would Albert like to go to Italy to learn the true -science of alum manufacture, and to show the effete monarchies how -an American could disembowel the earth of its alum? Salary, $5000 -and expenses. No, Albert had no unslaked ambition to go to Italy as -superintendent of mines of alum, or green cheese, or any other lunar -commodity. - -At least, Albert would take a drink? That poor Albert would do; and -when he failed to come home at night his wife went up and down the -streets seeking him. "A persistent effort had been made" by the trust, -Mr. Matthews testified, "to get Albert out of the country. I was afraid -they would get him away, as he might not be used in this case. Men -had been sent there to get him drunk, and had debauched him."[485] -Money was potent enough to persuade lawyers to make it a part of their -professional duty to help in this. One of the trust's lawyers sat with -Albert and its detective in the stall of a cheap saloon, and plied him -with liquor to get from him some letters of Matthews' they wanted. -"There they sat," said the keeper of the saloon; " ... they got what -they called for, probably.... I couldn't tell how many drinks they got -into Albert on that occasion; I think they drank there."[486] - -While this courtship was in progress with Albert in Pennsylvania, wires -were being pulled to get him indicted in New York. The grand-jury of -Rochester was asked to indict him for receiving stolen property in a -watch trade he had made seven years before. This would have ruined him -as a witness in the forthcoming criminal case against the members of -the oil trust, but the grand-jury decided that there was no evidence -on which to indict. When Adam Cleber, a stolid-looking German laborer, -who worked in the same place with Albert in Corry, took the stand for -the State at the close, an eager excitement filled the court-room. -The State's Attorney was known to have his darkest sensation still in -reserve. What it was he would not, of course, disclose in advance, but -those hardly less familiar than he with the evidence hinted that the -fertile genius of the captain, having exhausted itself in the ideas -of the trips to Russia and Italy, had fallen back upon the genius of -his superiors, and had arranged to have Albert go a-hunting, and get -a "bust-up" as much as possible like the one he had been induced to -attempt upon his employers and partners. - -"Did the captain tell you what he wanted you to do to Albert?" Cleber -was asked. - -"Yes--" That was as far as Cleber got. - -"I object!" screamed one of the lawyers. - -"I propose to show that the captain made a request of this witness in -regard to what he should do to Albert, and what he should come and -swear to about Albert, there being no truth in the matter he wanted -Cleber to swear to," the State's Attorney urged to the Court. The judge -took the matter home for consideration over-night, and announced in the -morning that he would not admit the evidence. It was acknowledged by -one of the lawyers for the members of the trust on trial that he had -employed the captain to get evidence for them; but the judge, instead -of admitting Cleber's testimony, and leaving the question of its value -to be settled by the jury, excluded it. - -In his closing speech District Attorney Quinby said: "Why, in Heaven's -name, my friends, didn't you place the captain on this witness-stand? -He would have been a feast for you and a feast for me. His ways -have been curious and sinuous, his methods have been peculiar and -corrupting, and they did not dare to put him on the stand because if -they did he would have left it to go to prison. That is the reason. -They know it." - -The brave and steadfast woman told her part of this story on the -witness-stand. Her home had been broken up again and again. As she -herself said afterwards: "I had to live with my carpets packed, and -moved around like a gypsy." Her husband had been tempted to commit a -crime which compelled him to lead the life of a fugitive. He had been -spirited away and secreted; she had not been allowed to know where -he was, and could communicate with him only through a third person; -they had moved around, in her expressive phrase, until they had moved -into two rooms; the savings of fifteen years' hard work were all gone, -and the independent business, in which her husband had just got his -footing, swept away. He and she faced the world with no other assets -than their child and the palms of their hard-working hands. - -"Well, it's taken all we had," she says; "we've lost it all, but I'd -rather it would be so than to have the money they have, and go about -hiding and sneaking. I'd like money, but not so well as that. When I -said to 'Charley,' 'I shall have to sell all my furniture'--'Oh, that's -nothing.' And when I told him it had cost us $100 to pay the expenses -of selling real estate--'That isn't much.' It wasn't much to them, but -it was to us, who had made every dollar by hard work. Well, we'll have -to do without the money, and just live along by honest work. We can -live that way. We have had all this trouble and lost our money, and -haven't made money enough to buy a calico dress." - -All the good that had come of this loss of savings and home and honor -had gone to those at the bar of justice and their associates sitting -in the tickled row before her. On the cross-examination, which was -to crush the witness and her damaging testimony, the distinguished -counsel, not content with all the suffering and loss already inflicted -on this wife, tried to humiliate her still further, but the woman's wit -of truth was too much for the lawyer's wit of wile. - -"Don't you recollect," the lawyer asked, "that you went to the house -of the manager of the Vacuum, and that you saw him in the parlor, and -that you asked him to take your husband back?" - -"I never asked him to take my husband back." - -"Then you did not ask him at the time and place I spoke of?" - -"I never asked him anywhere to take him back." - -"Don't you recollect upon that occasion being considerably affected, -and asking him to take your husband back, and his speaking of the way -in which he had left the company, which he characterized as shameful, -and that you cried--shed tears?" - -"I never asked him to take him back. I recollect going there. I -recollect I felt bad, because I was talked to so much about it. I had -reason to feel bad. I am trying to tell the truth as near as I can." - -"Then what was the occasion of your bad feeling?" - -"It was because I thought we were going to lose everything, and would -not have nothing left. That is what I felt bad for--was shedding tears -for, if I did. I don't know as I did."[487] - -Then came the laugh. From millionaire to lesser millionaire went -the enlarging laugh. The mighty cortege of the retained ex-judges, -famous constitutional and criminal lawyers, detectives, camp-followers -laughed. It was the laugh of hundreds of millions, and it clinked and -tinkled and rang. As if every mouth were a bagful of gold, and as if -every bag had burst, the golden notes of mirth filled the air, and -struck the ceiling, and rolled over the floor, rebounded and fell and -rose in mellow chimes of sound, and the golden rain dripped everywhere. -Millions on millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of the -coin of the republic, and in every coin a cackle. - -"Yes, they all laughed at me," the little woman told her friends; "it -looked like such a great joke to them. Perhaps I did not tell it very -well, but I told the truth." - -In closing the case the State's Attorney said to the jury: "A sorrow -was placed on that woman's heart that can never be removed. One of the -pathetic things in this case was that when this woman was on the stand, -telling her little story, how they were afraid they might lose the -few thousand dollars they had saved, the $6000 or $7000 they had been -struggling for for fifteen years, these New York gentlemen with their -millions laughed in her face at the idea of her being sorry to lose the -pittance of $6000 or $7000. It was the only time in the case, really, I -felt that these gentlemen were outraging common decency."[488] - -Some time after the trial was over, and sentence passed and satisfied, -these men sent for Albert to come to Rochester. He went with witnesses. -There in the office of a leading lawyer he was tempted with desperate -propositions to do something or say something that would break the -force with which these disclosures must act on public opinion. "They -need not think," he replied, "that they can get me to make a false -oath to let them out of a hole. I would not do it for all the combined -wealth of the trust. When my wife was on the stand they laughed her -in the face when she told about losing all we had. Do you suppose any -man with a particle of American blood could have any love for them? I -think as much of my wife and daughter as any of them of theirs, and I -will do nothing to disgrace them." This hard-working and hard-living -laborer and his wife had, by thirteen or fourteen years of toil and -stinting, saved $6000. The laughers had in the same time saved about -$300,000,000, and somebody else had done all the work. The poor man and -his wife had been afraid that the $300,000,000 would devour the $6000. -It said it would, and it had. Shall not they laugh who win? - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE - - -The District Attorney put the president of the light of the world on -the stand. His evidence showed that the purchase of the three-quarter's -interest in the Vacuum Company, sold because "there were restrictions -in the shipments," was made by the three New York men on trial. "They -are share-holders in the trust," he said. When they bought the stock -they transferred it to the oil trust. He had known of the contemplated -purchase. Having thus proved that the three indicted directors from -New York on trial were members of the oil trust, and were managing -the Vacuum for it, the District Attorney proceeded, in pursuance of a -logical plan of inquiry, to bring before the jury what the trust was, -and its relations to the companies it covered. - -"What is it ... if you know?" the District Attorney asked. The -president, through his counsel, objected to the question. - -"What is the object of this?" the judge asked the District Attorney. - -The trust, the District Attorney explained, owns a majority of the -stock of this Vacuum Company and others, and controls the manufacture -in this country of substantially all the lubricating and illuminating -oils. These defendants belonging to the trust, and "one of these being -chairman of a committee of the trust, it was the desire and motive -of the three to do away with competition, to destroy and ruin the -competitive works in Buffalo." - -The Court asked the president of the trust if it was a manufacturing -company. - -"It is not, your honor." - -The Court ruled out the question "What is it?" although in doing so he -used language apparently contradicting his ruling, saying, in effect, -that it was "quite immaterial what the objects or purposes of the oil -trust are, unless these defendants are in some way interested so as -to create a motive to do what it is claimed they did do." Again, when -the District Attorney sought to ascertain in what other corporations -engaged in the manufacture of oil in 1879, 1880, and 1881 the trustees -on trial owned stock, it was objected to and the objection sustained, -although the Court but a few moments before had said, "I will allow -you to show everything these defendants have done upon the question of -motive, ... to show what their business is, the companies they have -stock in, whether it is an oil company or some other company--that -is, any company engaged in the manufacture of oil that would come in -competition with the Buffalo company...." - -The judge, declaring that he would admit such evidence, refused to -admit it. What the District Attorney would have been able to uncover -as to the responsibility of the "trustees" for what was done by the -subordinate companies, the reader, freer than the jury in this case, -can find out for himself. - -The nine trustees, of whom three were on trial, owned as their -individual property more than half of this as of every establishment in -the trust. They decided who were to be elected directors and officers -of each company. They exercised full control over these officers -when elected. They declared the dividends. The profits of all these -shares are put into one purse, and distributed in quarterly dividends -among the trustees in proportion to their interest in the trust--the -purse-holder.[489] In the case of the Vacuum Company, accordingly, we -find that the minutes of stockholders' meetings record the presence -of members of the oil trust, in person and by proxy, representing -a majority of the stock, electing the officers and directors, and -declaring the dividends. How thorough and minute is the supervision -over the vassal companies an employé, who had been in the service of -the combination for several years in a confidential way, and "had -access to every book and paper and their cipher arrangement," has -told.[490] They "control every movement of every branch of their -business." The subordinate companies "make a report every day of all -their business.... They have blanks there on which they make a report -of all their shipments, where shipped, and who shipped to, and all -their purchases; and they report every month the exact percentage they -have made out of their crude oil, of all the different products they -get out of it. They report everything in detail." - -This was in 1879. Ten years later, in 1888, the testimony of the -president shows that the system is the same. "They know the cost at -every refinery. They get such reports once in thirty days; each report -shows just what it has cost for everything.... Made out on regular -blanks."[491] - -But when put on the stand in this case, in Buffalo, he had professed -himself altogether ignorant of any such reports.[492] Asked if the -Vacuum Company had made them, he replied: - -"I can't recall any such reports." - -Asked if it was obligatory upon the Vacuum Oil Company to make reports, -he said: - -"I can't state." - -But the manager's testimony in the same case shows that the system of -reports which his superior "could not recall" was in regular operation. - -"There are reports of sales of the Vacuum Oil Company made to certain -parties in New York."[493] - -The three trustees who bought the control of the Vacuum stock did -not keep it for themselves. They transferred it to the trust, and -received for it shares in the trust. They were not stockholders in -the Vacuum, but stockholders in the trust. It was the trust which was -the real stockholder in the Vacuum. The profits on this Vacuum stock, -therefore, went into the common fund in which the trust accumulated the -profits of all its controlling ownerships in companies all over the -country--all over the world. Every trustee shared in the profits of -every company so controlled, whether in the United States or Europe or -Asia. The president of the trust, now on the witness-stand, was a large -participator in the profits of the Vacuum, because he was a large owner -in the trust which possessed three-quarters of it. Similarly as to the -three trustees indicted and on trial, and every other trustee.[494] -The case was interwoven, notwithstanding the exclusion of this by the -judge, with evidence that the three members of the trust on trial -were the managers of the company for the trust, and were consulted -habitually about the current details by the salaried agents. - -"After this purchase was made did you continue to represent the -purchasers in the management of the affairs of the Vacuum Oil Company?" -one of the three was asked. - -"I did." - -After the purchase of the Vacuum by the trust, Mr. Matthews, before he -left to go into business on his own account, had to go to its office -in New York half a dozen times, to see the New York directors when he -wanted instructions. His testimony on this point covers thirty pages of -the official testimony, and shows repeated interviews between him and -the members of the trust about every kind of detail of the business of -the Vacuum. When Matthews asked the manager of the Vacuum to give him -more pay, the latter had told him to speak to one of the trustees--one -of the three now on trial. "It will be as he says about it." Again, as -to another matter, he said to Matthews: "I cannot tell you. There is no -use for me to pretend that we run our business, for we do not."[495] - -This evidence must be sought in the original records of the case at -Buffalo, as it is left out in the transcript furnished by the trust to -the committee of Congress, which represents the case against the two -local managers only. The Rochester manager, after the explosion, and at -the time of sending for Albert to come to New York, telegraphed to his -son: "Our views with regard to Albert confirmed." By whom? as Matthews' -lawyer asked. The manager saw one of the three accused trustees in New -York after he returned from the trip to Boston to hide Albert. "I told -him that I had hired him," he testified. - -The trustee denied this, as the president denied the monthly reports. -But he has himself furnished the evidence that his employé told the -truth. In their answer in court to the allegations of the suit against -them for damages, he and the other two trustees concerned in the -Vacuum direction testified that they advised the Rochester managers -"to endeavor to retain the said" Albert, ... "and after" he "had left -the employment of the Vacuum Oil Company ... they further advised that -he should be re-employed if it could be done by reasonable increase of -his wages. They were afterwards informed that he had been re-employed." -This shows they knew about the negotiations before, during, and after. -They knew the man was to have more wages, though the increase was only -$300 a year, and their income was millions yearly. When he had been -gotten away they were informed of that too. The District Attorney knew -all about this answer in the civil case, but under the statutes of New -York it could not be used in a criminal prosecution against those who -had made it. He put the trustee on the stand, and did his best to get -him to tell the same story, but in vain. - -The body-guard of lawyers surrounding the great men who made the -court-room a veritable curiosity-shop for the people of Buffalo, did -a deal of acting throughout the trial to impress on the jury that the -whole proceeding was a farce. They laughed and yawned and pooh-poohed, -and sneered at the District Attorney's questions and points, and went -through all kinds of dumb-shows of indignation and ennui that their -clients should be so needlessly called on to waste priceless time. But -this could not prevent their faces from lengthening as the story was -told by witness after witness, as more than one observant reporter -saw and noted. When the evidence was all in, and District Attorney -Quinby had closed his case, the situation was desperate. There was no -doubt about that. The great men of the trust on trial had been proved -to be the actual directors of the Vacuum at every turn of its daily -affairs. Before any evidence was introduced for the defence, one of -the distinguished lawyers arose and moved the discharge of the three -members of the trust, who were a majority of the Board of Directors -of the Vacuum Company, and managed it for the trust. The prosecution -were not taken unawares by the motion. The District Attorney's able -assistant, William L. Marcy, had gathered all the precedents and -equipped himself to resist the discharge. He and the District Attorney -fought hard to have the principals in the company go to the jury with -their agents, but in vain. Mr. Marcy pointed out that, as shown in the -case of The People _vs._ Mather, "to charge partners as conspirators it -is not necessary even to show that they were the original conspirators. -It is sufficient if at a subsequent time they become party to it by -accepting the benefits derived from the conspiracy. The case lays that -down in exact terms." - -The Judge: "Must there not be an adoption?" - -Mr. Marcy: "That is an adoption--accepting the benefits." - -The Judge: "They may accept the benefits without knowing." - -Mr. Marcy: "Then the jury may infer that knowledge from all the -circumstances. The jury are the tribunal to determine whether or not -the parties had the knowledge." Mr. Marcy pointed out that there was -everything to lead the jury to infer that these men were parties to the -plan. "Where did the meetings of the Board of Directors take place? -At Rochester, where the works are? No; at New York, where these men -carried on their other business. The Rochester representatives dance -in attendance wherever these New York parties desire them to go." He -pointed out to the judge that the trustee whom Albert met in New York -after the explosion knew of the plan to take him to Boston. He showed -that the same trustee, when remonstrated with by Matthews for bringing -patent suits without foundation, said that he intended to carry them -on, and if he was beaten in one court, he would carry them to a higher -court. Just in the same way the Rochester representative of the trust -had said: "I will bring lawsuits against you. I will get an injunction -against you." "When the Rochester manager," said Mr. Marcy, "hired -Albert, he did not pretend to be able to make a bargain until he had -been to New York and consulted about it. He was in New York before he -telegraphed to him to come to New York. This significant fact points -home the conspiracy upon the gentlemen who reside in New York." - -But the judge, and not the jury, rendered the verdict as to the three -members of the trust on trial. He failed to remember or observe the law -that leaves it to the jury to render the verdict. He announced that he -had decided to grant the motion for their discharge. There was silence -in the court-room for a moment. Then: "Gentlemen of the jury, hearken -to your verdict as advised by the Court," came in sonorous tones from -the clerk; "you find the defendants"--naming the three members of the -oil trust at the bar--"not guilty of the crime, as charged in the -indictment, so say you all." - -The jury looked scared at being addressed so peremptorily, but said -nothing. - -"The New York men looked happy," said one of the observers, "but -their Rochester associates and codefendants did not smile." Upon the -discharge of the trustees, one of the Buffalo dailies said that whether -there was any conspiracy at all is an undecided question, but it should -be remembered that the oil trust and the Vacuum Oil Company "have been -honorably acquitted of the charge of having anything to do with the -matter. As the case now stands, it is simply The People against"--the -two Rochester managers. - -Poor men! It was for this that they succumbed to the attacks of the -oil trustees upon their business, sold them for $200,000 three-quarters -of a concern which produced $300,000 in dividends in one year for -the lucky conquerors, became vassals instead of masters in their own -refinery. It was for $10,000 a year, divided into $6500 for one and -$3500 for the other, that they undertook to fetch and carry for their -suzerains, even to the gates of the penitentiary; and when discovery -and conviction came, to bear in silence upon their own shoulders the -guilt and shame from which others got only "more." - -The trial of the two remaining defendants proceeded. Neither of them -took the stand. In a deposition the elder said it was Albert who had -spoken about misplacing the pipes; but when asked what he said in reply -to a suggestion, which no one better than he knew the significance -of, he replied: "I made no reply to it, but I thought it would be a -very scandalous proceeding."[496] Albert had told how, in conversation -in California, his employer had described his plans with regard to -Matthews. - -"We would have just got them fellows in a boat, right in the middle -of the stream, and we would have tipped them two over, and drowned -them, and you would have been all right."[497] "If I ever made such a -remark," this defendant deposed, "it was in a playful humor. I am in -the habit of making playful remarks." - -Witness after witness had to confess, under cross-examination, that -his testimony had been written and rewritten by himself or the lawyer -for the defence, and carefully conned before coming on the stand. The -District Attorney asked one of these tutored witnesses why he had read -over the written preparation of his testimony in the rotunda of the -court-house just before going on the stand. - -"I read it over," he replied, lucidly, "for the simple reason of -reading it over." - -"Just to practise in reading?" - -"Well, perhaps we might call it practice in reading."[498] - -"This preparation of the testimony," said the District Attorney to the -jury, "which I stigmatize as infamous, this going to a witness and -writing him down, and having him fix it, and write it over again, and -keeping it in his mind, and reading it over, and so going on the stand, -is not the way to try a lawsuit, in my mind. I write nothing down. I -coach no witnesses. I want a witness to tell me his story. I put him on -the stand and he tells me his story; but no writing down, no reading -over. It is not right, and it is very liable to be very wrong." - -Several witnesses were introduced to prove that Matthews had offered -to settle the criminal prosecution. He could not have done so had he -wished to. The criminal case was in the hands of the State. Of the -witnesses who made this charge against Matthews, one was a stockholder -in the trust, another had been a stockholder in one of its pipe lines, -and both had to admit on cross-examination that the occasion of his -alleged agreeing to settle the case had been that they had gone to him -for their friends, unsolicited by him and unexpected, to find out at -what price he would sell his works to the combination." I was anxious -to settle the criminal prosecution," said one of these ambassadors. - -"Anxious for whom?" asked the ever-ready District Attorney. - -"I should say--nobody," replied the witness, in confusion. - -"Mr. Matthews told him," said Mr. Hiram Benedict, one of the best-known -citizens of Lockport, who was present, "that if they bought the capital -stock of the company they could do what they chose with the civil -suits, but with the criminal suit he had nothing to do; the people had -that in charge."[499] - -The lawyers tried to make a jest of the whole proceeding, and affected -to look upon the incidents of this rivalry with their powerful client -as something too trivial to be noticed. "Is it a trivial matter," asked -District Attorney Quinby, "that it shall be decided, once for all, in -a court of justice, that in an alleged republic you and I shall not -start a business which is a rival to some one else? That is the issue -here, and yet the lawyers for the accused tell us it is trivial. It -is the most important question that was ever left to a jury of twelve -men in this or any country in this age of monopoly." The jury thought -so too. The meaning of the policy of suppressing competition was -skilfully described by Judge Edward Hatch, Mr. Matthews' counsel in -the civil suit for damages, and here again the jury, representing the -people, thought so too. "When a man or a corporation is in a position -to control the market as to a given article, then everybody is within -their power, and it rests with their conscience to determine what -shall be the price. Every time you farmers at home, or your wives or -daughters, take your oil-can, turn it up, fill your lamp, and then -sit down to read by it, you can understand what is meant by this -proposition to crush these men out.... It was a matter that not only -these three men were interested in, but every person that lived in the -community. Competition would run along to a point where you could get -the oils that you use in your families, to grease your wagons, and to -burn in your houses, or for any other purpose, at a price that should -give the manufacturer a fair profit, and at the lowest possible price. -On the other hand, if you leave that open to these parties to regulate -as they saw fit, having a monopoly of the market, then you rest upon -the conscience of a corporation and put your faith in a soulless -individual." - -It is one of the few bright lines in this picture that whenever the -people got a chance to make themselves heard, their utterance was -always right and true. The four juries which passed upon the facts -understood them, and had the moral standard by which to judge them -aright. - -One of the trust's employés was put on the stand to break the effect -of the evidence that the competition of the new works had put down the -price of oil. "In the early part of 1881--the winter of 1881"--he said, -"common oil was 5-1/2 cents a gallon"--this to prove that the reduction -had preceded the appearance of the new refinery. He was confronted -by the District Attorney with one of his own bills of oil sold in -February, 1881. "That would seem to be a sale of 120 degrees oil at 12 -cents a gallon," he confessed, and added, awkwardly, "I was asked as to -the winter of 1881. That is not the winter of 1881 as I understand. I -meant to speak from July, 1881, and so on."[500] - -The great lawyers held up to the ridicule of the jury the idea that the -gases of distilling petroleum were dangerous. Matthews stated on the -stand that he had seen this gas burn up derricks, property, and several -men. The lawyers could not let anything so absurd go unchallenged. - -"Did it explode?" he was asked smartly. - -"Yes, sir." - -"And how did the 'explosion' burn up the men and property?" with a -knowing look to the jury. - -"The gases crept quietly to the boilers, unobserved," said the witness, -"and all at once the whole atmosphere was ablaze." - -The witnesses who tried to prove that no harm could have resulted from -the tampering with the still broke down. One of them was the inspector -of oils at the combination's refinery at Cleveland. He, too, had once -been an independent refiner, but had passed under the yoke. He declared -with every possible variation of phrase that there could not have been -an explosion at the Buffalo works; but the District Attorney got out of -him piecemeal admissions that the "escaping petroleum gases would be -inflammable"; that "in a damp day you would expect them to settle close -to the still"; that then, if they came in contact with fire, "you would -have a large flash, and consume those vapors; if a person was in the -vicinity he would burn." - -"I ask you if it would be a safe thing to fill a still with 175 barrels -of petroleum, put under it an extremely hot fire, so that the front -portion of the still is a cherry red, and a weighted safety-valve is -blown off--would you consider that a safe thing to do?" - -"I would not." - -Still another of these witnesses ended, like Balaam, by saying just the -opposite of what had been wanted of him. He testified that the escape -of gases from the stills, and even their ignition, was a matter of no -consequence--"it may occur at any time"--until he was cross-examined. -It turned out then that his own works had been burned three times by -the gases from distillation taking fire. "These gases," he had to -admit, "took fire and burned the receiving-house. A man got burned up -with it." - -"Are you willing," the District Attorney asked, sarcastically, "to go -down to the Buffalo works and have them run some vapor, on a quiet day, -on the ground, and let you stand in the middle of it and touch it off?" - -"I am not anxious to do that."[501] - -Every one looked to see Matthews crushed by the cross-examination, in -accordance with the widely advertised promises of the counsel on the -other side. - -"As he stood up to take the oath," said the New York _World_, "and -confronted the men with whom he had been at sword's-point for six -years, men of unlimited wealth and almost unlimited influence, and -controlling the most gigantic monopoly of any age or any country, -Charles B. Matthews looked, as a good observer said, what he proved -himself to be, a fighter, who will never know when he is whipped. Hard -knocks and a struggle of years against an all-powerful enemy have -whitened his hair, and set firm, hard lines about his face. His eyes -are deep-set under a protruding forehead and black, bushy lashes, and -are dark, firm, and searching. His jet-black beard is luxuriant but -coarse, his whole head and face bespeak the dogged persistence in -following a foe that is characteristic of the man. He is tall, well -built, and with those whom he knows to be friends he is kindly and -almost jovial in his manner." He told his story, and the jury believed -it. One of the most damaging portions of his testimony was that given -to connect the New York members of the trust with the conspiracy by -showing that they had the actual, practical, continuous management of -the Vacuum in matters small as well as large. Matthews, when in their -employ, was kept running to New York continually to see one or the -other of them about some detail of the business. Seeking to break down -the force of this testimony, the big gun of the legal battery opened on -him. - -"But you did not see the name" of the oil combination "up over the -office that you went into (in New York)?" - -"I do not think I ever saw the name over the office that I went into. I -think that name is not often in view over where they do business." - -"What makes you think so?" - -"My experience and observation." - -"What experience and observation have you had?" - -"Do you want I should tell it all?" - -"No, you need not tell it all. We will let that go now." Matthews had -been in their employ. He knew about the staff of lobbyists they keep to -go from capital to capital as needed. - -For lack of evidence the jury was offered abuse of Matthews, spoken by -the brilliant attorney on a shout which enabled the populace outside -the court-house to hear his speech, and, as the verdict proved, -deafened the jury to his eloquence. The jury preferred the view given -by the District Attorney. "When I look upon the troubled face of -Matthews," said District Attorney Quinby in his closing of the case, "I -know what is coming upon his head. When I know the struggle he has gone -through, the integrity that is in his heart, I would say to him, 'Well -done, good and faithful servant, you have withstood the powerful arm -of this insatiable corporation. You stand to-day honored from one end -of this land to the other.' ... I am proud that in the county of Erie -has been born a gentleman who has had the bravery and fortitude he has -shown." - - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION - - -The jury was composed of nine farmers, one tailor, one store-keeper, -and one railroad foreman. "So intelligent a jury," said the Buffalo -_Express_, "is proof perfect that the verdict it returns is the -only one warranted by the law and evidence." The jury found all the -defendants guilty whom the court allowed them to try. The verdict, -"Guilty as charged in the indictment," was given May 18, 1887. Every -possibility of appeal and reversal was resorted to. The judge granted -a stay, and this left the defendants unsentenced. A motion for a new -trial postponed the day of fate until December 24, 1887. - -When the judge decided against the new trial an appeal was taken, and -was carried through every court except the highest. Legal procedure -in New York makes the courts a hunting preserve for those who can -afford the luxuries of litigation. The law was changed by the Field -code so that demurrers and counter-appeals, proceedings and ancillary -proceedings, on technical points can be carried, one after another, -from court to court, while the real point at issue has to wait untried -below for the results of this interminable contest. By grace of -this power to carry preliminary and technical questions from court -to court, at the pleasure of quibbling and appealing lawyers and -procrastinating judges, from courts of Oyer and Terminer to the Supreme -Court at General Term, to the Court of Appeals, rich corporations and -individuals are able to tire out altogether all ordinary opponents. -It was only by help of very able and highly paid lawyers, officers of -the courts and of justice, that the law of New York was "reformed," -so that the technical parts of a case could be to such an extent -disengaged from the main body, and sent forward and backward, up and -down, through the whole series of appeals, consuming endless time and -money, while poor men seeking justice kick their heels in the lowest -courts. - -As the time for pronouncing sentence came on, petitions for mercy were -circulated in Buffalo and Rochester. The members of the jury which -had found the accused guilty were labored with separately to sign -a recantation. Only six succumbed and signed a statement that the -prisoners were found guilty, not because they had conspired to blow up -their rival's refinery, but because they had enticed away Albert. This -recantation was in the face of the judge's charge, which had made the -plot to blow up the Buffalo works the chief and the important inquiry -in this case, and the verdict had been given under the influence of -this view of the case. Six of the jury saw the impropriety of making -this statement after they had disbanded and passed from under the legal -and moral restraints they felt when sitting under their oath of office, -and refused to sign it. - -When the paper from the complaisant six jurors was handed in, the -District Attorney said in court: "These jurors received money for -making these affidavits. If required to do so I will prove the -statement." He was not called upon to do so. "These affidavits," he -said afterwards, "were procured for the purpose of influencing the -Court to administer the lighter punishment, since they tended to -show that the verdict was directed against the lighter offence. One -of the jurors told me he had been offered money to sign one of these -affidavits, and he knew of one juror who had received $10 for signing -one." - -When the last possibility in the way of proceedings for a stay or for a -new trial had been exhausted, except argument of an appeal in the Court -of Appeals, which was known to be useless, sentence was pronounced. -The penalty provided in the statutes was imprisonment for one year in -the penitentiary, or a fine of $250, or both. The lawyers pleaded -that the elder of the convicted men was old, that the younger had just -returned from a wedding tour in Europe, that some of the wealthiest -and most prominent citizens of Rochester had petitioned for mercy, -and that six of the jury had done likewise. Each was sentenced to pay -a fine of $250. Notice of appeal was given by the convicted, and a -year was consumed on both sides in preparations to fight the case to -a bitter finish. But the appeal was abandoned. A new trial and new -sentence might have ended worse. The fine was paid, and these employés -of the trust, upon whose record as reputable and inoffensive citizens -for all the years of their business career no shadow had fallen till -they entered its employ, took thereby the place assigned them by the -jury--that of convicts guilty of crime. - -Crime, it seems, may in this country be cheaper than competition. -They who received the larger part of the benefit of the enticement -of Albert, of the harassing litigation, of the damage done by the -explosion, and of the bankruptcy which was finally produced by these -means, went free of all punishment; and the employés found their crime -but little less than a pastime. After his conviction, and before his -sentence, one of the two married. His wedding was attended by many of -the great men of the trust--magnates in the New York world of affairs -and its affiliated interests. It glittered with gold and silver and -precious stones which they sent to signify to the world that they stood -sponsor for him. - -The case of some humble boycotters was then fresh in the public mind. -Certain working-men, on strike, handed around printed circulars in the -streets of New York, requesting people not to buy beer sold by their -employer. In a few weeks from the time they dropped those circulars in -the streets they were in the penitentiary at Sing Sing. It was shown on -their trial that they were entirely ignorant of the fact that they were -violating any of the laws of the State in what they did. It was shown -on the trial of the oil men that they did know that the course they had -in view was criminal, and were warned by a lawyer it might land them -in prison. "It was very fortunate," said the New York _World_, "that -they were not poor men convicted of stealing a ham." - -One of the reasons given by the judge for his leniency was that -prominent citizens of Buffalo and Rochester had begged for mercy. "With -the very highest respect for the judge," said the Buffalo _Express_, -"as the _Express_ has often demonstrated, we must say that this is a -mighty queer excuse. Three-fourths of those citizens are in one way -or another identified in interest with the oil trust, as the judge -could readily have ascertained, and their names on that petition were -entitled to no more moral weight in the consideration of this case than -the names of the two guilty men should have had if they had seen fit to -sign it." - -The sentence raised a whirlwind of indignation. "As ridiculous as -anything that could be imagined," said the Philadelphia _Ledger_. "It -is high time," said the New York _World_, "that the lines were drawn -between competition and conspiracy, between business and brigandage." -Referring to the golden harvest of $300,000 dividends in one year on -a capital of $100,000, representing an original investment of only -$13,500, the _World_ said: "The monopoly of this sort of business is -a very seductive thing. It is calculated to make men of more boldness -than morals blow up factories, or do almost anything else to control -the field." "It can afford to blow up a rival refinery every day -in the year at that price," said the Erie _Dispatch_. "There have -been conspiracies," said the Oil City _Blizzard_ (Pa.), "to injure -the business of opposition concerns right here in Oil City, and the -conspirators have never been punished." "It is--a light sentence," was -the comment of the Buffalo _Commercial_. "Poor criminals," the Buffalo -_Express_ declared, "may well wonder why rich ones are let off so -easily. It is equivalent to deciding that wealth may securely indulge -in that inexpensive sort of amusement as a mere pastime. Who's afraid?" -it asked. "What conspirator 'in restraint' of trade is afraid of a $250 -fine?" "Certain it is that no wealthy criminals convicted of such a -crime ever before received from a court such a mockery of justice," was -the verdict of the Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_. - -The facts of this case have not been carelessly examined or decided. -Two grand-juries in succession passed upon the evidence and found it -good enough for indictments. Two petit juries heard the evidence, -both for and against, in the civil and criminal suits, and found it -good enough--one jury for $20,000 damages, another for a verdict of -criminally guilty. Seventy picked citizens have unanimously concurred -in the decision "Guilty." And this scarlet letter the monopoly will -always have to carry. - -"So surely as Matthews lives, and so long as he lives," District -Attorney Quinby said in the criminal prosecution, "he will never again -make another dollar upon a barrel of oil he may manufacture. The -word has gone forth, right in this court-room, that this man shall -be crushed, and he can never again run his works successfully. That -is going to be one of the results of this case." The fulfilment of -this prediction came swiftly. This sentence of ruin upon Matthews was -executed before sentence was even pronounced upon the conspirators -against him. He had been left crippled by the flight and corruption -of his partner, the only practical oil man in the enterprise. When -he tried to obtain some one to take his place, he could not get word -of any one not connected with the oil combination. He did not dare -to advertise, and knew no one in Buffalo he could venture to speak -to. He had made contracts before opening the works, and was unable to -fill them. The pipes had been laid wrong; it took him a year trying -one way and another, and making a great many mistakes, to set them -right. His third partner was frightened back into the employ of the oil -combination by threatening litigation. - -Then came the suits to destroy, punctually as threatened.[502] "If one -court does not sustain the patents, we will carry them up until you -get enough of it," one of the trustees said to Matthews. One of the -Rochester managers, in speaking of these suits, said: "I don't know as -we will gain anything really, but we will embarrass them by bringing -these suits, and, if it is necessary, we will bring them once a month; -yes, we will bring them once a week." One, two, three, four, five suits -came with injunctions. "Null and void" was the verdict of court after -court on the worthless patents and pretended trade-marks on which he -was sued. - -Matthews had to keep pushing his pursuers to trial. What they wanted -was not decisions but delays, to ruin him by the waste of time and -money.[503] "It cost me one-third of my time, and $25,000 or more to -defend these suits." These suits were used to scare away his customers. -"I was instructed," said the Boston representative of the combination, -"to tell the customers that the Buffalo company were using their -patents."[504] The sole legal victory the combination won was the -recovery of six cents damages on a technical point. - -Matthews, on his side, took to the courts. He sued his persecutors as -individuals and corporations. He pursued them civilly and criminally. -He was successful in defending himself against their suits. All his -suits were successful as far as he was able to carry them. One suit -for damages produced a $20,000 verdict; another was for $250,000, -on the still stronger evidence procured in the criminal trial. It -took Matthews two years--from 1883 to 1885--to get his first case -for damages for conspiracy to trial. All that time was consumed by -his opponents in quibbles about procedure, technical objections, and -motions for delay, appealing them from court to court. The judge, in -taking from the jury afterwards the three trustees who had been brought -to trial for conspiracy, declared that he could see no reason to -believe that these suits had been brought without probable cause. But -the jury before which the suit for damages was tried saw plenty of such -reasons, and gave Matthews' company a verdict of $20,000 damages. The -views of the judge and jury might have varied in the same way on the -question of the guilt of the three members of the trust. - -Matthews woke up one morning to discover, as he had been told he would, -that there was no Atlas Company to get his oil from. Corporations may -have no souls, but they can love each other. The Erie Railroad killed -the pipe line of the Atlas Company for the oil combination.[505] The -courts had been kept busy granting injunctions against it on the -motion of the Erie. These were invariably dissolved by the courts, -but an application for a new one would always follow. At one time the -lawyers had fifteen injunctions all ready in their hands to be sued -out, one after the other, as fast as needed. The pipe line was finally -destroyed by force. Where it crossed under the Erie road in the bed -of a stream grappling-irons were fastened to it, and with an immense -hawser a locomotive guarded by two freight cars full of men pulled it -to pieces. The Atlas line and refinery became the "property" of their -enemy. Matthews' supply of crude oil was not cut off immediately. He -was tapered off. One of the superintendents of the Atlas testified in -the suit for damages Matthews brought against the Atlas after it passed -into the hands of the combination, that by the order of the manager -of the refinery he mixed refuse oil with the crude which they sold to -the Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company. Finally the supply was shut off -altogether. - -Matthews turned to the railroads connecting Buffalo with the oil -country. They all put up their rates. At the increased rates they -would not bring him enough to keep him going; they would not give him -cars enough, and told him they would not let him put his own cars on -the road. Even the lake steamers raised their rates against him. The -farmer-refiner was taking his lesson in the course which had driven -his first employer to dig oil-wells because "there were restrictions -in the shipments." Cut off from a supply by either pipe or rail at -Buffalo, Matthews made an alliance with the Keystone Refinery in the -oil regions. War was now made upon the Keystone. It was finally ruined. - -Packs of lawyers were set upon Matthews, and they finally brought -him down. An attorney appeared before a judge and made a motion that -the property of Matthews' company be taken out of Matthews' hands -and be placed in the charge of a receiver, as officer of the court, -to secure a debt due a Buffalo bank. This done, the lawyer appeared -before the judge who afterwards decided that $250 fine was punishment -enough for criminal conspiracy, with an offer from the monopoly to -pay $17,300 for the discontinuance of the suits for damages which -Matthews had instituted, and $63,700 for all the other assets. The -other creditors and all the stockholders opposed the motion, but the -judge granted it. There were two suits. One had produced a verdict of -$20,000, and the other one for $250,000 was brought on the new and -much stronger evidence secured in the criminal trial. As to the value -of the property, Matthews had brought his enterprise to the point -where it was worth $20,000 a year. It was capable of producing many -times that amount of profit. Had not Albert been enticed away, the new -works would have yielded a profit of over $100,000 the first year. -They had a capacity of 70 to 80 barrels a day of lubricating oil, -and the profit was $5 to $6 a barrel at the time Matthews and Albert -went into the business.[506] The judge, overruling a majority of the -creditors, ordered the receiver to accept the offer. He gave as his -reason for selling these damage suits that a criminal prosecution had -already taken place for the same offences, and a person could not be -punished twice for the same offence. As they had not yet been punished, -this meant, if it meant anything, that the suits were to be sold out -for this inconsiderable sum, and the guilty men were to get their -punishment in the sentence he was to pass upon them in the criminal -court. - -Three months later, before the same judge, these convicted agents stood -up to receive their criminal sentence. The judge gave them the lightest -sentence in his power, "nominal punishment." He did so, he was reported -by the Buffalo press to have said, because "it has come to the -attention of the court that civil suits have been brought to recover -damages sustained by reason of the same overt acts. Large punitive -damages are demanded in those actions. It is fundamental that a person -cannot be punished twice for the same offence." - -The judge released them from the suits for damages because they were -to be punished criminally. Then he released them from any but nominal -punishment, because there had been suits for damages. One would infer -that the civil suits for damages were in full career in the courts, -to end possibly in hundreds of thousands of dollars' damages against -the convicted. No one would infer what was the truth--and who should -have remembered it so well as the judge, for it was he who had done -it?--that the civil suits had been ordered sold. The judge had ordered -his officer--the receiver--who had the luckless Matthews' affairs in -his grip, not to try the cases, but to sell them. The suits had been -ordered sold in February preceding, and they were as dead as--justice. -But as all the technical formalities and slow proceedings needed to -consummate the sale had not been completed when sentence was passed in -May, the damages they might produce were made a reason for inflicting -none but nominal punishment. The order of sale made it impossible that -they should ever be tried. - -Of the money paid into court, nearly half--$30,000--went to the -lawyers, and, crudest stroke of all, the attorney who had made the -successful motion before the judge to take Matthews' property away, and -to order the forced sale, got $5000. Matthews got nothing. Even his -right to sue his destroyers had been sold to them on their own motion -and at their own price. - -The crime was plotted in March, 1881. The participants were indicted in -1886. It took until May 15, 1887, to secure conviction. While sentence -was still unpronounced Matthews' property was put into the hands of a -receiver of the court, January 16, 1888; the property was sold by order -of the court, February 17, 1888; sentence was pronounced May 8, 1888; -the formalities of the sale were consummated July 11, 1888; and the -sentence, coming last of all--the fine of $250--was executed May 1, -1889. - -Matthews had tried to make money in oil, and had failed; but his -competition had forced those in control of the markets to increase the -price to the producer, and he made light cheaper to the community. In -Buffalo his enterprise had caused the price to drop to 6 cents from 12 -and 18 cents, in Boston[507] to 8 cents from 20. Oil has never since -been as high in Boston or Buffalo as before he challenged the monopoly. -And he forced the struggle into the view of the public, and succeeded -in putting on record in the archives of courts and legislatures and -Congress a picture of the realities of modern commerce certain to -exercise a profound influence in ripening the reform thought with which -our air is charged into reform action. - -Nothing is so dramatic as fact, when you can find the fact. The -treatment his church gave the brother, who had been the victim, as -judicially declared, of a criminal conspiracy, is described in the -following letter from Matthews: - - "BUFFALO, January 19, 1888. - - "MY DEAR FRIEND,--As your father was a clergyman, and as you feel an - interest in church affairs, I think you will wish to know of my recent - experiences. My church here is not a rich one, but we pay as much for - church music as we do as salary to our pastor. Probably the wealthiest - man in our church is an agent of the oil trust. He receives a salary - of $18,000 per year, and keeps their retail store here, and has been a - witness for them in important suits. He does not belong to our church, - but is a trustee and treasurer of the Church, and is very kind to our - pastor, whom he took last summer on quite an extended vacation trip - in New England. But you know the class of men that usually become - trustees in our city churches these days. - - "My pastor surprised me a few days ago by making a visit at my office, - and telling me that as my term of office as member of the session - expired soon, it might be best for me not to be a candidate for - re-election, in view of what the newspapers had said about me, and - the opposition there was. He said, however, that he personally felt - friendly to me, and regarded me highly. He seemed to be embarrassed, - but I quickly relieved the situation by saying that I had told my - family some months before that I should not again hold a church - office. I told the doctor he well knew I did not desire office in or - out of the Church. True, the newspapers, under the influence of the - oil trust, had ridiculed me as 'farmer Matthews from the country.' But - why should my pastor mock me with such shallow pretences for reasons - for church opposition to me? I had engaged in the oil business without - the consent of the oil monopoly, and my pastor then and there told me - my friends thought me foolhardy in doing so. I could hardly suppress - my feelings on hearing this said by the man who baptized my children - and ministers at the church altar. What could all this mean? I had - only fought for my rights as an American citizen, as a manufacturer - and shipper of oil. I had been sustained in every detail by the - courts. I had convicted in our courts prominent men of conspiracy, - little thinking that the subtle power of these men could come to - dominate the Church itself. My feelings were intense, and words came - thick and fast--all too tame to express my feelings. I told the doctor - how I had struggled on from boyhood, and at middle age had accumulated - a few thousand dollars, and in all these years had never sued a man or - been sued, and that my struggle with the oil monopoly was for rights - that no one worthy to be called a man dare to surrender. I told the - doctor how I had been hounded, and my business beset by spies--that - my friends had often told me I was in danger of assassination if I - continued the fight in the courts. He, having done his errand, seemed - uneasy, and anxious to go. I told him I had seen the rising and - corrupting power of this trust in their control of our aldermen and - courts, in state and national legislation. I could witness all this - with comparative composure; but it made every drop of my blood hot - to see them erect their altars for Mammon worship in the Church of - the living God. I had seen the hard-won earnings of a lifetime swept - away, and had hoped that at least one word of sympathy might come - from the Church. If I had been robbed by old-fashioned highwaymen and - the Church received none of the loot, church sympathy would have been - hearty and abundant. But no; Sabbath after Sabbath our reverend doctor - rises in the pulpit, and, at the regular time, says: 'Let us worship - God in the gift of money.' Religion, divine worship, and money all - seem to have a like meaning as they are alternately mentioned in our - pulpit. My ancestors far back were church people, but this worshipping - money, or worshipping God with money, is all new to me. It was not the - acceptable worship required by Christ and taught by his disciples. - After the conversation I had with my pastor that day I trudged home, - but could not sleep that night. My heart was too full of sorrow as - well as anger. I hope you will forgive me for writing you so long a - letter. I have written much more than I intended to, but did not see - where to stop. There are many things I wish you could see but not - experience in the life of a business man nowadays. I want you to write - often, as every word from a true friend is prized highly in these dark - days for me." - -The action of the judge in this and another celebrated case was made -an issue in the elections in New York in 1889. In June, 1882, the -railroads in New York City, rather than pay the freight-handlers the -20 cents an hour they asked for, instead of 17 cents, brought the -business of the city to a stop. They refused to employ their old men -at that price, and did not supply their places. Trucks by thousands, -heavy with merchandise, stood before the railroad freight-houses for -days, waiting in vain to be unloaded. The trade of the metropolis was -paralyzed, and the railroad officials sat serenely in their offices, -letting the jam pile up until the freight-handlers were starved into -accepting the wages they were offered, and commercial distress had made -the business community desperate enough to tolerate that injustice, or -any other iniquity, provided the "Goddess of Getting-on" were allowed -to get on again. It was so clear that the price asked by the men was -fair, and that the refusal of the railroads to set them at work and -keep the channels of trade open was due to a purpose to manufacture -such widespread loss and trouble that the public should be goaded into -forgetfulness of the rights of the men, that public opinion forced the -Attorney-General of the State to act. Re-enforced by able counsel, he -applied for a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel the roads to resume -operations. This motion came before this Buffalo judge, then sitting -by assignment in New York. He kept the people waiting ten days, and -then quashed and dismissed the petition. The decision of the Supreme -Court, composed of judges of both parties, reversing his action, was -unanimous, but the mischief he had done was by that time--January 17, -1883--long past mending. - -When he was nominated to be judge again, after his indecision and -decision had swelled the dividends of the great railways of New York, -the presiding officer of the convention which was to choose him to be -their candidate was, by a coincidence, also the president of one of -the great railway corporations which had been involved in the judicial -proceeding of 1882. The judge's record was made one of the issues in -the State election which followed the defeat of justice in Buffalo. He -was nominated by the Republicans in 1889 for Judge of the Court of -Appeals, the highest court in the State of New York, and the nomination -was asserted by the New York _Times_, in a leading editorial, to have -been procured by the oil trust. Its "influence was active," said the -_Times_, "in securing the nomination of" this judge. " ... An attorney -who has labored in its interests at Albany during the last two sessions -of the Legislature was conspicuous among the men who did the work." The -New York _Times_, the Buffalo _Courier_, the New York _Star_, the New -York _World_, and other leading journals of the State retold the story -of the trial, and declared that the judge's action in taking the case -of the members of the trust from the jury, and the sentence he gave the -convicted agents, made it clear that he was unfit to be a judge. The -oil combination, the _World_ said, editorially, "have had agents busy -this year trying to secure his elevation to the highest court in the -State.... We say confidently that the history of the case establishes -his conspicuous unfitness for a place on the bench of the Court of -Appeals. He should be defeated, and with him the oppressive monopoly -which is actively seeking his election." - -He was defeated with the rest of the ticket. District Attorney Quinby -was re-elected several terms in succession. After their victory the -people went to sleep, but not the sower of tares. At the election of -1890 the nomination of this judge to a seat on the bench was secured -from both parties. For fourteen years, therefore--from 1890--a seat of -the Supreme Court, one of the most important tribunals of justice in -New York State, will be occupied by this judge, before whom must come -many questions affecting oil transportation, electric lighting, natural -gas and illuminating, street railways, banking, and other interests of -the oil trust. - -Monopoly cannot be content with controlling its own business. It is the -creature of the same law which has always driven the tyrant to control -everything--government, art, literature, even private conversation. Any -freedom, though seemingly the most remote from any possible bearing -upon the tyrant, may--will grow from a little leak of liberty into a -mighty flood, sweeping his palaces and dungeons away. The czar knows -that if he lets his people have so much freedom as free talk in their -sitting-rooms their talk will gather into a tornado. In all ages -wealth, like all power, has found that it must rule all or nothing. Its -destiny is rule or ruin, and rule is but a slower ruin. Hence we find -it in America creeping higher every year up into the seats of control. -Its lobbyists force the nomination of judges who will construe the laws -as Power desires, and of senators who will get passed such laws as it -wants for its judges to construe. - -The press, too, must be controlled by Power. During the criminal trial -at Buffalo one of the oil combination's detectives was put on the -stand. He was compelled to produce his written instructions from the -counsel of the trust.[508] These had been given him at the office of -the oil trust in New York. He forwarded his reports to its office in -New York, and received his pay from the same place.[509] He sent his -subordinates to get employment in Matthews' works, and through them -obtained information from the inside. The monopoly paid one of these -detectives $2.50 a day for spying, while he could earn only $1.50 a day -for working. - -"I see here further," said the District Attorney, "'Why the _Express_ -published the last complaint'"--in Matthews' suit for $250,000 damages. -"Did he ask you to find out about that?" - -"He did." - -"That is, he wanted you to find out what arrangements were made with -the Buffalo _Express_ to have the complaint published?" - -"Yes; the whole complaint. It covered the whole of the newspaper." - -"And do you know 'how many copies were taken by Matthews?' Did he tell -you to find that out, too?" - -"Yes, sir."[510] - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES - - -The South is the most American part of America. Close observers note -as its especial characteristic the preservation of the original -Anglo-Saxon types, which gave this country its first and deepest -impress. - -The South is not yet so steeped as the North in the commercialism to -which it is all of life to buy and sell, and its population, less -affected by trade and immigration, remains more nearly American, as the -fathers were American, than the parts of the country flooded by the -full force of the modern tide. Only in the South is there record all -through this history of a man "too prejudiced to buy" from those who -claimed the sole right to sell. - -The merchants of Columbus, Mississippi, were buying their oil of the -southern branch of the combination when they were offered a supply at -cheaper prices by an independent refiner. They asked the combination -to meet this competition of the market. This was refused. There were -eleven firms there which sold oil in connection with other things. The -combination "coolly informed us," wrote one of the firms to a journal -of the trade, "that we were in their power, and could not buy oil -from any one else, and that we should either pay such prices as they -demanded or not sell oil. We immediately formed an association among -ourselves and ordered from other parties. On receipt of our first car -they immediately put the retail price below the cost per car lots, -and for some time tried to whip us in that way, as we still declined -to handle their oil. They then wrote offering to rebate to several of -the larger firms if they would withdraw and leave the smaller ones to -fight the battle alone. This proposition we declined, and they again -tried the low-price dodge, their agent telling us that they would -spend $10,000 to crush us out. This game they have now been trying for -three years, and in that time we have not handled one gallon of their -oil." As these devices, irresistible in more commercial civilizations, -did not fool the brotherhood of Columbus, a special agent was sent to -Columbus to carry on the war. - -"You can tell the Columbus merchants if this does not succeed we will -have it out on other lines," the agent was instructed, in the strain -of the letter to the merchant of Nashville.[511] "The battle has not -fairly opened yet; sharpen up your sword, we mean war to the knife." -And again: "We want Columbus squelched," was the word sent the agent -from the headquarters at Louisville. - -He was ordered to start a grocery store in Columbus, to compete in -their entire business with the "black-mailers." While the fight was -on, and it was still hoped to conquer Columbus, the following was kept -prominently before the people in the daily papers: - -"We desire to state that we did not establish an agency in Columbus to -force the wholesale grocers to handle our oil." - -But seven years later the general in command of this department told -Congress it was his practice to fight in that way. "Almost invariably I -did that always."[512] - -"To threaten the people elsewhere with Columbus," the agent at Columbus -was told, "will make them scat, as it were, and take our oil at any -price." But the people of Columbus did not "scat." The new store had a -complete stock of groceries. Prices on everything, including oil, were -put "down to the bone." But one essential feature of the enterprise all -the ingenuity and power of the invader could not furnish--customers. -Goods were advertised at cost; alluring signs were hung out with daily -variations; but the people would not buy. A few citizens who bought at -the beginning, without understanding the plan of campaign, came out -in the newspapers with cards of apology, and pledges that they would -not repeat the mistake. Local bankers refused to honor the drafts of -the enemy, threw out its accounts, and gave notice that they would -advance no money to persons who bought at its store. The public opinion -of Columbus so bitterly resented the attack upon the livelihood of its -merchants, because they had dared to buy where they thought best, and -so clearly saw that the subjugation of the merchants would be but the -preliminary of a conquest of themselves, that any one seen within the -doors of the odious store fell into instant and deep disgrace. "Their -store is regarded as a pest-house," wrote one of the leading business -men, "and few respectable people ever darken their doors, their trade -being confined mostly to negroes. Their oil trade has dwindled down to -almost nothing, and we are selling now to merchants in other towns who -heretofore bought exclusively from them." - -At the first sign of aggression the merchants had given up competition, -which they saw meant only mutual ruin, and had tied themselves together -in an association. Now as the struggle widened the people did the -same, and found a greater benefit and pleasure in co-operation than in -keeping up the delusion of the "higgling of the market" where there was -no market. The _Index_, of Columbus, printed an agreement signed by -hundreds "of those who will sustain our home merchants in the struggle -they are making.... It will receive many more signatures among our -citizens.... The people have only to understand to properly decide in -this matter between right and wrong." - -"You ask if the feeling is bitter against them in our 'community,'" -one of the merchants wrote. "I can only liken it to the spirit which -prevailed when the people of Boston emptied King George's taxed tea -into Boston Harbor." - -Attempt was made to intimidate the press. Advertisements were -discontinued because the papers supported the cause of the people. -"If the agent," said the _Index_, of Columbus, "thought the cash that -might be obtained for such advertisements could purchase the silence -of this journal when it should speak, or its support in a wrong cause, -he reckoned without his host." "The pledge" was signed by practically -every man in the place. The country people about Columbus, when they -came to town to sell produce and buy supplies, took back with them -blanks of the agreement not to buy the obnoxious oil, and circulated -them among their neighbors for signature. Agents were sent among -these country people to win back their trade, but they could not be -moved. The competition was made "war to the knife," and the knife "to -the bone." It was a singular sight--this concentration of millions -to "kill" these little men in this remote country town in far-off -Mississippi. Nothing was too small to do. When one of the Columbus -"rebels" bought oats for his trade, a competitive stock of the same -kind of oats was hurried into Columbus, and these instructions sent -with it: "Put your sign out. Rust-proof oats to arrive at 98 cents to -$1 a bushel. This will kill him. The same signs should be posted about -meats, sugar, coffee, etc." - -The plan of action of the Merchants' Association was simple: they -declined to handle the enemy's oil at any price. "Then to have a stock -of our own always on hand, ready to sell whenever we could at a profit, -and hold in reserve whenever they put prices below cost; and in this -way we have made it a losing business to them for over three years, and -will continue to do so as long as they remain in our town.... When our -association buys a car of oil, each member pays for and takes charge of -an equal share, but the oil remains the property of the association; -and should any member sell out before the others, he has the right to -buy from them at cost, and the next car is not ordered until all are -nearly sold out." - -It is "our pleasure to make oil cheap"; but a written proposition was -made to the merchants that if they would repent and return, the price -would be 20 cents a gallon, with a rebate to the loyal dealers. As -this oil could be, and was being, laid down in Columbus at 12 cents -a gallon, the proposition amounted to a request that the merchants -join in imposing a tax on the people of 8 cents a gallon, which must -be added to the retail price, and go to swell the profits of the -"sympathetical co-operation." "Can any one," said the _Index_, "after -knowing these facts, doubt that in a pecuniary point our merchants -could have done better by surrendering the principle and joining the -ring? But, at the same time, could any reasoning man (even viewing it -in the light of policy alone) advise such a course?--one which, if -adopted, would only open the door for other monopolies to enter and -demand high prices on meat, flour, and the other necessaries of life, -until our city becomes the highest market in the land. Let all good -citizens, then, unite in a steady effort to resist the yoke which this -monopoly is now trying to force upon us, and let us teach them and all -others that our people are too loyal to each other and too intelligent -to allow themselves to be made the instruments of their own destruction. - -"Remember, that should our merchants be forced to yield, the day of -low prices will be a short one, and then these strangers, having -accomplished their purpose and forced their yoke upon you and us, will -return to their homes, and while rioting in the taxes wrung from you, -with your own assistance, will laugh at you for allowing yourselves to -be so easily duped, and, emboldened by their success in forcing upon -you high-priced oil, will soon return to demand high prices on sugar, -coffee, and every other article of trade." - -The nose for news of the American press scented out the novelty of a -whole community acting as one man in successful resistance to those who -had till then found nowhere any cohesive brotherliness to make a stand -against them. The newspapers of the county took the matter up. It was -absolutely the first time any method had been found that could prevail -against the tactics of divide and conquer, which had been elsewhere -irresistible. Public attention was fascinated by the revelation that -a brotherhood to ravage the people turned impotent when the people -were roused to meet it with their brotherhood of the commonwealth. -There was in the spectacle a moral illumination--the light that never -fails. Instead of becoming, as had been planned, a warning to all the -people of the dire destruction to be visited upon any who dared to -disobey, the encounter between the one-man power of united Columbus -and the one-man power of hundreds of millions of dollars became every -day more brilliantly a sign in the sky, showing all the people how the -invasion of their industrial liberties could be changed into a ruin -more complete than the retreat from Moscow. Scores of such assaults on -the people had been won before. "What was being done at Columbus," said -one of the papers, "is but what they have done before at Aberdeen, and -at hundreds of other places North and South." - -But as despoilers always have to fear, one defeat may undo a lifetime -of conquest. The success of the people of Columbus was teaching the -people of the whole country, and of all markets, that their real enemy -was not the oil trust, but the lack of trust in each other. The people -were learning there was a magic in association more potent than the -trick of combinations. The _Index_ proposed to the people of the South -to join the citizens of Columbus, and make the fight general. "There -is this about it: if there was concentrated action among the smaller -cities and towns throughout even this section of the State, we would -have no fear of the result. The oil trust may be too strong for a -single small locality, but if a combination of a certain number of -localities handling oil were effected, they would soon be forced to -retire. Such a combination can be and should be brought about at once." - -The struggle at Columbus lasted three years. It had seemed unequal -enough--a few thousands of dollars against hundreds of millions. But -three years of this commercial warfare failed to break the spirit or -resources of the brave--and wise because brave--people. The community -never broke rank. They laughed when they were tempted with cheap -coffee, flour, sugar, to join in the attempt to bankrupt their home -merchants. They could see that the gift of forced cheapness, used to -destroy natural cheapness, was a Trojan horse bearing within itself -the deadliest form of dearness. Defeated, the oil lords gave up the -contest, closed their store in Columbus, and left the people of that -place free. - -"England," says Emerson, "reaches to the Alleghanies; America begins -in Ohio." In the Western Reserve of Ohio, hive of abolitionists and -Union soldiers, was the same spirit of America which, at Columbus, -Mississippi, had defended its market rights as outposts of all other -rights. It was only a few years ago discovered that the flames of the -"burning springs" of the Caspian Sea, China, and America, whose torches -kindled the lamp of history, were beacon-fires uncomprehended by a -procession of civilizations, and waiting to light man to the knowledge -that the earth beneath him was a city of domes, huge receivers storing -up the products of vaster gas-retorts below. Man found that he need not -wait for this spirit to come to him out of the "caverns measureless to -man." He could go to it, as in oil, and, tapping the great tanks, could -lead their flighty contents to homes and mills, to emerge there as -light and warmth and power. - -Experience in oil had made ready skill and capital to use the new -treasure. In a very few years thousands of miles of pipe were laid, and -millions of capital invested in the natural-gas business, mainly in -Ohio and Pennsylvania. The gas was found in the same general localities -as oil, and the methods of procuring and distributing it were similar, -and the similarity easily extended to the methods of administering this -bounty of nature as "property." Toledo began to be supplied in 1887 -with the new fuel through pipe lines by two companies. They obtained -their franchises as competitors, but were soon found to be one in -ownership, prices, and all details of management. The discovery that -the two companies at Toledo were really one, and that one the evil one -of the oil trust, aroused the apprehensions of the people, and these -were increased by a number of circumstances. - -The Toledo companies got from the city as a free gift a franchise -worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, on condition that they would -supply Toledo before a certain date. But in the midst of the work of -laying pipes they suspended operations, and declared that they would -do nothing more unless the City Council fixed, at rates dictated by -them, the prices the people were to pay. These rates were enough -to pay not only a fair dividend, but to return in a few years every -dollar of capital invested in lands, pipes, etc. Later they demanded -another increase which, according to the sworn statement by their -superintendent of the amount of gas supplied daily, would have -amounted to $351,362.50 a year. They made the charges regardless of -the ordinance, and used delay in furnishing gas as a means to make -people willing to pay these illegal rates. Consumers seeking to renew -their contracts were informed that the price would be doubled. The -companies had assured the people that they should get their heat at -half the price of coal; but when the bills were footed up, the gas in -many cases cost more than coal. The companies refused to supply fuel -to an oil refinery which had been built in Toledo in opposition to the -trust refineries. The companies discriminated against some customers, -and in favor of others. The power to say which manufacturer should -have cheaper fuel than his competitor was a power to enact prosperity -or ruin.[513] It was a power to force themselves into control of any -business they desired to enter. - -Those who controlled these gas companies appeared in the Circuit Court -of the city in a proceeding which alone contained warning enough to -put any self-governing community on guard. The Court was asked to deny -the right of farmers in Wood County to give a way over their lands to -the Toledo, Findlay, and Springfield Railway, being built to give the -independent oil-refiners and producers of the Ohio oil-field a route to -market. The farmers in question had made leases to an oil corporation -of the trust, giving only the specific right to bore for and pipe and -store oil and gas. The farmers supposed that they had parted only with -what they had signed away in the leases. They supposed they still owned -their farms. When the new railroad sought the privilege of a right of -way the farmers granted it. Suit was at once brought for an injunction -to prevent this use of the land. According to the logic of the claim -in these cases a farmer who has made such a lease could not build a -road across his own farm without permission. "Most certainly not," was -the reply made by one of the lawyers to the judge who asked if the -farmer could do so. - -By occurrences like these an increasing number of influential citizens -were convinced that the gas companies would hold a power over the -comfort and daily life of the people not wise to surrender entire to -any corporation. An agitation was begun for the supply of gas to the -people by themselves acting through the municipality. Six thousand -citizens sent a petition, in the session of 1887-88, to the Legislature -to pass the necessary enabling act. There was a discussion of the -project for two years. Public opinion grew more favorable every -day. The citizens chartered a special train to carry a delegation -to Columbus the day the pipe-line law came before the Senate. The -Legislature in 1889 passed the law. It authorized the people of Toledo -to issue bonds to the extent of $750,000 to buy gas land and build -pipe lines. This legislation was, of course, bitterly opposed by the -existing gas companies, and they demanded of the Legislature that -before the law became operative it should be ratified by a three-fifths -vote of the people. The friends of this scheme of municipal self-help -and independence accepted the challenge. In the ensuing campaign the -opposition to the people was officered by the president of one of the -natural-gas companies, twice Governor of Ohio, afterwards United States -Secretary of the Treasury. The natural-gas trustees of the City of -Toledo in an official communication said: "There is reason to believe -the money of the natural-gas companies was freely spent to defeat it." - -The act was ratified April, 1889, by a vote of 7002 for to 4199 -against--"a vote," say the trustees, "in which the heavy taxpayers -were largely acting with the majority."[514] Organized labor took an -enthusiastic part in the work of this election. The Central Labor Union -held a special meeting which filled the largest public hall. Men -paraded the streets with banners favoring the policy of independence. -The Knights of Labor held meetings to discuss the project, and the -Central Council, representing all the assemblies in the city, passed -unanimously resolutions appealing to all members of the order and all -working-men to support no candidate who would not pledge himself to -the city pipe line. At a meeting of the glassworkers it was resolved -to be "the duty of every working-man to vote 'Yes' for the pipe line -next Monday." "Many of us glassworkers," said the resolutions adopted, -"have been employed in factories in the Ohio Valley, receiving their -natural-gas fuel from a gigantic corporation similar to that which now -supplies Toledo. We have seen our employers unfairly dealt with, and -arbitrarily treated in the matter of making rates. Some of them were -forced to go into the courts, to prevent the extortion of the piratical -company who were bent on assessing each citizen and industry at the -highest rate possible, irrespective of its effect on the industries or -the wages of the employés. Many manufacturers were compelled to move -their plants to the cheap gas-fields of Ohio and Indiana. The employés -were compelled to break up their homes and emigrate, in order to follow -their trade for a livelihood." The question came before the people -again the next spring, when both the Republican and Democratic parties -by acclamation renominated a natural-gas trustee, whose term was -expiring, to succeed himself. At the election the vote was 8958 for, -and only 58 against--a practically unanimous indorsement of the project -by the people. - -Toledo now began to make history. "It is entirely safe to say," a -well-known citizen declared in the Toledo _Blade_, "that in the history -of this country no other people have been called to the experience -which Toledo has been undergoing for the past year. Communities often -are agitated and divided on questions of local policy; but no second -case will be found in which a people, after settling such questions -among themselves according to recognized rules, were confronted with -warfare, bitter and persistent, such as this city is now called to -meet, and at the hands of a combination wholly of non-residents, -without the slightest proper voice in their domestic concerns." -In every direct encounter with the "commons" the "lords" had been -defeated--in the two years' debate which preceded the first appeal to -the Legislature; in the Legislature, where the bill passed the House -almost unanimously, and the Senate more than two to one; in the appeal -to the voters; before the governor, who had been approached to cripple -the enterprise of the municipality by naming unfriendly trustees. The -gas companies had tried at each city election, after the Legislature -acted in 1889, to seat in the City Council a majority in their -interest; but the people, making the city pipe line the issue of the -election, gave an overwhelming preponderance of their votes to the men -pledged to see it through. - -"Strong and subtle opposition"[515] was then brought to bear on the -Common Council to prevent it from passing the necessary ordinances; -but, in spite of it, both branches of the Council voted them -unanimously. A clearer case of the will of the people and of law and -order there could not be. A free and intelligent community, in a matter -of vital concern to its industrial freedom and business prosperity, -after thorough discussion, in which all sides had been freely heard, -had by constitutional proceedings decided by an overwhelming majority -upon a policy altogether within its legal, moral, and contract rights. -The ablest lawyers, writers, and financiers that money could hire had -had it under the microscope to find some breach for attack, but had not -been able to find a flaw. All was constitutional, legal, proper, and -expedient. A glance at the contestants brings out in clear outlines -some conditions of our modern development which have come upon us -almost unawares. The City of Toledo was a vigorous community of 90,000 -people; its opponent was a little group of men; but they controlled -in one aggregation not less than $160,000,000, besides large affairs -outside of this. The assessed valuations of the property of the people -on which Toledo could levy taxation was, in 1889, but $33,200,000. -The total income of the municipality was $961,101; that of a single -member of the little group opposing them had been acknowledged to -be $9,000,000 a year, and was believed by the best informed to be -several times as much. This individual income was greater than the -product of all the manufactories of the city, and three times greater -than the combined wages of the workmen in these establishments. There -were several members of the natural-gas syndicate who collected and -disbursed every year more than the community. Toledo had about the -same population as Kansas in 1856. The slave power of the South that -assailed the liberties of the 90,000 in Kansas numbered millions, but -the new power in the North, which in a short generation had grown so -strong that it did not fear to attack the 90,000 freemen of Toledo, -counted only nine names. The people could act only after public -deliberation, and through the slow stages of municipal and State -procedure. Their antagonist met in secret council, and devised plans -executed by a single hand, armed with the aggregated power of hundreds -of millions of dollars, and liable, if found illegal or criminal, to -only "nominal" punishment, or only 6 cents damages.[516] - -At Columbus the struggle was with something very simple but -extraordinarily difficult to overcome, as simple things often are--an -obstinate, immovable, thoroughly angry public opinion, acting only -through private voluntary means, its set will to exchange the fruits of -its labor with whom and on what terms it pleased. There was absolutely -no leverage to be got to bear upon the people of Columbus except by -changing their feelings. Compulsion was out of the question. But at -Toledo compulsion was possible. There the people had acted not through -unofficial combination as at Columbus, but through the official -machinery of the town and State. If the law could be turned against -them by able counsel or compliant judges; if any smallest fault, -however technical, could be found in the legislation of the State or -the city or the practical administration of the official machinery -provided for the natural-gas business of the city--if this could be -done, the people of Toledo could be compelled, however little their -will had changed, to see their enterprise of independence balked; this -compulsion could be carried to the use of force if they resisted, and -the militia of the State and the regular army could be brought into the -conflict. - -Such is the prize of power which tempts--more than tempts, drives as -by fate--our overgrown wealth to fortify itself by control of judges, -governors, presidents, commanders-in-chief--all the agents of the -supreme authority and force. - -Columbus was so local that its people were sufficient unto themselves. -All they had to do was to keep on saying, We will not buy. But Toledo -was a citizen of the great world of affairs and finance. It was part -of London, New York, Chicago. Much of it was owned as an investment -elsewhere. Sensitive nerves connected it with all the markets, -especially the greatest of all--the money-market. It sold and bought -and borrowed and lent far beyond its own border. What Wall Street -gossips said about the people of Columbus would not make a dollar's -difference to the whole town in a year, but a whisper started through -the offices of the great capitalists in New York and abroad would -flash back by wire to Toledo, and go like a quick poison through its -industries and credit, private and public. - -"Private enterprise" could not afford to let the people of Toledo go -forward with their public enterprise. Many millions had been invested -in getting control of a business representing $200,000,000. Many -towns and cities, as Fostoria, Sandusky, Fremont, Clyde, Bellevue, -Norwalk, Perrysburgh, Tiffin, and Detroit, were being supplied with -gas at a handsome profit. If Toledo should set a successful example -of self-supply, it would find imitators on every side. The essence of -"private enterprise" was that the people should get their gas from -Captains of Industry, and pay them for their captaincy two or three -times the real cost as profit, just as monarchical countries pay kings -for kindly supplying the people with the government which really comes -from the people. The essence of municipal supply was that the people -should supply themselves at cost without profit, and without Captains -of Industry, except as the people provided them. Toledo, in fine, -proposed to keep step with the modern expansion of self-government, -which finds that it can apply principles and methods of democracy -to industry. It proposed to add another to many demonstrations -already made, noticeably in this very department of gas supply to -municipalities, of the truth that the ability to carry on the business -of supplying the various wants of mankind is not a sort of divine right -vouchsafed from on high to a few specially inspired and gifted priests -of commerce, by whose intermediation alone can the mysteries of trade -be operated; but, like the ability to govern and be governed, is one -of the faculties common to mankind, capable of being administered of, -by, and for the people, and not needing to be differentiated as the -prerogative of one set of men. The Toledo experiment was another step -forward in the world-wide movement for the abolition of millionaires--a -movement upon which the millionaires look with unconcealed apprehension -for the welfare of their fellow-beings. - -Mankind views with equanimity the expulsion of the profit-hunter from -the businesses of carrying letters, minting coins, administering -justice, maintaining highways, collecting taxes, in which -millionaireism has been universally put an end to. It views with hopes -of larger results the newer manifestations of the same tendency which -in England have abolished millionaireism in telegraphs and parcel -express; in Germany and France, Australia, and India have gone a long -way towards the abolition of the millionaire in railroads; and in -various cities and towns in Europe, America, and Australia have put up -local signs, "No millionaires allowed here," by the municipalization of -trade in water, gas, electricity, street-railways, baths, laundries, -libraries, etc. The trust of millionaires was therefore fighting for a -principle, and what will good men not sacrifice to principle! - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -FREEDOM OF THE CITY - - -Towns, like men, stamp themselves with marked traits. Toledo had an -individuality which showed itself from the start. Its leading men -clubbed together and borrowed money as early as 1832 to build one of -the first railroads constructed west of the Alleghanies--the Erie and -Kalamazoo, to connect Toledo and Adrian. When, in 1845, the steamboats -on the lakes formed a combination, and discriminated against Toledo, -the city through its council refused to submit, and appropriated -$10,000 to get an independent boat to Buffalo. The city appropriated -its credit and revenues to other important and costly enterprises, -including four railroads, to keep it clear of the cruel mercies of -private ownership of the highways. In 1889 it expended $200,000 to -secure direct railway connections with the Pennsylvania and the -Baltimore and Ohio railways for competition in rates with the Lake -Shore Railroad. - -As it had been authorized to do so by the State, the City Council of -Toledo, April 29, 1889, ordered gas bonds to the amount of $75,000 -sold, that work on the city pipe line might begin. Before proceeding -with the enterprise confided to them, the natural-gas trustees gave -the private companies an opportunity to save themselves from the -competition of the city. They asked them in writing if they would agree -to furnish gas cheaply for a term of years, or if they would sell -their entire plant to the city? They did this, as they expressed it, -as "an honorable effort ... to obtain cheaper gas without unnecessary -expenditure, and without injury to established rights." After a -delay of nearly a month a reply was received, refusing to enter into -negotiations either for a reduction of charges or for the sale of the -private plants to the city. The trustees then asked for a personal -interview, but this was refused. Then when the city began preparations -to sell its bonds, a cannonade was opened on it in the courts, the -money-market, the gas-fields, the city government, the press, among -the citizens, and everywhere. Injunctions were applied for in three -courts, unsuccessfully in all instances. No injunction was ever granted -in these or any other of the many suits brought for the purpose of -enjoining the sale of the bonds. Courts will usually grant temporary -injunctions awaiting a hearing on the merits when complainants will -enter into ample bonds and indemnify defendants. But the parties -instigating this litigation would not put up the necessary bonds. They -thus could smirch the bonds without incurring any personal liability in -so doing. - -An expensive array of lawyers was sent before the United States -courts to prevent the issue of the bonds on the ground that they were -illegal, and the law under which they were issued unconstitutional. -The principle involved had been frequently discussed and always upheld -both by the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United -States.[517] - -"Does not your argument appear to be in conflict with the views of the -Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United States?" the -judge asked. The counsel for the gas companies responded in substance: -"If so, then so much the worse for the views of those courts." - -As it was through the suffrage that the people of Toledo were able to -do this, the attack was widened from an attack on the enterprise to one -upon the sovereignty of the citizens which made it possible. "Everybody -votes in Ohio--in fact, too many people," said the lawyer who applied -for an injunction against Toledo. If he had his way, he declared, there -would be fewer voters, and he stigmatized the arguments of Toledo as -those of John Most, the communist. - -"Unquestionably," decided Judge Jackson, "the Legislature may -authorize a city to furnish light, or facilities for transportation, or -water to its citizens, with or without cost, as the Legislature or city -may determine.... Since the decision in Sharpless _vs._ Philadelphia -it is no longer an open question whether municipalities may engage in -enterprises such as the one contemplated by the act in question in this -case. The act of January 22, 1889, authorizing the city of Toledo to -issue bonds for natural-gas purposes, is clearly within the general -scope of legislative power, is for a public use and purpose, and is -not in contravention of any of the provisions of the constitution. The -court being of the opinion that the legislation is valid, it follows, -of course, that the injunction applied for must be refused."[518] When -the news of Judge Jackson's decision was telegraphed to Toledo nothing -less than the booming of cannon could express the joy of the citizens. -They sent this message to the just judge: "One hundred guns were fired -to-night by the citizens of Toledo in honor of your righteous decision -to-day." Judge Jackson again upheld the bonds at Toledo, January 14, -1890, when he again dismissed the case against the city "for want of -equity, at cost of complainants." - -The favorable decision by Judge Jackson, although an appeal was taken, -made it possible for the city to sell the $75,000 bonds which had been -issued by order of the Council. The bonds brought par, interest, and -over $2000 premium. With the money thus procured the city's Board of -Natural Gas Trustees began operations. Their opponents had spread far -and loud among the voters before the election--among those who would -be likely to buy the bonds, everywhere it would hurt--the assertion -that all the territory that was good had been bought up by them, and -the city's trustees would not be able to get any. One of the companies -had no less than 140,000 acres of gas lands in its possession or under -contract, at a cost in rentals and royalties of $100,000 a year.[519] -But the city trustees, even with the small sum at their command, were -able to secure at the very beginning wells with a capacity more than -four times as great as the private companies had had when the latter -began the investment of a million or more to lay their pipe lines to -Toledo.[520] Together with this supply the city trustees got 650 acres -about 35 miles from Toledo of as choice gas territory as there was in -Ohio, almost all of it undrilled, and they had offers amounting to 5000 -acres more within piping distance from the city. The city's trustees -made their purchases with success, and received the laudations of their -constituents for having got lands and wells at better prices than the -private companies. - -August 26, 1889, after a decision in the United States courts that -there was no ground on which to object to the issue of the bonds, the -City Council voted the issue of the remaining $675,000. - -Defeated in the public debate which preceded the decision of Toledo -to supply itself; defeated at the State Capitol; defeated at the -polls of Toledo time and again--every time; defeated in the Common -Council; defeated in the gas-fields; defeated in the courts of their -own choosing, the opponents of the city, thorough as only the very good -or the very bad can be, refused to submit. When the two corporations, -in 1886, were seeking the franchise indispensable for doing business -in Toledo, they said to the Board of Aldermen: "We ask no exclusive -privilege.... We cannot have too many gas companies." They also said: -"If the city desires to furnish its own gas, there is nothing in this -ordinance to hinder it. We are ready and willing at any time to enter -into competition with the city or any other company." They said, on -the same occasion, in answer to apprehensions which had been expressed -about the danger of putting the fuel supply of the city into the hands -of a monopoly: "You can go before the Legislature and obtain the right -to issue bonds for furnishing yourselves with gas." It was by these -assurances the companies induced the Common Council to grant them -gratuitously the very valuable franchises they were seeking. - -The right of the people to compete was not left to these assurances. -It was specifically and formally asserted in the ordinance of July 5, -1887, fixing rates. This was the ordinance to procure which the gas -company suspended its operations in mid-course, and declared it would -not continue unless the prices which it wanted were made. The ordinance -was, in fact, prepared by the company. It said: "Provided that nothing -herein contained shall be construed as granting to existing companies -any exclusive rights or privileges, or prevent any other company from -furnishing natural gas to the citizens of said city." But the same -learned counsel who, in behalf of the companies, had assured the city -that "there was nothing in this ordinance to hinder it," went before -the United States Court and pleaded that ordinance as good reason for -the intervention of the Federal Government to prevent the city from -going on with its enterprise. - -The only morning paper--an able advocate of the city pipe -line--suddenly changed owners and opinions. Among its new directors -were two of the lawyers of the trust opposing the city, a director -in one of its companies, and, besides them, the manager, a contract -editor from Pennsylvania. His sole conspicuity there had been won in -turning against the people of the oil regions a paper which had been -their stanchest defender. This Toledo daily, in its espousal of the -cause of the city, had been firing hot shot like this against the oil -combination: "It wants a monopoly of the natural-gas business. This -is what it is driving at." Under its new management it roared like a -sucking dove, thus: "It is fashionable with demagogues and men who are -not capable of appreciating the worth of brains in business to howl -against it"--the oil combination--"as a grasping, grinding monopoly." -Just after the people had decided in favor of the pipe line, and only -a few days before it changed owners, it had said: "All manner of -influences were brought to bear to defeat this proposition.... All the -plausible falsehoods that could be invented, and all the money that -could be used, were industriously employed, but the people saw the -situation in its true light, and the majority voted right." It now made -the defeat of the city's pipe line the chief aim of its endeavors. In -this work "no rule or principle recognized in decent journalism was -respected." - -In all the history of Toledo no interest on its bonds had ever been -defaulted or delayed; no principal ever unpaid at maturity. The city -was prosperous, its growth steady; its debt growing less year by year -in proportion to its population and wealth. Its bonds ranked among the -choicest investments, and commanded a premium in the money-market.[521] -But the credit and fair fame of the city were now over-whelmed with -wholesale vituperation by this paper, and others elsewhere under -similar control. Articles were carefully prepared for this purpose by -skilled writers. These were then copied from one newspaper to another. -By some arrangement insertion was obtained for them in financial -journals in New York and in London, and in other foreign capitals. -The Toledo organ declared that Toledo was an unsafe place for the -investment of capital in any form. Its public affairs were said to be -run by a set of "demagogues and speculators," whose administration was -"piratical mob rule." The city pipe line was a "monstrous job," and the -men who favored it were "a gang of throttlers and ravenous wolves." -They were "blatant demagogues, who made great pretence of advancing -the city's interest, but whose real aim is to enrich themselves at -public expense." The bonds, which had been issued in due form by -special authority of the Legislature, ratified by a vote of more than -three-fifths of the citizens, and declared to be valid by the United -States Court, were described as "chromos," "worthless rags," "bad -medicine," "disfigured securities," "like rotten eggs, highly odorous -goods," "but few persons at most can be found ignorant enough to buy -them." - -The Mayor, City Auditor, Board of Natural Gas Trustees, united with -a citizens' committee of the Board of Trade in a plan to promote the -sale of the bonds direct to the people of Toledo through a financial -institution of the highest standing. This action the paper described -as "a scheme for gulling simples," "a blind pool," "an unpatented -financial deadfall"; compared it with "gambling, pool-playing, and -lottery selling." These grave charges were widely circulated throughout -the country. Bankers and capitalists in other cities who received them -had no means of knowing that they were not what they pretended to -be--the honest if uncouth utterances of an independent press chastising -the follies of its own constituency. Newspapers which supported the -city's project were assailed as ruthlessly as the community and -citizens. The _Blade_ was constantly referred to as "The Bladder." -Another journal was given a nickname too vulgar to be printed here. One -of the most prominent journals of Ohio was punished by the following -paragraph, which is a fair sample of the literary style of monopoly: -"That aged, acidulous addle-pate, the monkey-eyed, monkey-browed -monogram of sarcasm, and spider-shanked, pigeon-witted public -scold, Majah Bilgewater Bickham, and his backbiting, black-mailing, -patent-medicine directory, the _Journal_." - -An old journalist and honorable citizen who wrote over his initials, -"C.W.," a series of able and dignified letters in the _Blade_, which -had a great influence in the formation of public opinion in favor -of the pipe line, was assailed with "brutal falsifier," "hoary old -reprobate," "senile old liar." Caricatures were published depicting the -buyers of the bonds as "simple greens." When the County Court of Lucas -County, following the United States Court, sustained the bonds on their -merits, and did so on every point in question, because, as the judge -stated, "the equities of the case are with the defendants," the organ -falsely stated that judgment for the city was given "because the merits -of the case are involved in a higher court." When a capitalist of New -York, who had been an investor in the bonds of Toledo and a taxpayer -there for twenty-five years--one of the streets of the city was named -for him--bought $10,000 of the city pipe-line bonds, the paper attacked -him by name in an article headed "Bunco Game," charging him with being -a party to a bunco game in connection with "public till-tappers" for -"roping Toledo citizens into buying doubtful securities." When the -Sinking Fund Commissioners of Toledo very properly invested some of the -city's money in the gas bonds, they were held up by name as "public -till-tappers," "menials" of a "hungry horde" of "boodle politicians," -accomplices of "plunderers of the public treasury," unable to withstand -"the brutal threats and snaky entreaties of the corrupt gas ring." For -one of the associate editors the position of Deputy State Inspector -of Oil was obtained--an appointment which cost the Governor who made -it many votes in the next election, and did much to defeat him. Such -an appointment might give a versatile employé the chance to do double -duty: as editor to brand as bad good men who could not be bought, and -as inspector to brand as good bad oil for sale.[522] - -One of the means taken to defeat the pipe line was the publication of -very discouraging accounts of the "failure" at Indianapolis, where the -citizens had refused to give a natural-gas company belonging to the -oil trust the franchise it demanded, and, forming an anti-monopoly -trust, had undertaken to supply themselves. Some "influence" prevented -the Common Council of Toledo from sending a committee to Indianapolis -to investigate. A public-spirited citizen, prominent and successful -in business, came forward, and at his own expense secured a full and -accurate account of the experience of Indianapolis for the city. -This proved that the people were getting their fuel gas at less than -one-half what Toledo was paying. The contest against giving the -Indianapolis franchise to a corporation of the trust had been a sharp -one. Its success was due to the middle classes and the working-men, -who stood together for freedom, incorruptible by all the powerful -influences employed. "We will burn soft coal all our lives," one of -their leaders told the Toledo committee, "rather than put ourselves in -the power of such men." - -In Indiana the Legislature meets only once in two years, and when this -issue arose had adjourned, and would not meet again for a year. The -people, not being able to get authority for a municipal gas pipe line, -went to work by voluntary co-operation. Every voting precinct in the -city was organized and canvassed for the capital needed. The shares -were $25 each, and they were bought up so rapidly that the entire -amount--$550,000--was subscribed in sixteen days by 4700 persons, -without a cent of cost to the city. When subscriptions to the amount of -$550,000 had been raised, $600,000 more was borrowed on certificates of -indebtedness. - -Gas lands were bought and 200 miles of pipe lines laid, all at a cost -of about $1,200,000. The income in one year, during a part of which the -system was still under construction, was $349,347. In the first year of -complete operations the Indianapolis people's trust paid off $90,000 -of the principal. The income for the year ending October 31, 1892, -was $483,258.21, and the bonded debt has been paid. The stock, since -January 1, 1893, has been paying dividends at the rate of 8 per cent. a -year. - -A prominent citizen of Indianapolis, one of the State judges, told the -Toledo papers, in an interview: "The private companies had their gas -laid to the city and along the streets several months in advance of the -Citizens' Trust, but it did them little good. Everybody said: 'I will -wait for the Consumers' Trust.' 'Yes, but we will furnish you gas just -as cheap,' said the Indianapolis company; 'why not take it of us?' To -this the citizens replied: 'To take gas of you means cheap gas to-day, -but high gas to-morrow.' And wait for the gas they all did." The charge -to manufacturers was 2-1/2 cents a thousand feet, as against 8 cents, -at that time charged at Toledo. There were 12,000 private consumers. -Cooking-stoves in Indianapolis were about $12 a year, against $19.50 -in Toledo. One of the representatives of the private company declared -at a public meeting at Indianapolis that its charges were made -such as to give a full return of all the invested capital in three -years, as that was the probable life of the supply. A year after the -inauguration of the Indianapolis movement a committee of the citizens -at Dayton, who had risen against the extortionate prices charged them, -investigated the condition of affairs at Indianapolis. They reported -that Indianapolis had paid $200,000 on its bonded debt, and was getting -ready to pay as much more. The Consumers' Trust supplied between 10,000 -and 11,000 consumers, and spent $1,000,000 less than the Dayton private -company spent to supply 3000 fewer consumers. The annual charge at -Dayton was $54.80; at Indianapolis only $26.80--less than half. - -When facts like these were brought out, to the demolition of the -fictions circulated in Toledo, the answer was characteristic. The -"organ" could not deny the statements, but it fell upon the citizen -through whose generosity the information had been got for the people, -and assailed his private character in articles which, one of the daily -papers declared, editorially, "would almost, if not quite, justify him -in shooting their author on sight." - -This newspaper charged the city natural-gas trustees with being "rotten -to the core," and with every variation of phrase possible to its -exuberant rhetoric sounded the changes upon their official career as a -"big steal," "fostered by deception, falsehood, and skull-duggery." It -sought to intimidate the Legislature and the courts when they failed -to enact or construe laws against the people. It said: "Law-makers, -judges, and others may feel the force of this element when the proper -time comes and political preferment is sought." - -It was money in pocket that facts like those of the experience of -Indianapolis, Detroit, and other places should not be made known. Even -ideas must not be allowed to reach the public mind. Professor Henry C. -Adams, the well-known political economist, lectured in Toledo during -this contest, in a University Extension Course, on "Public Commissions -Considered as the Conservative Solution of the Monopoly Problem." The -"organ" gave a synopsis of the lecturer's views, which is printed -herewith in parallel columns, with a synopsis of what Mr. Adams really -said, as revised by himself: - - - WHAT THE ORGAN OF MONOPOLY REPORTED. | WHAT THE LECTURER REALLY SAID. - | - The lecturer made reference to Toledo |Professor Adams thought the - as an unfavorable place to discuss |solution of the monopoly problem - the matter of municipal control of |must be found either in public - quasi-public business and competition |control or in public ownership. - of municipalities with private |He advocated public control, and - corporations. But he deprecated anything|held that the State and Federal - in that line. He did not mention |railroad commissions should have - particular instances, but broadly |a fair trial, that their hands - condemned the policy pursued by this |should be strengthened by further - city in matters of this kind, and his |and adequate legislation. He - remarks had a visible effect on his |entertained the hope that this - audience. He considered municipal |control and regulation would - control of business enterprises the |ultimately protect the interests - worst form of monopoly, as they began |of the public in a satisfactory - by having the unfair advantage |manner. He was willing to admit, - of the law-making power, and the |however, if this effort to secure - tendency to corruption was greater |the needed public control by the - than when individual enterprises were |aid of commissions and - asking privileges. The audience |legislation should fail, then - was much pleased with the lecturer. |public ownershipwas the only - |remaining solution. He held that - |in local monopoliesit may still - |be wise to try the experiment of - |public control by aid of - |commissions. He said, however, - |that if anything should be owned - |and controlled by and for the - |people it would be - |street-railroads, gas and - |waterworks. He admonished his - |audience not to be misled by the - |argument that municipal ownership - |would be dangerous because of - |undue political influence, for - |the local monopolies under - |private ownership were already in - |politics, and in a most dangerous - |manner. He observed facetiously - |that he hesitated to discuss the - |question before a of municipal - |control orownership Toledo - |audience. - - -From the control of the markets to the control of the minds of a -people--this is the line of march. - -So direct, persistent, and bold were the charges of corruptions rung -day after day by this journal against all the officials concerned -in the city gas enterprise that some people began to believe there -must be truth in them. But when the community at last turned upon -its maligners, and the grand-jury brought indictments against the -active manager of the paper and his chief assistant for criminal -libel upon the city's natural-gas trustees, the whole structure of -their falsehood went down at a breath. They had no defence whatever. -They made no attempt to justify their libels or even explain them. -Their only defence was a series of motions to get the indicted editor -cleared as not being responsible for what had appeared in the paper. -Counsel labored over the contention that the accused was none of the -things which the language of the law holds for libel. He was neither -the "proprietor," "publisher," "editor," "printer," "author," nor a -person "who uttered, gave, sold, or lent" a copy of the newspaper, -but only the "manager." The employés gave testimony which would have -been ludicrous but for the contempt it showed for court and community. -The journalist who was the "managing editor" of the paper under the -indicted chief editor was asked: - -"Who was the head of the paper when you entered upon your duties as -managing editor?" - -"I do not know." - -"Who hired you as managing editor?" - -"I really can't say that I was hired at all." - -"Who employed you to come to Toledo?" The witness had been an employé -in Pennsylvania of the editor on trial, and had followed the latter to -Toledo to take the place of managing editor. "Nobody employed me." - -The son of the indicted editor had also followed his father to Toledo, -and was employed on his paper. Asked for what purpose he came, he said: -"I had no purpose in coming." - -The gentleman who had charge of the counting-room was asked who fixed -his salary. - -"I regulate my own." - -The advertising manager declared: - -"I have no knowledge who is my superior." - -The accused had to let the case go to the jury without a spark of proof -of the accusations which had filled the paper every day for months. -He had no evidence to offer either that the charges were true, or -that he believed them to be true. He stood self-confessed as having -for years printed daily gross libels on citizens, officials, and -community, as part of the tactics of a few outside men to prevent a -free city from doing with its own means in its own affairs that which -an overwhelming public opinion, and the legislative, executive, and -judicial authorities, and its present antagonists themselves, had all -sustained its right to do. The agent of this wrong was found guilty, -and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail, with heavy costs and -fine; like the unhappy agents at Buffalo--"made cheap" for others.[523] -But sentence was suspended pending hearing of the motion for a new -trial. This did not come up for a year. The court could find no error -in the proceedings of the trial court, and could not sustain any of the -objections made. But it found a point which even the lawyers had not -hit on, and strained this far enough to grant the new trial. Then the -convicted editor went before another judge--not the one who had tried -him--pleaded guilty, and was fined, and so saved from jail. - -One of the last scenes in this Waterloo was the abandonment of the -newspaper with which the corruption and intimidation of public opinion -had been attempted. Failure was confessed by the sale of the paper, and -it was bought by a journalist who had been especially prominent in the -defence of the city, and against whom on that account a bitter warfare -had been waged by the daily which now passed into his possession. The -_Sunday Journal_ of Toledo, in commenting on the surrender, declared -that the course of the organ had been one of the strongest factors of -the success of the people. "In every possible way it slandered and -outraged the city, where of necessity it looked for support. There -could be but one result. Scores who had opposed the pipe line became -its most ardent advocates purely in the general defence." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -HIGH FINANCE - - -When Judge Jackson refused to enjoin the city from issuing its bonds an -appeal was taken. The court and the lawyers of the city were promised -that it would be carried up without delay. Months passed, and no use -was made of the privilege of filing new pleadings and taking new -testimony--that is, no use but to make the suits the basis for libels -on Toledo and its bonds. - -Time ran on until the day was at hand for opening bids for the bonds. -That was to be Wednesday. Then the counsel for the opposition notified -the city that on Monday they would begin the taking of depositions. -This was not then or afterwards done, but on the strength of the -notification news despatches were sent over the country that the -proceedings against the legality of the Toledo bonds were being -"pressed." In consequence of this and other manoeuvres, when Wednesday -came there were no bids. A hasty rally of some public-spirited -capitalists at home, learning of the emergency, made up a subscription -of $300,000. The names of the citizens who made this patriotic -subscription were printed in the daily paper under the heading of "The -Honor Roll." - -Only by extraordinary manoeuvres could the market for such securities -offered by such a community have been thus killed in a time of great -general and local prosperity, and extraordinary they were. What they -were was formally and authoritatively ascertained by an investigation -made by a committee appointed at a mass-meeting[524] of the citizens -of Toledo called by the mayor, the Hon. J.K. Hamilton. The call ran: - - "For the first time in the history of Toledo, its general bonds, - secured by the faith and property of the city, and bearing a fair rate - of interest, have been offered, and only such of them sold as were - taken at home by popular subscription. It is deemed desirable that - under such circumstances the citizens of Toledo should meet together - and determine what further steps should be taken to carry out the will - of the people as expressed by 62 per cent. of the voters of the city. - - "It is believed that with proper effort a large additional popular - subscription may be obtained, and thus notice given to the world that - notwithstanding all opposition the citizens of Toledo have confidence - in and will maintain the credit of this fair city, and that a great - enterprise undertaken by its people will not be defeated by the - machinations of private opposing interests, no matter how powerful and - unscrupulous." - -The meeting appointed a committee of three--David Robinson, Jr., Frank -J. Scott, and Albert E. Macomber--"to prepare and circulate throughout -the financial circles of the country a pamphlet which shall set forth -the case of the city of Toledo in its struggle against those who by -anonymous circulars and other dishonorable ways have attempted to -prevent the sale of the Toledo natural-gas bonds." This committee put -the facts before the public in a very able pamphlet, "The City of -Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds." In an official statement asked for -by this committee the city natural-gas trustees say: "Skilled writers -were employed to furnish articles for Eastern financial journals, to -cast discredit on the bonds on the very grounds that had been set -aside by Judge Jackson's decision. Not content with this open warfare, -anonymous circulars were sent to leading investment agencies in the -United States, warning them to beware of these bonds, as they were -under the cloud of doubtful constitutionality and an impending lawsuit. -When the day arrived for bidding for the bonds no bids were made. -Agents of investors were present, who came to bid, but by some unknown -and powerful influence they were induced not to put in their bids. The -writers are not aware that any similar mode of striking at the credit -of a whole community was ever before resorted to in this country. -It is an insult and a wrong not only to this city, against which it -is aimed, but to people of independence everywhere in the United -States who have a common interest in the maintenance of the rights of -all."[525] - -Press despatches impugning the validity of the bonds and -misrepresenting the facts were sent all over the country. The anonymous -circulars referred to were mailed to all the leading banks, investment -agencies, capitalists, and newspapers. The New York _Mail and Express_ -said: "It would be decidedly interesting to know who is responsible -for the ... methods by which it was thought to prevent the city from -undertaking the enterprise. A number of volunteer attorneys and -correspondents deluged bankers and newspapers with letters warning them -against the bonds which the city proposes to issue, on the ground that -it had no right to issue them. The _Mail and Express_ received several -communications of this kind." - -"Not only the financial centres of this country," say the city's -natural-gas trustees in their official report for 1890, "but those -of Europe were invaded with these circulars."[526] The circular was -headed "Caveat Emptor." It contained twenty-four questions, and every -one of the answers, except those which referred to matters of record -and routine, like the date, amount, name, etc., of the bonds, was -incorrect. What hurt the people of Toledo most, as it was most base -and baseless, was its attack on their hitherto unquestioned credit and -financial honor. Asking the question, "How does the credit of the city -stand?" the circular answered: "Refunding has been going on ever since -1883. The bonded debt was greater at the beginning of 1889 than of -1888; bonds bearing interest at 8 per cent. will become due in three or -four years. The mayor, in his last annual message, admits the inability -of the city to pay much of these except the refunding." "Willing to -wound, and yet afraid to strike," the authors of this attempt to pull -down an entire city managed, by the interweaving of such phrases as -"ever since 1883," "bonded debt greater," "inability of the city to -pay," to create by insinuation the feeling of financial distrust for -which their greatest industry and ingenuity had been able to find not a -particle of foundation. No modern municipality is asked or expected or -desired "to pay much except the refunding." Capitalists would greatly -prefer that even the refunding should not be carried on, but that the -debt should run along at the original high rates of interest, which -they regretfully see dwindling away. The circular failed to state that -the city was borrowing money at 4 per cent. to pay off debts bearing 8 -per cent. The insinuations of the circular could have been used of "the -credit" of the United States, New York, Paris, London, Chicago, with -the same appropriateness--with this exception, that Toledo's municipal -financial credit was relatively to its resources on a sounder and more -conservative basis than these much more highly financed cities. The -circular did not state that the proportions of debt to population had -been decreasing for many years past.[527] - -"Toledo has not two years' supply of gas," the circular said, "in all -the territory acquired." The State Geologist, in his annual report -for 1890, said that Toledo would have no gas to supply its pipe lines -or citizens in 1891. In 1892 the city pipe line supplied gas to the -value of $168,954.46. Three years have passed, Toledo wells still flow, -and new ones are being found continually. "Whatever may have been his -object," say the city gas trustees, "in volunteering such a statement, -we know that so far in 1891 it is untrue, and that such positive -declarations, based upon hypothetical conditions, are utterly unworthy -of scientific pretensions."[528] The State Geologist also took part in -his annual report in the debate between municipal control and private -enterprise, siding altogether with the latter. - -The quantity of gas land owned by the city was put by the circular at -300 to 500 acres. The city had 650 acres. The circular declared the -life of an ordinary well to be one to three years. There is no such -limit. Referring to the quantity of gas land the city had, the circular -asked and answered: - -"Cannot other territory be acquired? - -"Not in Northwestern Ohio, and not nearer than the gas fields of -Indiana." - -This was untrue, for the gas trustees had already been offered, as -stated, several thousands of acres of the best gas lands in addition -to those they had bought. But the authors of the circular did their -best to make it true. The city's natural-gas trustees say in their -report for 1890: "As soon as the trustees were prepared to negotiate -for gas wells and gas territory, the field swarmed with emissaries and -agents of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company to compete with -the trustees. In order to prove what had been previously stated, 'that -Toledo could procure no gas territory,' no means were left untried; -agents of that company even fraudulently represented themselves to the -owners of gas property that they were connected with the gas trustees -and working in their interest, and in some instances introducing -themselves as the president of this board. Prices went up 1000 per -cent. in some instances rather than let it fall into the hands of the -trustees. A conspicuous officer of that company, as an excuse for -paying an enormous sum of money for a gas well, is reported as saying, -'We did not want the gas well, but we had to buy it in order to keep -Toledo from getting hold of it.'"[529] - -Referring to the private companies, "Are the people of the city already -supplied with natural gas for public and private use?" the circular -asked. "They are," it answered, and goes on: "Why does the city want -to go into the natural-gas business, then?" "To boom the lands of -real-estate speculators." This is a charge affecting the Legislature -and Executive and State courts of Ohio, the courts of the United -States, the people of Toledo, and all the members of their city -government. Burke confessed that he did not know how to draw up an -indictment against a whole people. That art has been acquired since his -day. - -"Are these bonds of unquestionable validity?" this catechism of libel -upon a community queries. - -"By no means. Prominent taxpayers have suits pending attacking the -constitutionality of the act under which they are issued." - -"Have these cases," the last question ran, "ever been tried on their -merits?" - -"They have not." - -They had been tried so far that the United States and State courts had -refused on every ground urged to interfere with their issue and sale, -declaring the legislation authorizing them to be valid. They had never -been tried any further in the United States courts for a very good--or -bad--reason. The "prominent taxpayers," after their defeat before Judge -Jackson, took every possible means to prevent the case from reaching a -final adjudication. The invariable rule of the United States Supreme -Court has been to treat as final and conclusive the decisions of State -courts as to such domestic issues. During the hundred years of its -existence not a case can be found in which that court has overruled -the fixed and received construction given to a State law by the courts -of that State.[530] The only hope for the suit of the "prominent -taxpayers" was, therefore, that the Supreme Court of the United States -would for their special profit reverse the practice to which it had -consistently adhered since the establishment of the government. What -they really thought of their prospect of success in that effort they -confessed when their case, no longer delayable, was upon the point of -being reached. - -They who had been so "anxious to get to the case as soon as possible" -refrained from printing the record, a condition precedent to putting -the case on the docket of the United States Supreme Court. The city -wanted the decision, and in order that the case might not be dismissed -for this failure to print the record, and a decision upon the merits be -thus prevented, the city's gas trustees advanced the money--$1100--to -the court printer for printing the record. Pushed thus against their -will to trial, when the day came on which they must rise to state their -case the opponents of Toledo folded their tents and stole silently -away. On the motion of their attorney the case was dismissed, against -the protest of the city. They paid all the costs, including the money -advanced by the city for printing the record. To their defeat all along -the line they did not want to add a formal decision against them from -the Supreme Court, which was inevitable. And they ran away to fight -another day. - -Another purpose of these suits was confessed only a few weeks after -this circular was issued. The existence of the suits was used to try to -frighten the city's natural-gas trustees into accepting a "compromise." -The compromise was that they should abandon the enterprise, sell out -pipes and lands for a fraction of their worth, get their gas from the -private company at higher rates, and put the city in its power for -all time to come. "It will be three or four years before your case is -through the Supreme Court," its representative told the natural-gas -trustees, in urging them to accept. "You can't sell your bonds," he -continued; "you have no money." The "compromise" was refused, but the -city's pipe line had been delayed so long that the profits of the -company for another twelvemonth were secure. - -The demonstration against the bonds in the United States Circuit Court -had been followed by similar suits in the State courts. Here again the -city was successful. It was upheld on every controverted ground--in -the enabling act, in the vote of the people, in the appointment of the -trustees by the governor, and in the issue of the city bonds. Appeal -was taken here, as in the United States courts, and, as there, for -delay, not for decision. To checkmate further use of this lawsuit to -smother the law and cripple the city, the friends of the pipe line -began a suit against the authorities to force an immediate decision -from the Ohio Supreme Court as to the legality of the bonds. It was -certainly, as was said in the press, "a curious state of things when -the defendant is compelled to bring suit against himself because the -plaintiff refuses to allow trial in his own case." - -These litigations, the circulars, the press, were only part of the -campaign. One of the committees of the Common Council was brought -under control, and induced to throw technical difficulties in the way -of the sale of the bonds, which caused months of delay.[531] Effort -was made to get the Governor to appoint natural-gas trustees hostile -to the city, but failed. It was attempted, also without success, to -get the Legislature to prevent the sale of the bonds at private sale. -During all this controversy the city was most fortunate in receiving -the needful authority from the State Legislature. This was due mainly -to a faithful and able representative of Toledo in that body, the Hon. -C.P. Griffin. He was offered every promise of political preferment -and other allurements to betray his constituents, but he always -remained faithful. Without his support the efforts of the city would -have failed. His services amid great temptations deserve the grateful -remembrance of the public. - -Some of the devices of "private enterprise" were childish enough. -"A Business Men's Protest" was published, which proved under the -microscope to have been largely signed by men whose names could not be -found in the directory. A similarly formidable-looking remonstrance -against the pipe-line bill was sent to the Legislature. It had 1426 -names; of these 464 could not be found in the directory, and over 300 -of the 962 remaining names signed the petition for the city's bill. -Many of them avowed that when they had signed the "Remonstrance" it -had a heading in favor of the pipe line, which must have been changed -afterwards. As part of the tactics of misinformation, a report was -published--in January, 1890--claiming to give the business of both the -private companies; but the members of the Council Committee on Gas, -when afterwards examining the books for the gas company, found that -it gave the receipts of only one company. A paper was prepared by a -citizens' meeting for circulation among the manufacturers to ascertain -how much they would contribute towards the city pipe line; but when -reported back to the meeting it had become, in some mysterious way, a -paper asking the manufacturers how much they would advance to quite a -different scheme, the effect of which would be to sell out the city -pipe line or convert it into a manufacturers' line. - -These were the infantile methods of men who could not see the -ludicrousness of the position they put themselves in by such efforts to -keep a business which they were constantly declaring to be hazardous -and unprofitable. - -Detectives appear in almost every scene of our story, and are as common -in its plot as in any extravagant melodrama of the Bowery thirty years -ago. To counteract the anonymous circulars the City Council sent a -committee headed by Mayor Hamilton--the "War Mayor," one of the ablest -lawyers of the city, upright and loyal at all times to Toledo--to visit -the Eastern money-markets. The committee, in their official report, -state that they were assured by responsible dealers in municipal -securities in New York and Boston that they would bid for the entire -amount to be sold. "We regret, however, to have to report that the -powerful and influential parties who have on all occasions and in every -way sought to obstruct and defeat the enterprise for which the proceeds -of these bonds were to be used, in some way succeeded in inducing those -who intended to purchase to withhold their bids--in fact, no matter -how guarded our movements, we believe that every person or firm with -whom we had interviews was reported to the agents of the Standard -Oil Company, for in every instance where from our interviews we had -encouragement that the bonds would be bid for, within a short time more -or less influential agents of opponents interviewed these parties and -succeeded in changing their minds." - -What a picture of "high finance," of the "beneficent inter-play of the -forces of supply and demand," of the "marvellous perfection" with which -capital moves under "natural laws" to carry its fertilizing influences -where they are most needed! The officials of this free city compelled -to sneak around in the open money-market under cover with "guarded -movements," seeking buyers for its bonds as if they were stolen goods! -About them a cloud of spies and detectives reporting every movement as -if it were a crime to the little handful of trust millionaires in their -grand building on Broadway! "They have entered the ---- Bank!" "They -have just left ----'s office!" After each report the leash is slipped -of a waiting sleuth, who flies away to run down the quarry. - -The gas trustees made public a letter and telegram they received from a -prominent New York bank: - - "NEW YORK, November 27, 1889. - - "DEAR SIR,--A gentleman named" (naming a man who signs the - certificates of the Standard Oil Trust as treasurer),[532] "introduced - by the card of Mr. ----" (one of the richest men in New York not - otherwise known as connected with the trust), "called on us to-day and - stated that understanding that our firm was on the point of bidding - on the Toledo bonds, etc., he would caution against the purchase, as - they were not legal. Mr. ---- represented himself as coming from ----" - (one of the companies of the oil combination), "and referred us to - their lawyer for further information. Now as this may hurt the sale - of the bonds we want to be cautious, and on Friday will make further - inquiries, and will wire you accordingly. We may not care to hand in - our bids on this account." - -The telegram sent on Friday is as follows: - - "NEW YORK, November 30th. - - "Fearing sale of bonds has been injured, will not bid at present." - -"That tells the story," said one of the trustees, "in a nut-shell." - -A local bank bid for $500,000 of the bonds, but did not sustain its -bid. A reputable citizen, an ex-mayor, wrote for publication in one of -the leading journals that he had been informed by a well-known banker -there was reason to believe a banking firm which, in 1892, defaulted -on its bid for bonds, had been indemnified by the opposition for the -$5000 it thereby forfeited to the city, and for the profits it would -have made from the sale of the bonds. With the city line crippled the -gas company would pocket the profits on the sale of a million dollars' -worth of gas a year. Five thousand dollars, or several times that, was -a small insurance to pay for such a gain. - -This was the game of hide-and-seek played in Wall Street by detectives -and financial stilettos against "simple greens," who thought supply and -demand still rule values. This was the reality which the officials of -Toledo found behind the outward aspect of its magnificent buildings, -the benevolent millionaires who look out through their plate-glass, the -grandiloquent generalizations of professors about "the money-market." - -The city was brought to the humiliation of seeing its officials meet -in public session at an appointed hour to open bids it had invited -from all the money centres for its bonds, only to have the news -flashed all over the country that not a bid from abroad had been -made. This opposition cost the city in one way and another not less -than $1,000,000, according to the estimate of the city's natural-gas -trustees. The feeling of the people was expressed in the following -language in a circular sent out with the pamphlet report of the -committee appointed in mass-meeting to make a statement of Toledo's -case to the public: - -"We have seen the modern aggregation of corporations--trusts--suppress -other corporations in the same line of business. But this Toledo -contest is believed to be the first instance where private -corporations--creatures of the State--have assumed to exercise -monarchical powers over a portion of the State--one of its leading -municipalities; to dictate the policy of its people; to seek to -control the legislation as to the laws that should be enacted for such -portion of the State; to bribe and intimidate the votes of such city -at the polls; to attempt to subsidize the press by the most liberal -expenditure of money; to at last purchase, out and out, a heretofore -leading paper of the city, place its own managers and attorneys as -directors, import one of its long-trained men as editor, and turn -this paper into an engine of attack upon the city, an attack upon -the city's honor and credit, characterized by the most unscrupulous -misrepresentation and a perfect abandonment of all the amenities of -civilized warfare." - -The Toledo public felt no doubt as to who were attacking it under -the convenient anonymity of the two gas corporations. At a public -conference, January 16, 1889, between the presidents of the private -natural-gas companies and the people assembled in mass-meeting, the -representative of the former said the only condition on which the -members of the oil trust had been induced to interest themselves in -natural-gas in Northwestern Ohio was that of absolute and unqualified -control of the entire business through a majority of the stock of all -the gas companies to be organized. - -"The trust is interested in companies engaged in supplying natural -gas?" the president of the oil trust was asked by the New York -Legislature about this time. - -"To a limited extent, yes." - -"Have they a majority interest in any of these companies?" - -"I think they have."[533] - -This was identically the arrangement by which the nine trustees owned -as their private property the control of the oil business. At several -later conferences with the city's trustees and the Common Council -the gas companies were represented by one of the principal members -of the oil combination, the ingenious gentleman who had managed the -negotiations with the railroads by which, under the _alias_ of the -American Transfer Company, the trust claimed and got a rebate of 20 -to 35 cents a barrel,[534] not only on all oil it shipped, but on all -shipped by its competitors. He was also its representative in the -similar arrangement by which the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad -agreed to carry its oil for 10 cents a barrel, to charge Rice 35 cents, -and to pay it 25 out of every 35 cents Rice paid.[535] He had acted in -the same interest throughout the gas field as well as in oil, and his -pathway could be traced through one independent company after another, -whose wrecks, like those in oil, are milestones. - -July 27, 1889, in an item originating in New York, in the _Tribune_, a -friendly paper, and given an extensive circulation by news despatches -sent to the leading papers in other cities, it was said that the -representatives of the oil trust "in this city say emphatically -that they will attack in the courts the right of the city to issue -them"--the bonds. - -At the great meeting of the citizens, October 19, 1889, to organize -a popular subscription to take the bonds killed in the money-market, -the resolutions named the oil combination as the power responsible for -the attacks on the city, and appealed to the people to observe that -it, "no longer content with destroying individuals and associations -which stand in the way of its moneyed interests, now rises to grapple -with and destroy the rights of cities and states; we therefore ask all -liberty-loving men to make common cause with us in the defence of the -community against the aggression of colossal power." - -The aldermen and the Common Council of Toledo unanimously adopted -resolutions, September 15, 1890, requesting the State and Federal -courts to give decisions as promptly as possible in the suits pending -against the validity of the natural-gas bonds. These bodies in their -official utterance declared that the oil combination, "through its -officers and agents in the city of Toledo and at many other points in -the United States, has circulated false and malicious statements about -the bonds of the city of Toledo issued for natural-gas purposes." The -natural-gas trustees of the city say in their report for 1890: "These -injunctions and circulars, although fathered in the first instance -by non-resident taxpayers, and in the second by irresponsible or -anonymous parties, were traced directly to the oil trust, a trust -having a large number of corporations within its control, among which -is the North-western Ohio Natural Gas Company, and to whom the city -of Toledo may reasonably attribute a loss of more than a million of -dollars already. What further financial embarrassment it may suffer -in the future cannot be measured by the depravity and moral turpitude -which its seeds have sown in our midst."[536] - -When the warfare against Toledo became a scandal ringing throughout -the country and beyond, the organ of the trust in Toledo attempted to -make it appear that the oil trust was not the party in interest. But -there was open confession on the record. Its connection and its control -were admitted by two representatives in conference with a committee -appointed by the mayor at their request to discuss the situation.[537] -They described the circumstances under which the members of the oil -trust had gone into the project of the Toledo line and the project -of the natural-gas business. One of the two stated that he came into -it as its "more direct representative." The pipe line of the private -gas company was built, he went on to say, by one of the principal -corporations in the oil trust. At the same interview it was admitted -that the oil trust owned 60 per cent. of the natural-gas company's -stock. - -The people of Toledo did not surrender to this success of their enemies -in the money-market. The bonds which calumny and espionage prevented -them from selling at wholesale to the great capitalists of New York and -Boston they took themselves at retail. The Legislature having given -authority for such sales, a committee of one hundred had been appointed -by the citizens' meeting, October 19, 1889, to canvass all the wards of -the city for subscriptions to the gas bonds. "Gas Bond Pledges" were -circulated, to which people subscribed according to their ability, in -amounts ranging from $2 to $5000. The employés at the Wabash Railway's -car shops sent in a list signed by fifty names for a total of $1102, an -average of $22 each. The labor of two hundred men for a week without -pay was offered the gas trustees as an earnest of the good-will of the -people. Piece by piece the city's pipe line was pushed through. At a -critical moment a shrewd and patriotic contractor saved the enterprise -by building a large part of the line, and taking for his pay the bonds -the banks would not take. In June, 1890, the public were gratified by -the announcement that their trustees had secured the means "for the -construction of three miles more," making eight miles in all, or nearly -one-fourth the entire line. In August a contract was made for five -miles more, and so the work went on, step after step. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -A SUNDAY IN JUNE - - -In the midst of the anxious discussion by the citizens of Toledo as -to the character of the power which ruled them both by night and by -day, the same question arose in the metropolitan religious press, but -in its broader ethical aspects. After the petition of Toledo to be -allowed to take the control of its light, heat, and power into its own -hands had been laid before the Legislature, the _National Baptist_ -of Philadelphia, in an article on the trusts, criticised them as the -prophet Nathan would have done. It gave to that in oil, "of course, -the bad pre-eminence in all this matter." "This corporation has, by -ability, by boldness, by utter unscrupulousness, by the use of vast -capital, managed to control every producer, every carrier, to say -nothing of the legislatures and courts." The _Examiner_, the leading -religious weekly of the Baptist denomination in New York, rose against -this. "We can readily understand how there should be differences of -opinion in the matter of these trusts, and their influence is a proper -subject of discussion; but to make it the occasion of so unjust and -intemperate an attack on Christian men of the highest excellence of -character is something that was not expected from a paper bearing -such a name. The four most prominent men in the oil trust are eminent -Baptists, who honor their religious obligations, and contribute without -stint to the noblest Christian and philanthropic objects.... All -of them illustrate in their daily lives their reverence for living -Christianity." - -The _National Baptist_ did not submit to this attempt to cite men's -creeds to prevent judgment on their deeds. It quoted the reply Macaulay -makes Milton give to the similar pleas urged for King Charles: "For -his private virtues they are beside the question. If he oppress and -extort all day, shall he be held blameless because he prayeth at night -and morning?" It held to its ground, and cited against the trust -the recorded evidence, but it declared it was "a marked breach of -propriety for the _Examiner_ to bring their private character into the -discussion." The _National Baptist_, going on to speak in praise of a -series of lively cartoons in _Harper's Weekly_ on the Forty Thieves of -the Trusts and similar subjects, said, with some sadness: "It will be -a sorry spectacle if the secular papers shall be ranged on the side of -justice and the human race, while the defence of monopoly shall be left -to the so-called representatives of the religious press." - -Later, March 20, 1890, the _Examiner_ returned again to its -discussion of the religious performances of the chiefs of the oil -trust as a matter of public importance. Of one of them it said: "The -prayer-meetings of the Fifth Avenue Church are on Wednesday evening, -and no business man in the church is less likely to be absent from one -of them than he. His wife and children, when they are in the city, come -with him, and it is by no means an unusual thing for the whole family -to take part, each of them occupying one or two minutes of time. He and -they are at church every Sunday when in the city, and no husband and -wife keep up the good old Baptist habit more faithfully of exchanging a -kind word with the brethren and sisters after the regular services are -over. He dresses plainly, and so do his family, and every one of them -has a kind heart and a pleasant word for all. They are among the last -to leave the church and the prayer-meeting. Now the question is, How -is it, as things go, that a man possessing the great wealth imputed to -him should have so warm a fraternity of feeling for the lowly in their -temporal conditions? And is there not an example here that might well -be imitated in all the churches of our Lord?" - -In an address on Corporations the reverend secretary of the Church -Edifice Department of the Home Missionary Department of the Baptist -Church followed the example of the leading Church journal. "The oil -trust was," he said, "begun and carried on by Christian men.[538] They -were Baptists, and, so far as the speaker knew, both the objects and -the methods of the oil trust were praiseworthy." A clergyman of another -denomination once called upon one of the great men of the trust to seek -a subscription. - -"But," said the rich man, "I am not of your Church." - -"That does not matter," said the minister, "your money is orthodox." - -The secular press followed the example of the religious press in -treating their public faithfulness to Church ceremonies as news of the -day, and part of the record of their social functions. The New York -correspondent of the Philadelphia _Daily Record_ wrote for the people -of Philadelphia: "It is not often that a millionaire stands up to lead -in prayer, but I heard the president of the oil combination make an -excellent prayer the other evening. He is said to be worth $25,000,000, -but he neither drinks nor uses tobacco, and he is a deacon in Dr. -Armitage's church. He likes a fast horse, and has eleven horses in his -stable here. Few men, however, lead plainer lives than he, and few put -on less style. He gives liberally to unsectarian charities, but, he -says, 'when it comes to Church work I always give to the Baptists--my -own denomination--and to no other Church.'" A New York daily described -the same trustee "as one of the few millionaires who devote much of -their time to the improvement of the condition of others. When not -called away by social or business engagements, you are pretty sure -to find him at home evenings. Here, in his costly and well-equipped -library, he receives his visitors, many of whom represent the various -benevolent and religious undertakings in which he is interested. He -has for years been a hearty supporter, financially and personally, of -foreign-missionary work, and no layman, perhaps, is so well informed -concerning the details of it. He has a personal acquaintance with -many of the leading missionaries of the world, and his residence is -frequently the scene of a gathering of these workers among the heathen. -He is now devoting considerable attention to home-missionary work, -a field which, he is convinced, presents splendid opportunities for -Christian endeavor." - -Many descriptions have been given by the press, metropolitan and -interior, of the success with which one of the trustees built up the -largest Sunday-school in his city at the same time that he was building -up the monopoly--leading the children of his competitors and customers -to salvation with his left hand, while with his right he led their -fathers in the opposite direction financially. The church where these -men appear has had columns of admiring description in the leading -daily papers of New York and other cities. "There are few wealthier -congregations than this one," says a reporter of the New York _World_, -though he adds, "the wealth is elsewhere more evenly divided." The -trustee of the light of the world "is the magnate of the church, the -centre around which all lesser millionaire lights revolve. Everybody -stops to speak and shake hands with him. Everybody smiles upon him, -this modest man of nearly $200,000,000." "It is amusing," says the -Brooklyn _Eagle_, "to note the manner in which his neighbors watch him -during the service. Quite a number of people loiter near the door to -see him as he walks out of church." "They are worth a bit of careful -study," says another paper of the trustees, "and no place is quite so -convenient as when they are at church. Their interest in religion is -as sincere as their belief in oil. From the moment they enter church -until they leave they are examples that Christians of high and low -degree might follow with profit." "They have made the most of both -worlds," writes another journalist. The oil trust was criticised -by the Rev. Washington Gladden at Chautauqua, in 1889. One of its -prominent officials, as reported in a friendly journal, defended it as -"a sound Christian institution; and all these communistic attacks are -due entirely to the jealousy of those who cannot stand other people's -prosperity."[539] - -"In Anniversary week" in Boston, in May, 1889, at the meeting of the -American Baptist Education Society, the secretary said he had an -announcement to make. "It had been whispered about," says the New -York _Examiner_ of May 23, 1889, from whose friendly account we are -quoting, "that something important was to occur at this meeting, and a -breathless silence awaited the announcement. Holding up a letter, the -secretary said that he had here a pledge from a princely giver to our -educational causes, naming him (here he was interrupted by a tremendous -cheer), of $600,000 for the proposed Chicago college.... This statement -was followed by a perfect bedlam of applause, shouts, and waving of -handkerchiefs. One brother on the platform was so excited that he flung -his hat up into the air, and lost it among the audience." Eloquent -speeches at once overflowed the lips of the leading men of the meeting, -which was a delegate assembly. They sprang to their feet, one after -the other, and mutually surpassed each other in praising God and the -giver of this gift, which was equal to his income for a fortnight. "I -scarcely dare trust myself to speak," said a doctor of divinity. "The -coming to the front of such a princely giver--the man to lead.... It -is the Lord's doing.... As an American, a Baptist, and a Christian I -rejoice in this consummation. God has kept Chicago for us; I wonder at -his patience." Another reverend doctor said: "The Lord hath done great -things for us.... The man who has given this money is a godly man, who -does God's will as far as he can find out what God's will is." - -The audience rose spontaneously and sang the Doxology. On motion the -following telegram was sent, signed by the president of the society: - - "BOSTON, May 18, 1889. - - "The Baptist denomination, assembled at the first anniversary of the - Education Society, have received with unparalleled enthusiasm and - gratitude the announcement of your princely gift, and pledge their - heartiest co-operation in the accomplishment of this magnificent - enterprise." - -The name signed to this telegram happened to be the same as that of -the divine with whom, when president of Brown University in 1841, one -of the most devoted of the laborers for the freedom of the negro had a -discussion which is perhaps the most pungent in the literature of the -antislavery movement. - -On August 30, 1841, Henry C. Wright wrote to Edmund Quincy: "I once met -the president of Brown University, in the presence of several friends, -to converse on the subject of slavery. The conversation turned on the -question: Can a slaveholder be a Christian? To bring it to a point, -addressing myself to the doctor, I asked him, 'Can a man be a Christian -and claim a right to sunder husbands and wives, parents and children, -to compel men to work without wages, to forbid them to read the Bible, -and buy and sell them, and who habitually does these things?' 'Yes,' -answered the reverend doctor and president, 'provided he has the -spirit of Christ.' 'Is it possible for a man to be governed by the -spirit of Christ and claim a right to commit these atrocious deeds, -and habitually commit them?' After some turning he answered, 'Yes, I -believe he can.' 'Is there, then, one crime in all the catalogue of -crimes which of itself would be evidence to you that a man had not the -spirit of Christ?' I asked. 'Yes, thousands,' said the doctor. 'What?' -I asked. 'Stealing,' said he. 'Stealing what, a sheep or a _man_?' -I asked. The doctor took his hat and left the room, and appeared no -more."[540] - -The Sunday following a special service was held in the churches -throughout the country in behalf of further help in "the new -educational crisis." Many eulogistic sermons were preached that day -by the leading clergymen of the denomination. "And so," one of them -is reported to have said, "when a crisis came God had a man ready to -meet it.... An institution was bound to come, and unless a God-fearing -man established it it was likely to be materialistic, agnostic.... In -this emergency, and in God's providence, society raised up a man with -a colossal fortune, and a heart as large as his fortune." "God," said -the Chicago _Standard_, a religious weekly, "has guided us and provided -us a leader and a giver, and so brought us out into a large place." - -Another of the trustees has poured into a Southern State hundreds -of thousands of dollars for churches of various denominations, and -millions for hotels of a more than Oriental magnificence. "There is -no philanthropist," says an editor of that State, commenting on these -expenditures, "who renders the world greater service than the man of -enterprise." But "Western Pennsylvania," said the Pittsburg _Post_, -"looks more with awe than pride at the liberal diffusion of its wealth -in Florida improvements and Baptist universities." A daily paper of -Richmond, Virginia, in an editorial commenting on a report that the -hostlery glories of St. Augustine were to be repeated in Richmond, -said: "We have naught to remark on the tyrant monopoly if some of -its profits are to come in such a direction. We could forgive much -that monopoly visits on the down-trodden, horny-handed son of toil -if it would come with open pockets proclaiming the era of luxuriant -accommodations for all those other millionaires whose money we want to -see invested in Richmond." - -The next year after the Boston meeting the Church celebrated its -"Anniversary week" in the city which was to be the seat of the new -college. And the anniversary closed with a jubilee meeting, which -filled the largest assembly room in America. "All the church-going -people of Chicago must have attended," one of the daily papers said. It -was addressed by the principal clergymen of the denomination from all -parts of the country. Again, as at Boston, the centre of interest was -the gift of a fortnight's income to the university. A telegram making -the gift conclusive, since the conditions on which it was promised had -been complied with, was read. Cheer after cheer rose from the assembly, -and oratory and music expressed the emotion of the audience. The divine -who made the closing speech declared that he needed ice on his head on -account of the joyful excitement of the occasion. The cheers and the -hand-clapping closed again, as at Boston, with the spirited singing -of the Doxology. Not only in the religious press of all denominations, -but in the worldly press, the topic was the best of "copy." The great -dailies gave columns, and even pages, to the incident, and to the -subsequent gift from the same source of larger sums. "Conspicuously -providential," "princely," "grand," "munificent contribution," -"man of God," were the phrases of praise. A writer in the New York -_Independent_ said: "Your correspondent speaks from opportunities of -personal observation in saying that pecuniary benefaction to a public -cause seldom if ever, in his belief, flowed from a purer Christian -source." The only recorded note of dissent came from a humbler source. -Under the text, "I hate robbery as a burnt-offering," a weekly business -journal said: "The endowment of an educational institution where the -studies shall be limited to a single course, and that a primary course -in commercial integrity, would be a still more advantageous outlet for -superabundant capital. Such an institution would fill a crying want." - -It was the last Thursday in May, 1890, when this great representative -convention of the Church from all parts of the United States celebrated -the acceptance of this endowment. Even while the roll of the Doxology -was still rising to the roof of the auditorium the plans were preparing -for a performance at Fostoria the next Sunday, three days later, which -had a profound effect upon Toledo, though just the opposite of what was -expected. - -Fostoria, Ohio, is the home of the president of the principal -natural-gas company in Ohio controlled by the oil trust and leader -in the vendetta against Toledo. A wealthy miller erected in Fostoria -in 1886 a flouring-mill, with a capacity of 1000 barrels a day. One -of the inducements was a contract made with this manufacturer by the -gas company, by which it bound itself to supply him with natural-gas -at a price which would be one-fifth what coal would cost him, and to -continue to supply him as long as it supplied any one. The manufacturer -carried out his agreement by the expenditure of $150,000 for the -erection of the mill, and by running it continually to its full -capacity. His bills for gas he paid promptly every month. Relying upon -the contract with the gas company, the mill was built for natural -gas, and could use no other fuel. In February, 1890, the gas company, -dissatisfied with the bargain it had made, demanded better terms. The -milling company refused. On a Sunday morning in June, "when, if ever, -come perfect days," a gang of men appeared, led by an officer of the -gas company, and dug up and tore out the pipes supplying the mill with -gas. - -Church bells of different denominations were scattering their sweet -jangle of invitations to the sanctuary as the tramp of these banded -men, issuing on their errand of force, mixed with the patter on the -sidewalks of devout feet. Private grounds were unlawfully entered, -property was destroyed, the peace broken, a day of love changed to one -of hate, all the bonds of community cut asunder, and the people turned -from the contemplation of divine goodness to gaze at shapes of greed -and rage. Sunday is chosen for such deeds, since the help with which -the pagan law, gift of heathen Rome, would interpose, cannot be invoked -by the victims on Sunday, and because on Sunday Christian people go -to church, and leave their property undefended. The peace-officers -were summoned to arrest the invaders for violating the Sunday law, but -before they could get on the ground the mischief was done. The pipes -had all been excavated, the connections wrenched off, and the trench -nearly filled up. The milling company began suit for $100,000 damages -against the gas company,[541] but a private settlement was made, and -the case has never been pressed to trial. The laborers who did the work -of the Captains of Industry in this matter were tried and convicted at -the County Court in July, but by no process did the law, which is "no -respecter of persons," reach out towards the principals. - -This Fostoria incident occurred during the heat of the Toledo -contest--June, 1890--while the city was pushing the sale of bonds -for its emancipating pipe line by popular subscription and in odd -lots. Notice had been already served on the people of Toledo at public -conference, that despite contracts, charters, franchises, the private -companies would not take any less price from Toledo than they demanded. -In pursuance of this, after the council had fixed the price in -accordance with its admitted right, a circular was sent out containing -this significant threat: "If it"--the legally declared price--"is -approved by our customers we will know what course to pursue." - -Even before the occurrence at Fostoria it had been definitely suggested -to the people of Toledo that in case the council failed to accept -the demand as to rates in making the new ordinance (July, 1890) the -pipes would be so far removed as to cut off the supply on some Sunday -when no legal help could be invoked. The possibility of this Sunday -cut-off of the fuel supply of 15,000 consumers became a living topic of -discussion, public and private, and was considered in all its bearings -by the Toledo press. Calculations were made and published of the -number of men it would require to take up the hundred miles or so of -pipe in the streets of Toledo between dark and dark some holy Sabbath -day. It was confessed, hopelessly, that they would be more than the -police could handle. "Of course," as was said in the Toledo _Blade_ by -a leading citizen, "such enterprise would involve a very remarkable -degree of both lawlessness and desperation on the part of the managers. -It would be a mode of withdrawal from trade quite unknown among sound -business men. But then their processes have been peculiar from the -start." - -It was nothing less than startling to Toledo, almost before the print -on the types of these words was dry, to hear the news from Fostoria of -the Sunday raid there. There were those who declared that the Sunday -violence at Fostoria was deliberately done as a warning to Toledo. If -it were a warning to them not to insist on the legal and equitable and -contract right of their Common Council to fix the rates of gas, it -was a failure. The council went forward and did its duty. If it were -a warning to the people to redouble their labors to free themselves -forever from the possibility of such thraldom as that in which Fostoria -and other cities were enchained, it was a success. The people heard and -heeded, and in ten months thereafter gas began to flow into the city -through its own pipes. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -TOLEDO VICTOR - - -It was remarkable to see the revival of the passion of freedom of 1776 -and 1861 in the editorials, speeches, resolutions of public meetings, -and the talk of the common people in Toledo as in Columbus. The example -of "the heroic liberty-loving people of Boston" was held up in every -aspect to fire the heart of Toledo not to be frightened into subjection -to the foreign power that threatened them. To resist "the domination -of an economic monarchy" was the appeal made in posters with which the -town was placarded. - -"During all the time George III.'s soldiers were quartered in Boston -that monarch did not spend as much money to bring the city to terms as -has been spent in this effort to subjugate the city of Toledo," said -Alderman Macomber. - -"A people like those of Toledo," said one of them in the press, "when -once united and determined as they now are, cannot be subjugated by any -combination of mercenaries yet known." - -"It is evident," the Toledo _Sunday Gazette_ said, "that the people -of Toledo have come to a full realization of the truth that the money -saved by the independent pipe line, though great, is a matter of little -importance compared with the social and political issues involved. It -would be a thousand times better," it continued, "to utterly bankrupt -the city than permit the oil combination to win. The fight was not for -the present alone, but it was for the present and future, and for all -time to come. It was not for the people of Toledo alone, but it was for -the whole Union, though God had chosen the people of Toledo for the -struggle." - -The Cincinnati _Commercial-Gazette_ said, in its editorial columns: -"In itself the Toledo enterprise is not a big one, but it will prove -an object-lesson for the whole country. It will show the open door -through which people may pass from under the yoke of a most gigantic, -unscrupulous, and odious monopoly. And it will be surprising if this -does not extend beyond gas and ultimately cover oil. We are only on the -verge of a revolution that is as sure to come as that which followed -the throwing overboard of a lot of tea in Boston Harbor. Neither the -power nor the vulgarity of capital can long rule the people." - -Numerous letters of sympathy, congratulation, and indignation -were received by the Toledo committee appointed by the citizens' -mass-meeting to make a statement of their case to the people of the -United States. There were letters from chairs of political economy in -the universities, from scholars and students in history and politics, -and from men in affairs and finance. - -The completion of the line to the city was not the completion of the -enterprise. Mains had still to be laid in the streets, and house -connections made. At every step, now as before, unrelenting opposition -did all that could be conceived of--in the courts, the Legislature, the -city government, the money-market--to block municipal self-help. Great -numbers of the citizens desired to change from the private companies -to the city. Over 7500 consumers were at one time, in 1891, calling -upon the city to supply them.[542] The litigation which was kept up, -and the defeat of the attempt of the city to sell its natural-gas bonds -in the open market, had exhausted the funds at the disposal of the -city trustees. But they showed a readiness of resource equal, with the -help of the people, to all these emergencies, and proving that public -enterprise can more than hold its own in the competition with private -enterprise. Contractors were got to pipe the streets by sections, and -take for pay the pledge of the income earned by the pipes so laid. In -other cases people wanting the gas were willing to advance a part of -the cost. The same contractor who had faith enough in the city to build -the main line from the gas-fields and take the bonds while they were -under fire volunteered in the same way to build the submerged lines -across the Maumee River, and ten miles of mains within the city. This -was done at a moment when otherwise the enterprise must have come to a -stop, and the name of this patriotic contractor is given to the public -by the trustees in their annual report with words of gratitude. - -The amount of bonds originally authorized was $750,000. The trustees, -in consequence of the delays and enhanced cost caused by lawsuits and -other tactics of opposition, had to incur a floating debt of $300,000. -The council by ordinance directed the issue of bonds by the city to -the amount of $120,000 to pay off part of this floating debt. The -State Circuit Court refused to sustain this action of the council, -but pointed out that all the city lacked was the authorization of the -Legislature. This was the only decision against the city in all the -litigations, and in this the State Court was afterwards overruled by -the United States Circuit Court. A bill was accordingly introduced, -giving the city the right to issue $300,000 in bonds for the floating -debt, and $100,000 for the extension of the gas plant: wells, pipes, -pumps--whatever was needed. A strong lobby immediately appeared in the -State Capitol to defeat the bill. As part of its ammunition a pamphlet -was circulated among the legislators, giving "Facts and Reasons" why -the Legislature should not authorize the new issue of bonds. This -pamphlet illustrates the easy virtue with which some lawyers dispose -of themselves to those who have the money to pay them. Two of its -strongest points were that the contracts for which the floating debt -had been incurred were let without proper competition, and that the -trustees had no power to make the contracts. This pamphlet was signed -by two lawyers, one of whom, before these contracts were let, had -given the trustees his written opinion supporting such contracts -unqualifiedly. The representatives of the people were able to exhibit -to the Legislature his written opinion stating that the trustees had -the power to make the contracts, and had let them in compliance with -the requirements of the statute as to bids. The pamphlet declared that -the court, in granting the injunction against the issue of the $120,000 -of bonds by the Common Council, had declared the claims which were to -be paid by the proceeds of the bonds to be "illegal and invalid." This -was untrue. The court had held only that the city had not the power to -issue the bonds, and pointed out that the remedy was in new legislation -by the State to remedy the want of power. - -Pursuing the tactics of defamation of the city and its authorities -which had been used throughout this contest, the pamphlet said: "We -are prepared to prove ... that the contractors put in their bids -substantially as gambling transactions, at such excessive price -that they thought they could take the risk of the illegality of the -natural-gas proceedings, trusting that these illegal transactions would -be permitted to pass without question, or that subsequent legislation -would ratify these illegal acts; all, or nearly all, of the contracts -were taken at prices more than double the fair cash value for all the -work and material provided for; and all the work and materials, the -claims for which now aggregate about $350,000, could have been obtained -in the open market, under valid laws, upon proper terms of payment, -for less than $250,000. We have the evidence within our control to -establish that the work under some of these contracts was actually -done for less than 40 per cent. of the amount named in the contract. -In addition to these facts, we can establish, if permitted to offer -evidence, that the certificates issued by the natural-gas trustees -were, immediately after the conclusion of the contracts and before any -litigation was had upon them, hawked about the streets of Toledo at -from 60 to 75 cents on the dollar; and that the great majority of these -certificates are now in the hands of speculators, who bought them at -not to exceed 65 per cent. of their face value." - -The authors of these statements were at once challenged by the city's -gas trustees to prove them. "We assert," the gas trustees said, in -a formal challenge, "that you cannot establish the truth of those -statements. We deny that the facts are as you state them to be, either -in substance or in detail." This was signed by John E. Parsons, W.W. -Jones, Reynold Voit, J.W. Greene, gas trustees, and Clarence Brown -and Thomas H. Tracy, ex-gas-trustees. The city's trustees proposed -that they and their accusers deposit $1000 on each side as a forfeit -to abide the result of an inquiry by the three judges of the Court of -Common Pleas, or any other disinterested arbitrators. They placed at -the service of the accusers and the arbiters all the books, records, -and employés of the city's gas department. - -The challenge was not accepted, and the authors of these attacks made -no attempt to prove them. The Legislature disregarded them, and granted -the city and the gas trustees all the additional power to issue bonds -asked for. In a subsequent proceeding in the Federal courts--the issue -involving the validity of these certificates--it was admitted, contrary -to these allegations, that the prices were fair, and that the contracts -were entered into in good faith, and the court held the certificates -valid. - -The most serious crisis in the contest was still to come. In 1892 the -gas wells of the city began to do what the people of the city will -never do--surrender to the enemy. When the oil trust found, after years -of opposition in the Legislature, the courts, and the gas-fields, that -it had been helpless to prevent Toledo from getting ample tracts of -excellent gas territory, with some of the largest gas wells in the -field, and equal to the supply of the entire consumption, domestic and -manufacturing, it turned to other tactics. - -All about this territory secured by Toledo and found so productive the -private companies of the trust proceeded to buy or lease and to sink -wells. The trust shut off all its own wells, except those adjacent to -the city territory, and for two years drew exclusively from the wells -nearest those of the city. When the city's line was completed to the -wells the volume of gas was found to be largely reduced. It had been -drawn off into the wells of the opposition. In the spring of 1892 the -private companies resolved to put in pumps to strengthen the diminished -natural pressure, but to prevent the city from doing the same thing. -Then, with their pumps alone at work, the pressure could be so much -further reduced as to render the Toledo pipe line valueless. To this -end all efforts were directed. The newspapers were kept full of matter -showing how impossible it was to pump gas, that all the money expended -in pumps would be just so much wasted, and that the companies had -canvassed the matter fully, but abandoned the idea. Column after column -of inspired interviews filled the papers, all admonishing the city of -Toledo not to commit such an act of folly as to put in gas pumps. Then -application was made to enjoin the sale of the bonds authorized by the -council and the Legislature for pumps. So month after month dragged -along. The bonds remained unsold, and the pumps unobtainable. - -The injunction was refused both by the Court of Common Pleas and by -the Circuit Court. But there was a right of appeal to the Ohio Supreme -Court until the beginning of 1892. Boston bankers had subscribed for a -large block of the bonds, but withdrew upon learning these facts. "It -is possible for the contestants," the lawyers advised them, "to carry -the matter to the Supreme Court. This, we understand, they propose -to do." The simple assertion of a purpose to continue the litigation -was enough to defeat the sale of the bonds. The payment of costs and -lawyers' fees would be a very moderate price to pay for compelling the -city's gas plant to go past midwinter without the pumps indispensable -for its operation. One of the employés of the private pipe line, -according to an account in one of the Toledo papers, declared to a -reporter that "if we could not prevent the city from putting in a -[pumping] plant any other way, we would blow it up with dynamite."[543] - -Any faithful employé familiar with the blowing up of derricks in the -shut-down of 1887,[544] the explosion in the independent refinery at -Buffalo,[545] and the "chemical war" waged by the whiskey trust against -the "outsiders" in Chicago[546] might almost be pardoned for thinking -this was "only good, reasonable talk." The oil monopoly is evangelical -at one end and explosive at the other, and it has made both ends meet. - -The people of Toledo were thus prevented from getting the pumping -facilities ready during the summer of 1892 for the work of the winter. -Meanwhile its rival had been secretly pushing pumps for itself to -completion, in the hope that it alone would be ready when cold weather -came. This would mean a gain to it, at the city's expense, of hundreds -of thousands of dollars. Late in August, 1892, the representatives of -the city found that two powerful duplex gas pumps had been shipped -to the gas-field, and were being put in place by the very opponents -who had declared pumps impracticable. Public sentiment became aroused -to the need for the immediate purchase of pumps to protect their -wells. The city attempted to use its income from the sales of gas to -buy pumps. An injunction was applied for and granted. This emergency -was finally met by having the gas trustees hand over to the city -authorities the accumulated earnings they were forbidden by the court -to spend themselves. The city thereupon turned around and invested -this money in the gas bonds. In this way the identical money the gas -trustees could not use while it remained in their hands was made -available to them by passing through the hands of the Sinking Fund -Trustees, and coming back to them. Thus the natural-gas trustees were -enabled to make a contract in September, 1892, for pumps to assist the -flow of gas to the city. - -The gas pumps are a patented device. The private companies, wanting -all the profit of everything, had had their pumps made at their own -factory. The city made its contract directly with the owner of the -patents. The result was that the city got its pumps in place in time -to save the city pipe line, while its opponents were delayed by the -inexperience of their own pump-makers. This was the most critical -period in our history. Greed had again defeated itself. Had the -opposition gone to the owner of the patents he would have been unable -afterwards to take the city's contract and complete it in time, and the -effort to make the city line valueless would have succeeded--for the -time being, at least. The bonds in question were afterwards held valid -by the Supreme Court. - -Toledo knew it was building wisely, and every day brought new proof -that it had builded better than it knew. Its saving was great, but -that was the least of its gains. It escaped tyranny and extortion and -other wrongs which fell upon communities in plain sight, which had not -the wit and virtue to establish their independence. When the city pipe -line was opened in 1891 the city began supplying gas to its citizens -at 8 cents a thousand for houses. The private companies were charging -12 cents a thousand, or 50 per cent. more. Profits were such at this -charge of 12 cents a thousand feet that in some tracts single wells -would repay the cost of the land every four days and two hours, or -eighty-nine times a year. Since then the private corporations have -raised their rate to 25 cents. The city continued the rates at 8 cents -until December, 1892, when the rate was advanced to 15 cents. This -advance would have been unnecessary but for the losses arising from the -obstructions placed in the way of the city plant. - -The people of Toledo got their gas lands, pipe line, and street mains -for an outlay of $1,181,743 up to the end of 1891,[547] and $1,294,467 -up to the end of 1892. In the canvass before the election in 1889 their -opponents declared that $4,000,000 would be required. - -Private enterprise cannot find rhetoric strong enough to express its -contempt for the inefficiency, costliness, and despotisms of public -enterprise. Private enterprise put at $6,000,000--twelve times the -amount of the property they reported for taxation--the "capital" -stock invested by the two natural-gas companies. The city pipe line -was capitalized (bonded) at just what it cost--a little more than -a million. The city trustees built a better pipe line than private -enterprise had laid. The private line was of cheap iron of 14-feet -lengths, while Toledo's was in 24-feet pieces. One of the private lines -was laid with rubber joints and in shallow trenches, in many places of -not more than plough depth. It leaked at almost every joint; its course -could be traced across the fields by the smell of gas and the blighted -line of vegetation. There were frequent explosions from the escaping -gas; lives and property were much endangered. The city line was laid -with lead joints, and had every device that engineering experience -could suggest for its success, and was so constructed that it could -be cleaned or repaired, and freed from liquids interfering with the -flow of gas, without shutting off the supply--features the other pipe -had not. The action of the city trustees had to endure the microscopic -scrutiny of friend and foe. No one was able to show as to a single acre -that the title was defective, or that it could have been bought for -less, or to find any taint of a job in the construction of the pipe. A -committee of the city council sat and probed for six weeks, but failed -to find any evidence whatever to confirm the reported "irregularities." - -What Toledo will save in one year by the difference between the actual -cost at which its people can supply themselves and the price the -private companies would have charged, to pay dividends on $6,000,000 of -"capital," is only part of the story. The profit of the city enterprise -is to be estimated by its competitive effect upon the charge of the -private companies. These have been kept down in Toledo much below the -average of other towns, where they have been as high as 35 cents a -thousand. If the city had not supplied a foot of gas this check on the -private companies would make its pipe line still a good investment. -The people, when it is in full operation, can pay the cost of the -system complete out of the savings of a few years, then pay off the -entire city debt, and have a large income left for public buildings, -roads, parks. Or by reduction of price they can keep this sum in their -pockets, where it will do quite as much for the general welfare as if -it had been transferred to the bank accounts of non-residents. - -The city, at the end of 1891, had 3299-3/4 acres of gas land. In March, -1892, forty-five wells were giving over 50,000,000 cubic feet of gas, -equal to 3500 tons of anthracite coal. Its income from the sale of gas -was at the rate of $20,032 a month in winter, and $10,221 in summer. -An investigation made in March, 1892, by a committee appointed by the -mayor at the request of the city's gas trustees, showed that an income -could be counted on ($180,000) ample to pay all expenses ($128,120), -including interest, rentals, and the cost of drilling new wells, and -provide a small fund annually ($51,880) for the extinction of the -bonded debt. The committee said: "We believe that if the gas plant is -properly managed upon prudent business principles and methods, that it -can be made a profitable investment for the city and her people; that -the class who will derive the greatest benefit is the laboring class, -who pay rent or taxes upon their little homes, and to whom the matter -of cheap fuel is quite an item in the total amount of annual expenses; -and we believe it to be the duty of every good citizen to aid and -encourage this class." - -These were the results with a charge of 8 cents a thousand. Gas to -the amount of $167,899 had been sold up to August 1, 1892. Between -November, 1891, and August, 1892, the city earned on the million -invested the sum of $150,000, or nearly one-ninth of the cost of -the plant, and this at the low price of 8 cents a thousand feet. -Unobstructed by its enemies and at the price charged by the private -companies, 20 cents a thousand, the city would pay for its entire plant -in less than three years. - -To discourage the public from going forward with its pipe line the -private companies "talked poor." In an interview in the public -press the president of the principal company said it had paid but -9 per cent. in dividends in two and a half years. The net earnings -were stated to be "about 4 per cent. per annum on the capital," -$4,000,000;[548] for the smaller company they were figured out to be -at the rate of a fraction less than 1 per cent. a year on its capital -of $2,000,000.[549] "We feel sore and hurt about it," said the "direct -representative" of the oil combination to the citizens' committee; "we -have seen no good return from our money." "It has pretty nearly swamped -us," said the president of the company. The citizens of Toledo were -shrewd enough to ask themselves how long their antagonists would have -been likely to remain in a business which paid only 3 per cent., and -was as "hazardous" and "shortlived" as they pictured it to be. Careful -estimates made by close students of the question calculated that of -the $6,000,000 of paper capital "invested" in the two companies which -supplied Toledo and other cities, $1,125,000 was the proportion of -actual cash devoted to Toledo. The receipts upon this Toledo investment -in the two and three-quarters years between the opening of the business -and the date at which, by the contract with the city, the council was -to make new rates (June 30, 1890), were, as nearly as can be calculated -from the figures of their report, $1,300,000 greater than the expenses -of the Toledo business. This is a profit of 115 per cent. In less than -three years the total investment had been repaid by the profits, and, -in addition, enough to have paid dividends of 5 per cent. a year. -This was an estimate, but it was an estimate publicly made from the -companies' figures, and by a responsible man. It remained unchallenged -at a time when every cranny of fact and fiction was being rummaged for -missiles to fling at the people. - -When the citizens' committee sought a reduction in price, the companies -pointed to the small dividend their stockholders had had. In the face -of the fact that they had received but a 3-per-cent. dividend the -previous year, no business man, their spokesman said, could ask them -to reduce their price. It is for such uses that shrewd men "water" -stock. The surface of the capital is broadened, so that even large -dividends can cover it only by being spread out very thin. This 3 per -cent. a year was on $6,000,000 of dilution, representing a solid, at -the most, of only $1,500,000. The balance sheets of the companies -showed that the companies had paid small dividends for the additional -reason that a large part of their receipts had been reinvested in -lands, wells, and extensions of the pipes and plants. - -The people are often assured that these false figures of capitalization -are merely romantic and do them no harm, because charges must be -governed by the "laws of trade." One of the "laws of trade" that -regulates the "market price" of such commodities as transportation, -light, water, gas, furnished by the help of the public franchises, is -the power of the public to regulate. This public power depends upon the -public knowledge and the public disposition. To make the public believe -that the profit of serving it has been only 3 per cent. a year, when it -has been nearer 50 per cent., is to manipulate public opinion, the most -potent of all the "laws of trade," for a competing supply cannot be got -easily, often not at all. - -A committee of citizens were invited by the representatives of the gas -companies to meet them to verify the statements of the companies as to -the unprofitableness of the business, and the inexpediency of municipal -self-supply. But when the committee wanted to know what had been the -real cost of the private pipe lines, on the $6,000,000 nominal capital -of which the people were expected to pay dividends, they could not get -any satisfaction. The companies would only give an estimate. To the -request for more definite information, the reply of both companies -was, "We have not got the books of the contractors; we have never -had them. We have no means of knowing the actual cost of the Toledo -plant, or any books to show it.[550] We have no papers or documents in -regard to the construction of this line." It came to light later that -one of the companies in the oil trust had constructed the pipe line -for the gas company, and at a price approximating the large figures -claimed. The company that built this pipe line is a ring within the oil -and gas ring, always on hand for such contracts and at like margins -of profit, and it is owned almost wholly by the principals of the -combination.[551] The people--mostly Ohioans--who took the minority 40 -per cent. of stock of the gas company were really the "simple greens." -All that was paid for this construction by those who were members -both of the inside ring and the gas company came back to them; their -associates in the minority paid, but got nothing back. It was from the -latter came the profits of this contract to the insiders. - -The people of Dayton had a similar experience. Their natural-gas -company demanded an advance to 25 cents a thousand, and met a committee -of the people to prove that the demand was proper. But it would not let -the people know what the actual investment was to make which good it -sought to tax the people. The books containing the construction account -were "not accessible." "The actual cost to construct the plant is what -we most desired to know," the committee reported. As at Toledo, so at -Dayton; all private enterprise would let its customer-subjects know was -what it wanted them to pay; information to show what they ought to pay -"was not accessible." What the profits were elsewhere can be guessed at -from the fact that in Pennsylvania $36 a year was charged in most of -the towns for cooking-stoves. In Toledo the charge was $19.50 a year. - -Almost every day after the pipe line had been decided on the people saw -something done, showing how well founded their apprehensions had been. -The power to discriminate in rates the people saw used by the private -companies for selfish and anti-public purposes, precisely as they had -foreseen it would be. When the fight for and against the city pipe -line was on, one of the gas companies sought to enlist the strong men -in their support by making them special rates, pursuing the tactics of -divide and conquer. Manufacturers with influence useful in controlling -public sentiment were conceded special rates. Others were given to -understand that any lack of "loyalty" would be followed by punishment. -So effective were these alternating methods of boodling and bulldozing -that the council committee on gas, in a subsequent investigation, found -it almost impossible to obtain any information from manufacturers as -to their use of natural gas for fuel. What little they did secure was -under injunctions of secrecy. The committee found that some were made -to pay twice, some three, and some even four times as much as was paid -by neighbors for like service. The only rule for charging seemed to be -to favor those who had "influence." This was using municipal franchise -just as the franchise of the highways had been used in their behalf by -the railways. An assembly of divines could not be trusted with such -power over their fellows. - -After the Fostoria incident the people of Toledo had another -illustration given them of how wisely they had builded. The gas supply -of the people of Columbus, Ohio, was shut off arbitrarily and suddenly -in midwinter--January, 1891--and they were informed that the company -would supply them with no more gas unless the City Council would raise -the price to 25 cents a thousand feet from 10 cents. The gas had not -failed. The caverns that discharge gas at 25 cents a thousand will let -it come just as freely at 10 cents. The council had fixed the price -at 10 cents, and the company had accepted it. The demand for a higher -price was close upon an increase in the capital stock of the Columbus -company from $1,000,000 to $1,750,000. More stock called for more -dividends, and this was one way to get it--to strike this sudden blow, -and then to say, after the manner of Silas Wegg, "Undone for double -the money!" It was for the power to do this at Toledo, to preserve the -power of doing it everywhere else, that hell and earth were being moved -in Toledo to prevent the people from serving themselves and setting an -example to the rest of America. In the same way the gas was turned off -at Sidney, Ohio, and not turned on again until, upon the application of -the mayor, the company was ordered to do it by the courts. "There is a -great deal of suffering here," the press reported, "and it is feared -that several deaths will result from exposure." - -The people did not fail to comprehend the significance of criticisms -in the Toledo organ on the municipal water supply. Monopoly must go on -conquering and to conquer, or be overborne by the ever-recuperating -resentment which rises against it, freshened with each new day. Nature -hates monopoly, says Emerson. The studied attack on the city water -works was believed to be meant to prepare the people to intrust that as -well as the gas supply to the trust's "sound business men" and "private -enterprise." - -Finding that the council would not bend to the demands as to rates, -and that the people were too resolute to be in any way diverted from -their pipe line, Toledo was given some such doses as could be ventured -upon of the Fostoria and Columbus medicine. The company shut gas off -from those who would not pay the increased rate. It deprived public -institutions of their fuel. It refused to supply gas to a new public -school whose building was planned for natural gas. As the city's pipe -line was not completed, the children had to go cold. The winter of -1891-2 was the first winter the city's pipe line was in operation. With -the first cold snap, at the end of November, great distress and danger -were brought upon the people by a lawless act, done secretly by some -unknown person to the city's pipe line. One of the main pipes in the -gas-field, through which flowed the product of two of the largest gas -wells, was disconnected, so that its gas could no longer reach Toledo. -Who did this was never discovered.[552] - -Defeat, final and irrevocable, crowned the unvarying series of -defeat which the private companies had suffered everywhere and in -everything--in public meetings, in the Legislature, in the gas-fields, -at the polls, in the courts, in the sale of the bonds, and in the -competition with the city. The City Council of Toledo, advised by its -lawyers that it could recover damages from those responsible for the -losses brought upon the city by the opposition to its pipe line, has -had suit brought for that purpose. April 14, 1893, City Solicitor -Read began proceedings to recover $1,000,000 damages from members of -the oil combination and the various individuals who had been used as -stalking-horses in the campaign. At the next meeting of the Common -Council several citizens of the "influential" persuasion assisted the -mayor in trying to coax and bully the council to abandon the suit, but -without success. The council were threatened with a financial boycott -to prevent the sale in future of any of the bonds of the city, but it -refused to be terrorized. - -April 8, 1893, the natural-gas trustees of Toledo had the happiness -of being able to give formal notice to the city auditor that no taxes -need be levied to pay the interest on the gas bonds, as it "can easily -be met from the revenues derived from the sale of natural gas." The -city pipe line was on a paying basis at last. Toledo had vindicated -its claim to be a free city. The completion of the enterprise had -been delayed three years. A loss of not less than two million dollars -had been laid on the city, but its victory was worth many times that. -Toledo's victory showed the country, in full and successful detail, -a plan of campaign of which Columbus had merely given a hint. It was -not a local affair, but one of even more than national importance, for -the oil combination has invaded four continents. This struggle and its -results of good omen will pass into duly recorded history as a warning -and an encouragement to people everywhere who wish to lead the life of -the commonwealth. - - NOTE.--For the year ending December 31, 1893, the city trustees report - that they sold gas to the amount of $139,066. The city owns 5433 acres - of gas territory, and has 85 wells, 73 miles of pipe outside the city, - and 91 miles in the city. Since the gas began to flow the sales have - amounted to $388,540. Out of the receipts the debt has been reduced - $60,000, besides refunding $67,000 to those who advanced the money for - piping the streets. While doing this the plant has been considerably - enlarged. The city accomplished this while charging the people but - 15 cents a thousand, while the gas companies of the trust charged - 25 cents a thousand. Had the city been permitted to act without - obstruction, the cost of the gas plant would have been long since - fully paid, and the price of gas made still lower.[553] - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -"YOU ARE A--SENATOR" - - -How to control the men who control the highways? - -The railroads have become the main rivers of trade and travel, and to -control them has become one of our hardest problems in the field where -politics and industry meet. The Duke of Wellington exhorted Parliament -"not to forget, in legislating upon this subject, the old idea of the -King's Highway." But here, as well as there, the little respect paid -by the Legislature at first to this idea soon vanished. In England, as -well as in America, the State, in giving some citizens the right, for -their private profit, to take the property of others by force, legally, -for railways, began by limiting strictly the power so acquired. Then, -passing under the control of that which it had created, the State -abandoned its attempts to control. Now the State is retracing its -way, and for many years has been struggling painfully to recover its -lost authority. In the first English charters there were the minutest -regulations as to freight and passenger charges, and the right of -citizens generally to put their own cars on the tracks was sacredly -guarded. - -The railroads became too strong to submit to this, and the success with -which the teachings of Adam Smith were applied to the abolition of -the old-fashioned restraints on trade bred a furor against any social -control of industry. These limitations were left out of new charters, -and for fair play were revised out of the old charters. After a brief -dream of this _laissez faire_, England began, in 1844, investigating -and legislating, and, after nearly thirty years of experiments and -failures, established the railway commission in 1873. This was a step -forward, but has not proved the solvent it was expected to be. The -expense of getting a decision from the commission and the courts to -which the road can appeal from the commission has frightened people -from making complaints. "A complainant," says Hadley, "is a marked man, -and the commission cannot protect him against the vengeance of the -railroads. A town fares no better ... even the [British] War Department -is afraid. It has grievances, but it dares not make them public for -fear of reprisals."[554] - -The course of events in the United States was much the same. The first -railroad powers were carefully limited. The early charters regulated -the charges, limited the profits, gave citizens the right to put their -private carriages on the road, and reserved to the State the right to -take possession of the railroad upon proper payment. But as early as -1846 the railroads had grown strong enough--in the revision of the -Constitution of New York, for example--to secure an almost complete -surrender of these public safe-guards.[555] - -But it was seen immediately in America, as in England, that the new -institution could not be left in the uncontrolled hands of individuals. -It created simultaneously two revolutions, each one of the most -momentous in modern civilization. It made the steam-engine master in -transportation, as it had already become in manufacturing. It made the -public highways the private property of a few citizens. An agitation -arose among the people--to-day stronger because more necessary than -ever--and they began to seek what they have not yet found: means of -regulating the relations between new rich and new poor, and protecting -the private interests of all from the private interests of the few who -had this double sovereignty. As early as 1857 New York established a -commission for the regulation of the railways. But the railroads within -a year procured a law abolishing it, bribing the leading commissioner -to make no opposition in consideration of receiving from them $25,000, -the whole amount of his salary for five years. "I was the attorney -of the Erie Railway at that time; I specially used to attend to -legislation that they desired to effect or oppose.... I remember the -appointment of that commission.... We agreed that if they" (the leading -railroad commissioner) "would not oppose the repeal of the law we would -pay $25,000, and have done with the commission; it was embarrassing.... -The law was repealed, and we paid the money, I think." "If the -commission had been a useless one," said the counsel of the New York -Chamber of Commerce before the Legislative Committee, "the railroads -would not have parted with their money to get rid of it."[556] - -Thirty of the States and Territories of the Union had established -commissions or passed laws to regulate the railroads before Congress, -in 1887, used its power under the Constitution to regulate commerce -among the States, and passed the Interstate Commerce law, establishing -the National Interstate Commerce Commission, in the hope that it might -protect the people. Congress did not act until 1887, although for years -different sections of the public, in their efforts to find a cure for -the new evils which had come with the new good, had sought to set in -action their representatives in Washington. The "Granger movement" of -1871, 1872, and 1873, with its "Granger legislation" by the States -against the railroads, is one of the never-to-be-forgotten waves of -public commotion over this problem which took on its acutest form in -the oil regions. Illinois, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, -Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Iowa established railway commissions, or -put stringent regulations on the statute-books at this time. Public -opinion did not cease to demand action by the national government -under the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate -commerce, and became clamorous. Petitions poured in by the hundreds, -public meetings were held, chambers of commerce and boards of trade and -anti-monopoly conventions passed resolutions of urgency. This was one -of the main issues in the election of the 44th Congress. - -Representative Hopkins, of Pennsylvania, rose in his place in the -House of Representatives on May 16, 1876, and asked unanimous consent -to offer a resolution for the appointment of a committee of five -to investigate the charges that "many industries are crippled and -threatened with extreme prostration" by the discrimination of the -railroads, and to report a bill for the regulation of interstate -commerce. This was the first move to reopen in Congress the great -question, first on the order of the day both in England and in America, -which had been smothered by the Committee of Commerce of 1872. It -required unanimous consent to bring the resolution before the House. - -"Instantly," said Representative Hopkins, in describing the occurrence -afterwards,[557] "I heard the fatal words 'I object.' The objector was -Mr. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland." Other members appealed to Mr. Payne -to withdraw his objection. - -The Speaker of the House: "Does the gentleman from Ohio withdraw his -objection?" - -Mr. Payne: "I do not." - -In a private conference which followed between Representative Payne -and Representative Hopkins, the former said, as Mr. Hopkins relates: -"What he objected to in my resolution was the creation of a special -committee; but if I would again offer it and ask that it be referred -to the Committee of Commerce he would not object. I thought perhaps -there was something reasonable in his objection. A special committee -would probably require a clerk, which would be an expense. He looked to -me so like a frugal Democrat, who had great confidence in the regular -order of established committees and did not want the country to be -taxed for clerks attending to the business of special committees--I say -that he so impressed me that, as the record will show, I adopted his -suggestion." - -When the Committee of Commerce to which the investigation was -accordingly referred began its investigation, a member of the oil -combination, not then, as later, a member of the Senate, took his seat -by the ear of the chairman, who was from his State, "presiding," as -the oil producers said in a public appeal, "behind the seat of the -chairman."[558] The financial officer of the oil combination was called -as a witness, but refused to answer the questions of the committee as -to the operations of the company or its relations with the railroads. -The vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad also refused to answer -questions. On the plea of needing time to decide how to compel these -witnesses to answer, the committee let the railroad vice-president -go until he should be recalled. But the committee never decided, and -the witnesses were never recalled. The committee never reported to -Congress, made no complaint of the contempt of its witnesses, and the -investigation of 1876, like that of 1872, came to a mute and inglorious -end. - -When Representative Hopkins applied to the clerk of the committee for -the testimony, he was told, to his amazement, that it could not be -found. "Judge Reagan," he relates,[559] "who was a stanch friend of the -bill"--for the regulation of the railroads--"and very earnest for the -investigation, and who at the time was a member of the committee, told -me that it had been stolen."[560] - -Eight years after "I object" the people of Ohio were a suppliant before -the Senate of the United States. They believed that their dearest -rights had been violated, and they prayed for redress to the only body -which had power to give it. Officially by the voice of both Houses of -the State Legislature and the governor, unofficially by the press, by -the public appeals of leading men, by the petitions of citizens, press, -leaders, and people, regardless of party, the commonwealth asserted -that the greatest wrong possible in a republic had been done their -members, and sued for restitution. They declared it to be their belief -that against their will, as the result of violation of the laws, a man -had taken their seat in the Senate of the United States who was not -their senator, that they had been denied representation by the senator -of their choice; and they demanded that, in accordance with immemorial -usage, the evidence they had to offer should be examined, and their -right of representation in the Senate of the United States restored -to them, if it should be found to have been taken from them. After -the Legislature had examined sixty-four witnesses, the Ohio House of -Representatives resolved that "ample testimony was adduced to warrant -the belief that ... the seat of Henry B. Payne in the United States -Senate was purchased by the corrupt use of money." The Ohio Senate -charged that "the election of Henry B. Payne as Senator of the United -States from Ohio ... was procured and brought about by the corrupt use -of money, ... and by other corrupt means and practices." - -Both Houses passed with these resolutions an urgent request for -investigation by the Senate of the United States.[561] - -Mr. Payne's election by the Legislature was a thunder-clap to the -people of Ohio. They did not know he was a candidate. Who was to be -United States Senator was of course one of the issues in the election -of the Ohio Legislature of 1884, and the Democratic voters who elected -the majority of that Legislature had sent them to the State Capitol to -make George H. Pendleton or Durbin Ward senator. One of the leading -newspaper men of the State testified: "I went over the entire State -during the campaign.... Out of the eighty-eight counties I attended -fifty-four Democratic conventions and wrote them up, giving the -sentiment of the people as nearly as I could, and during that entire -canvass I never heard a candidate for the Legislature say that he was -for Henry B. Payne for United States Senator; but every man I ever -talked with was either for George H. Pendleton or General Ward. I think -out of the Democratic candidates throughout the State I conversed with -at least two-thirds of them."[562] As was afterwards stated before the -Senate of the United States by the representatives of the people of -Ohio, "He was in no wise publicly connected with the canvass for the -Senate, nor had the most active, honorable, and best-posted politicians -in the State heard his name in connection with the senatorial office -until subsequent to the October election [of the Legislature]. He was -absolutely without following."[563] - -The Democratic constituencies sent their legislators to vote for -Pendleton and Ward, but between the receipt and the execution of -this trust from the people a secret charm was put to work of such a -potency that the people woke up to find that the representative who -had betrayed them in Congress in 1876 was their senator, instead of -one of their real leaders. The people had been digging oil wells for -twenty years that all the value might flow into the bank accounts of a -few interceptors; they had been building railroads and pipe lines that -their business and property might be transported into the same hands; -they had organized agitation and conducted a national anti-monopoly -campaign all over the country, only to see the men who were to have -been investigated take command of the inquiry. The people had had -enough such experience not to be surprised that when they started to -make a beloved leader senator it was their enemy who came out of the -voting mill with the senatorial toga upon his shoulders. But terrible -was the moral storm that broke forth out of the hearts of the people -of Ohio. The votes they had thrown, like roses to garland the head -of a hero, had been transformed as they went, by a black magic, into -missiles of destruction, and had fallen upon him like the stones that -slew Stephen. - -The press, without regard to party, gave voice to the popular wrath. -Scores of the Democratic newspapers of Ohio went into mourning. One of -them said: "The whole Democratic Legislature was made rotten by the -money that was used to buy and sell the members like so many sheep." -Many representative Democrats of the State privately and publicly -declared their belief in the charges of corruption. Allen G. Thurman, -who had been a senator and representative at Washington, said: "There -is something that shocks me in the idea of crushing men like Pendleton -and Ward, who have devoted the best portion of their lives to the -maintenance of Democracy, by a combination against them of personal -hatred and overgrown wealth.... I want to see all the Democrats have -a fair chance according to their merits, and do not want to see a -political cutthroat bossism inaugurated for the benefit of a close -party corporation or syndicate." Again he said: "Syndicates purchase -the people's agents, and honest men stand aghast."[564] - -It was the "irony of fate" that this Legislature, like the 44th -Congress, had been specially elected to represent opposition to -monopolies. Of course the Legislature that had done this thing was not -to be persuaded, bullied, or shamed into any step towards exposure or -reparation. But the people, usually so forgetful, nursed their wrath. -They made the scandal the issue of the next State election, and put -the Legislature into other hands. The new Legislature then forwarded -formal charges to the Senate of the United States, and a demand for an -investigation. The State of Ohio made its solemn accusation and prayer -for an investigation through all the organs of utterance it had: the -press of both parties; honored men, both Republican and Democratic; -both Houses of the State Legislature and its senator whose seat was -unchallenged--an aggregate representing a vast majority of the people -of the State. The Hon. John Little and the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, -former Attorney-General of Ohio, both members of Congress, had been -delegated to present the case of the State. They made formal charges, -based on evidence given under oath or communicated in writing by -reputable citizens, who were willing to testify under oath. None of -the matter was presented on mere hearsay or rumor.[565] No charge -was made to connect Senator Payne personally with the corruption. His -denials and those of his friends of any participation by him were -therefore mere evasions of the actual charge--that his election had -been corruptly procured for him, not by him. The substance of their -accusation, as contained in their statement and the papers forwarded by -the Legislature, was as follows:[566] - -That among the chief managers of Mr. Payne's canvass, and those who -controlled its financial operations, were four of the principal -members in Ohio of the oil trust: its treasurer, the vice-president -of one of its most important subordinate companies, its Cincinnati -representative, and another--all of whom were named. - -That one of these four, naming him, who was given the financial -management of the Payne campaign at Columbus, carried $65,000 with -him, "next to his skin," to Columbus to use in the election, as he had -stated to an intimate friend whose name would be given. - -That the cashier of the bank in Cleveland, where the treasurer of the -oil combination kept one of his bank accounts, would testify that this -money was procured on a check given by this treasurer of the oil trust -to another of its officials, and passed over by him to its Cincinnati -agent, who drew out the cash. - -That the back room used by the Payne manager at Columbus as his office -displayed such large amounts of money in plain view that it looked like -a bank, and that the employé who acted there as his clerk stated upon -his return home that he had never seen so much money handled together -in his life. - -That a prominent gentleman, going to the room used by the Payne -managers for a "converter," had said that he saw "canvas bags and coin -bags and cases for greenbacks littered and scattered around the room -and on the table and on the floor ... with something green sticking -out," which he found to be money. - -That members who had been earnest supporters of Pendleton were taken -one by one by certain guides to this room which looked like a bank, -and came out with an intense and suddenly developed dislike of -civil-service reform (Mr. Pendleton's measure), and proceeded to vote -for Mr. Payne; and that these conversions were uniformly attended with -thrift, sudden, extensive, and so irreconcilable with their known means -of making money as to be a matter of remark among their neighbors; and -that "the reasons for the change (of vote) were kept mainly in this -room, passed by delivery, and could be used to buy real estate." - -That this use of money in large amounts to procure the sudden -conversions of Pendleton legislators to Payne would be shown by -numerous witnesses, generally Democrats, several of them lawyers of -great distinction and high ability. - -That the editor and proprietor of the principal Democratic journal -in Ohio had stated, as was sworn to, that he had spent $100,000 to -elect Payne, and that it cost a great deal of money to get those -representatives and senators to vote for Payne, and they had to be -bought. "It took money, and a good deal of it, to satisfy them," and -he complained that the oil trust had not reciprocated in kind. This -statement was made by one of his editorial writers, who after making -it was discharged. The latter subsequently put it into the form of an -affidavit. - -That Senator Pendleton would testify that more than enough of the -legislators to give him the election had been pledged to him. - -That the number of members of the Ohio Senate and House of -Representatives who had been paid money to vote for Mr. Payne was so -great that without their votes and influence his nomination would have -been out of the question. - -That a legislator who had been violently opposed to Payne, then changed -and became violently rich, had acknowledged that the treasurer of -the oil trust, out of gratitude for what he had done, had "loaned" -him several thousand dollars--"a case," said the representative of -Ohio before the United States Senate, "of a man becoming well-to-do by -borrowing money." - -That legislators who were so poor before the election that everything -they had was mortgaged, and they had to beg or borrow funds for their -election expenses, became so prosperous after their sudden conversion -to Payne that they paid off their debts, rebuilt their houses, -furnished them handsomely, deposited large amounts in the banks, or -opened new bank accounts, bought more property, and that the reasons -they gave for this new wealth were demonstrably untrue--or impossible. - -That a member of the Legislature, a State senator, had himself stated -that he had received $5000 to vote for Payne,[567] and had offered the -same amount to an associate if he would do the same; and that after the -election this member opened a new bank account, depositing $2500 in his -wife's name, who immediately transferred it to him. - -That another member of the Legislature, who changed suddenly after his -election to the Legislature, and just before the caucus, from a warm -advocacy of one of the recognized candidates to the support of Payne, -when directly charged with having taken a bribe, did not deny it, but -"became exceedingly sick, white as a sheet, and answered not. He went -away and laid in bed two days." - -That, contrary to all the precedents of Ohio politics, the caucus of -the majority party was not held until the night before election, so as -to leave no time between the caucus and the election. - -That, also contrary to the precedents, the nomination was made, not, -as usual, by open vote, but by secret ballot and without debate, on -the demand of the Payne managers and contrary to the protests of the -opponents, so that it could not be known to the public who the Payne -men were. - -That this knowledge was made sure to the Payne managers, who were -to pay for the votes, by the ingenious device of requiring each -purchased legislator to use a coupon ballot furnished by them, the -corresponding stub of which they kept. These legislators were not paid -for their votes unless the torn edges of the coupon ballot voted by -them corresponded with the edge of the stub in the possession of the -managers. - -That responsible men would testify that they had received confessions -from members of the Legislature that they had been bribed with money to -vote for Mr. Payne. - -That two members of the Legislature who had been elected as -anti-monopolists became supporters of Mr. Payne, and were heard -discussing together the amount of money they had received, and -quarrelling because one had received more than the other. - -That a member of the Legislature which was corrupted, standing on the -floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, pointed out members who -had been purchased to vote for Payne, saying: "These members were paid -to vote in the senatorial fight," holding a little book in his hand in -which he had the names and amounts; but although he made the charges -openly and defiantly, and although the same charges were made in -Republican and Democratic papers, no investigation was ordered. Three -attempts to have an investigation made by the Legislature in which the -bribery occurred failed. - -That a correspondent of a leading Cincinnati daily, sitting on the -floor of the House, daily charged that the election was procured by -bribery, talked about it generally, and dared the House to investigate -or the accused to sue for libel, and that no such step was taken by -either. - -That a memorandum of the names of the legislators who sold themselves, -and the amounts they received, had been furnished from a responsible -source. - -That on the eve of the election money was sent by draft to twenty-four -of the Democratic candidates for the Legislature, with the promise -of more the next day, and with the statement that thanks for both -remittances were due to one of the prominent members of the oil trust, -who was named, and two others of Payne's managers, "they paying most -of it themselves." - -That before the election of the Legislature one of the Payne managers -sent large sums of money amounting to $10,000, or $12,000, perhaps -$13,500--the treasurer of the oil trust "and other wealthy Democrats -contributed it-- ... into different parts of the State." - -That the managers of the election absented themselves from the State -during the legislative investigation, and remained out of reach until -it closed. - -That during the two and a half years which had passed since these -specific charges of bribery had been put into circulation, there had -been no demand for investigation on the part of those whose reputation -and honor were concerned, but there had been a manifest effort to -prevent investigation. - -That in addition to these offers of evidence the case against Mr. Payne -would be greatly strengthened by new and additional testimony from -responsible sources. - -Testimony was taken by the Legislature that an ex-Lieutenant-Governor -of Ohio, afterwards Consul-General of the United States at Frankfort, -Germany, had been in the room of Payne's manager, had seen that he was -using money to procure the election, and had so told Mr. Payne before -the election, and that Mr. Payne's reply--"You don't suppose I would -endorse anything of that kind, do you?"--showed that he had understood -the use of money referred to to be an improper use, thereby fastening -upon Mr. Payne, if true, the knowledge that his agents were corrupting -the Legislature. - -During this deluge of charges Mr. Payne made no denial. - -After the investigation had been ordered by the State Legislature, -Senator Payne made an offer to the committee to submit all his private -papers and books of accounts to their examination--an empty offer, -because it was not charged that the corruption had been done by him, -but for him by others. These latter made no such offer, but fled from -the jurisdiction of the Legislature. When the representatives of the -people of Ohio appeared before the committee of the United States -Senate on elections, with the offer to prove under oath the foregoing -charges, he remained voiceless. He did not rise in his place in the -Senate to deny these accusations, as every other senator since the -Senate began had done. He did not go before the committee, nor send -before them any witness, or make any explanation. When the Senate -committee decided to recommend the Senate not to investigate, and the -representatives of Ohio begged the committee to reconsider, Senator -Sherman declared that he heartily agreed with every word of the appeal, -but Senator Payne still kept silent. The records of Congress show that -his sole utterance or appearance in this matter in Congress was to make -the motion that the papers forwarded by the Ohio Legislature should be -sent, as was the routine, to the Committee on Elections. In doing this -he did more than abstain from the utterance of a word which could be -in any way construed as a demand for investigation. He delivered what -was, in effect, an appeal to his fellow-senators not to investigate. He -attacked the Legislature for sending the report of its investigation -to Congress, characterizing "this proceeding--the transmission of -the testimony here--as an attempt to circulate and give currency to -baseless gossip and scandal, after everything substantial in the way of -a charge had been discredited and disproved." In conclusion he left the -matter to the committee "for such disposition of it as they may find to -be in accordance with dignity and justice." - -The Legislature which made the investigation selected as the reason for -ordering it the fact that a well-known citizen had just repeated in -an open letter in the public prints the charges of bribery which had -been made already hundreds of times. When this citizen was called upon -to testify before the Legislature he stated that, as his information -was derived from others, he had no personal proof to offer of his own -knowledge that bribery had been committed. Referring to this, Mr. Payne -said to his colleagues of the Senate: - -"Thus fell all that the investigation was originally based upon."[568] - -This was not true. The witness furnished the committee with the names -of the men on whose authority he had spoken, and through whom evidence -based on personal knowledge could be procured as to the truth of -the charges.[569] Therefore the statement, "Thus fell all that the -investigation was originally based upon," so far as it was believed by -the senators, deceived them. The State Legislature could not compel -the witnesses to testify. Only the United States Senate could do this, -and it was deterred from doing so by this concealment of the fact that -the investigation, instead of falling because of no basis, had struck -firmer ground. The proffer of evidence was of such a character that, -as has been well said, none of the lawyers of the Senate committee -who voted against recommending investigation "would have failed to -recommend thorough investigation of such an incident if it had been -relevant to an alleged title set up against a private client."[570] -But the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections--Senators Pugh, -Saulsbury, Vance, and Eustis voting against Hoar and Frye--recommended -the Senate not to investigate, and the Senate adopted this report. - -No one had expected this. The unbroken precedents of the Senate had -made it a matter of course in public expectation that the investigation -would be made. A convention of Ohio editors, sending a memorial for -a reconsideration, said: "No instance has yet arisen in the history -of the Senate where specific and well-supported charges of bribery in -a senatorial election, preferred by the Legislature of a State, have -not been promptly investigated by the Senate. In fact, so jealous has -the Senate been of its own integrity and honor that it has heretofore -promptly ordered investigations upon the memorials of citizens, and in -other cases upon the memorial of individual members of a Legislature -charging fraud in senatorial elections." In so doing the Senate, to -adopt the language used by the chairman of the Committee on Elections, -Senator Hoar, declared that "it is indifferent to the question -whether its seats are to be in the future the subject of bargain -and sale, or may be presented by a few millionaires as a compliment -to a friend."[571] "This matter never can be quieted," said Senator -Sherman in the debate in the Senate. "There are six or seven men who -are known--I could name them--who, if they were brought before this -Committee on Privileges and Elections, would settle this matter forever -one way or the other in my judgment." - -The Senate decided that such a charge, accompanied by such offers of -proof, did not deserve its attention. The trial of "even a criminal -accusation," said the minority of the committee, "requires only the -oath of the accuser who is justified if he have probable cause." -The minority, Senators Hoar and Frye, further said: "It will not be -questioned that in every one of these cases there is abundant probable -cause which would justify a complaint, and compel a grand-jury or -magistrate to issue process and make an investigation. Is the Senate to -deny to the people of a great State, speaking through their Legislature -and their representative citizens, the only opportunity for a hearing -of this momentous case which can exist under the Constitution? The -question now is not whether the case is proved--it is only whether it -shall be inquired into. That has never yet been done. It cannot be done -until the Senate issues its process. No unwilling witness has ever yet -been compelled to testify; no process has gone out which should cross -State lines. The Senate is now to determine, as the law of the present -case, and as the precedent for all future cases, as to the great crime -of bribery--a crime which poisons the waters of republican liberty -in the fountain--that the circumstances which here appear are not -enough to demand its attention. It will hardly be doubted that cases -of purchase of seats in the Senate will multiply rapidly under the -decision proposed by the majority of the committee."[572] - -The debate upon the recommendation of the committee not to investigate -was impassioned. Senator Hoar said: "The adoption of this majority -report ... will be the most unfortunate fact in the history of the -Senate." When the vote of the Senate not to investigate was announced, -Senator Edmunds turned to his neighbor in the Senate and summed up the -verdict of posterity in these words: "This is a day of infamy for the -Senate of the United States." - -The same Legislature which sent Senator Payne to the Senate defeated -the bill to allow the Cleveland independent refiners to build a pipe -line to furnish themselves with oil. The defeat of the bill was -accomplished by a lobby whose work was so openly shameless that it -was characterized by the Ohio press "as an indelible disgrace to the -State." The bill was one of many attempts which have been made by -the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania, without success, to get from -their Legislature the right to build pipe lines. It has been tried to -get laws to regulate the charges of the existing lines, but without -success. The history of the pipe-line bills in these legislatures -for the past ten years has been a monotonous record of an unavailing -struggle of a majority of millions to apply legal and constitutional -restraints to a minority of a few dozens. The means employed in the -Ohio Legislature of 1885 to defeat a bill giving equality in pipe-line -transportation to refiners in competition with the oil trust, which -owned the existing pipe-lines, were of such a sort that that body has -gone into the history of the State as the "Coal-oil Legislature." It -is stated by Hudson, in his _Railways and the Republic_, that the -Democratic agent of the bribery openly threatened to publish the list -he had of the members of the Legislature he had purchased, and that in -consequence of this threat proceedings which had been begun against him -for outraging the House by appearing on the floor in a state of gross -intoxication were abandoned.[573] - -In a debate about combinations in trade and industry--trusts--in the -United States Senate in 1888, the sore scandal of this senatorial -election of 1884 was disinterred. - -"If there be such a trust," said Senator Hoar, referring to the -oil trust, "is it represented in the cabinet at this moment? Is it -represented in the Senate? I want to know the facts about these five or -six great trusts which are sufficient in their power to overthrow any -government in Europe, if they existed in those nations, that should set -itself against them--the coal, the sugar, the whiskey, the cotton, the -fruit, the railroad transportation of this country, controlled by these -giant chieftains." - -Senator Payne defended the oil trust and himself. "Even at this date," -he said, "it seems that that company is represented as being guilty of -all sorts of unlawful and improper things. Such allegations without -proof to sustain them I regard as unworthy of an honorable man or an -honorable senator.... The Standard Oil Company," he continued, "is a -very remarkable and wonderful institution. It has accomplished within -the last twenty years, as a commercial enterprise, what no other -company or association of modern times has accomplished." He went on to -declare that he "never had a dollar's interest in the company." But the -charge which he and it would never allow to be investigated was that -the company had a great many dollars' interest in him. "The majority of -the stockholders are very liberal in their philanthropic contributions -to charity and benevolent works," he pleaded; "but it contributed," he -said, "not one dollar or one cent directly or indirectly to my election -to this body." During the demand for investigation he uttered no such -denial to be taken as a challenge. - -The senator made what Senator Hoar properly called a "very remarkable -admission" concerning the part taken in elections by the oil -combination. "When a candidate for the other House in 1871," Senator -Payne said, "no association, no combination in my district did more -to bring about my defeat, and went to so large an expense in money to -accomplish it, as the Standard Oil Company." - -The oil trust, then, does take part in elections, and as a company -spends larger sums of money than any other "institution, association, -combination ... to accomplish the defeat" of candidates for Congress! - -Then Mr. Payne said: "There never has been a national election at which -those two gentlemen--one of them was my own son--have not contributed -very liberally." He named the two men who were, as Senator Hoar showed, -among the most influential and important managers of his election to -the Senate. - -Senator Hoar closed the debate with these unanswered and unanswerable -words: "A senator who, when the governor of his State, when both -branches of the Legislature of his State, complained to us that a -seat in the United States Senate had been bought; when the other -senator from the State rose and told us that that was the belief of -a very large majority of the people of Ohio, without distinction of -party, failed to rise in his place and ask for the investigation which -would have put an end to those charges, if they had been unfounded, -sheltering himself behind the technicalities which were found by some -gentlemen on both sides of this chamber, that the investigation ought -not to be made, but who could have had it by the slightest request on -his part, and then remained dumb, I think should forever after hold his -peace."[574] - -The election of this senator was meant to be only the prelude to his -nomination and election as President of the United States. This was -publicly and authoritatively declared by the men who were charged with -having spent money to buy the Legislature for him. One of these was -the proprietor of the most influential Democratic daily in Ohio, and -that journal in a leading editorial, double leaded to make it more -prominent, declared this to be the purpose of Payne's friends. The New -York _Sun_ of May 27, 1884, followed, also in double-leaded editorials, -under the caption in staring black type of the name of the Senator, -and said: "Henry B. Payne is looming up grandly in the character of -a possible and not altogether improbable successor to Mr. Tilden as -the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. The fact that the Ohio -delegation at Chicago in July is sure to be solid for Payne is of -peculiar importance and significancy. Everybody can see what it may -amount to." - -Concurrently with these formal announcements came the news from all -parts of Ohio that the Payne party were hard at work to control the -election of the delegates who were to represent Ohio in the National -Democratic Convention at Chicago in July. But the managers of this -Presidential campaign found that they had gone too far. The election -for senator had excited so fierce an anger over the whole country that -it had become perfectly plain that Senator Payne was not "available." -The education of the American public was still incomplete. It could see -senatorships bought and endure it, but the Presidency--"not yet." - -The use this senator made of his seat throws light where none is -needed. Again, in 1887, the great question of 1876 of the control of -the highways came up before Congress. The agitation of nearly twenty -years had come to a point. Thirty of the States and Territories of -the Union had established commissions or passed laws to regulate -the railroads. Congress had before it the Interstate Commerce bill -forbidding discriminations, and creating the Interstate Commerce -Commission as a special tribunal to prevent and punish the crime. There -had been investigation, debates, amendments, meetings of conference -committees of both Houses. It was proposed to "recommit" the bill to -prevent its passage for an indefinite time. Mr. Payne voted "Yes." Then -the question before the Senate is, Shall the bill become a law? Senator -Payne's name is called. He votes: - -"No." - -It is the same question as in 1876, and the same vote. Against the -investigation, first, and then the legislation, his word is: - -"I object." - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -FOR "OLD GLORY" AND AN--APPROPRIATION - - -In 1891 Congress passed the Postal Subsidy law for paying a higher than -the market rate of compensation to capitalists who would carry the -mails in vessels built in America, of American materials, and manned by -Americans. No contracts were made by the Post-office Department under -the law for the mails between Europe and America, for there were no -such capitalists and no such boats in that quarter. - -In May of the next year, 1892, a bill was whizzed through Congress -almost without debate, in which the forms of the principal -beneficiaries-to-be of the law of 1891 loomed into view. The subsidy -law gave its bonus only to vessels that could fly the American -flag because American built and manned. This new act exempted from -these conditions the two principal steamers of the Inman, now -the International, line--the _City of New York_ and the _City of -Paris_--provided the company built two other steamers that fulfilled -the requirements of the subsidy law. The sequel disclosed that their -owners had a well-laid plan to build more than two other steamers to -get the rich rewards of the subsidy law. The steamers and the company -were not named. That was not needed. The bill was drawn with such -limitations as to size, speed, ownership, etc., that these were the -only two vessels which could come under its provisions. The bill was -introduced in the House by a prominent Democrat, and in the Senate by -a prominent Republican. It was passed by both Houses regardless of -party distinctions. The Secretary of the Navy urged the bill upon the -naval committees of Congress. He had begun to do so in his first report -to Congress and subsequent communications, in which he referred by -name to the vessels which were masked in this legislation. The head -of the line and other owners were members of the oil combination. -The president of the steamship company has been the president of the -pipe-line branch of the oil trust--its largest single interest--from -the time of its organization in 1881.[575] This exemption from the -law was engineered through the Senate by one who had hitherto always -been conspicuously strenuous in refusing to abate his opposition to -admitting to American registry any ship not built in America, of -American materials, by American labor, but who now had suffered some -sea change. - -Ordinary citizens who want to get the profits of carrying the American -mails must build their boats in American ship-yards; but the syndicate -got members of Congress to grant them by law that which all others must -earn. - -The enactment of the Postal Subsidy law and the exemption of these -steamers by special law were the first two parts of a progressive -programme. The third step was the negotiation of contracts with the -Postmaster-General for the prizes of subsidy. Immediately upon the -passage of this special legislation the Postmaster-General went through -the necessary but empty parade of advertising for bids for a service -for which there could be only one possible bidder. The awarding of -contracts to the steamship company so "fortunate in competing" was -announced in the press in October, 1892. - -The Postmaster-General dated the contracts 1895--three years ahead. -They run for ten years from that time. An iron-clad, or, better than -iron-clad, law-clad contract was thus secured, giving a complete -monopoly of the mail business between America and Europe until A.D. -1905, five years into the twentieth century. The legislation of May -contemplated the construction of two new boats. The contracts secured -from the Postmaster-General showed that the line intended to build -five, and obligated the government to pay subsidies to all of them, as -well as to the two foreign-built steamers given by special legislation -the right to fly the American flag. By these contracts the company, -after the completion of its new steamers in about three years, will -exclusively carry every bag of mail that leaves America for Europe. -Meanwhile the mails are to be given to its two steamers now running, -the _Paris_ and the _New York_, whenever they are in port. This has -been frequently done in the past on account of their speed, but the -compensation for this, under the law and the new contracts, has been -made much greater than the price hitherto paid. With but one or two -exceptions the mails on all the routes where subsidy is given--to South -America, Havana, China, Europe--were carried before the subsidy law -on the same ships as now. Except a very trifling saving in time, the -only change the law has made here is that the gains of the carriers -have been swelled at the cost of the taxpayers. The American shippers -carrying the mails at the regular weight rates were making a profit. -The Post-office, under the new deal, gets only what it has been -getting--the carriage of the mails; but the steamship company gets a -great deal more. This is the "pleasure of making it cheap" applied to -the postal service. - -By this procession of moves the company secured profitable contracts -ten years ahead on present ships, the _Paris_ and the _New -York_--although these had not yet done as much as fly the American -flag in compliance with the special legislation in their behalf--and -on future ships that were not yet built or contracted for. All was in -the future--the American registry for the _Paris_ and the _New York_, -the building of the new steamers required by the special legislation. -But one thing was got in hand, and was not in the future tense--the -contract with the American Post-office, binding it to pay millions a -year. The privileges conferred by this legislation were so valuable -that, as Senator Frye stated in debate, its recipients to gain them -were to forfeit $105,000 due them from the British Government. - -The American registry would be a capital advertisement to catch the -American tourist. Travelling, says Emerson, is a fool's paradise, and -the shifting population of that paradise would never stop to think -out the fraud in the appeal to their patriotism. Much was made in the -sentimental Senate of the privilege the law would give Americans of -going abroad in their own ships under their own flag. The press was -used shrewdly and widely to gain the favor of the public for these -incursions into their Treasury. Pages of advertising, in the dress -of news-matter, were put into prominent journals, telling in glowing -phrases what a great thing Congress, the Postmaster-General, and the -steamship company were doing for the people. The same editorial on -the promised restoration of American maritime supremacy would appear -as original in journals thousands of miles apart. As the panorama of -journalism moved along with its daily shift any observer could see the -methodical and business-like way in which the syndicate "inspired" -the press. Articles about the "great steamship line" appeared on -the same date in the papers of different cities, giving the same -facts in the same order, and nearly the same words, following "copy" -evidently supplied from a common source. One day these chimes all -sing the immeasurable superiority of Southampton over Liverpool as -a port for Americans; another day the unspeakable sagacity of the -Postmaster-General in giving this company the mails is the tune; and -again the ding-dong tells how, but for the syndicate and its subsidy, -the American flag--"Old Glory"--would be seen no more on the seas. The -average citizen who reads "his" paper is no doubt duly impressed. - -"Old Glory on the seas!" cried the excitable metropolitan editors. "The -dear old flag!" "America again Queen of the seas!" "A new era is about -to dawn on our long-neglected commerce!" Our long-absent flag is about -to reappear, but not, as in the old days, as the symbol of a people's -commerce. It signalizes the commerce of syndicates. The democratic idea -of a chance for all has been abandoned for the aristocratic idea of the -favored few. "Poor indeed in spirit must be the American," said the -New York _Tribune_, "who will not hail with satisfaction and pride the -early prospect of the reappearance of the flag in English, French, and -Belgian ports." Poor, fortunately, it was replied, are many Americans -in the spirit which taxes all the people out of an industry in which -they once led the world, and then taxes them to give that same industry -as an exclusive privilege to a syndicate--and such a syndicate! - -There was a rapturous chorus from the press because American materials -and American labor are to be employed in the construction and use of -the new vessels to be built for subsidies. When American labor was free -to employ itself and American materials with no subsidies, American -boats did absolutely the whole packet business between England and -America.[576] - -Now American seamanship must remain content to be employed to such -an extent and on such terms as may suit the interests of a few men, -under whose captainship the once glorious expansion of our commerce -on the seas is replaced by a system limited on every side. Limited by -the expensiveness of entering the occupation: a special bill has to -be passed through Congress in each case to confer the right to fly -the American flag on ships bought abroad, and for this the merely -legitimate expenses are heavy--trips to Washington, appearances before -committees and departments, with expert representatives. Limited by -their small number: instead of thousands building and running new -ships, a score. Limited by their capital: great, it is still much less -than the aggregate, if all had a chance. Limited by the narrowness of -view and enterprise inevitable with a few, however capable: everybody -knows more than anybody. Limited by the lack of diversity in opinion -and interests: with many men of many minds, of varying forecasts and -moods and gaits, the currents of industry are kept fuller and steadier -than is possible under a clique rule. Limited by selfishness: the -few will inevitably come to regard the ocean-carrying business as -"belonging to us," like oil, and with their crushing wealth will treat -as "black-mailers" intruders with new ships and new methods. Limited by -the impossibility the subsidy system imposes upon the average citizen -of competing against the government--against himself multiplied by -all his fellow-citizens. Limited by corruption: when this subsidy -bill was under discussion, Representative Blount, of Georgia,[577] -called attention to the methods by which previous legislation of the -same sort, "to build up the American merchant marine and increase the -commerce of the country," had been sought from Congress. Quoting from -the report made to Congress in 1874-75 by Representative Kasson, of -Iowa, he showed that the Pacific Mail Company, to get a subsidy, had -disbursed $703,000 among the members and officers of Congress and other -persons influential in legislation. "Yankee maritime enterprise," this -is called. The great captains, Bursley, Anthony, Delano, Dumaresq, -Comstock, Eldridge, Nye, Marshall, Holdredge, Morgan, and other sturdy -Americans who led the nautical world wherever speed, safety, and -courage were called for, outsailing competition even from the land -where "Blake and mighty Nelson fell"[578]--they had a manlier idea -of enterprise than being supported at the public expense in floating -poor-houses miscalled floating hotels. - -The few men who are the beneficiaries of taxes paid by the many will -be powerful and shrewd enough to get other dispensations or benefits, -post-office contracts, naval contracts, or modifications of the strict -terms of their agreement, and with this help from the taxpayer they can -do business at a figure which, though very remunerative to themselves, -will drive the unaided citizen competitor out of the business. Honest -citizens cannot ask for such favors. Poor men could not get them. - -It was the old spirit of rebate which sought and gave the preference. -Nothing could make such legislation respectable but the extension of -its benefits to all Americans owning such ships. But no such extension -was contemplated. The law gave a privilege not to the American flag, -but to the owners of the American flags of these two steamers. "There -is little probability," Senator Frye was reported as saying, December -22, 1892, in the New York _Tribune_, friendly to him and to the policy -of subsidy, "of the passage of any more laws giving the privilege of -an American registry to vessels upon the building of which no American -labor has been expended. The twin steamers _City of New York_ and _City -of Paris_ have set a fashion of which they will be the only exponents." - -There is a pool of the steamers between America and Europe called the -North Atlantic Steamship Association. At its meeting in December, -1892, this association discussed plans for reducing the number of -trips, increasing passenger rates, withdrawing excursion rates to -the World's Fair, and discontinuing the steerage traffic. This was -duly followed by the announcement in March, 1893, for which it was -presumably a preparation, that steerage traffic was renewed, but at -an increase of rates. Passenger rates of the higher class have also -been raised. Agreements to restrict the number of ships; pools to put -up rates; steamship wars to destroy competitors; the use of "pull" -to procure from the admiralty, sanitary, naval, immigration, and -other governmental bureaus, here and abroad, regulations ostensibly -for public convenience, really to make business, as nearly as can -be, impossible for others; lobbies to buy legislation for private -interests--all these may be expected to replace the magnificent and -manly rivalries of the days when the unbribed flag floated on its own -breath in every sea. - -Under the policy of subsidy--the policy of aristocracy, exclusion, -scarcity, corruption, war, and loss of liberty--the contest for -maritime and commercial supremacy becomes a contest between the subsidy -lobbies in Washington and at Westminster, Paris, and Berlin. If the -duke who is at the head of one of the great English steamship lines -obtains an increase of subsidy, the maritime dukes in America will -call on Congress not to shame itself by doing less for Americans than -Parliament has done for Englishmen. If all the English and American -lines pass under one ducal yoke--following the internationalization -of other syndicated businesses of Great Britain and America--one -hidden hand will manage for one purse the make-believe duel between -Parliament and Congress, while the uninitiated people glare across the -ocean at each other, and each inspired press calls on its government -not to allow its commercial supremacy to be destroyed by vulgar and -unpatriotic economy. In advocacy of subsidy--breeder of sea-dogs, -naval contractors, of war, and of treasury-suckled syndicates to fan -its flames--the Secretary of the Navy wrote to the Chairman of the -Senate Committee on Commerce in this case, "A fleet of such cruisers -would sweep an enemy's commerce from the ocean." All through the press, -from New York to Texas and the Pacific coast, every possible change of -phrase is rung to fire the American heart with "jingo" exhortations to -subsidize private steamers so as to increase our fighting kennel. - -The "American idea" is that individuals as well as corporations, poor -men as well as rich ones, small towns as well as large ones, one -maritime State as well as another, should be encouraged to follow the -sea. The old woman who thanked God, upon her first sight of the sea, -that at last she had seen something there was enough of, lived before -subsidies were invented and the sea shrank to be too small for all the -people. - -The contracts made with the International Company bind the -government to pay it $4.00 a mile for fifty-two trips a year (3162 -miles each) between New York and Southampton for the ten years -(1895-1905)--$657,696 a year, and $6,576,960 for the ten years; and the -same rate a mile for the same number of trips a year (of 3350 miles -each) between New York and Antwerp for ten years--$696,800 a year, and -$6,968,000 for the ten years. This makes an income from the mails alone -of $1,354,496 a year on the not-to-exceed $10,000,000 which the company -will have invested. At the end of the ten years it will have received -from these government contracts alone its whole investment, and more -than one-third in addition. The American taxpayer will receive for his -share the profit and pleasure of being forbidden to send his letters -to Europe by faster and cheaper boats, when these appear, as they have -already begun to do. The trial trips of new steamers of other lines -show them to be faster than the vessels we have bound ourselves to. -"The American principle" used to be to send all mails by the fastest -ships. Now, to develop the "American merchant marine," we relieve it -from all necessity of competing in speed, or anything else, with the -foreign marine. - -With such legislation and contracts in hand, any syndicate could -go to the banks and borrow at the lowest rates every cent of the -millions it needed to carry out its plans. It need not invest a dollar -of its own. Good enough "collateral" for borrowing would be this -privilege--practically a capital of millions got from the government -for nothing. Done for favored citizens, this is "the development of our -national resources"; done for the whole people, it would be "socialism" -or something more dreadful. Thus guaranteed dividends by the forced -contributions of the American people, this company, if threatened with -competition by other lines, old or new, can lower freights and fares -to rates at which others cannot live. The subsidies are a reserve fund -on which it can subsist while doing other business below cost. The -vision of this will deter other capitalists from building vessels, as -they have been frightened out of building tank-cars. The company can, -by a war of rates, force the sale to it of such vessels as it wants -out of the present Atlantic fleet. The scheme, which has progressed -so smoothly through the various stages of the Postal Subsidy law--the -exemption by special legislation of the two steamers from their foreign -disabilities, the negotiation of the contracts for subsidies until A.D. -1905 for steamers yet unborn--is an entering wedge, the broad end of -which may easily grow to be a monopoly of the transatlantic--and why -not transpacific?--traffic and travel. - -And in future legislation, tariffs, and contracts, what bulwark -of the people would avail against the Washington lobby of these -combined syndicates of oil, natural gas, illuminating gas, coal, -lead, linseed-oil, railroads, street-railroads, banks, ocean and -lake steamships and whalebacks, iron and copper mines, steel mills, -etc.? These beggars on horseback--the poor we will always have with -us as long as we give such alms--are forever at the elbows of the -secretaries, representatives, senators. The people who pay are at work -in their fields, out of sight, scattered over thousands of miles. - -Having evaded, by the complaisance of Congress, the requirements of -the subsidy law in the case of its two non-American steamers, the -company sought to be relieved by the Secretary of the Treasury from the -necessity of manning its boats with Americans, as stipulated by the -law. It was unwilling to sacrifice the foreign captains in its employ, -as the despatches said, "for the untried men of American citizenship," -regardless that one of the strongest promises of the subsidy givers -and takers was to recall to the sea the American citizenship banished -thence. The company had already driven its foreign-built boats through -the law, why not its foreign captains? It applied to the Treasury -Department for permission to retain them. To furnish a ground for such -a ruling, the foreign captains had given notice of their "intention" -to become citizens. They could not become citizens for five years, and -the courts hold that such a declaration does not meet the requirements -of the law that the officers of United States vessels shall be citizens -of the United States. The ruling asked for was refused by Assistant -Secretary of the Treasury Nettleton. The question was not dropped. -Some months later (December 2, 1892) the Washington despatches of -the Philadelphia _Ledger_ and the New York _Herald_ reported that -"Secretary Foster of the Treasury is disposed to accede to the wishes -of the company, if it can possibly be done within the law," and in the -New York _Tribune_ we read that "he is inclined to the view that an -exception might safely be made in this case." - -The raising of the American flag on these steamers--one at New York -and the other at Southampton--in the spring of 1893, was made a state -ceremony in both countries. The President of the United States came on -specially from the capital to honor the occasion, though this had never -been done before when the American flag was raised on vessels admitted -to foreign registry. The American minister left the embassy at London -to officiate at Southampton. The vessels were announced to be under -American captains transferred from other ships owned by the same men. -But the Society of American Marine Engineers and the Brotherhood of -Steamboat Pilots discovered that other officers--the foreign engineers -of the vessels--had been retained, though they were foreigners. The -former began an agitation for the protection of their legal rights. -Remonstrances from every important branch of the two societies from San -Francisco to New York were forwarded to the President of the United -States and the Secretary of the Treasury of the new administration -which had just gone into office. Counsel were employed to present -their case. It was found that one of the last official acts of the -out-going Secretary of the Treasury had been the order authorizing the -issue of licenses to foreign engineers. Attempts to procure a copy -of this order from the department have failed. Engineers have always -been considered to be officers. If they are such, this exemption was -a violation of the statutes of the United States which require that -officers shall be American. It reversed all the decisions which hold -that declaration of an intention to become a citizen does not make one -legally a citizen, for that would give foreigners, as in this case, the -advantages of citizenship without its duties; and indefinitely, for the -intention might never be executed. The order of the Secretary makes a -precedent upon which foreign captains may be employed--the objection -being the same in either case--and their reappearance may therefore -be confidently looked for. The appropriation once got, "Old Glory" is -hauled down. - -An "American Seaman" wrote the New York _World_ that when he offered -himself for employment on the boat which had just replaced with so much -pomp the British flag with the American he was almost laughed at, and -was told there had been ninety men on board that morning on the same -errand. All got the same answer, "We don't want you. We employ all -our hands on the other side." The articles circulated throughout the -country to create public opinion in favor of these subsidies dwell much -on the "glory" and advantage of having Americans in command of these -vessels with a full American force under them. But the subsidy secured, -we see these American vessels, which may be called upon to take part in -a war with Great Britain, are manned by British engineers and British -seamen. The lower compensation they are accustomed to will help keep -down the cost of manning the other vessels to be built for the line. - -The secretary by whom this was done was he who, as president of a -subordinate corporation of the oil combination, had been the commanding -officer at the front in the great battle with Toledo.[579] When he -was nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Payne made -himself conspicuous by soliciting support among the Democrats for the -confirmation of this Republican. "He could not be chosen to the Toledo -Council from any ward to-day," said the New York _Times_, February -23, 1891, "so bitter is the feeling against him," and the same paper -declared that his defeat in Ohio as a candidate for Congress in 1890 -was entirely due to his connection with the oil combination. But though -of so little political power that he could not command a majority of -the votes in his own Congressional district, there was influence behind -him which could get the head of his party and the government to put -him in the seat illustrious with the memory of such men as Alexander -Hamilton and Salmon P. Chase. "The objection to Governor Foster as -Secretary of the Treasury, that he was an associate in business of the -members of the great oil trust," said the New York _Press_, "President -Harrison did not regard as serious enough to have any weight." It -was pointed out by the Buffalo _Courier_ editorially, February 23, -1891, and other papers, that the oil trust, which Mr. Foster had been -serving, "is not only a heavy exporter but a heavy importer, especially -of tin plate, and is an extensive claimant for rebates of duty on the -tin of cans in which oil is exported." - -An item of Associated Press news in December, 1892, says that the -Secretary of the Treasury has just decided that the oil combination -shall be paid by the Treasury a drawback of the duties it has paid on -imported steel hoops for barrels in which it exports oil. "It isn't -pleasant," said the New York _World_, editorially, February 23, 1891, -"to have a Secretary of the Treasury who holds intimate relations -with the oil trust." It is through the Secretary of the Treasury -that the company receives the mail subsidies of millions a year. All -the statistics and official publications with regard to the "decline -of American shipping" and "foreign competition with American oil," -and about the tariff, as on oil, coal, steel, tin, etc., and many -other financial and commercial matters of pecuniary concern to them, -are under the charge of the Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury -Department's Commissioner of Navigation, in 1892, sends circulars to -the boards of trade and chambers of commerce all over the country, -calling attention to the small amount of money paid by our government -to American steamers for the mails, and advocating the establishment of -a merchant marine and naval reserve on the principle adopted by Great -Britain--_i.e._, the payment of subsidies. - -When Senator Hoar, speaking of the oil combination in the debate on -the Payne case,[580] asked, sharply: "Is it represented in the Cabinet -at this moment?" he referred to the Secretary of the Navy. Subsidy had -not then insinuated itself into the policy of the government; but when -that came, the uses of a Secretary of the Navy were clear enough. It -was by the influence of the Secretary of the Navy that the subsidies -for these steamships of the oil trust were got through Congress. It -is the Secretary of the Navy who passes upon the speed of the ships -receiving subsidies; and his findings are binding upon the Post-office -Department which awards the contracts and upon the Treasury Department -which pays. In the rush of the closing hours of the session of 1889-90 -of the Fifty-first Congress, upon the urgent recommendation, made in -person to the Naval Committee, of the same Secretary of the Navy who -had pushed through the subsidy special legislation we have described, -$1,000,000 was appropriated for the purchase of nickel ore. It is an -emergency, said the senator who spoke for the Naval Committee to the -Senate. The nickel was to be bought by the Secretary of the Navy; when -and where was at his discretion. The ore was to be used for alloying -steel in the manufacture of armor plate. The same Congress took off the -duty of hundreds of dollars a ton on nickel imported. The only nickel -mine of importance in America was then at Sudbury, Canada. In pressing -the appropriation through Congress it was stated that the mine, like -the steamship company subsidized later, was owned by "our citizens." -After investigation in Cleveland, New York, Washington, and Canada, the -_Daily News_ of Chicago declared that the appropriation of $1,000,000 -and the abolition of the duty were done in the interest of members of -the oil combination; that they were "our citizens" who were the owners -of the nickel mine at Sudbury; that they had sent an able lobbyist to -Washington to secure the legislation; and that, in anticipation of his -success, the product of the mine had been withheld for a year from -the market, until ore to the value of millions had accumulated. It -was said that by April 1, 1890, there were 5000 tons on the dump, the -duty on which, at the old rate, would have been $1,500,000. Whether -these statements were correct or not--and in the absence of official -investigation it is impossible to tell--the narrative answers fully -the purpose of giving the uninitiated public an idea of the relations -that may exist between public departments and private syndicates with -great profit--but not to the department. The appropriation was passed -September 29, 1890. The books of the Navy Department show that the -Secretary thereupon made contracts with the Canadian Copper Company, by -which, up to June 15th following, it sold the government $321,321.86 -worth of nickel. A litigation arising among its stockholders in the -spring of 1893 disclosed among them no less close a connection of the -oil trust than the senator from Ohio who had served it in Congress from -1876 to 1891. - -The message of a Republican President in 1892 commended the special -legislation in favor of the two steamers, and urged Congress not to -fail to appropriate money to pay them their subsidies. The Democratic -Postmaster-General, who now stands between the United States and these -carriers of the foreign mails, is one of the firm of distinguished -counsel who defended the interests of some of the owners of this -steamship line in the conspiracy trial at Buffalo.[581] He is to -give them the vouchers upon which the millions a year of subsidies -are to be paid, and he may be called upon to consider new contracts. -In the Presidential campaign of 1892 the head of the oil trust was -prominent on one side figuring among the officers of great political -mass-meetings in New York, while the associate referred to by Senator -Hoar was the active manager of the political fortunes of the other -party. This is not a solitary instance. The great man who testified -twenty-one years ago that he was a Republican in Republican districts, -a Democrat in Democratic districts, but everywhere an Erie man, has now -an army of imitators. The people had this authoritatively explained to -them while they were dazedly watching the speculation in sugar-trust -stock in Wall Street and the Senate rise and fall with the manipulation -of the sugar tariff in committee. The president of the sugar-trust, -before a special committee of the United States Senate, testified -that this "politics of business" was the custom of "every individual -and corporation and firm, trust, or whatever you call it."[582] Asked -if he contributed to the State campaign funds, he said: "We always -do that.... In the State of New York, where the Democratic majority -is between 40,000 and 50,000, we throw it their way. In the State of -Massachusetts, where the Republican party is doubtful, they probably -have the call.... Wherever there is a dominant party, wherever the -majority is very large, that is the party that gets the contribution, -because that is the party which controls the local matters"--which -include the elections to Congress and the Presidential election.[583] -Federal judges find the sugar trust not subject to the anti-trust -law.[584] The Attorney-General has not got decisions in the suits -against it for refusal to answer Census questions. Congress forces -the people to buy sugar of it only, and at its price. The Secretary -of the Treasury drafts for a committee of Congress a tariff like that -the trust needs. Our President is the head of the "dominant party that -gets the contribution," and he joins the sugar lobby by recommending, -unofficially, legislation in its favor.[585] - -By what law gives it, and by what law does not take from it, the sugar -trust can issue $85,000,000 of securities on $10,000,000 of property, -and collect $28,000,000[586] a year of profits. Control of government, -with its Presidents, Congress, Federal Judges, Attorney-Generals, -and Cabinet Secretaries, would be a great prize. Probably none of -the trust's "raw material" would be so cheaply bought as this if it -could be purchased by campaign contributions of a few hundred thousand -dollars. In an interview in the New York _Herald_ of March 25, 1894, -the debonair president of the trust, to shame the objections of -picayune souls, cries, "Who cares for a quarter of a cent a pound?" The -answer is not far to seek. He does. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - -"THE COMMODITY IS NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE" - - --_Lord Coke._ - - -Three hundred years ago Lord Coke, in the "Case of the -Monopolies,"[587] declared these to be the inevitable result of -monopoly: the price of the commodity will be raised; the commodity is -not so good as before; it tends to the impoverishment of artisans, -artificers, and others. - -In 1878 and 1879, when railway presidents were saying "No" to every -application of the few remaining independents for passage along the -road to market,[588] and the oil combination was supreme from the -well to the lamp, a concerted protest was made against its oil by -commercial bodies representing trade all over Europe. An international -congress was held specially to consider means for the protection of the -European consumer, by the interposition of the governments of Europe -and America, or by commercial measures. In the archives of the State -Department at Washington are the documents in which this episode can be -read.[589] At this moment of triumph over all rivals, "even what was -classed as superior brands was a poor article."[590] The English trade -met in London, in January, 1879, and remonstrated. One of the delegates -stated that a small dealer who bought of him had written, threatening -to commit suicide on account of the trouble this poor oil was giving -him.[591] The American consul at Antwerp, under date of February 19, -1879, called the attention of the State Department to the congress -about to be held to consider the serious complaints which had been made -of late against American refined petroleums. He gave the warning that -unless there was an improvement the Belgian government would interfere -for the protection of the people with regulations which would greatly -embarrass the export trade from America. A bill was introduced into the -German Reichstag to protect the people of Germany against the flood of -bad oil from America. Against those dealing in oil dangerous to human -safety it provided penalties from fines to loss of citizenship and -penal servitude. - -At the congress which met at Bremen in February were represented all -the European nations of any importance except France, which imports -only crude, and does all its refining at home. It was an indignation -meeting. The consul at Bremen wrote the State Department, under date -of February 27, 1879, an account of it. It was "very important," -he said. "Delegates were present from the chambers of commerce of -Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Breslau, Christiania, Copenhagen, Danzig, -Frankfort-on-Main, Hamburg, Königsberg, Lubeck, Mannheim, Nürnberg, -Rostock, Rotterdam, Stettin, Trieste, Moscow, and Vienna." - -The "united refiners," to explain away the faults of their oil, sent -a representative to the congress who was one of the inspectors of the -State of New York, in the pay of the people, but using his official -prestige in behalf of a private interest. The consul at Bremen names -the two chief points made in the defence: First, that the refined oil -was bad because half the crude then produced in America was from the -Bradford field, "and is so different in quality from the so-called -Parker oil that the same quality of refined oil cannot be made--at -any rate, by the ordinary processes hitherto in use." Second, that -the wicks in common use were poor. That the inferior quality of the -Bradford oil was not the real reason was proved by the fact that -the refined oil manufactured and exported by the refineries of the -combination from the crude of the other fields deteriorated at the same -time and as much.[592] The Bremen congress knew this. It was at this -precise moment--though this the Bremen congress did not know--that the -combination was tying up a great inventor and hauling his apparatus to -the junk-yard to prevent the test of a new method for making better -and cheaper oil.[593] Its members would have had the benefit of it if -successful, but with the spirit which men who seek exclusive control -always exhibit, they did not want to change. - -The congress declined to treat with any respect the excuses that were -offered. It declared "that the complaints regarding the inferior -quality of much of the petroleum recently received from America, and -especially of the different brands of the" oil combination, were "fully -justified." It consequently demanded from the American refiners, and -especially from the oil combination, "First, that they give greater -care to the refining of crude oil than they have recently done, in -order that the petroleum may in the future be again as free as it -formerly was from acids and heavy oils, that inferior qualities may no -longer be shipped to Europe, and that the consumer may again receive -the former customary good quality." - -The superiority of its barrels was specially mentioned by the head -of the oil combination to explain why all competitors failed. "All -its advantages," he said in court in Cleveland, "are legitimate -business advantages, due to the very large volume of supplies which -it purchases, its long continuance in the business, the experience it -has thereby acquired, the knowledge of all the avenues of trade, the -skill of experienced employés, the possession and use of all the latest -and most valuable mechanical improvements, appliances, and processes -for the distillation of crude oil, and in the manufacture of its own -barrels, glue, etc., by reason of which it is enabled to put the oil on -the market at a cost of manufacture much less than by others not having -equal advantages." But the Bremen congress made a special attack on the -"barrels" and "glue." It complained that "the continental petroleum -trade has suffered heavy losses on account of inferior barrels," -and demanded that the oil combination should "only use barrels of -well-seasoned, air-dried, split (not sawed) white oak staves and -heads." It even particularized that the barrels should be "painted with -blue linseed-oil paint, and supplied with double, strong head-hoops," -and "more carefully glued, and not filled until the glue is thoroughly -dry." - -"They were substantially without competition," was said in explanation -of the poor quality of the product sent to Europe, and also "to all -parts of this country. The quality of the oil which they sent was not -a matter of first-class importance for them to retain their business." -It was "a negligence which came in a great measure from the absence of -competition." This witness was asked by the lawyer of the combination -if he meant the committee to understand that it "was committing suicide -by furnishing a continuously deteriorating article of oil to the -consumer." - -"They were not committing suicide, because they had the business in -their own hands almost exclusively at that time."[594] - -This was in 1879, and the complaints of the quality of American oil -sent abroad continue to this day. Export oil, the Interstate Commerce -Commission say, in 1892, "is an inferior oil."[595] - -One of the means by which a market was found for American oil in -Scotland was the lowering of the British requirements in 1879 as to -quality, from a flash-test of 100° to one of 73°, so that the more -explosive American oil, until then debarred, could be legally sold -to the people of Great Britain. The oil made in Scotland was "a very -superior article--very good indeed."[596] There were two ways of -getting the market: to meet the Scotch manufacturer with as good an -oil, or to induce the government to permit the sale of something -inferior. The latter policy was adopted. The government was induced -to permit the sale to private consumers of oil that would give off -an inflammable gas at a temperature of 73°--a lower temperature than -often exists in living-rooms. Meanwhile the government continued to -insist upon oil that would stand a test of 105° for its own use in the -navy and 145° in its light-houses. The absurdity of this legal test -was proved by Mr. T. Graham Young, son of Mr. James Young, founder of -the Scotch oil industry, in a letter to the Glasgow _Herald_ of May -12, 1894. He showed by the records that the year before there had been -sixty days in London in which the temperature had gone above 73°. The -government, that is, gave its sanction to the sale of oil which might -explode at a heat below that ordinarily reached in an English summer! -Commenting on the strange fact that the Scotch oil companies did not -move against the change of test which had put them and the British -consumer at the mercy of this explosive American oil, Mr. Young said: -"It is generally understood that they are precluded from doing so by an -agreement with the foreign producers. I hold a letter from one of the -interested parties ... stating that for the above reason he could not -discuss the matter." In discussing this matter, the Glasgow _Herald_ -notes that even patient and poverty-struck India complains of the "very -poor quality" of the oil sent there. - -The Scotch papers are continually printing indignant comments on this -action of the British government, and wondering inquiries as to the -influence by which so injurious a change in the regulations for public -protection could have been effected. The Scotch manufacturers are -continually agitating to have the coroners in England and Ireland, and -the procurators-fiscal in Scotland, make particular inquiry in all -cases of fatal lamp explosions into the flash-point of the oil and its -origin--whether American or Scotch. At the December, 1892, meeting of -the Society of Chemical Industry of Great Britain it was declared that -about three hundred deaths a year occurred in England and Wales from -lamp accidents, due to the explosiveness of the American oil sold -under this reduction of the test. - -The agitation against this dangerous oil has been increasing in Great -Britain year by year. The subject has been investigated by the Glasgow -Chamber of Commerce, which found that many serious accidents to life -and property had resulted from the use of this oil, and at its meeting -of May 14, 1894, the chamber voted to petition the government to raise -the test again to 100°. The Manchester and Edinburgh chambers of -commerce took similar action. A number of other bodies have taken the -subject up, and the government has had to promise to make an inquiry. - -The statistics show that last year nearly one in five (19.3 per cent.) -of the fires in London and more than one in eight (13.24 per cent.) -of the fires in Liverpool came from kerosene. The oil used in those -cities is principally the cheap American article sold under the lowered -test of the English law. But in Glasgow, where most of the oil burned -is that of the Scotch manufacturers, who, by agreement, sell no lower -quality than 100° test, the number of fires from kerosene is less than -two in a hundred (1.7 per cent.). At a meeting of representatives of -the leading insurance companies of Edinburgh and Glasgow, June 20, -1894, experiments were made with the American, Russian, and Scotch -oils. The American was found to be the most explosive, and some of -it flashed at 69°. A lighted match thrown into this oil heated to -88° started an instantaneous blaze; thrown into Scotch oil it was -extinguished. Experts testified that the cost of making the oil safe -would be about a farthing a gallon, and that if the Americans, whose -"self-interest" and "private enterprise" are not equal to a voluntary -effort, were compelled by law to furnish a better illuminant, their -profits would be greater, not less. - -A rich field for investigation is concealed beneath the elaborate -system of State inspection, by which the people have sought to protect -themselves from being tempted by deceptive prices to buy a sure death. -We have seen in several places how the State inspectors are in the -employ, at the same time, of the State and the seller, whom it is -their duty to watch for the State.[597] Evidence abounds at every turn -of the use of inspectors and inspection laws to embarrass and even -suppress the smaller refiners. One of the latest instances is a new -law in Tennessee, which puts special difficulties in the way of oil -reaching the State by river, the avenue to which independent refiners -are forced by the discriminations of the railroad. We saw an inspector -of the State of New York appear at the Bremen congress as the avowed -representative of the "united refineries," complaints of whose bad oils -occasioned the congress. - -By one of those coincidences in which the world of cause and effect -abounds, the Fire Marshal of Boston, in the same year in which Joshua -Merrill described his fruitless efforts to continue the manufacture of -a first-class oil,[598] found it necessary to warn the people against -the dangerous stuff they were burning in their lamps. In his report in -1888 he called attention to the fact that one-tenth, nearly, of all the -fires in Boston the preceding year had been caused by the explosion of -kerosene or by its accidental combustion. He got samples of the oil -used in a number of the places where fires had occurred from explosion, -and had them analyzed by professors of the Institute of Technology in -Boston and of the School of Mines of Columbia College in New York. They -found them to be below the quality required by the State. Singularly -enough, one of the State oil inspectors, examining similar samples, -declared them to be above the standard of the State. The Boston -_Herald_, discussing the matter, pointed out that the oil inspectors -were paid by the owner of the oil. This, it said, placed inspectors -practically under the oil combination, which has ways, it continued, of -making things unpleasant for inspectors who make reports unsatisfactory -to it. The fire marshal's conclusion in all the cases he investigated -of these fires by explosion was: "I have felt warranted in every -instance in attributing the blame to the inferior quality of kerosene -used."[599] - -The European protest of 1879 followed close upon the success of the -comprehensive campaign of 1878[600] "to overcome competition." The -warning from the Fire Marshal of Boston in 1888 and the success of the -movement, begun in 1885,[601] to shut the independents of Oil City and -Titusville out of Boston and New England came close together. These are -not coincidences merely. They are cause and effect. - -It is known that a practice has grown up among the oil inspectors -of the States of allowing certain refiners to brand their own oil -as they please, or letting it go to market unbranded. This permits -the sale of unbranded and therefore illicit and presumably dangerous -oil. Charges that inspectors in Iowa loaned their stencils to the oil -combination to do its own branding were made formally in writing, in -1890, by one of the deputy inspectors, in the form required by law, -to the governor of the State. The law provides that charges so made -shall be investigated by the governor. No investigation was made, -but the inspector was removed just as he was about to lay before a -grand-jury documentary evidence of this and other violations of the -law. This inspector declared publicly that inspectors were in the -habit of leaving their official stencils with companies in the oil -combination, and allowing them to put any brand they chose on any oil. -He refused to continue this practice, nor would he brand barrels until -they were filled. The representative of the combination in that State -used every device except force, the inspector says, to induce him to -conform to the practice. "Don't you know," this representative said, -"that if you leave us your brand and get into trouble you will have -the oil combination back of you? You will be taken care of." In his -formal complaint to the governor, this inspector declared that this -representative said in substance to him: "You are the only fool among -the inspectors. We have the stencils of the inspectors at every other -point where we want them." - -The law put upon the governor the duty to investigate upon receiving -written complaint. But when written complaint was formally made, and -that not by an ordinary citizen, but by one of the sworn officials of -the State, the governor demanded that the inspector back up his charges -with the affidavits of witnesses--that is, the governor demanded that -the inspector, who had no power, should make the investigation. This -put an end to the whole matter. The inspector could not make the -investigation, and the governor would not. The same governor refused -to allow the written charges to be seen, although they are public -documents, and they remained invisible as long as he held office. -Only a few weeks after the removal of this inspector, the State oil -inspector was sued for heavy damages by the owner of a barn which had -been burned down through the explosion of bad oil. The ground of the -suit was that the inspector, having failed to inspect and condemn this -oil, as he should have done, was liable on his bond to the State. The -press of Iowa commented freely on the probable connection between -destructive fires, like this one, and the custom of allowing the oil -ring to inspect itself, by which it was given the opportunity to put -inferior and dangerous oils on the market with the brand of the State -on them as good. As far as the case has been carried, up to date, the -Iowa courts have sustained the claim and held the inspector in damages. - -That which is an uninvestigated charge in Iowa is an officially -ascertained fact in Minnesota. The demonstration in the latter case -amounts practically to confirmation for the former, since the parties -in interest, the motive, and the opportunity are identical. An -investigation was made of the conduct of the State oil inspector by the -Committee on Illuminating Oils of the Minnesota Senate, in 1891. The -committee say in their report, which was adopted by the Senate: - -"The testimony further shows that stencils were left with different -oil companies by the State inspector or his deputy, by which the -companies caused their barrels containing oil to be branded by their -own employés, without the supervision of any State official. It appears -that after the arrangement for the payment of the inspectors' and -deputies' salaries by the oil companies was made, the attitude of the -inspector towards his duties may be summed up in a few words of his -testimony: 'I am under no obligation to the State of Minnesota. The -Standard Oil Company paid me.'"[602] - -The methods covered by the general phrases of the Minnesota Senate -Committee were described in detail by a "commissioner" of the Omaha -_Daily Bee_, which found the same things being done in Nebraska. The -_Bee_ in 1891 made an elaborate investigation of the manner in which -the oil inspection of Nebraska was executed. Its reporter passed -incognito by the guardians of the portals of the warehouse of companies -belonging to the oil trust in Omaha, and stood by while barrels were -filled with uninspected oil and loaded on the cars for shipment to -various points. That the people who bought the oil might know their -lives were safe, each barrel bore the brand of approval provided by -law, as follows: - - Approved. Flash Test 105° - - ........................... - _State Inspector of Nebraska_. - - By ........................ - _Deputy_. - -But there was no inspector present, and the barrels were all branded -beforehand and while empty, in defiance of the law and public safety. -The reporter stayed until the cars were loaded, the doors closed, -and saw the trains pull out. It is from this warehouse that the -greater part of the barrelled oil consumed in Nebraska is forwarded. -At the warehouse of the same company in Nebraska City the reporter -found the same thing going on, and there, too, he found the official -stencil-plates of several of the State oil inspectors lying at hand -on the tanks, waiting to be used at the pleasure of the employés of -the company to brand the desired government guarantee on any oil, -regardless of what it was. The Illinois _State Journal_ found the same -practice permitted in Springfield by the oil inspector in February, -1894. The _Bee_ reporter describes how tanks, once branded, came and -went, were filled and emptied and filled again for months, with no -inspection of the oil in them. Often the tanks were not even branded. - -The Omaha _Daily Bee_ of November 24, 1891, gives a careful analysis -of the recently amended inspection law of Nebraska. It shows that in -many important points the law has been changed so as to put the safety -of the people in the power of the combination which supplies almost -all the oil used in the State. The standard required has been lowered. -The liability to a charge of manslaughter for death resulting from bad -oil has been changed to a liability for damages. The method of making -the tests has been changed for the worse. No provision has been made -for the protection of travellers by the inspection of oil used by -the railroads, although accidents and serious ones, from the use of -dangerous oil were frequent in the trains and at stations.[603] The -_Bee_ said editorially of the oil combination that it had "managed, by -its shrewdness in enacting this law, to make Nebraska the refuse tank -for its rejected Eastern oil, and at the same time to crowd out of the -State about all opposition." By means of this lowering of the test, oil -that was too poor to pass in Iowa could be sent on to Nebraska and sold -there. The _Bee_ gives instances where this was done. - -The _Bee_ continued its investigations in 1893. It declared, December -5, 1893, that the inspection law, imperfect at best, was "being still -further annulled by the open defiance of the leading oil companies." It -declared "the leading violator" to be one of the principal companies -in the oil combination. In a later issue the _Bee_ printed the result -of tests made for it of oils purchased in the principal towns of -the State. In almost every such case these showed that oils which -were below the test were being sold to the people as good under the -guarantee of the State. Some of them were "as safe for household use as -dynamite," the _Bee_ stated. It said editorially, December 15, 1893, -that it had in its possession a letter from the secretary of the Iowa -State Board of Health affirming that oil condemned by the State of Iowa -is shipped to Nebraska. The oil inspector of the State made a vigorous -denial, but the _Bee_ refused to withdraw its statements. Its tests, -it said, had been made by competent chemists. A suit is now pending -in San Francisco, brought by the New Zealand Fire Insurance Company -against the oil combination. It is charged that it sold low-test oil, -that its inflammability caused fire and destruction of a dwelling -insured by the insurance company, which was compelled to pay the loss. -Some power, certainly not originating among the people, has for years, -in States where the inspection laws required a high quality of oil, -been at work procuring a reduction of the test. In some cases this -has been accomplished only after persistent lobbying for years, as in -Michigan. The test in Michigan has been lowered by legislation, as -in Nebraska, and with similar results. The reports of the Michigan -State Board of Health show that as the standard was lowered, fires and -deaths from explosions increased. The Detroit _Tribune_ of December 27, -1891, says that the reduction of the test in Michigan and Nebraska is -due to the avarice of the producers (refiners) and nothing less than -criminal carelessness of the legislators. The dangerous constituents of -petroleum, such as naphtha and gasolene, are indistinguishable by the -eye of the buyer from kerosene. They can be as easily mixed with it as -hot and warm water with cold. These reductions of the test in various -States permit mixtures more hazardous than dynamite to be sold to the -people, lulled into reliance upon the State inspectors. "The advantage -to the oil company," says the Detroit (Michigan) _Times_ of April 30, -1891, "is obvious. Naphtha and gasolene are worth, perhaps, three cents -a gallon. Kerosene is worth three times as much. A test which allows -one quart of kerosene and three quarts of gasolene to constitute a -gallon of merchantable illuminating oil will enable a few more colleges -to be endowed, though increasing the death-roll in a notable degree." - -One of the demands of those who are conducting the agitation, noticed -elsewhere, for the admission of American oils free into Canada is -that the standard of Canadian oil inspection be lowered. This, says -the Hamilton (Ontario) _Spectator_, will open the Canadian market to -the low-test and dangerous oils made by the American combination, and -"restore the old order of lamp explosions, with the consequent loss of -life and property." - -An unwritten chapter of this story is the experience of the Ohio -oil producers, and the use of the inferior oil of the Ohio field to -adulterate oils made from Pennsylvania petroleums. - -Lord Coke's dictum about the decrease of quality never had a more -spectacular illustration than was given at Oil City and Titusville -on Sunday, June 5, 1892. Oil Creek was high with rains. A dam burst -and made the creek a flood. Its waters ate away the insufficient -foundations of tanks, and rivers of naphtha and gasolene and kerosene -overran the river of water for miles. A spark did the rest. Oil -refineries took fire, tanks exploded. There were two raging seas--water -beneath, fire above. Men, women, children, animals, property were -swept along in their intermingled waves. From every overturned tank -and blazing refinery fresh streams of oil flowed into the sea of -flame, which climbed the hills for the victims the other sea could not -reach. Those who escaped drowning breathed in a more dreadful death. -It was a volcano and deluge in one. It was one of the most terrible -catastrophes of our times. Even the scare-heads of the newspapers could -not exaggerate its horrors. The governor of the State made a public -appeal for help. The coroner's jury held an inquest at Oil City upon -fifty-five bodies at one sitting. It declared the cause of the calamity -to have been the gross carelessness of the owners and custodians of a -tank of naphtha, in permitting it, while filled with 15,000 barrels of -naphtha, to stand without proper protection from fire and water. The -tank was shown, by the testimony, to have stood on sand within a few -feet of the creek and without safeguard. It was shown that complaints -had been made to the managers of the refinery, which was one of the -subsidiary companies of the oil trust, about this tank and others -before the disaster, but without avail. The coroner's jury laid the -blame where it belonged--upon the company whose tank gave way. Its -verdict said: "The naphtha which caused this awful destruction of life -and property ... was stored in a tank located on the bank of Oil Creek, -on the Cornplanter Farm, near McClintockville, where it was built about -four years previous to this time. At the time of its construction the -tank was from twenty to thirty feet from ordinary high-water mark in -the creek, but this distance has been gradually reduced by the action -of the water prior to this flood to between six and ten feet, and -this flood further washed away the ground up to and under the tank, a -distance of from fifteen to twenty feet. A part of the tank bottom, -thus being left without support, tore out, allowing the naphtha to -escape into the creek. The evidence of the watchman, James Marsh, -shows that he realized danger from the undermining of the tank, for he -made a feeble effort previous to this flood to protect it by throwing -loose stones between the tank and the creek. The jury find from the -evidence that all persons owning and having in custody this tank and -its contents were guilty of gross carelessness in permitting it, while -filled with naphtha, to stand without proper protection from fire and -water." - -The company which owned this tank belonged to the oil combination. -It was, strange to say, one of the tanks of the Keystone refinery, -to which Matthews, the Buffalo independent, had turned for a supply -of crude oil when all other sources failed,[604] and which had been -thereupon bankrupted and taken into the combination seven years before. -Here was one fruit of that victory over competition. The coroner's -jury at Titusville reprobated in the strongest terms the folly of -storing oil in tanks within reach of high-water. It called upon -"citizens and officials, ... for the common good of all," to do what it -said was "entirely practicable: to so locate and guard and construct -oil-tanks and other receptacles of inflammable petroleum products that -they cannot be floated away, or the contents floated out of them by -water," and that "in case of flood and fire lives and private property -cannot be endangered by them." Although here and all over the oil -regions the business was under the control of one combination, and -had been so since early in the seventies, the Titusville jury, less -courageous than that of Oil City, declared that it could "attach no -blame to any one in particular for the present loss of life," because -this "custom of storing and manufacturing oil and its products, -regardless of endangering the lives and property of others, had been -allowed to grow up here as well as all over the oil regions." These -verdicts have been followed by suits now pending in the Pennsylvania -courts, claiming heavy damages from the oil combination as responsible -for the disaster and the loss of life and property. - -The Oil City and Titusville disaster is but a provincial affair -compared with the metropolitan avalanche of ruin which is all ready -to move upon the cities on New York Bay from the refineries and tanks -along its shores. Several condensed oceans of unignited fire are -waiting for such accident as happens almost every day to some gas-works -or refinery or tank-car. On creeks running into the East River, on bays -opening from the New Jersey shore into the greater bay, in tanks whose -contents would overlay the whole sheet of water from the Narrows to -Hell Gate and Spuyten Duyvil, these volcanoes are dozing, and they are -light sleepers. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - -"TO GET ALL WE CAN" - - -Are the combinations, trusts, syndicates of modern industry organized -scarcity or organized plenty? Dearness or cheapness? "They are doing -their work cheaper," said one of the oil combination of himself and his -associates, "than any rival organization can afford to do it, and that -is their policy, and by that only will they survive."[605] - -"We think our American petroleum is a very cheap light. It is our -pleasure to try to make it so," said its head.[606] - -"Our object has always been to reduce rates, and cheapen the product, -and increase its consumption by making the lowest price possible to the -consumer," said another.[607] - -Even if this were true-- But is it true? - -The then president of the United Pipe Lines of the oil combination, who -was also president of a subordinate corporation, was a witness in 1879 -in the suit brought by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His refinery, -he stated, did nothing but make the oil. "It is taken and sold by -another organization"--the oil combination. "We agree to take the same -prices that they take for their oil. It is kind of pooled--the sale of -the oil." The "agreement," he said, is "simply to hold up the price of -refined oil, ... to get all we can for it ... under some arrangement by -which they keep the price up to make a profit." Not only was the price -fixed under the agreement "to get all we can," but the combination, as -at Cleveland,[608] fixed the amount to be produced. The subordinate -company was allowed to have nothing to do with the business--except to -do the work, and to do only as much as its superior chose to permit. -Other refiners, in the same investigation, were shown to be sufferers -from the same kind of "grip." Asked what other concerns besides his -of Oil City were in this arrangement, he named the principal ones of -Titusville, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York. - -"These companies were all acting in concert, were they?" - -"So far as sales of refined oil were concerned, I think they were." - -Capitalists are usually supposed to be hard of heart and head, -suspicious, great sticklers for "black and white," and careful to -have all that is due them "nominated in the bond." This arrangement, -by which this witness and his associates put themselves entirely at -the disposal of others--as to how much they should manufacture, what -freight they should pay, what price they should receive, etc.--was not -in writing. - -"It is a verbal one."[609] - -The purchase of the refineries at Baltimore by the oil combination -in 1877, under the name of the Baltimore United Oil Company, was -immediately followed by an advance in price. The Baltimore _Sun_, in -December, 1877, said: "The combination has already begun to exert -its influence on the market. Oil for home consumption was yesterday -quoted at 14 cents, having raised from 11-1/2 cents, the quotation -on Wednesday. The combination will not make contracts ahead, which -might be interpreted to mean an intended advance in price." In Buffalo -the manager of one of the properties of the oil combination said in -evidence: "My son is on a committee, he told me, that regulates the -price of oil."[610] While the trust had the trade of Buffalo to itself, -it held the price of oil at a high rate. "In Buffalo there were then no -rival works," said State's Attorney Quinby to the jury who were trying -its representatives for conspiracy against a competing refinery, "and -we were paying for kerosene 18 cents a gallon. To-day, with the little -Buffalo company in the market making kerosene, you can get it for 6 -cents a gallon." - -This Buffalo competitor was a very modest affair, insignificant in -capital and resources, but it cut down the price of oil as far away as -Boston. It established there an agent who "went around" and "cut the -prices down," and then the agent of the combination "went around and -cut the prices further," as its Boston employé described it. He was -instructed, he said, "to follow them down, ... only not to sell at a -loss." Before this competitor came he had been selling oil as high as -20 cents a gallon. "We got the price down to 18 cents, and got down -then, I believe, to 8 cents, so that I have been selling them since -then at 8 cents."[611] Eight cents, then, was not at a loss--since -he had been told "not to sell at a loss"--and yet these passionate -pilgrims of cheapness had been making the Boston buyer pay 20 cents! -"I have been selling since at 8 cents," he says. This testimony was -given in 1886; the reduction to 8 cents from 20 was made in 1882. Four -years' consumption of this oil had been given to the buyer in Boston at -8 cents a gallon instead of 20, in consequence of the entrance of so -insignificant a competitor. - -When a member of the trust was testifying before the New York courts, -he referred to the competition of the independent of Marietta as "his -power for evil." Asked to define what he meant by his phrase "power -for evil," he said, "It was to make prices that would be vexatious -and harassing." He was asked if it harassed the oil trust, and the -corporations connected with it, to have prices in any part of the -country lower than they fixed. - -"Lower than a reasonable basis." - -"What they consider a reasonable basis?" - -"Yes."[612] - -That we can understand. But we cannot understand what the president of -the trust meant when he said, "We like competition," for that would -imply a natural proclivity for fellowship with the power of evil. - -"Who fixes the price of oil in New York?" was asked of one of the -witnesses before the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. That -was done, he said, by the selling agent of the oil combination. He "has -the price marked in the New York Produce Exchange daily--the price at -which they will sell oil."[613] When the vice-president of the company -representing the trust in St. Louis and the Southwest was on the stand -before the Interstate Commerce Commission, he was asked what was the -price of oil in the territory in which he was operating. The price of -oil in tank-cars, in Arkansas, he said, "is now and has been during -about three years or more--since Mr. Rice commenced shipping by water -to Little Rock--10 cents per gallon. The average price, independent of -competition, which I suppose is what you want, in the State of Texas is -about 13 cents per gallon in bulk, covering the whole State of Texas. -The average price per barrel would be about 17 cents, and the average -price in cases about 20 cents."[614] - -"Since Mr. Rice commenced shipping by water to Little Rock;" "the -average price independent of competition in Texas"--these are telltale -phrases. Where the combination was "independent of competition" the -price was one-third greater. - -The committee of Congress which investigated trusts in 1889 gathered -a great deal of sworn evidence--the details of which remained -uncontradicted, and which were met only by general statements like -those quoted at the head of this chapter--showing how extortionate -prices had been charged until competition appeared, that in all cases -a war of extermination had been made upon those competitors, and that -when their business was destroyed prices were put up again. Losses in -competitive wars were merely investments from which to draw dividends -in perpetuity. The "cheapness" of the combination followed the -cheapness of competitors, and was merely a feint, one of the approaches -in a siege to overcome the inner citadel of cheapness, a strategic -cheapness to-day on which to build dearness forever. This battle of -prices is shown in a table covering fifty towns in Texas, Mississippi, -Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, for three to five -years. The appearance of competitive oil, for instance, cut the prices -of oil from 15 cents a gallon down to 10 in Paris, Texas; from 25 to -15 in Calvert, Texas; from 22 cents to 10 in Austin, Texas; from 16 to -5 in Little Rock, Arkansas--evidently a war price; from 16 to 8-1/2 -in Huntsville, Alabama; from 16 to 8 in Memphis, Tennessee, and so -on.[615] The committee of Congress submit pages of evidence of the -reimposition of high prices the moment competition was killed off. -If the combination found a rival dealer out of oil for only a day it -"popped the prices up 3-1/2 cents."[616] "One day," wrote one of the -dealers, "oil is up to 20 cents and over, and when any person attempts -to import here, other than the vassals 'of the oil combination,' it is -put down to 7 cents a gallon."[617] - -Prices were frequently put higher after the war than before. In the -debate in the Canadian Parliament last year on the proposal to reduce -the Canadian tariff, supported by a strong lobby from the American -oil trust, it was shown by affidavits that at Selma, Alabama, oil -was reduced during the "war" against outside refiners to 8 from 15 -cents. After "competition was overcome," in the language of the South -Improvement Company contract, the price was put up, not to 15 cents -where it had been, but to 25 cents. In the same debate a large number -of affidavits were exhibited showing how the price charged by the oil -trust in America varied in places near each other in arbitrary and -extraordinary ways, as 7 cents a gallon at Port Huron, Michigan, and -14-1/2 cents at Bay City, only a few miles distant. Under the rule of -the trust prices are on a mechanical basis everywhere, from the retail -markets to the seaboard, where the refined, the manufactured article, -is quoted at a lower price than the crude, its raw material.[618] - -In the report of the tenth United States census in 1886, on the -necessaries of life, the retail price of kerosene is given for -thirty-five places. At a few of these there was competition; there -the price was 12-1/2 to 15 cents a gallon. At all other points it -ranged from 20 to 25 cents. Such a tax on the 400,000,000 gallons of -oil consumed in this country is the only kind of income-tax that is -"American." - -Application was made in May, 1894, by the Central Labor Union of New -York City to the Attorney-General of the State to vacate the charter of -the principal corporation in the oil trust. In the argument to support -it, it was shown that New York consumers were then paying twice as much -for their lamp-oil as the people of Philadelphia, and three times as -much as the foreign consumer buying in New York for export. - -The trust, notwithstanding its powers of "producing the very best oil -at the lowest possible price," compels dealers to sign away their -rights to buy oil where they can buy it the cheapest or best. When -opposition is encountered from any of the retailers in a town the plan -of campaign of its "war" is very simple. Some one is found who is -willing for hire to sell his oils at a cut price until the rest are -made sick enough to surrender. Then contracts are made with all the -dealers, binding them to buy of no one else, and prices are put up to a -point at which a handsome profit is assured. After this competitors can -find no dealer through whom to sell, and the consumer can get no oil -but that of the monopoly. Price and quality are both thenceforth such -as the combination chooses to make them. There are bargains in oil, -but one party makes both sides of them. "We do not wish to ruin you -without giving you another chance," said an agent of the combination -gently to a merchant who persisted in selling opposition oil. "Look at -this map; we have the country divided into districts. If you insist on -war we will cut the prices in your territory to any necessary extent -to destroy you, but we lose nothing. We simply make a corresponding -advance in some other district. You lose everything. We cannot by any -possibility lose anything." - -Only by thus contracting themselves out of their rights could these -"free" merchants get oil with which to supply their customers. "Their -agent," wrote a dealer of Hot Springs, Arkansas, "has made threats to -some of our merchants that they must or shall buy oil from them and -no one else, or if otherwise they would come here and ruin them--by -fair means if they could, by underhand ways if necessary." Another -firm in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, wrote that the agent of the combination -had called upon them and several of the other large dealers to make -a "contract, ... and, failing to do so, in a short time he threatens -opening a retail house," as at Columbus.[619] Another wrote, December -13, 1886, from Navasota that the monopoly "will not sell unless you -sign an obligation to buy from them and them only."[620] - -This maintenance of prices until some "power for evil" appears with -lower rates, then wars to kill, and raising of prices if the war -ends in victory--these phenomena of cheapness continue to date. Many -chapters could be filled with accounts of these wars of which record -has been kept. To merely name the battle-fields would require pages. -When the combination, through its agents, attacked Toledo in the courts -for undertaking the municipal supply of natural gas, it "urged," as -it is quoted in the language of the decision, "that the main object -and primary purpose of the act is to enable the city to supply its -individual inhabitants with fuel for private use and consumption at -a cheaper rate than they can obtain it from other sources." The act -of the Legislature gave Toledo "a power for evil." At Denver oil was -sold at 25 cents a gallon until an independent company began refining -the petroleum which abounds in the Rocky Mountain basin. During the -Colorado war of 1892 all the familiar tactics--cut rates, espionage, -and all--were employed. This continued after the dissolution of the -trust as before, showing that its change of name and form meant no -real change. In Pueblo and Colorado Springs the price was put down -to 5 cents a gallon from 25 cents. In Denver the price was made 7 -cents. Spotters followed the wagons of the independent company to spy -out its customers, and get them, by threats or bribes, to sign away -their right to buy where they could buy cheapest. The comments of the -local press did credit to the inspiriting mountain air of the American -Switzerland. The complaint recently filed with the Interstate Commerce -Commission by a dealer of the Pacific coast charges that, among other -discriminations injurious to the public, the rates between the Pacific -coast and Colorado were so manipulated that the oil found in the Rocky -Mountains and refined in Colorado could not be shipped to California -and the other Pacific states. Consumers there had to buy the oil of the -trust hauled all the way from Cleveland or Chicago. When an independent -refiner ran the blockade into New York, in 1892, and began selling to -the people from tank wagons, the price fell in New York, Brooklyn, -and Jersey City from 8 and 8-1/2 to 4 and 4-1/2 cents. The St. Louis -_Chronicle_ of May 19, 1892, reports a reduction of the price of the -best grade of oil to 5 cents a gallon--"the fortieth reduction," it -says, made since an independent company "entered the field three years -ago, at which time the price was 14-1/2 cents," as it would be still -but for competition. - -War has been made on poor men, paralytics, boys, cripples, widows, -any one who had the "business that belongs to us." An instance taken -from abroad will be the last. The combination between the American and -the Scotch refiners, formed several years ago, fixed the price of the -principal product, scale, at threepence a pound in 1892. The break-up -in that year was followed at once by a decline from threepence to -twopence. This is a saving to the public of $1,000,000 a year. "All -the relative products," says the London _Economist_, November 12, 1892, -"have practically collapsed in value." Candles, for instance, declined -20 cents a dozen, "and the finer qualities were sold at the same rate -as the commoner sorts." - -These are the facts, to fit the phrase of one of the monopoly who -described to Congress how it "bridges it to the consumer at the lowest -reasonable rate." The "bridge to the consumer" spans 1872 to 1894 and -Europe and America, but it is not a bridge of cheapness.[621] - -To prove that oil is cheaper than it was is not to prove that it is -cheap. - -Anything begins to be dear the moment the power to fix the price has -been allowed to vest in one. The question whether our monopolies have -made things cheap or dear in the past pales before the exciting query, -What will they do in the future, when their power has become still -greater, or has passed by death, descent, or sale into hands less -shrewd and greedier? Such power never moves backward. Says President -Andrews, of Brown University, in the article quoted below: "When a -commodity is turned out under such conditions, cost no longer regulates -the price. This is done quite arbitrarily for a time, the seller's whim -being perhaps sobered a little by his memory of old competitive rates. -Slowly caprice gives way to law; but it is a new law--that of man's -need. Prices go higher and higher till demand, and hence profit, begins -to fall off; and they then play about the line of what the market will -bear, just as they used to about that of cost. The producer can be more -or less exacting, according to the nature of the product. If it is a -luxury, the new law may not greatly elevate prices above the old notch. -If it is a necessity, he may bleed people to death." - -"At any reasonable price, say three or four times the present selling -price of refined oil, it is the cheapest light in the world, and if -the prices were advanced to 20 cents a gallon the sales would be as -large as they are now at 7-1/2 cents," wrote Vice-president Cassatt, -of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to the Pennsylvania Legislature, in 1881, -opposing the Free Pipe Line bill. The possibilities here were touched -upon by the New York committee of 1888: "What the trust's course would -have been if, instead of increased production, it had been required to -deal with the problem of a constantly diminishing or stationary volume -of oil, is an interesting subject for speculation. Certain it is that -the trust has the power to put up prices, even if it fails to exercise -it. If, in the future, the field producing the commodity manufactured -and sold by this combination of corporations shall fail to increase its -present product, or shall return a diminished quantity, the oil trust -will be able to fix the price of the product of its refineries in this -country, if not in the world."[622] - -It was not great capital which put this industry in the possession of -these enthusiasts for "all the little economies." The same universal -forces of cheapness which have been at work everywhere have been at -work upon the cost of the instrumentalities of production, and put -machinery, transportation, raw material, and market agencies within -reach of moderate capital. Such great capital is wasteful capital. It -operates through agents at great distances, attenuating incentives -to energy and care. Many practical men, real refiners, who have been -forced to give up their business to refiners of railroad privileges, -have testified to the same effect as the manufacturer who said to -Congress in 1872: "I believe a refinery of 100 barrels can be run -cheaper than the larger establishments."[623] - -If production on a natural scale, directed by the eye of the owner, -were not more economical than production mobilized from the metropolis -by salaried men hundreds of miles away, the independent refiners -and producers of Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio would not have -been able to survive at all. It was said in one of the Buffalo -papers by one of these independent refiners: "There are several -well-equipped independent refineries in operation at the present time -in Pennsylvania and Ohio oil-fields where the refiner has his own -crude oil, his own pipe line, and produces his own natural gas for -fuel purposes. It is needless to say that an experienced and skilful -refiner operating under such favorable conditions can manufacture at -less cost per barrel than any trust with a long list of pensioners and -burdened with the control of two political parties and the maintenance -of numerous city mansions, stock farms, and theological seminaries." - - NOTE.--The claims of the oil combination to the credit of having - cheapened oil have been subjected by competent men to statistical - tests. President Andrews, of Brown University, shows that from 1861 to - 1872, inclusive--_i.e._, before any combination whatever existed--the - net annual percentage of decrease in the price of refining oil and - carrying it to tide-water--that is, the difference between the cost - of the petroleum at the wells and of the refined at New York--was - 10-4332/10000 cents; from 1873 to 1881, inclusive, the trust's infirm - and formative period, the decrease was 7-8897/10000 cents; from 1882 - to 1887, inclusive, the years of its full maturity and vigor, the - decrease was only 2-2879/10000 cents.[624] - - The New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ (April 4, 1892) made a - similar study with similar results. It finds that under competition - in the refining of oil the difference between crude at the wells and - refined oil at New York was reduced from 13.45 cents per gallon in - 1872 to 6.02 cents per gallon in 1881; under the reign of the trust - the difference was 5.84 in 1891--greater than in 1882, when the trust - began operations, when it was only 5.77. It concludes: "It has been - claimed that the oil trust has been a benefit to this county; that the - economies which it has introduced in the transportation and refining - of oil have been shared with the consumer, and that the enormous - wealth which it has accumulated during the past ten years has been - widely distributed. Not one of these claims has any substantial basis - in fact." - - The comparisons of cheapness are made on the wholesale price at New - York of "export oil"--an inferior, almost a refuse product. Its price - must meet that made by the Russians. These comparisons, therefore, - really shed no light on the price movements of oil going into - consumption throughout the country. But the trust really gets the - retail price on all its domestic output. A full statistical statement - of the price movement in retail markets cannot be had; nor even of - the wholesale, for the combination has lately adopted a policy of - suppressing the wholesale quotations of the higher grades of oil for - domestic consumption. Comparisons, therefore, built on the export - price of this poor oil at New York, though good as far as they go, are - of oils of a low illuminating power. Comparisons that would really - show the part played by the combination as a true merchant--one who - discovers and distributes abundance for all at a fair price for his - service--can only be made by such illustrations as we have been giving - from its utterances, plans, and actions. But for monopoly an average - price of 5 cents a gallon could prevail throughout the United States, - with a saving of hundreds of millions to the people. - - Trust prices are artificial prices, independent of supply and demand, - and in their perfection superior even to panic. This is illustrated by - the comparison below, made by Mr. Byron W. Holt: - - - COMPARATIVE PRICES OF STAPLES DURING THE CURRENT DEPRESSION - - ------------------------------+---------------+-------------+------------- - | | |Per cent. of - |April 28, 1893 |July 20, 1894|Decline since - | | |April 28, - | | |1893 - ------------------------------+---------------+-------------+------------- - Wheat, No. 2, red | 0.76-3/8 | 0.56-1/2 | 26 - Corn, No. 2, mixed | .50 | .47-1/2 | 5 - Cotton, middling upland | .07-13/16 | .07-1/16 | 10 - Wool, Ohio and Pennsylvania, X| .28 | .18 | 36 - Pork, mess, new |21.00 |14.00 @ 14.25| 33 - Butter, creamery | .30 @ 33 | .17 | 45 - Sugar, raw, 96° | .03-15/16 @ 4| .03-3/16 | 18 - Sugar, granulated | .05-1/16 | .04-5/16 | 15 - Petroleum, refined, gal. | .0555 | .0515 | 7 - Pig Iron, Bessemer, Chicago |14.50 @ 15.00 |11.25 @ 11.50| 23 - Steel Rails, Chicago |30.00 @ 32.00 |25.00 @ 27.00| 16 - Steel Beams, Chicago | .02 | .01-1/2 | 25 - | | | - | June 30, 1892 |June 30, 1894|June 30, 1892 - Coal, Bituminous, Pittsburg |$ 1.07 | 0.86 | 20 - Coal, Anthracite, New York | 4.15 | 4.15 | 00 - ------------------------------+---------------+-------------+------------- - - The prices of four of these products--granulated sugar, petroleum, - steel rails, and anthracite coal--are controlled by strong - trusts. These prices have declined, since the beginning of the - depression--about May 1, 1893--not quite 10 per cent. Prices of the - other ten products have declined 24 per cent. - - Under free conditions prices of manufactured articles would decline - faster than prices of farm products. Cost of production can be lowered - faster in machine or factory products than in farm products. Under the - influence of trusts the natural order is not only reversed, but prices - of farm products have declined more than twice as fast as prices of - factory or trust products. Trust influence is conspicuous in the cases - of sugar and coal. The price of raw sugar, in which there is no trust, - has declined 5 per cent. since June 30, 1891. The price of granulated - has advanced 4 per cent. The president of the trust admitted to - Congress in 1894 that it had advanced the price 3/8 of a cent a pound. - Cost of refining has declined since 1891. There being no well-defined - trust in bituminous coal, its price has declined 30 per cent. since - 1891. The price of anthracite coal has advanced 2 per cent. in the - same time, because the producers have "regulated" production. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - -ALL THE WORLD UNDER ONE HAT - - -"This business belongs to us." This was the reply the president of the -oil combination made to a neighbor who was begging to be allowed to -continue the refinery which he had successfully established before his -tardier but more fortunate competitors had left their produce stores, -lumber-yards, and book-keepers' stools. He could remember, the neighbor -told the New York Legislature, before there was any such company as -theirs, and when the president of the poor man's light was still in the -commission business opposite him and his refinery. He described how -the president left this commission business, and "commenced to build -a refinery there of a small capacity.... He used to say to me, 'What -is a good time to sell?' and 'What is a good time to hold?' as he said -he thought I knew." The day came when the neighbor who had been first -found that the last was to be first. He was making $21,000 to $22,000 -a year, but he had "to sell or squeeze." He had several conversations -with the new-comer who had been so successful in learning when it was -"a good time to hold." To save his livelihood, "I did almost condescend -to tease him," he testifies. But the only reply he could get was: We -have freighting facilities no one else can get.[625] This business -belongs to us. Any concern that starts in this business we have -sufficient money to lay aside a fund to wipe it out. "They went on just -as if it did belong to them, and there were others started before he -did in it which I thought it belonged to quite as much as it did to -him.... I am wiped out and made a poor man.... I think they are making -a profit out of my ruin." - -His refinery had been giving him a profit of $21,000 to $22,000 a -year. It had cost him $41,000, but he had to sell it for $15,000. This -purchase of $41,000 for $15,000 was one of "the little economies" to -which the trust ascribes its success. It was not a "good time to sell," -but he sold. Part of the "squeeze" put upon him was the rebate given to -the buyer. He could not have got the rebate if he had applied for it, -but he would not apply for it. "I made application for lower freights, -but not for any drawbacks; I did not suppose that was the right way to -do business."[626] - -"This business belongs to us." This remark was not prophecy, but -history. It was in 1878, and the claim had been already made good. -The New York Legislature, in 1879, reported that the speaker and his -associates had control of 90 or 95 per cent. of the industry. "It has -absorbed and monopolized this great traffic, which ranks second on the -list of exports of our country."[627] This conclusion was based on the -evidence of officers and stockholders.[628] Their shadow grew no less. -The Interstate Commerce Commission found in 1890 that they "manufacture -nearly 90 per cent. of the petroleum and its products in the United -States."[629] - -"Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." For the -perfection of this triumph no trifle has been disdained, from the well -in the mountain to the peddler's cart in the city. The bargemen of the -Alleghany, the coasters of the sea-shore, and the stern-wheelers of -the Western rivers all had to go one way. "We drove out the shipments -in the schooners from Baltimore and Washington, and we stopped almost -the shipments by river down the Mississippi by boat," said one of the -successful men. His plan had been so thorough as even to seek to -"drive off the river schooners."[630] - -The last stage in their economic development--that in which the people -of the oil region lose the ownership of the oil lands and become hired -men--is already far along. Although at first the oil combination -owned no oil lands to speak of--"It does not own any oil wells or -land producing oil, and never did," its president said, in 1880; "an -infinitesimal amount," he said later[631]--it has of late years, -through corporations organized for that purpose, been a heavy buyer and -leaser of the best oil lands in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, -and the West. - -Monopoly anywhere must be monopoly everywhere. At the beginning it was -enough to control the railways; by these the pipe lines, refineries, -and markets were got. These were secured, only to find that it was -vital to control the source of supply. The producers once gave an -illustration of what it would be for the sole buyer to come to the -market and find that the oil he must have was not on sale at his -price.[632] "We have during the past year," one of the combination -said, in 1891, before a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature, -"invested a very large amount of money, and have induced our friends to -come forward with new capital to engage in the business of producing -oil."[633] By the policy of becoming producers the combination has -changed its position from that of mere intermediary--though one as -irresistible as a toll-gate keeper--to that of absolute owner. The -spectre it has seen rise before it, of the producers organized as one -seller to meet it as the only buyer, has been laid to rest. - -"We are pushing into every part of the world, and have been doing -so," the president told the New York Legislature in 1888.[634] Their -tank-steamers go to all the ports of Europe and Asia, and their -tank-wagons are as familiarly seen in the cities of Great Britain and -the Continent as of America. An agitation of extensive proportions was -begun in 1893 in the press of Canada and in the Dominion Parliament -to admit American oil at a lower duty. There was no popular demand -for such a step. No general reduction of the tariff was proposed. The -movement was simultaneous in the press of different parts of Canada, -and it was promoted by papers as important as the Toronto _Globe_ -and Montreal _Star_. It was resisted with desperation by the 20,000 -persons who are employed in the Canadian oil industries, the growth of -thirty-two years--"not a rich, gay, bloated population, rioting with -the plunderings of the farmers, revelling in all kinds of luxuries, -making merry with their friends," says a newspaper correspondent, who -visited them in December, 1892, "but a hard-working community, in which -all live comfortably; few are rich." - -This opposition was successful with the Dominion Parliament in that -year, and it refused to admit American oil at a lower tax. But the -finance minister then, by executive action, did in part what the -Legislature had refused to do. By lowering the inspection duty and -changing custom-house conditions he made a considerable reduction in -the tax. The agitation to reduce the tariff was not relaxed, and was -finally successful in 1894, when Parliament lowered the duties on oil, -and to that extent surrendered the Canada producers and refiners to -their American competitors. - -The Scotch refiners, some of whom have been in business forty years, -have become as loyal subjects of an American ruler as of their own -queen. They make only as much as he allows, and sell at the price he -fixes. He has demanded year by year a greater proportion of their -business.[635] In 1892 they were notified that they must reduce their -output by 10 per cent.[636] The Scotch, anxious for the accelerating -future, begged that the "arrangement" might be made for three years -instead of one. But this was denied them. The agent from America who -brought them their orders would promise no more than "to place the -matter in a favorable light before his colleagues in America."[637] -By October of that year the capital of the Scotch companies, held -mainly by small investors, had shrunk $5,000,000 in value. But to this -item the London _Economist_ adds the consolation that "that powerful -organization"--the American--"has for years professed the kindliest -feelings for the Scotch producers." Dr. Johnson said that much may be -made of a Scotchman if caught young. The American caught him old. - -The disturbance fell heaviest, as always, on the working-men. -"Reduction in wages is now being effected," writes the managing -director of the oldest and largest of the Scotch companies in the -_Economist_. "Another 10 per cent. reduction in miners' wages has been -resolved upon," the _Economist_ announces in its issue of October 8, -1892. - -One of the causes that contributed to the downfall of the Scotch -refiners was the fact that the British government reduced the test -required for illuminating oil. This new regulation opened the British -markets to a flood of cheap oil from America.[638] The Scotch oil is -better made and more expensive. "We cannot tell," said a correspondent -of the Glasgow _Herald_, "what powerful interest the American oil -combination did not bring to bear on our government. The public had -then no champion, and as a rule never have on these occasions." - -The unkindest cut of all is that it was from the Scotch manufacturers -themselves that their American rival and ruler learned the secrets of -the industry it is now absorbing on the instalment plan. In one of its -publications it has told how its "experts visited the great shale works -in Scotland, and studied their methods," and how "the consequence was -that extensive works were erected."[639] - -The economic development of Germany is not so much behind that of -Great Britain and America as to seem uninviting to the unhasting -but unresting American. Some years ago enterprising German importers -invested a large amount of capital in tank-steamers, because they -thought these solved the problem of the transportation of petroleum. -When the Americans refused to supply them any longer with oil for their -steamers to carry, they saw that there was more in this problem than -they had guessed. Importers who had no steamers found one day that -American enterprise had secured practically all of them, and had very -decided notions as to whom cargoes should be taken. The heads of two or -three of the largest houses boarded a steamer for New York, and came -back stockholders in a German-American company which controls most of -the German business, as the Anglo-American company controls that of -Great Britain. "If the great company with unlimited capital cares to -lose money, it can drive us from the field," was the explanation of -the head of one of the largest German concerns, as quoted in the Weser -_Zeitung_. - -At the beginning of the next year some Holland firms were invited into -the same shelter, and became the "fittest"; and then followed the -Belgian and the Scandinavian countries. The Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_ -of June 18, 1891, described the line of march: "One group of business -men after another is thus made superfluous and pushed aside. First -the wells, pumps, and refineries in America, then the American export -trade, then the private freight vessels adapted for transportation of -petroleum, then the European import trade, then the export trade from -European ports, and, finally, this over-powerful company threatens to -seize the entire retail trade in petroleum. It is a world monopoly." -Hundreds of boatmen engaged in a flourishing river trade in Germany -were driven out by tank-boats. If they had changed to tanks, they -would have been dependent on their opponent for the oil to fill -them. Importers in barrels were cut off by a change which the German -government made in the tariff on barrels. The Americans were also -helped by an increase in the German tariff on Russian oil of 50 per -cent., which made it so much the more difficult for it to compete with -American oil. As one way to kill competition where it still existed, -all statistics were suddenly withheld by the German-American member of -the trust. Neither exports nor imports were known except to the ruling -company; all others were kept in the dark. - -This success in Germany has not been due to favoritism on the highways. -The extraordinary discrimination on railroads in America would be -impossible in Germany. With hardly an exception the railroads are under -the supervision of the State, and are very carefully controlled. Even -the private roads would not dare to give any but the open rates. In -Austria-Hungary, formerly, secret rates were in full swing, but the -system is now said to be destroyed. - -Prices have declined in Germany, and the people at large make few -complaints except about the quality of the American oil. It has become -more sooty than formerly. In the beginning it burns well, but it ends -with giving a very poor light. This has been conjectured to be due to -a mixture of the inferior Ohio oil with that of Pennsylvania; but "it -cannot be proved," the German chronicler reports.[640] "The working -people," says one of the Berlin papers, "will have to foot the bill, -and the working people only. The well-to-do and rich of to-day can have -other fuel and light, but to the oppressed working-man petroleum is as -great a necessity as his potatoes." The German papers, in casting about -for means of checkmating the increase of prices which they believe will -result from the consummation of this monopoly, advocate the use of -water-power and also wind-power to create electricity. - -The attention that has been attracted to the growth of this power does -not come from the public at large, but from those directly interested -and the sympathy and interest of the German "national economists." -The latter point out that the present cheap prices are "war prices." -They predict that as soon as the world monopoly is established and -all territory is under complete control a rise of prices will take -place. They are advocates of State monopoly as better than private -monopoly. If State monopolies prevent free competition, at least -they are able, they say, to give some compensation to those who are -hurt. In the tobacco monopoly hundreds of millions were set aside -by the German government for this purpose, but even that was not -considered sufficient. But this monopoly is a private affair. It -swallows the profits of all those whom it destroys. Numerous industries -have been ruined--importers, ship-owners, brokers, local dealers, -exporters, retailers, river boatmen, and numerous other trades--but -no one receives indemnity. The public opinion of the government, the -Reichstag, the national economists, the philanthropists, is active -in support of the middle class, but in spite of all this a whole -department of industry has been torn away from it. - -There are one or two "independents" in Germany whom, like the -independents in America, the trust has not yet been able to crush, -though it is turning the markets topsy-turvy for that purpose. The -_Pall Mall Gazette_ of June 18, 1894, notes that the trust is selling -refined oil in Europe at prices lower than those at which crude oil can -be delivered from America. - -The Austrian journals have been chronicling the absorption of the -principal refineries of Austria and Hungary by a combination, of which -the Rothschilds are the most important members, as they are of that -in Russia. This combination, which first appears in 1892, has by 1894 -accumulated a reserve of 3,000,000 gulden on a capital of 1,000,000 -gulden, and its profits for 1894 are expected to be 100 per cent. -The Prager _Lloyd_ of April 26, 1894, giving these and other facts, -adds that "the government of Austria as well as of Hungary takes the -ground that if a petroleum monopoly is to be formed it should be in the -hands of the State, not of a corporation, certainly not of a foreign -corporation, least of all an American one." - -This remedy of a State monopoly as an alternative to private monopoly, -as suggested in Austria and Germany, has as yet had few advocates in -America. Our public opinion, so far as there is any public opinion, -restricts itself to favoring recourse to anti-trust laws and to -boycotting the monopoly and buying the oil of its competitors. But -there are too few of these to go around, and they are shut out of most -of the markets. The shrewd monopoly is itself the most diligent caterer -to such American demand as there is for the "anti-monopoly" product. It -does business under hundreds of assumed names, and employs salesmen at -large salaries to push the sale of "opposition oil" in our disaffected -provinces. - -With the news from Germany came the announcement that similar control -had been obtained of the business of the firm at Venice which did -most of the oil business of Italy, and a new company had been formed, -of which the American "trustees" own a majority. In a letter sent to -Minister Phelps, at Berlin, a resident representative of the American -oil combination says, as quoted in the New York _Tribune_, October -5, 1891: "For the furtherance of our programme and as participators -in the large European investment which this programme involves, we -have sought and been fortunate enough to secure the co-operation of a -coterie of well-known merchants, who have been long and prominently -identified with the petroleum commerce of the Continent." The Società -Italo-Americana del Petrolio (the Italian-American Oil Company) is in -Italy what the concerns just described are in the countries to the -north of it. The head of the oil combination was quoted by the New -York _Tribune_ of July 1, 1891, as saying: "The cable despatches are -substantially correct as regards our interest in the German and Italian -companies." - -The French government a year ago lowered the tariff on petroleum -one-half. This was followed, the French press reports, by the erection -of a refinery by the American trust at Rouen, and the purchase by it of -land in Marseilles, Cette, Bordeaux, and Havre for other refineries. -The machinery needed was shipped from America. Large offices were -opened at Paris by the American combination for the administration of -the industry in France, which was to be concentrated into its hands -like that of the rest of Europe. The sequel, if the _Frankfurter -Zeitung_, a prominent German commercial paper, is correctly informed, -is that the French refiners, as the Scotch did before them, have -come to terms with the American trust. It has agreed not to start up -its refineries in France, not to sell any refined oil in America for -shipments to France, and not to allow any American outsiders to compete -with the French refiners. - -There was a report in June, 1892, that a Dutch company had succeeded -in refining petroleum in Sumatra, one of the possessions of the -Netherlands' East India colonies, and selling it in India. The -solicitor of the trust, asked about it by the New York _Times_, June -5, 1892, said, "It cannot be true." The oil combination, he continued, -"has agents in the Netherlands' East India colonies and at Sumatra, and -it would certainly have heard of this corporation and its competition -if there was anything worth hearing." - -There are great oil-fields in Peru. Since the close of the war with -Chili there has been an active development of them, and the commercial -reports of San Francisco say that fuel oil is now being supplied from -this source to our Pacific States. This has not been done by the -Peruvians. It was an American who organized the oil industry of Peru. -The principal company was formed by the same expert who went years ago -from Pennsylvania to Russia to Americanize the oil interests of the -Caucasus. After he had succeeded in that task he went to Peru. He died -in the spring of 1894. At about the time of his death the newspapers, -by a coincidence that arrests attention, chronicled the departure from -New York of a well-known man who was going to Peru, as he stated in an -interview, to look after the interests of the members of the oil trust. -But there is no official information that they have any ownership or -control there. - -When one of the officers of the combination was before Congress, in -1888, he was asked if there had been any negotiations by his associates -with the Russian oil men. - -"We have never had any serious negotiations,"[641] he replied. - -The word "serious" was a slip. He withdrew it. "We have never had any" -was his revision. Three years later the same official, in a speech to -persuade the Pennsylvania Legislature that the pipe-line interests of -the oil country did not need the regulation by the State then under -debate, but were abundantly safeguarded by him and his associates, -said: "It may not be amiss for me to say that we have had, at different -times during the last several years, most flattering propositions -from people who are identified with the Russian petroleum industry, -to come there and join them in the development and introduction of -that industry. We have declined these offers, gentlemen, always and -to this day, and have held loyal to our relations to the American -petroleum."[642] - -There had been negotiations, after all! - -The reports of the United States consul-general at Berlin, in -1891, transmitted many interesting articles from the German papers -concerning the alliance which it was believed had been made between -the Rothschilds and the American oil combination. A company managed by -the great bankers has obtained a commanding position in the Russian -oil business, and the American and the Russian were even then said to -have divided the world between them. The Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_ -said: "Heretofore the two petroleum speculators have marched apart, -in order to get into their hands the two largest petroleum districts -in the world. After this has been accomplished they unite to fight -in unison, and to fix as they please the selling price for the whole -world, which they divide between themselves. So an international -speculating ring stands before the door, such as in like might and -capital power has never before existed, and everywhere the intelligible -fear prevails that within a short time the price of an article of use -indispensable to all classes of people will rise with a bound, without -its being possible for national legislation or control to raise any -obstacles."[643] - -But some of the closest European observers have seen reasons from -the beginning to believe that the Rothschilds are in the Russian oil -business only as the agents of the American combination. This is freely -asserted by the Continental press. The policy of the Rothschilds has -been never to engage in commercial enterprise on their own account. -The tactics used by the Rothschilds in oil have been an almost exact -reproduction of those of the combination in America. From the first -they gave the subject of freights their special attention. They showed -no ability for new or independent undertakings, but they tried, to use -the words of an Austrian-Hungarian consular report from Batoum in 1889, -"following the example of the combination in the United States, to get -the bulk of the Russian petroleum trade into their hands"; using the -large money power at their command for speculation, freely advancing -money for leases and delivery contracts, and specially acquiring all -the available means of transportation. The experience of the people of -Parker[644] is recalled by the statement that the Rothschild company -would leave hundreds of cars loaded with petroleum on the tracks for -weeks to prevent competitors from shipping and from filling their -contracts. When the city of Batoum, in 1888, refused to allow it to lay -pipes over the city lands to the harbor, it was with the enthusiastic -approbation of the agitated citizens. The authorities gave as their -reason that through large establishments of this kind the capitalists -gained a monopoly, crushing out smaller producers to the disadvantage -of all classes of the population. In the absence of official -investigations, a free press, and civilized courts--that knowledge -which is not only power but freedom--it is impossible for any one in -Russia, or out of it, to know the truth as to the relations of the -Rothschilds to the American monopoly. The latest news in the summer of -1894 is of a great combination of Russian and American oil interests, -under the direction of the Russian Minister of Finance, for a division -of territory, regulation of prices, and the like. Information of this -was given to the world by that minister's official organ in November, -1893. Thus says the Hanover (Germany) _Courier_ of November 11th: "With -the direct sanction of the Russian government the management of the -enormous wealth that lies in the yearly production of Russian petroleum -will be concentrated in the hands of a few firms.... The Russian -government lends its hand for the formation of a trust that reaches -over the ocean--a trust, under State protection, against the large mass -of consumers. This is the newest acquisition of our departing century." - -It was announced that, in pursuance of this plan, the Russians were to -be given exclusive control of certain Asiatic markets. The officers -of the American combination are not easily reached by newspaper men. -But when this news came long interviews with them were circulated in -the press of the leading cities, dwelling upon the "Waterloo" defeat -they had suffered, and reassuring the people with this evidence -that there was, after all, "no monopoly." The Russian interests are -dominated by the Rothschilds, and if the Rothschilds are, as these -European observers declare, merely the agents of the Americans, even -unsophisticated people can understand the cheerfulness with which the -trustees in New York dilate on their Waterloo at the hands of their -other self. Only this could make credible the report that the world has -been divided with the Russians by our American "trustees," who never -divide with anybody. In dividing with the Russians they are dividing -with themselves. - -Though it is reported that discriminations by the government railroads -of Russia were used to force the Russian producers into this -international trust, still, at worst, every Russian producer was given -by his government the right to enter the pool. But no similar right for -the American producer is recognized by our trust. It admits only its -own members. The others must "sell or squeeze." There is something -in the world more cruel than Russian despotism--American "private -enterprise." - -One of the conditions said to have been made by the Russian government -is the natural one that the American trust, as it has agreed to do for -the French, must protect its Russian allies from any competition from -America. Extinction of the "independents" has therefore become more -important than ever to the trust. The prize of victory over them is not -only supremacy in this country, but on four other continents. This will -explain the new zeal with which the suppression of the last vestige of -American independence in this industry has been sought the last few -months of 1893 and in 1894. Especially strenuous has been the renewal -of the attack on the pipe line the independents are seeking to lay to -tide-water, and which they have carried as far as Wilkes-barre.[645] - -That pipe line, as it is the last hope of the people, is the greatest -menace to the monopoly. The independents, as they have shown by the -fact of surviving, although they have to pay extraordinary freights and -other charges from which the trust is free, can produce more cheaply -than the would-be Lords of Industry, as free men always do.[646] By -means of this pipe line, suspended though it is at Wilkes-barre, are -now made the only independent exports of oil that go from America to -Europe. Once let the "outsiders" with their line reach the sea-shore -and its open roads to the coast of America and Europe, and it will be -a long chase they will give their pursuers. Everything that can be -brought to bear by market manipulation, litigation, and other means is -now being done to prevent the extension of this line, and to bankrupt -the men who are building it through much tribulation. The mechanical -fixation of values, by which the refiners who use this line to export -oil are compelled to meet a lower price for the refined in New York -than can be got for the crude out of which it is made, has been already -referred to, and, as shown above, the same prestidigitation of prices -is being resorted to in Europe against the independents of Germany. - -Early in 1894 the independent refiners and producers resolved to -consolidate with this pipe line some other lines owned by them in order -to strengthen and perfect the system, and put it in better shape to -be extended to tide-water. This consolidation was voted by a large -majority both of stock and stockholders. But a formidable opposition -to it was at once begun in the courts by injunction proceedings in -behalf of one man, a subordinate stockholder in a corporation of -which the control is owned, as he admitted in court, by members of -the oil trust.[647] The real litigant behind him, the independents -stated to the court, was the same that we have seen appear in almost -every chapter of our story, with its brigades of lawyers. "An unlawful -organization," the independents described it to the court, "exercising -great and illegal powers, ... and bitterly and vindictively hostile to -our business interests." They came into court one after the other and -described the ruin which had been wrought among them, telling the story -the reader has found in these pages. - -"It is our hope," they said, "when we once reach the salt-water that -there will be no power there controlling the winds and the waves, the -tides and the sun and moon, except the Power that controls everything. -When we once are there the same forces that guide the ships of this -monopoly to the farther shore will guide ours. The same winds that waft -them will waft ours. There is freedom, there is hope, and there is -the only chance of relief to this country.... Through three years of -suffering and agony we have attempted to carry on our purpose.... You -could have seen the blood-marks in the snow of the blood of the people -who are working out their subscription as daily laborers on that line -with nothing else to offer." - -The injunctions asked for by this opposition were granted by the lower -court, but the independents took an appeal to the Supreme Court of -Pennsylvania. They first placed their petition for the rehearing in the -hands of the chief-justice on Thursday, May 24th; on Monday, May 28th, -the petition was renewed before the full court; on Thursday, May 31st, -the court adjourned for the summer without taking any action upon the -petition. The court in July agreed to hear the case at the opening of -its next term, the first Monday of October. Section II. of Article I. -of the Constitution of Pennsylvania says: "All courts shall be open, -and every man, for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, -or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and -justice administered, without sale, denial, or delay." To guard against -the injustice which might arise by the granting of special injunctions -by the lower courts--like that granted in this case--which might -remain for months without remedy, the Legislature, in 1866, enacted -a law which reads as follows: "In all cases in equity, in which a -special injunction has been or shall be granted by any Court of Common -Pleas, an appeal to the Supreme Court for the proper district shall be -allowed, and all such appeals shall be heard by the Supreme Court in -any district in which it may be in session." - -As if there had not been enough to try these men, misfortune marked -them in other ways. The Bradford refinery of the president of their -pipe line was visited by a destructive fire during these proceedings -in court. The Associated Press despatches attributed the fire to -"spontaneous combustion," whatever that may be. But in another -newspaper an eye-witness described how he saw a man running about the -works in a mysterious way just before the flames broke out. On the same -day, by a coincidence, the main pipe of the independent line was cut, -and the oil, which spouted out to the tree-tops, was set on fire at a -point in a valley where the greatest possible damage would result, and -the telegraph wires were simultaneously cut, so that prompt repairs -or salvage of oil were impossible. The Almighty is said to favor the -heaviest battalions, and accident, if there is such a thing, seems to -have the same preference, as has been shown in many incidents in our -history, such as the mishaps to the Tidewater pipe line, and the Toledo -municipal gas line.[648] - -An intimation is given in the Continental press as to one of the -motives under which the Russian government acted in promoting the -alliance between the Russian and American oil men. It desired, it -is said, to secure the influence of the powerful members of the -oil combination in favor of certain plans for which Russia needed -co-operation in America. There has been nothing for which the Russian -government has so much needed "sympathetical co-operation" in America -as for the ratification of the Extradition Treaty. The Russian -government has obtained this ratification, and obtained it in a way -which indicated that some irresistible but carefully concealed American -influence was behind it. The New York _World_, in its editorial -columns of May 25, 1894, made the suggestion that the power behind -this treaty of shame was that of the oil trust, earning from the czar -the last link in its chain of world monopoly. It asked if it was the -influence of the oil combination that induced the Senate's consent -to this "outrageous treaty." "Was this one of the conditions upon -which that monopoly was permitted to secure its present concessions -from Russia? Did it wield an influence in the Senate like that -which the sugar trust has since exercised, though for an advantage -of a different kind?" The Philadelphia _Press_ points out that the -Russian government had long and unsuccessfully sought to obtain the -ratification of this treaty, but at last got it quickly and quietly. -Did the oil combination, it asks, "succeed in bartering the character -of this country as a political sanctuary for the monopoly of the -world's markets?" Seldom has any public measure been so universally and -so indignantly condemned in America as was this proposal to use the -powers of Anglo-Saxon justice to return men who were accused only, and -were, therefore, legally innocent, to be tried without jury, counsel, -publicity, or appeal. Never has public opinion availed less. The -Federal executive refused even to delay the ratification in deference -to the sentiment against it. Those who were active in the agitation -against the treaty found something inexplicable in the unresting -and unlistening relentlessness with which it was pushed through. -Napoleon said that in fifty years Europe would be all Russian or all -republican. Even he did not dream that republican America would become -Russianized before Europe. The San Francisco _Call_ of March 3, 1894, -discussing the report that a commercial treaty with China was under -consideration at Washington, says the negotiation is in the interest -of the oil combination. It warns the public that the trust is willing -to reopen the opium trade in reciprocity to China for better terms for -the admission of American petroleum. This free trade with China and -Russia in the souls and bodies of Russians, Chinese, and Americans -would add only another instance of the many manipulations of government -which this combination has successfully attempted in all parts of the -world--in the tariffs of France, Germany, Cuba, Canada, and our own -country; in the raising or lowering of the governmental requirements -as to explosiveness of oil sold the people in England and the United -States, and in the subsidy legislation by which it got from Congress -for its ocean steamers a privilege rigorously denied by law to all -other citizens. - -In this the oil trust is but an illustration. What it has done scores -of other combinations have accomplished, though not with equal -genius. The Hon. John De Witt Warner, member of Congress from New -York, has published a list of one hundred trusts which have been able -to influence the tariff legislation of the country in their favor. -The orgy of the sugar trust and Congress, out of which the tariff -bill of 1894 was born, was in the plain view of all the people. "The -appalling fact already disclosed," the New York _Daily Commercial -Bulletin_, the most important commercial and financial daily in the -United States, said in its editorial columns of June 4, 1894, "is -that for some months past the sugar trust has been the government of -the United States." The _Bulletin_ estimates that the profit to the -trust of one detail of the tariff bill postponing the duty on raw -sugar for six months will be $34,620,000. In all this our country is -not singular. The governments of Europe are used as the instruments -of profit for private enterprise to an extent which the people endure -only because they do not understand it. The latest instance is one of -the best. The _Investor's Review_ of London, England, in May, 1894, -calls attention to the fact that upon the accession of Lord Rosebery -to the Premiership of England the hitherto outspoken opposition of -the War Office to the Maxim gun had become entirely silent, and the -gun had been put into use in the army without competitive trial with -other machine-guns, some of them its superiors. "This is an unfortunate -fact for Lord Rosebery," says the _Investor's Review_, "because of his -relationship to the Rothschilds." This great house, the _Review_ says, -has "a strong pecuniary interest in the Maxim-Nordenfeldt Company," -and his lordship's affinities to the house "have not in the past been -confined to those of family relationship alone, but extend to community -of interests on the stock exchange." The _Review_ therefore appeals -to Lord Rosebery, for his own sake and the sake of the government "to -prove by his deeds that he not only has had nothing to do with it, but -will peremptory stop this crime." If not, the _Review_ hopes enough may -be made of the scandal to overthrow Lord Rosebery's government, for it -desires "to see a beginning made of the endeavor to purge Parliament of -the guinea-pig director, the stock-gambler and punter, and the whole -unclean brood of City 'bulls' and 'bears,' jobbers in patents, bribers -and bribed, who help to degrade public life." - -We of America are most sovereign when we sit in Constitutional -Convention by our representatives, and change the fundamental law -as we will. The Constitutional Convention gives us the unique power -of peaceful and perpetual revolution, to make bloody and spasmodic -revolutions unnecessary. Of all the inventions of that ablest group -of statesmen the world has seen--the founders of this government--this -is the greatest. The people of the State of New York are holding a -Constitutional Convention in 1894 to enlarge the garment of 1846 to -fit the growth of half a century. In that half-century the revolution -in society and industry which had been getting under headway ever -since the steam-engine and competition were invented has come to its -consummation. But the basic law of the Empire State has faced this -new world as changeless as the sphinx. Nearly half the other states -have made new constitutions, or amended the old ones to bring law into -line with life. Pennsylvania forbids the common carrier to become -the owner of coal-mines, or to consolidate with competing carriers, -or to give preference to any citizen. Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, -Colorado, and many other states have framed provisions to control -the abuse of industrial and highway power. The State of Washington -in its Constitution declares that "monopolies and trusts shall never -be allowed in this State," and it forbids any association "for the -purpose of fixing the price or limiting the production, or regulating -the transportation of any product or commodity." The manual of the -constitutions of the world prepared for the use of the New York -convention shows that fifteen of the states of the Union have in one -way or another recognized the revolution which has taken place in -the industrial economy of the people, and sought to meet it with the -necessary political safe-guards. - -When the delegates of the citizens of New York State meet in May, -1894, at Albany, in such a time to face such problems, the press -notes that a large proportion of them are corporation lawyers. The -place of president of the convention is secured by the chief counsel -of the oil trust. He is in Albany to resist the application to the -Attorney-General of the State to move for the forfeiture of the charter -of the principal corporation in the trust, and on his way he plucks the -presidency of the Constitutional Convention. "It is truly a momentous -event," he says in his opening speech, "when the delegates of many -millions of people gather together after an interval of fifty years -almost, for the purpose of revising and amending the fundamental law of -the State." The delegates thus momentously assembled, when they came to -choose the officer who was to wield over them a power as great as that -of the Speaker over the Federal House of Representatives, momentously -selected the most conspicuous attorney of the most conspicuous -embodiment of the forces with which the people are in conflict. The -president found words of kindly reference for many great questions--of -education, suffrage, city government, and the like--but for the great -questions of social power which fifteen states have found serious -enough for constitutional cognizance he had not a syllable. No plan or -even suggestion, great or little, for the new Constitution can reach -the convention direct. All must go to the appropriate committee, to be -smothered or reported, as the case may be. There are thirty of these -committees, and they are made up by the president of the convention, -who also designates their chairmen. Each committee has its subject, and -the subjects cover the bill of rights, the regulation of suffrage, the -control of corporations, the election of judges, future amendments of -the Constitution, and every other part of the organic law. Practically -the work of the convention will be the work of the committees, and the -committees are the work of one who is not only the attorney of the -oil trust, but is a part of the trust, a member of the organization. -"I happen to own one hundred shares in the Standard Oil Trust," he -said in his argument in Albany before the Attorney-General in behalf -of the trust. The trust has given formal notice that out of deference -to public opinion and the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and -in pursuance of an agreement with the late Attorney-General of New -York,[649] it had dissolved itself. But this distinguished member -disregards the dissolution, for reasons of personal convenience, as he -tells the Attorney-General. "I have never gone forward and claimed my -aliquot share." The character of this trust, of which the president -and organizer of the Constitutional Convention persists in being a -member to the extent of refusing to be "dissolved" out of it, has been -adjudicated. It was, the Supreme Court of Ohio said,[650] "organized -for a purpose contrary to the policy of our laws. Its object was to -establish a virtual monopoly ... throughout the entire country, and -by which it might not merely control the production but the price -at its pleasure. All such associations are contrary to the policy -of our State and void." A similar judgment has been passed upon the -trust by the judiciary of the State of which this president of the -Constitutional Convention, besides being an officer of the courts, -is a citizen. It was entered into, the Supreme Court of New York has -said,[651] "for the purpose of forming a combination whose object was -to restrict production, control prices, and suppress competition, and -the agreement was therefore opposed to public policy and void." And a -higher court, the highest in the State, the Court of Appeals, decided -in the sugar-trust, case that a trust was in avoidance and disregard of -the laws of the State. - -To the monopoly of oil, which was the starting-point, are being -added by its proprietors, one after the other, as we have shown, a -progressive series of other monopolies, from natural gas to iron. To -these assets is now to be added our bill of rights. The long fingers -of this power of mortmain reincarnate are long enough to reach from -its counting-room to the Constitutional Convention. The new Magna -Charta, to which the people look for help against void and unlawful -combinations, is to be drafted by committees made up by the attorney of -the chief of these void and unlawful combinations. The instrument which -is to protect the people against monopoly will come to them only after -every section has been exposed to the moulding touch of the greatest -monopoly in history. "This business belongs to us," and theirs is the -first and the last hand on the reins of the convention. The people can -vote on the Constitution after it is made, but the trust will see it -made. If the new Constitution is made so obnoxious that it is rejected, -as that of 1867 was, the old Constitution will do for the next fifty -years as for the last fifty. It is not monopoly that needs the revision. - -Is this the end? When before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the -head of the combination was asked: - -"The properties included in your trust are distributed all over the -United States, are they not?" - -"Oh, not all over the United States. They are distributed." - -"Are they not distributed, and are they not sufficiently numerous -to meet the requirements of your business from the Atlantic to the -Pacific, and from the Gulf to the northern boundary?" - -"Not yet."[652] - -The reply came in a tone and with a smile so significant that it was -answered by a comprehending laugh from the whole room--judges, lawyers, -reporters, spectators, and all. - -"Not yet!" - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - -"NOT BUSINESS" - - -This "business success" is the greatest commercial and financial -achievement of history. Its broad foundation was laid in the years -from 1872 to 1879, the severest time of panic for others the world -has known. A universal jaundice of ill-fortune has given its sallow -complexion to every one else. From the Alleghanies to the Caucasus -thousands of men have been somehow thrown out of work because so much -new work has come to the world. "At the flash of a telegraphic message -from Cleveland, Ohio," said the people of the oil regions in their -appeal to the Governor of Pennsylvania in 1878, "hundreds of men have -been thrown out of employment at a few hours' notice, and kept for -weeks in a state of semi-starvation." These men filled up many of the -insurrectionary ranks of the great railway strike of 1877, as the -employés of the Pennsylvania Railway declared in a public communication -at that time. The eight oil-producing counties of Pennsylvania were -said by the general council of the petroleum producers, in a public -address in 1879, to be "fast sinking beneath such financial distress -that resistance to threatened bankruptcy or servitude could not long -be made." They grew too poor to pay the counsel they employed to -help them in the courts, the legislatures, and before the executive -of Pennsylvania and Congress. "The universal complaint we find is -the poverty of the people, not their unwillingness to give." "I am -ashamed," said one of them in court, "to see our counsel every day on -account of the beggarly amounts I have paid them. A large number of -producers have subscribed that have not paid."[653] - -Men who were "frozen out" of their occupation in transporting or -refining oil took to digging wells. "That is the only thing they have -been allowed to do. They went on in a wild way, hunting new oil, and -when they found it they would develop it rapidly." This made oil fall -in price, and the more they produced the more they had to produce. The -wages of labor kept going down. They were lower in 1888 than they were -twenty-four years before. "A well-digger that I paid $6 a day and his -expenses twenty-four years ago is now working for $40 a month. That -is true of every department of the oil business so far as the wages -of workmen are concerned." "We were $10,000,000 poorer at the end of -1887 than at the beginning," said the association of oil producers of -Pennsylvania. Their executive committee the next year said the people -were on "the verge of bankruptcy."[654] - -The railroads were no happier than the laborers, the producers, the -manufacturers, or the merchants. As early as 1879 Vanderbilt II. -declared that the oil business of the railroads--worth $30,000,000 a -year--had been destroyed. - -"I think the business is gone."[655] - -In 1892 a number of refiners and producers of Pennsylvania, in a formal -appeal to Governor Pattison, asked him to investigate the causes -which were working "to the injurious depression if not the ultimate -destruction of a great industry." In the same year mutterings of a -turbulent discontent and threats of violence and the destruction of -property, repeating those of 1872, were heard again in Pennsylvania -and in Ohio, which had become an oil-producing State. "Many of the oil -producers," a member of their protective association in Ohio said, in -the spring of 1892, "are in a bad way. They are at that point that -they don't know just where their next sack of flour is coming from, and -I am not surprised at anything they may do." - -This area of low pressure, following the habit of American storms, made -itself felt abroad in bankruptcies and falling wages from Scotland -to Baku and beyond. Meanwhile the little nest-egg of nothing of the -group which came into the field in 1862 grew to $1,000,000 in 1870; to -$2,500,000 in 1872; to $3,500,000 in 1875; to $70,000,000 in 1882; and -in 1887 to a capital of $90,000,000, which the New York Legislature -reported in 1888, "according to the testimony of the trust's -president," to be worth "not less than $148,000,000."[656] Before -the trust was dissolved in name, in 1892, and the "trustees" betook -themselves to the greater seclusion of separate corporations, acting in -concert, its stock sold as high as 185, a valuation of $166,500,000 for -the whole. - -Its dividends had been $10,800,000 a year for several years. These -ducal incomes and the vaster sums accumulated as undivided profits -made themselves visible in the progressive _embonpoint_ of the -capitalization. In the six years (1876-81) preceding their taking the -veil as trustees their net earnings added up the total of $55,000,000. -In the next six years (to 1888) the dividends alone--not the net -earnings--were more than $50,000,000.[657] These did not absorb their -profits. In one year they spent $8,000,000 out of their profits for -construction, besides making the regular payments to stockholders.[658] - -"All this vast wealth," the New York Legislature said, "is the growth -of about twenty years; this property has more than doubled in value -in six years, and with this increase the trust has made aggregate -dividends during that period of over $50,000,000. It is one of the -most active," the report continued, "and possibly the most formidable -moneyed power on this continent."[659] - -"This is an immense property," says the Interstate Commerce -Commission," ... and it gives an immense power which is capable of -being so employed as to put all competitors at a great and perhaps -ruinous disadvantage."[660] - -For the first time the New York investigation of 1888 revealed that it -was only the beginning of the truth that these hundreds of millions -were controlled by "trustees." It now became known that some one or -more of the trustees owned personally more than half of every concern -in the trust, and of the best ones owned all. - -"These eight trustees control all these ninety millions of property -scattered over the United States?" the president of the trust was asked. - -"They have as trustees, and they have as individual owners both."[661] - -In corroboration of this testimony the trust furnished the New York -Senate Committee of 1888 a "list of corporations, the stocks of which -are wholly or partially held by the trustees of the Standard Oil -Trust." In this list, under the head of "New York State," appears -this: "Capital stock, $5,000,000. Standard Oil Company of New York, -manufacturers of petroleum products. Standard Oil Trust ownership, -entire."[662] But when the company was threatened with the forfeiture -of its charter by the proceedings before the Attorney-General in May, -1894, its president made oath as follows: "The Standard Oil Company of -New York never permitted its stock to be transferred to trustees."[663] - -Even this ownership by eight men is not the whole of the truth. The -eight trustees have a ruling power within themselves. An examination of -the personnel of the board at the beginning, middle, and end of its -career as a board shows four men always there. This agrees with the -remark reported in the press to have been made by the solicitor of the -trust upon its ostensible dissolution in 1892: "A majority of the stock -being held by four men." - -A friendly journal, the New York _Sun_, of April 25, 1889, in an -editorial paragraph concerning the wealth of one of the trustees, said: -"His regular income is twenty millions of dollars a year. That makes -him the richest man in the United States--perhaps the very richest in -the world." This is nearly three times the dividends paid in 1892 to -all its stockholders by the Bank of England. The Bank of England has -built up this earning power by two hundred years' work at the head of -the finances of the greatest empire of history. This American wins -thrice its dividend capability in less than a generation by contriving -and managing an institution which he says does not do any business. -Another entirely friendly paper, with sources of information of the -very best, put his income two years later at $30,000,000 a year.[664] -No denial of the _Sun's_ statement was attempted, and the _Sun_ never -withdrew or modified its figures. Shortly after the secretary of the -trust gave, in a public interview, a statement of the income of its -principal members. That of one of them he put at $9,000,000 a year; his -own at $3,000,000. - -This wealth is as much too vast for the average arithmetical -comprehension as the size of the dog-star, 400 times larger than the -sun. These incomes are sums which their fortunate owners could not -count as they received them. If they did nothing but stand all day at -the printing-presses of the Treasury Department while the millions -came uncrinkled out in crisp one-dollar greenbacks, or worked only at -catching the new dollars as they rolled out from the dies of the Mint, -they could not count them. If they worked eight hours a day, and six -days a week, and fifty-two weeks in the year, they could not count -their money. The dollars would come faster than their fingers could -catch them; the dollars would slip out of their clutch and fall to the -floor, and, piling up and up, would reach their knees, their middle, -their arms, their mouth, and Midas would be snuffed out in his own gold. - -Commodore Vanderbilt, Parton tells us, was forty-four years old before -he was worth $400,000. In the next thirty years he increased this to -over $100,000,000--perhaps twice that; no one knows. Vanderbilt had -to multiply this nest-egg of his forty-fourth year 250 times, but one -of these "trustees" will be a billionaire when he has turned himself -over only ten times. Poor's _Railroad Manual_ shows these men and their -associates to be presidents or directors in thousands of miles of -railroads, valued at hundreds of millions. Their names were prominent -in the railroad "deal" of 1892 and 1893, which had for its end to put -the whole of New England under one hand, controlling both its land -and water connections with the rest of the country. They stand at the -receipt of custom at the railroad gates to the oil regions; to the -coal-fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Illinois; -the copper, gold, and silver mines of the West; the iron mines of the -West and South; the turpentine forests and the lumber regions and -cotton fields; the food-producing areas of the Mississippi basin; the -grazing lands of the plains. They are owners in the principal steamship -line between America and Europe, and in the "whalebacks," which appear -destined to drive other models out of the freight traffic of the lakes, -and have begun to appear on the Eastern and Western oceans, to capture -the carrying business of the world. Every dollar for the construction -of a State building at the World's Fair was advanced by one of them, as -the principal journal of the State announced, and it referred to him as -"the man who breathes life into its East coast towns, and the lifting -of his pen by his hand is like turning upsidedown the horn of plenty." -They are "in" the best things--telegraphs, the gas supply of our large -cities, street-railways, steel mills, ship-yards, Canadian and American -iron mines, town sites. Ore dug out of their own iron mines at the -head of Lake Superior is carried over their own railroad to their own -furnaces and mills. It rolls along until that which began to move as -ore lies at the docks of their ship-yards as a finished vessel, cut -out of the mountains, as it were, at one cheap stroke, or is loaded in -the cars in some perfected shape of steel, as steam radiators or what -not. They feed entire mountain ranges into their mills with one hand, -and with the other despatch the product in their own cars and ships to -all markets. Betrayal, bankruptcy, broken hearts, and death have kept -quick step with the march of the conquerors in iron as in oil. They -are in the combination in anthracite coal, with which the acquisition -by an American syndicate of the Nova Scotia coal deposits is closely -connected. Theirs is the largest share in the natural-gas business -in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Indiana, Illinois. They are in the -combination which controls lead, from pig to white lead, and turpentine -and linseed-oil and paints. - -"Its members," it was said in the application to the Attorney-General -of New York, in 1894, for a forfeiture of one of their charters, "are -now presidents and directors in 33,000 miles of road, one-fifth of the -total mileage in the United States. Its surplus is invested in banking, -in natural and manufacturing gas companies, in iron ore beds and coal -beds and crude-oil production, in lead and zinc, in turpentine and -cotton-seed oil, in steel, in jute manufacture, in ocean steamships, in -palatial hotels, in street-railroads." - -Most of their interests are in public functions, railroads, pipe lines, -telegraphs, postal contracts, steamers, municipal franchises, and the -like; but it is impossible to know their full extent with our present -crude means for enforcing the truth that property is power and that -civilization endures no irresponsible anonymous power. The corporation -is an agency by which the capitalist can do business in ambuscade. -"They are all in our company," said the manager of a very important -public agency, "but their names do not appear." It is not out of -deference to the obsolete idea that such matters are private business -that all the details of their possessions are not given, but only -because they are not known. - -"There is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition," Daniel Webster -said; but he spoke of eloquence, not of the perfected modern commerce. -Selligue, the French genius to whose discoveries nothing of equal -importance has been added, is not dignified with an entry in the -encyclopædias or biographical dictionaries. For "Colonel" Drake, who -struck oil, a pension had to be provided by his friends in the regions -which he had filled with fountains of wealth. Mr. Van Syckel, who first -proved the pipe line to be practicable, died in Buffalo, paralytic, -helpless, and poor. - -The "age of oil" could not have come without the oil well and the drill -and derrick, and these in America are the lineal descendants of the -first salt well, drilled and whittled out of the rocks by the Ruffner -brothers, in 1806, in the "Great Buffalo Lick" of the Kanawha. Their -first "drill" was a great sycamore-tree, four feet through, hollowed -out, set on end on the ground in the lick, and gradually lowered as -the earth and stone within were dug away by a man inside. When they -came to the rock, which they could not blast because it was under -water, they hung a roughly-made iron drill by a rope to a spring pole -and went inch by inch through the rock, "kicking down" the well. Metal -tubes were not to be had, but the Yankee whittler solved the problem -of tubing the well. Two slender strips of wood were whittled into two -long, thin, half tubes, and tied together. This is the genesis of the -bored "well" and the "drill and derrick."[665] It took eighteen months -to accomplish this, but the wonder is that it was done at all "without -preliminary study, previous experience or training, without precedent, -in a newly-settled country without steam-power, machine-shop, skilled -mechanics, suitable tools or materials." - -These almost-forgotten men, shrewd, patient, undauntable, were the -pioneers of the skilful well-borers who have gone forth from the -Kanawha wells all over the country to bore wells for irrigation on -the Western plains, for cities, factories, and private use, for salt, -for gas, for geological and mineralogical explorations, and for -oil. "Billy Morris," of the Kanawha borings, invented a tool simple -enough, but not so simple as to be described here, called the "slips" -or "jars," which has done more for deep boring than anything except -the steam-engine, and for which, considering the part played in the -life of man by oil, gas, water, brine, and other wells, we are told -he "deserves to be ranked with the inventors of the sewing-machine, -reaper, and cotton-gin."[666] But "Uncle Billy" made a free gift to the -well-diggers of the world of his invaluable "slips," and slipped into -poverty and an unknown grave. To Joshua Merrill, more than to any one -else, belongs the honor of bringing the manufacture of oil in America -to its perfection.[667] He made better oil than any one else, and he -loved his work. "I was thirty-two years in the oil business. It was -the business of my life."[668] But he had to dismantle his refinery, -and join the melancholy procession of two thousand years of scouts, -inventors, pioneers, capitalists, and toilers who march behind the -successful men. - -Yet, strange to say, these successful men did not discover the oil, -nor how to "strike" it. They were not the lucky owners of oil lands. -As late as 1888 they produced only 200 barrels a day--about 1 in every -3000--"an infinitesimal amount," their president said.[669] They did -not invent any of the processes of refining. They did not devise the -pipe line, and they did all they could to prevent the building[670] -of the first pipe line to the seaboard, and to cripple the successful -experiment of piping refined oil.[671] They own all the important -refineries, and yet they have built very few. They did not project -the tank-car system, which came before them,[672] and have used their -irresistible power to prevent its general use on the railroads, and -successfully.[673] They were not the first to enter the field in any -department. They did not have as great capital or skill as their -competitors.[674] They began their career in the wrong place--at -Cleveland--out of the way of the wells and the principal markets, -necessitating several hundred miles more of transportation for all of -their product that was marketed in the East or Europe.[675] They had -no process of refining oil which others had not, and no legitimate -advantages over others.[676] They did not even invent the rebate. They -made oil poor[677] and scarce[678] and dear.[679] - -The power to chalk down daily on the black-board of the New York -Produce Exchange the price at which people in two hemispheres shall buy -their light has followed these strokes of "cheapness": - -1. Freight rates to the general public have been increased, often to -double and more what is paid by a favored few.[680] - -2. The construction has been resisted of new lines of transportation by -rail,[681] - -3. And pipe.[682] This has been done by litigation,[683] by influence, -by violence,[684] even to the threatened use of cannon,[685] and by -legislation, as in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to prevent the right of -eminent domain from being given by "free pipe-line bills" to the people -generally. - -4. The cost of pipeage has been raised.[686] - -5. Rivers and canals have been closed.[687] - -6. Oil has been made to run to waste on the ground.[688] - -7. The outflow of oil from the earth has been shut down.[689] - -8. The outflow of human energy that sought to turn it to human use has -been shut down by restricting the manufacture by the combination and by -others, by contract,[690] dismantling,[691] and explosion.[692] - -9. High fees have been maintained for inspection,[693] and the -inspectors have been brought into equivocal relations with the -monopoly.[694] - -10. The general use of tank-cars and tank-steamers has been -prevented.[695] - -11. The people have been excluded from the free and equal use of the -docks, storehouses, and other terminal facilities of the railroads in -the great harbors of export.[696] - -12. Inventors and their better processes have been smothered.[697] - -13. Men have been paid more for spying than they could earn by -working.[698] - -14. "Killing delay" has been created in the administration of -justice.[699] - -All are poorer--oil-producers, land-owners, all labor, all the -railroads, all the refiners, merchants, all the consumers of oil--the -whole people. Less oil has flowed, less light shone, and there has -been less happiness and virtue. In every one of the few intervals, -says Hudson, during which oil could flow freely to Pittsburg, all the -businesses connected with it were active and expanding.[700] - -When the trust's secretary was asked for the proper name of the -combination, his reply was: "The Lord only knows; I don't." "An -indescribable thing," he said again.[701] - -"Do you understand the practical work of refining as a refiner?" he was -asked. - -"I do not.... I have not been inside a refinery in ten years."[702] - -"Two mills a ton a mile for five hundred miles would be a dollar a ton?" - -"I am not able to demonstrate that proposition." - -"You have some arithmetical knowledge?" - -"I cannot answer that question."[703] - -He could not state what proportion of the oil trade is now controlled -by the trust. He had never looked into that question. He did not know -who knows these things.[704] - -"You own the pipe line to New York?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"What does it cost you to do business on that pipe line?" - -"I do not know anything about it.... I have never been in the oil -regions but once in my life.... I am not a practical oil man.... For -perhaps eight years I have given absolutely no attention to the details -of our business."[705] - -Asked upon another occasion, before the Pennsylvania Legislature, about -the accounts of the company when he was its secretary, he said: - -"I am not familiar with the accounts."[706] - -"I am a clamorer for dividends. That is the only function I have," said -another trustee.[707] - -"When was your last rate given you, the rate at which you are now being -carried (on the New York Central)?" - -"I could not tell."[708] - -The secretary had testified that this associate attended to getting the -rates of freight; but the latter avowed that he could not remember "any -rate" that he had paid "at any time." But a little later he who could -not remember any rate he had ever paid was able to tell the committee, -off-hand, the exact rate of freight on oil by steamer from Batoum in -Russia to Liverpool, and knew the rate from the wells at Baku by rail -to the sea at Batoum![709] - -"Had you ever been interested in the refinery of oil in any manner when -you first became connected with the oil business?" another trustee was -asked. - -"Never." - -"Or the production of oil?" - -"Never." - -He was a railroad man, and had been taken into the combination for his -value as such; but when he was asked if he could tell any of the rates -of freight his company had paid, he said: - -"I cannot."[710] - -"What is your business and where do you reside?" another of the -trustees was asked by the State of New York. - -"I decline to answer any question until I can consult counsel."[711] - -"What is the capital stock?" was asked of another. - -"I do not know." - -"How much has the capital been increased since?" - -"I don't know." - -"Where are the meetings of the Standard Oil Company held?" - -"I don't know." - -"How many directors are there?" - -"I don't know." - -"Do they own any pipe lines?" - -"I don't know." - -"I don't know anything about the rates of transportation."[712] - -"What quantity of oil was exported by the different concerns with which -you were connected from the port of New York in 1881?" the president -was asked. - -"I do not know." - -"How many millions of barrels of oil were refined by such concerns in -the vicinity of New York in 1881?" - -"I don't know how much was refined." - -"Did not the concern with which you were so connected purchase over -8,000,000 barrels of crude petroleum in 1881?" - -"I am unable to state." - -He was asked to give the name of one refinery in this country, running -at the time (1883), not owned or substantially controlled by his -concern. "I decline to answer."[713] - -He was asked if he would say the total profits of his trust's companies -for the last year (1887) were not as much as $20,000,000. - -"I haven't the least knowledge on that subject."[714] - -Phrenologists are right. Memory is not to be ranked with the mental -attributes of the highest importance. The head of the New York Central -could not tell when a stock dividend of something like $46,000,000 had -been declared on one of his railroads--and a $46,000,000 dividend is -something worth remembering. "I don't know.... I don't remember."[715] -It is lucky for the rest of us that these great men forget something. - -One of the chiefs of the oil combination was a witness in Cleveland in -1887 in a suit by the State of Ohio against certain railroads. - -"What business in connection with the oil business is done in the -building in which the oil trust has its office in New York?" - -"I do not think I could state just what business is done in that -building, I am sure." - -Asked on the witness-stand in the Buffalo explosion case when it was he -formed the "trust" with $70,000,000 of capital, the president replied: -"I am unable to state," and he could not say where its articles of -agreement were, nor who has control of it. When questioned before the -Interstate Commission he could not tell within $25,000,000 how much -business they were doing a year.[716] - -These men keep no books. The whole arrangement is just a happy family, -like Barnum's monkeys, birds, cats, dogs, and mice in the same -cage. "It is a business of faith," one of the ruling four puts it. -Another was asked about the by-laws under which he and his associates -transacted their business. "I don't know that I have seen a copy," he -replied, and as to where it was he was able only to "suppose."[717] - -When the committee of the Legislature called for the books recording -the transactions of the trust and its attorneys and committees, there -were practically none to produce. All there was in the way of a record -of transactions of a magnitude beyond those of any other commercial -institution in this country or the world were a few pages of formal -entries from which nothing could be learned. The executive committee -received and passed upon the disbursements of money by the treasurer, -and the reports of sub-committees and of members, who had sweeping -powers of attorney, by which these countless millions were kept rolling -themselves up into more, but it never kept any records. - -"I have no knowledge of any formal record having been made," one of -them said. The reports were "either verbal or on pieces of paper.... -I think it was memorandums," he continued, and the memorandums were -"undoubtedly destroyed." They were transcribed into the records of the -trustees, he said, but the search of the committee showed that the -transcription was a "skeleton," consisting mainly of the mere phrase, -"Minutes of the executive committee approved." "The real minutes do not -appear upon the book," Senator Ives, of the committee, said. - -"There is no book to produce?" - -"There is no book." - -"And there is no memorandum?" - -"There is no memorandum."[718] - -"Does the trust keep books?" the "president" was asked by Congress. - -"No, we have no system of book-keeping." - -On further pressure he said that the treasurer had "a record to know -what money comes in." - -"You have never seen those books?" - -"I do not think I have ever seen those books." - -"Has any member of the nine" (trustees) "ever seen those books?" - -"I do not know that they have."[719] - -Simplicity is said to be always a characteristic of greatness. What -could be simpler, and so greater, than this? The elements of success -are only-- - -1. Not to know anything about the business. - -2. To keep no books. - -3. To have "a record to know what money comes in," and - -4. Never to look at it. - -Finally, the operations of these men have, in their own language, not -been "business." Its secretary told Congress that the "trust" was "not -a business corporation,"[720] and an associate declared in court that -it "cannot do business." The report of the New York Legislature shows -that on October 3, 1883, the president had by a formal instrument been -made the attorney of the trust to sign and execute all the contracts -made by it. The same instrument in express terms confirmed the -execution of contracts heretofore signed by him, showing that he had -been making contracts.[721] - -"Those gentlemen" (the members of the trust who hold its power of -attorney) "do actually execute contracts involving pretty large -amounts, sometimes without a formal resolution of the Board of -Trustees, do they not?" one of them was asked. - -"Undoubtedly they do."[722] - -Following their employers, the lawyers in the Pennsylvania Tax case for -the oil combination argued that its operations were not business within -the meaning of the tax law. If the "no money" of 1862 has become the -control, in one industry alone, of $160,000,000 in 1892 by methods that -are not "business," what are they? - - NOTE.--The principal members of the oil combination were heard - at great length in its defence before the committee of Congress - investigating trusts in 1888.[723] Their testimony has been frequently - used in our pages. But they felt that their case needed further - elucidation, and asked the committee to hear them again. The committee - declined to hear them again "explain or contradict," as they offered - to do, but by printing their communication gave them the benefit of - their denials and explanations.[724] Their offer was mainly to go - again over the ground that the "South Improvement Company never did - any business," that the combination "obtained no preferences" on the - railroads, that they had cheapened transportation, improved machinery, - made better oil at less cost, and so on. The chief officers and owners - had been heard on all these points to the extent of hundreds of pages - of testimony. But though it did not recall them to the witness-stand, - the committee, in addition to printing their communication, printed - most of the documentary evidence they desired to submit. This covered - nearly two hundred pages more.[725] - - The examination, which any one can make, of this record discloses an - interesting fact concerning the proof, and the trust's offer to prove, - which can best be shown in parallel columns: - - - TRUST'S OFFER TO PROVE. | THE PROOF. - | - It offered the evidence of the third|But the testimony of this witness - vice-president of the Pennsylvania |states that his connection with - Railroad to "show the South |the oil business of the Pennsylvania - Improvement Company never did any |Railroad--the principal railroad in - business, and its charter was |that scheme--did not begin until - repealed in 1872." |1873.[726] - | - It offered the same evidence to |But this witness stated that his - prove that the same rebates granted |road would give other shippers as - it by the contract of October 17, |low rates as to the oil combination, - 1877, "were also granted to every |"if they would guarantee the same - shipper who contracted to do _all_ |quantity--not otherwise--under that - his business over the Pennsylvania |contract";[727] and the contract - Railroad." |itself states that no other shipper - |should have the same rebate - |--"commission," it is called--unless - |his business gave the road "the same - |amount of profit you realized from - |our trade."[728] No shipper could get - |the same rates by giving "all his - |business." He must give "the same - |quantity"--a totally different - |proposition. - | - It offered the evidence taken in the|The evidence shows that this was - Buffalo Explosion case, to show that|what was sworn to: "I have now a - "C.B. Matthews testified falsely" |detective agency here" (Buffalo). "I - in testifying that it was sworn to |employed L---- B----. At the time - that the members of the oil |he was in my employ he was employed - combination on trial employed |at the works of the Buffalo - detectives in Matthews' refineries, |Lubricating Company" (Matthews' - and that the detective was some time|company). "He made reports to me.... - in Matthews' employ, and made his |I forwarded copies--one to New - report to the lawyer of the trust, |York, one to Rochester.... The one - and he got his pay from this lawyer.|forwarded to New York was addressed - |to" (the lawyer of the oil - |trust). "I met" (this lawyer, naming - |him) "at New York City, at No. 44 - |Broadway, which is the office of the" - |(oil trust). "I received my pay from" - |(him). "My instructions from" (him) - |"were in writing."[729] - | - It offered "to prove that C.B. |This was what "was proved by a - Matthews testified falsely in saying|witness," and referred to by - that it was proved by a witness" |Matthews. - that the Rochester representative of|"He" (the Rochester representative - the oil combination said that the |of the oil combination) - principal company in it "would sue |"said he thought they" (Matthews' - Matthews once a month, or once a |company) "would not survive.... By - week, if necessary, to squeeze him |the time they got through with all - out." |the suits that they" (the oil - |combination) "would bring, the - |Buffalo Lubricating Company would - |be pretty much used up.... He didn't - |know as they would gain anything - |really, but they would embarrass them - |by bringing these suits, and if it - |was necessary they would bring them - |once a month--yes, they would bring - |them once a week."[730] - - Similarly, throughout, the trust's offer to prove falls when - confronted with its own proof. Many more instances could be given, but - more than one instance is not needed. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - -THE SMOKELESS REBATE - - -With searching intelligence, indomitable will, and a conscience which -makes religion, patriotism, and the domestic virtues but subordinate -paragraphs in a ritual of money worship, the mercantile mind flies -its air-line to business supremacy. That entirely modern social -arrangement--the private ownership of public highways--has introduced a -new weapon into business warfare which means universal dominion to him -who will use it with an iron hand. - -This weapon is the rebate, smokeless, noiseless, invisible, of -extraordinary range, and the deadliest gun known to commercial warfare. -It is not a lawful weapon. Like the explosive bullet, it is not -recognized by the laws of war. It has to be used secretly. All the -rates he got were a secret between himself and the railroads. "It has -never been otherwise," testified one of the oil combination.[731] The -Chevalier Bayard declared proudly, as he lay on his death-bed, that he -had never given quarter to any one so degraded and unknightly as to -use gunpowder. Every one would close in at once to destroy a market -combatant who avowed that he employed this wicked projectile. - -The apparatus of the rebate is so simple that it looks less like a -destroying angel than any weapon of offence ever known. The whole -battery consists only of a pen and ink and some paper. The discharge is -but the making of an entry--but the signing of a check. But when the -man who commands this simple enginery directs it against a business -competitor you can follow the track of wreckage like the path of a -cyclone, by the ruins which lie bleaching in the air for years. The -gentlemen who employ it give no evidence of being otherwise engaged -than in their ordinary pursuits. They go about sedate and smiling, with -seemingly friendly hands empty of all tools of death. But all about -them as they will, as if it were only by wish of theirs which attendant -spirits hastened to execute, rivals are blown out of the highways, busy -mills and refineries turn to dust, hearts break, and strong men go mad -or commit suicide or surrender their persons and their property to the -skilful artillerists. - -"And in the actual practice of daily life," says Ruskin, "you will find -that wherever there is secrecy, there is either guilt or danger." "When -did you discover the fact that these rebates had been paid?" one of the -victims was asked. - -"We never discovered it as a fact until the testimony was taken in -1879.... We always suspected it; but we never knew of it of our -personal knowledge, and never would really have known it of our -personal knowledge.... I had no idea of the iniquity that was going -on."[732] - -Nothing so demolishing was ever so delicate and intangible as this, for -its essence is but a union of the minds of a railroad official and some -business friend, perhaps a silent partner, bent on business empire. The -model merchant, fortunate in having a friend willing so to use a power -sovereigns would not dare to use, walks the public way, strong in his -secret, and smiles with triumph as all at whom he levels his invisible -wand sicken and disappear. "He has the receipt of fern-seed. He walks -invisible." - -Men who hunt their fellow-men with this concealed weapon always deny -it, as they must. To use it has always been a sin, and has been made a -crime in every civilized State. Under United States law it is, since -1887, an offence punishable with imprisonment in the penitentiary.[733] -Moral ideals are not born in legislatures. When an act attains by a -law the distinction of being made a crime, it is already well on its -way to extinction. It is made infamous by law, because it has already -become infamous before the conscience and honor of men. It was not the -prohibition of highway privilege by the Constitution of Pennsylvania or -the laws of the United States which made the rebate an iniquity. This -legal volley is but a salute to the established conscience. - -The question most often pressed before all the many legislative and -judicial inquests held upon the dead bodies which strew every field of -the oil industry has been whether the extraordinary powers which the -invention of the locomotive and the transformation of public highways -into private property had given railways over the livelihoods of the -people had been used to make it impossible for any but a preferred few -to live. - -One of the successful men disposed of the evidence that these powers -had been so used by styling it before the committee of Congress of -1888 as the "worst balderdash," and before the New York Legislative -Committee of 1888 as "irresponsible newspaper statements," "a malignity -and mendacity that is little short of devilishness." The secretary of -the oil trust waved it away as "all this newspaper talk and flurry." -The president knows nothing about the existence of such privileges, -except that he has "heard much of it in the papers." And yet another of -the trust in the _North American Review_ of February, 1883, similarly -describes the accusation as "uncontradicted calumny," to which, he -regrets to say, "several respectable journals and magazines lent -themselves." - -After taking 3700 pages of evidence and sitting for months, the -committee of 1879 of the New York Legislature said in their report: -"The history of this corporation is a unique illustration of the -possible outgrowth of the present system of railroad management in -giving preferential rates, and also showing the colossal proportions to -which monopoly can grow under the laws of this country.[734] ... The -parties whom they have driven to the wall have had ample capital and -equal ability in the prosecution of their business in all things save -their ability to acquire facilities for transportation."[735] - -The committee of the Ohio Legislature which took the evidence of the -treatment of the Marietta independents by the railroads[736] is, so far -as the author knows, the only body of all the legislative and judicial -tribunals that have been investigating for the past thirty years which -has found the relations of the railroads and the oil combination to -be proper. It used the words "public," "uniform," "in accordance -with law," "equitable," "no special discriminations or privileges" -to describe the conduct of the common carriers in that case. But in -doing so it had to except from these exculpations the railroad which -originated the attack on the independent refiners, and the rates of -which controlled the others, as it was the initial road. It had also -to admit that the oil combination had received "better rates," but -defended them on the ground that its shipments were larger. These two -exceptions are doors wide enough to admit every possibility of the -rebate. The Secretary of State for Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania -made an investigation in 1878 on the complaint of citizens. He reported -to the Attorney-General that no case had been made out "beyond the -ordinary province of individual redress." He was hung in effigy by -the citizens, and the evidence he took remains, like that of the Ohio -Committee of 1879, a valuable repository of facts from which students -can draw their own conclusions. - -More than any others the wrongs of the oil industry provoked the -investigations by Congress from 1872 to 1887, and caused the -establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and more than -any others they have claimed the attention of the new law and the -new court. The cases brought before it cover the oil business on -practically every road of any importance in the United States--in -New England, the Middle States, the West, the South, the Pacific -coast; on the great East and West trunk roads--the Pennsylvania, the -Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central, and all their -allied lines; on the transcontinental lines--the Union Pacific, -the Central Pacific, the Southern Pacific; on the steamship and -railroad association controlling the South and Southwest. They show -that from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the -Gulf of Mexico, wherever the American citizen seeks an opening in -this industry, he finds it, like the deer forests and grouse moors -of the old country, protected by game-keepers against him and the -common herd. The terms in which the commission have described the -preferences given the oil combination are not ambiguous: "Great -difference in rates," "unjust discrimination," "intentional disregard -of rights," "unexcused," "a vast discrepancy," "enormous," "illegal," -"excessive,"[737] "extraordinary," "forbidden by the act to regulate -commerce,"[738] "so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no -discussion of it is necessary," "wholly indefensible," "patent and -provoking discriminations for which no rational excuse is suggested," -"obnoxious," "disparity ... absurd and inexcusable," "gross -disproportions and inequalities,"[739] "long practised," "the most -unjust and injurious discrimination ... and this discrimination inured -mostly to the benefit of one powerful combination."[740] - -This was what the Interstate Commerce Commission found all along the -record from 1887 to 1893. When one of those who got the benefits so -characterized was before the New York Legislature in 1888, he said: - -"I know of no discrimination in the oil traffic of any kind since the -passage of the Interstate Commerce Act." - -"Do you use any means for the purpose of avoiding the effect of that -new law?" - -"None whatever."[741] - -But the people have found that the explicit prohibitions of the -Interstate Commerce law were of no more protection to them than -the equally explicit prohibitions given long before by the State -constitutions and laws, the common law of the court, and by the still -older common law of right, which the statute was created to enforce. -The "unjust," "enormous," "illegal" differences in freights by which -the public was excluded were got from the railroads after, as before, -Congress, obedient to an aroused and universal demand, had passed a -special statute and created a special tribunal to prevent and punish -this special sort of crime. This is the adjudicated fact. - -This "uncontradicted calumny," "worst balderdash," "malignity -and mendacity," "irresponsible newspaper statements" proves upon -examination to be: - -1. Testimony of unimpeached and in many cases uncontradicted witnesses, -given under oath in legislative investigations and in court, subject to -examination and cross-examination and rebuttal. - -2. Reports of State legislative committees. - -3. Copies of the contracts.[742] - -4. Decision of courts, State and national.[743] - -The South Improvement plan of 1872 is still in unrelenting operation, -according to the latest news. A case is now pending before the -Interstate Commerce Commission,[744] in which charges of highway abuse -even more sensational than any of those we have seen judicially proved -are made against the thirty railroads by which the oil of Ohio, -Pennsylvania, and New York reaches the Pacific coast. A San Francisco -oil dealer is the petitioner for relief. He recites the discriminations -given the oil combination on the Pacific coast before the Interstate -Commerce law was enacted. These were admitted by the officials of -the roads before the United States Pacific Railway Commission of -1887. The traffic managers of the Southern Pacific testified that -the oil combination, "from the time it acquired the oil business on -this coast, had lower rates than the general tariff provided, or than -other shippers paid on coal oil."[745] The general freight agent of -the Central Pacific Railroad admitted that his road had the same -arrangement, and had accepted the business "at rates dictated" by the -oil combination.[746] The general traffic manager of the Union Pacific -Railroad said: - -"We have paid them a good deal in rebates." It was a "pretty large" -preference. - -"What was the effect on the small dealer?" - -"I should think it would be embarrassing to the small shipper!"[747] - -When the Interstate Commerce law went into force the oil combination -introduced a patented car for the transcontinental trade, which -it claimed the sole right to use. Though the new car was to the -disadvantage of the railroads, as it cost more to haul, the managers -gave it lower rates than any other car and carried it back free, while -they punished the shippers who gave them a lighter and better car by -charging them $105 for carrying that back. - -The San Francisco complainant goes on to charge that a plan was -concocted and put in operation by which rates were lowered whenever the -combination wanted to fill its warehouses on the Pacific coast, and as -soon as they were full were put back again. This lowering and raising -of rates was "to the public sudden and unexpected."[748] It was known -in advance only to the ring and the railroads. Before other shippers -could take advantage of the low rates they would be raised again. The -complaint recites that in pursuance of this plan, after the combination -had transferred to the Pacific coast at the end of 1888 from its -Eastern refineries all it needed for the next season's business, the -railroads advanced the rates from 82-1/2 cents a hundred pounds to -$1.25. The next May the railroads made a similar seesaw, and, he says, -in December, 1892, "are still making ... such arbitrary and sudden -reductions ... to the undue advantage" of the oil combination "and to -the detriment and injury of all other shippers." The San Francisco -merchant also charges that in the interest of the Eastern refineries -of the combination rates are made to prevent the large product of the -oil-fields and independent refineries of Colorado and Wyoming from -reaching the Pacific coast, "which needs them to furnish fuel for its -manufactories, as well as for light for its residents." Similarly we -find the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad charging $105 for a car-load -of cattle from Wyoming to Chicago, while for a car of 75 barrels of -oil the freight would be $348. In connection with these charges the -press published the telegrams, filling columns, which were said to have -passed between the officials of the railroads and the oil combination -in the negotiation of this arrangement. In one of these telegrams the -freight agent of the Southern Pacific explains the new deal. "He" (the -agent of the oil combination) "would stock up at the low rate, then -notify the association of railroads when to advance." The advance or -decline was to be "made at certain seasons of the year in accordance -with this supply on hand." When the negotiation was finished and the -plan was agreed to, a San Francisco agent of the oil combination is -said to have telegraphed to its officers in New York: "I think we have -managed this freight business pretty well from this long distance, -especially when you think that we have secured the 90-cent rate with -which to stock up from time to time." His telegram also discloses -that the arrangement extended to lead and linseed-oil, showing, what -is well known, that the combinations in these articles belong to the -members of that in oil. These charges are, it is to be remembered, -still unadjudicated, this published evidence is not yet substantiated. -But the arrangement which is charged is in exact pursuance of that -part of the South Improvement Company contract which bound the -railroads to "lower or raise the gross rates of transportation ... -for such times and to such extent as may be necessary to overcome -... competition."[749] And Attorney-General Olney has been publicly -informed[750] that during the summer of 1894 oil rates between -Pennsylvania and Colorado were put down from 75 cents a hundred to 25 -cents, and a few weeks later raised again to the old rate. Another -increase made the rates to Denver higher, for oil, than to the Pacific -coast. He has been asked to ascertain, judicially, if this shuffling -of rates was not made, like that complained of before the Interstate -Commerce Commission, to allow the oil trust "to stock up at the old -rate." His informants suggest that the same powers with which he has -brought railway employés to trial for infractions of the Interstate -Commerce law can be used against the railways. - -This is not all of the story. This patented car spoken of was a mere -aggregation of old elements, as the courts held, and the patent was -void. Advised by their lawyer that this would be the view the courts -would have to take, competitors of the combination in the business of -the Pacific coast, where they had been at the head until these new -tricks of trade came in, introduced a car of their own of the same -class. They thus became entitled to the same low rates and the same -free return of the car as their powerful rival. This put them again -on an equality in transportation. They had not been using these new -cars long before two of them, shipped as usual from the East, failed -to arrive. Their search for the missing cars put them in possession of -the interesting information that a litigation, of which they had had -no notice or knowledge whatever, had for some time been in progress, -and was at that moment at the point of decision. As their interests -had been entirely unrepresented, this decision would certainly have -been against them, and would have forever made impossible the use of -their cars on any railroad of the United States. This had been done -by an apparently hostile litigation by the oil combination against -the Southern Pacific Railroad. The former sued in the United States -courts for an injunction to forbid the railroad from hauling the -cars of the competitor, on the ground that they were an infringement -on its own patented cars. No notice was given the persons most -interested--the owners of the cars in question--whose business life -was involved, and they were not at first made parties to the suit. -The dummy defendant--the railroad--made no valid opposition, but with -great condescension admitted that all the averments of its antagonist -were true. The case was sent through the courts on a gallop to get -a decision. After that the merchants whose cars were the object of -the attack, as they had not been parties to the case, could not have -it reopened, and it would stand against them without possibility of -reversal. The firm found that a temporary injunction had been applied -for and had been granted; that this had been followed by proceedings to -make the injunction perpetual; that subpoenas had been issued, served, -and returned, and an order had been obtained from the court for taking -testimony. In place of the regular examiner of the court, a special -examiner had been appointed; he had begun taking evidence the same -day, and taking it privately. The testimony so taken had been sealed -and filed. The railroad had made its answer December 2d, the testimony -already taken was filed in court December 3d, making the case complete -for decision by the judges. December 4th the firm heard for the first -time of what was being done, and December 5th applied for the right to -take part, which saved them. To get such cases ready for a hearing in -the United States Circuit Court, where this was done, usually requires -a year. But in this instance it was done in two weeks! Only just as -the door of the court was closing irrevocably, as far as their rights -were concerned, did the firm get inside, and secure leave to have -their side represented. The whole fabric of the litigation fell at the -first touch. The temporary injunction against the use of their car was -dissolved, the permanent injunction was refused, the patent of the oil -trust's car was declared worthless, and this decision was upheld by the -United States Circuit Court of Appeals in February, 1893.[751] - -Meanwhile their oil, side-tracked in the Mojave Desert and elsewhere, -was being cooked to death, their customers were going elsewhere, and -they were being put to loss and damages which they are now suing to -have made good to them. "There are some equivocal circumstances in -the case," said Judge Hoffman, dissolving the injunctions in 1890. He -pointed out that the railroad made no objection to the injunction which -deprived it of business. This "tends to corroborate suspicions," he -said, suggested by other features of the case. The railroad persisted -in remaining in the case to the end, after the real parties in interest -came in, and, although codefendants with these parties, the road -manoeuvred for the benefit of the other side in a way which the Court -again said "had an equivocal appearance." The counsel for the firm, -in his brief for the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, pointed -out more causes for "suspicion." He showed the Court that the records -of the case had been mutilated in many places. All the mutilations -were in favor of the other side of the case. Who was the author of -the mutilations was not shown, but it was shown that the record had -been intrusted by the lower court to a representative of one of the -oil trust, to be printed and delivered to the Court of Appeals. "It -would be a very easy matter for a vicious attorney," said the lawyer -of the independents, "under such circumstances, to make changes -and alterations in the record that might not be noticed, but would -nevertheless greatly prejudice the case." - -When the victims of the smokeless rebate used the only property many -of them had left--their right of appeal to courts or Legislature -or executive officials--they were showered with abuse, as people -with "private grievances,"[752] "strikers and sore-heads," -"black-mailers,"[753] "moss-backs," ... "naturally left in the lurch" -... "people who came forward with envy and jealousy of the success" -of the oil combination,[754] "throttlers," "ravenous wolves," "hoary -old reprobate," "senile old liar," "public till-tapper," "plunderers," -"pestilence."[755] Such are a few of the blossoms of rhetoric -with which those who sought their rights in courts or before the -Legislature have been crowned. These witnesses have come forward all -through the period between 1872 and 1892, and from every point of -importance in the industry--New York, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Oil City, -San Francisco, Titusville, Philadelphia, Marietta, Buffalo, Boston, -Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans. They have come from every -province of the industry--the refineries, the oil fields, the pipe -lines, railroads, the wholesale and retail markets. Bound together -by no common tie of organization or partnership, they have, each and -all, exactly the same kind of story to tell. The substance of their -complaint--that one selected knot of men, members of one organization, -were given, unlawfully, the control of the highways, to the exclusion -and ruin of the people--has been sustained by the evidence taken by -every official investigation, and by the decision of every court to -which the facts have been submitted. - -As the counsel of the New York Chamber of Commerce before the New York -Legislative Committee of 1879 said: "Such a power makes it possible to -the freight agents of the railways to constitute themselves special -partners in every line of business in the United States, contributing -as their share of capital to the business the ability to crush out -rivals." Men who can choose which merchants, manufacturers, producers -shall go to market and which stay at home, have a key that will unlock -the door of every business house on the line; they know the combination -of every safe. - -In their appeal to the executive of Pennsylvania, the Petroleum -Producers' Union refer to the conduct of the railroad officials as -"inexplicable upon any ordinary hypothesis, or under any known theory -of railroad politics."[756] What the railroad managers did, we know; -why they did it, has never been judicially demonstrated. One of the -earliest intimations of the kind of lubricant used was given by the -anti-monopoly leader of the people in the Constitutional Convention -of Pennsylvania of 1872, who is now the legal leader of the oil -combination. He said: "I am told that discriminations are now made to -so great an extent as to be ruinous to certain companies unless the -railroad companies' officers are given a bonus. That is the evil under -which we labor. I do not know how to cure it, but it must be cured -somehow." Again he said: "It is charged--I do not make the charge -myself--but it is charged upon a railroad company running through the -oil regions that it will not, without delay, transport oil delivered to -the railroad station by the various pipe lines unless it is interested -in the pipe line.... It is said that whenever a new pipe line is -built, it is necessary that somebody connected with the particular -railroad company shall be presented with stock in the pipe line; -otherwise, it (the railroad company) will not furnish cars without -tedious and unnecessary delay. This is a discrimination which should be -stopped."[757] - -It is plain that the purpose of the discrimination was something -more than to shunt the control of the trade--more than "to maintain -the business" of the favorite. Ten cents a barrel difference would -have done that, for, as the Supreme Court of Ohio pointed out, that -alone amounted to a tax of 21 per cent. a year on the capital of the -"outsiders."[758] When 10 cents was enough, why was the tax made -22-1/2 cents, 25 cents, 64-1/2 cents up to $1.10? - -Some railroad men are known to have been stockholders in the oil -combination. "I think I owned--I guess I had $100,000 in it.... I don't -know anything at all about it"--the company--the head of the New York -Central admitted.[759] Who were the owners of certain shares of their -capital stock these men have always refused to divulge. In giving in -court a list of stockholders of one of their corporations one of the -officers uncovered only three-quarters of the stock. Who held the other -fourth he avowed he could not say, although the stock-book was in his -custody.[760] The dividends were paid to the vice-president, and by -him handed over to these veiled prophets. There was a similar mystery -about the owners of about $2,000,000 of the National Transit stock, the -concern which owns and manages the pipe lines. Asked for the names of -the owners of this portion, the "secretary" said: - -"It is a private matter.... I decline to answer."[761] - -The president of this pipe-line branch also refused to give Congress -this information.[762] This secrecy will couple itself at once in the -mind of the investigator with the charges just quoted, that railroad -officials had to be given backsheesh of pipe-line stock before their -roads would carry the oil of the pipe lines. - -The United States Senate Committee which investigated the cattle and -meat monopolies had a similar experience. Their report says: "The -secretary of the Union Stockyards testified at Chicago that when the -company was established the stock was subscribed by the railroads; but -when asked to show his stock-books he declined, after consultation with -the company's attorneys, and persisted in this refusal at Washington -City. For the purposes of our investigation it was not considered -necessary to ascertain in whose names the stock now stands, for we -were satisfied that whatever the ownership it would not appear in the -names of the railroad presidents, directors, and stockholders, who -are the real owners.... The refusal of the secretary, under direction -of his employers, to make public the list of stockholders must have -been because of the fact that the same men own the stockyards and the -railroads running to them, and they do not propose to submit their -books to scrutiny because they dread the truth.... This extraordinary -conduct on the part of the stockyards company is not alone in the chain -of evidence which shows complicity between the stockyards and the -railroads."[763] - -The smokeless rebate makes the secret of success in business to -be not manufacture, but manufracture--breaking down with a strong -hand the true makers of things. To those who can get the rebate it -makes no difference who does the digging, building, mining, making, -producing the million forms of the wealth they covet for themselves. -They need only get control of the roads. All that they want of the -wealth of others can be switched off the highways into their hands. -To succeed, ambitious men must make themselves refiners of freight -rates, distillers of discriminations, owners, not of lands, mines, and -forests--not in the first place, at least--but of the railway officials -through whose hands the produce must go to market; builders, not of -manufactories, but of privileges; inventors only of schemes to keep for -themselves the middle of the road and both sides of it; contrivers, not -of competition, but of ways to tax the property of their competitors -into their pockets. They need not make money; they can take it from -those who have made it. - -In the United States the processes of business feudalization are moving -more rapidly to the end than in any other country. In Chicago, the -youngest of the great cities of the youngest of the great nations, -there are fewer wholesale dry-goods stores in 1894 for a population of -1,600,000 than there were in 1860 for 112,172. In almost every one of -the meteoric careers by which a few men in each trade are rising to -supreme wealth, it will generally be found that to some privilege on -the railed highways, accomplished by the rebate, is due the part of -their rise which is extraordinary. A few cases of great wealth from -the increased value of land, a few from remarkable inventions like the -sewing-machine, are only exceptions. - -From using railroad power to give better rates to the larger man, it -was an easy step to using it to make a favorite first a larger man, -then the largest man, and finally the only man in the business. In -meat and cattle we see men rising from poverty to great wealth. From -being competitors, like other men, in the scramble, they get into the -comfortable seat of control of the prices at which the farmer must sell -cattle, and at which the people must buy meat.[764] Many other men -had thrift, sobriety, industry, but only these had the rebate, and so -only these are the "fittest in the struggle for existence." We find a -merchant prince of the last generation in New York gathering into his -hands a share of the dry-goods business of the country which appears -entirely disproportionate to his ability and energy, great though these -be. Is his secret a brain so much larger than his competitors' brains -as his business is greater than theirs? The freight agent of the New -York Central testified that he gave this man a special rate "to build -up and develop their business." - -"They were languishing and suffering?" - -"To a great extent."[765] - -"This," said the counsel for the Chamber of Commerce of New York before -the committee, "is deliberately making the rich richer and the poor -poorer, by taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich through the -instrumentality of the freight charge."[766] - -The officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad, by the use of rebates, -handed over the State of Pennsylvania to three coal-dealers, each of -whom had his territory, and was supreme in it, as would-be competitors -found out when they undertook to ship coal into his market. They made -a similar division of the iron and steel business. The rebate is the -golden-rule of the "gospel of wealth." We have already seen that the -secret of the few corporations which have become the owners of almost -every acre of the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania was the rebate.[767] - -Along one of the most important lines out of Chicago grain dealers who -had been buying and selling in an open market, building elevators, -investing capital and life, found five years ago market and railroad -and livelihood suddenly closed to them, and the work of thirty years -brought to an untimely end. The United States Interstate Commerce -Commission, and the United States District Attorneys co-operating with -it, broke down in the attempt to compel the railroad men who gave these -privileges of transportation, or the business men who received them, -to testify or to produce their books. The United States grand-jury in -Chicago, in December, 1890, proceeded against the shippers and the -railroad men. All of them refused to tell the rates given or received, -or to produce their books. - -Why do you refuse to answer? they were asked. - -Because to do so would incriminate us. - -Here, too, would-be successful men have gone gunning with the smokeless -rebate for control of the wheat and corn and all the produce of the -American farmer. Grain is fated to go the way that oil, hard coal, -cattle, and meat have already gone. The farmer may remain the nominal -owner of his farm under these circumstances, but he will be real owner -of nothing but the piece of paper title. - -First the product of the farm; then the farm. In America rises the -shadow of a coming land-ownership more concentrated, more cruel, with -the impersonal cruelty of corporate anonymity, than any the world has -yet seen. - -The grain broker who becomes, by favor of the general freight agent, -the sole shipper and warehouseman of grain along a line of railroad, -becomes thereby the sole buyer, and in the sole buyer of the produce we -have the fast-growing germ of the future sole buyer of the land. - -"Petroleum is the victim to-day," said the address, in 1872, of the -Petroleum Producers' Union "to all newspapers and boards of trade -opposing monopoly.... Coal, iron, cotton, breadstuffs, or live-stock -may be in the grasp of the monopoly to-morrow." The prediction is more -than half fulfilled. - -"I ran away from home, and went to California," said a prominent grain -merchant to the writer, "to escape being compelled to testify as to -the freight rates I was paying. But these decisions that we cannot be -forced to incriminate ourselves give me safe-conduct, and I am going -home to take all the rebates I can get." - -This is what is going on to-day in the "division of property" in -America. Our society is woven together by the steam shuttle that -moves between its farms and dinner-tables, its cotton-fields and -factories, thousands of miles apart, and the shuttle is crooked. -Out of $800,000,000 paid yearly in this country for the carriage of -freight, it was estimated in 1888, by one who knew, that $50,000,000 -to $100,000,000 goes to favored shippers.[768] As the result of -personal examination made as an expert for stockholders, he declared -that one of the great trunk lines had in the last twenty years thus -diverted to favorites of the managers $100,000,000 of the money of -the stockholders. Besides his yachts and trotters, every Captain of -Industry worth talking about keeps his stud of railway presidents and -general freight agents. - -Public opinion, as yet only in the gristle in these new questions, -turns upon first one and then another as the author of its -troubles--the soulless corporation, the combination of corporations, -railroad oppression, or what not. But the corporation is merely a -cover, the combination of corporations an advantage, the private -ownership of public highways an opportunity, and the rebate its perfect -tool. The real actors are men; the real instrument, the control of -their fellows by wealth, and the mainspring of the evil is the morals -and economics which cipher that brothers produce wealth when they are -only cheating each other out of birthrights. - -The success of the same men in Europe shows that railroad -discrimination is not the essence of their power, though it has -in America been the chief instrument. By their wealth and their -willingness to use it in their way they have become supreme. Supreme -even where, as in England and Germany, they had no such unjust and -crushing preference on the highways as in America. Back of highway -privilege, back of money power, back of trade supremacy gained by -these two means must be reckoned, as the essence of this phenomenon, -the morality--our morality--which not only allows but encourages men -to do each other to death, provided only the weapon be a bargain and -the arena a market. "Everything shall not go to market," says Emerson; -but everything does go to market. The millionaire is the modern hero, -says the New York _Evening Post_. The men who have found in the rebate -the secret of business success--and there are more of them than the -public guesses--have only extended a fiercer hand to the results all -were aiming at. They have used the smokeless rebate because it was the -best gun. But if that had not been ready to their hand, they would have -taken the next best. The course of conquest might have been slower, -but, unless checked by moral interventions, it would have reached the -same end. If society is founded on the idea that property belongs to -the strongest, these will sooner or later get all the property, by -bargains or by battles according to "the spirit of the age." - -The highest State and national courts and the Interstate Commerce -Commission of the United States have sustained the people in the -assertion of their rights, under the law, to come and go with free -and equal rights on the highways. The judges have solemnly warned -the guilty men that they must give up their "abhorrent" attempt to -drive citizens out of the industries of their choice, and to add the -property of the people to their vast estates. Although thus declared -in the right by the highest judges of the law and the fact, the people -are poor, defeated, and unsuccessful. Though thus warned by the -authoritative voice of the ministers of right and justice that their -purposes and practices are iniquitous and intolerable, the men who have -determined that whole provinces of American industry shall be theirs, -and theirs only, continue their warfare of extermination upon poor men -with methods practically unchanged. They evade or defy the laws of -the States and of the nation, and the decisions of the courts, State -and national. Guided by the advice of the skilfullest lawyers, they -persist in open violation, or make such changes in their procedure as -will nullify statute and decision without danger to them. For thirty -years the independents in the oil regions have had this reinforcement -of the law, and for thirty years, in spite of it, their rights have -been defiantly, continuously violated to the common ruin. The people -spend their lives passing about from field or factory, or shop or -office, to market, from market to court, from court to Legislature, -from Legislature to printing-office. They are the type of the time, -disturbed by the demand of the new tyranny of wealth for tribute from -their daily labors, and forbidden to rest until out of their suffering -a new liberty has been won--the industrial liberty, for which political -and religious liberty wait for their full realization. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - -THE OLD SELF-INTEREST - - -The corn of the coming harvest is growing so fast that, like the farmer -standing at night in his fields, we can hear it snap and crackle. -We have been fighting fire on the well-worn lines of old-fashioned -politics and political economy, regulating corporations, and leaving -competition to regulate itself. But the flames of a new economic -evolution run around us, and we turn to find that competition has -killed competition, that corporations are grown greater than the -State and have bred individuals greater than themselves, and that the -naked issue of our time is with property becoming master instead of -servant, property in many necessaries of life becoming monopoly of the -necessaries of life. - -We are still, in part, as Emerson says, in the quadruped state. Our -industry is a fight of every man for himself. The prize we give the -fittest is monopoly of the necessaries of life, and we leave these -winners of the powers of life and death to wield them over us by the -same "self-interest" with which they took them from us. In all this -we see at work a "principle" which will go into the records as one of -the historic mistakes of humanity. Institutions stand or fall by their -philosophy, and the main doctrine of industry since Adam Smith has been -the fallacy that the self-interest of the individual was a sufficient -guide to the welfare of the individual and society. Heralded as a final -truth of "science" this proves to have been nothing higher than a -temporary formula for a passing problem. It was a reflection in words -of the policy of the day. - -When the Middle Ages landed on the shores of the sixteenth century -they broke ranks, and for three hundred years every one has been -scurrying about to get what he could. Society was not highly developed -enough to organize the exploration and subjugation of worlds of new -things and ideas on any broader basis than private enterprise, personal -adventure. People had to run away from each other and from the old -ideas, nativities, guilds, to seize the prizes of the new sciences, the -new land, the new liberties which make modern times. They did not go -because the philosophers told them to. The philosophers saw them going -and wrote it down in a book, and have believed themselves ever since to -be the inventors of the division of labor and the discoverers of a new -world of social science. But now we are touching elbows again, and the -dream of these picnic centuries that the social can be made secondary -to the individual is being chased out of our minds by the hard light of -the crisis into which we are waking. - -"It is a law of business for each proprietor to pursue his own -interest," said the committee of Congress which in 1893 investigated -the coal combinations. "There is no hope for any of us, but the -weakest must go first," is the golden rule of business.[769] There is -no other field of human associations in which any such rule of action -is allowed. The man who should apply in his family or his citizenship -this "survival of the fittest" theory as it is practically professed -and operated in business would be a monster, and would be speedily -made extinct, as we do with monsters. To divide the supply of food -between himself and his children according to their relative powers of -calculation, to follow his conception of his own self-interest in any -matter which the self-interest of all has taken charge of, to deal as -he thinks best for himself with foreigners with whom his country is at -war, would be a short road to the penitentiary or the gallows. In trade -men have not yet risen to the level of the family life of the animals. -The true law of business is that all must pursue the interest of all. -In the law, the highest product of civilization, this has long been a -commonplace. The safety of the people is the supreme law. We are in -travail to bring industry up to this. Our century of the caprice of the -individual as the law-giver of the common toil, to employ or disemploy, -to start or stop, to open or close, to compete or combine, has been -the disorder of the school while the master slept. The happiness, -self-interest, or individuality of the whole is not more sacred than -that of each, but it is greater. They are equal in quality, but in -quantity they are greater. In the ultimate which the mathematician, the -poet, the reformer projects the two will coincide. - -Our world, operated by individual motive, is the country of the -Chinese fable, in which the inhabitants went on one leg. Yes, but an -"enlightened self-interest"? The perfect self-interest of the perfect -individual is an admirable conception, but it is still individual, -and the world is social. The music of the spheres is not to be played -on one string. Nature does nothing individually. All forces are -paired like the sexes, and every particle of matter in the universe -has to obey every other particle. When the individual has progressed -to a perfect self-interest, there will be over against it, acting -and reacting with it, a correspondingly perfect self-interest of the -community. Meanwhile, we who are the creators of society have got -the times out of joint, because, less experienced than the Creator -of the balanced matter of earth, we have given the precedence to the -powers on one side. As gods we are but half-grown. For a hundred -years or so our economic theory has been one of industrial government -by the self-interest of the individual. Political government by the -self-interest of the individual we call anarchy. It is one of the -paradoxes of public opinion that the people of America, least tolerant -of this theory of anarchy in political government, lead in practising -it in industry. Politically, we are civilized; industrially, not yet. -Our century, given to this _laissez-faire_--"leave the individual -alone; he will do what is best for himself, and what is best for him is -best for all"--has done one good: it has put society at the mercy of -its own ideals, and has produced an actual anarchy in industry which is -horrifying us into a change of doctrines. - -We have not been able to see the people for the persons in it. But -there is a people, and it is as different from a mere juxtaposition -of persons as a globe of glass from the handful of sand out of which -it was melted. It is becoming, socially, known to itself, with that -self-consciousness which distinguishes the quick from the dead and the -unborn. Every community, said Pascal, is a man, and every man, said -Plato, is a community. There is a new self-interest--that of the "man -called million," as Mazzini named him--and with this social motive the -other, which has so long had its own way, has now to reckon. Mankind -has gone astray following a truth seen only partially, but coronated -as a whole truth. Many civilizations must worship good men as gods -and follow the divinity of one and another before civilization sees -that these are only single stars in a firmament of humanity. Our -civilization has followed the self-interest of the individual to learn -that it was but one of the complex forces of self-interest. - -The true _laissez-faire_ is, let the individual do what the individual -can do best, and let the community do what the community can do best. -The _laissez-faire_ of social self-interest, if true, cannot conflict -with the individual self-interest, if true, but it must outrank it -always. What we have called "free competition" has not been free, only -freer than what went before. The free is still to come. The pressure -we feel is notice to prepare for it. Civilization--the process of -making men citizens in their relations to each other, by exacting of -each that he give to all that which he receives from all--has reached -only those forms of common effort which, because most general and most -vital, first demanded its harmonizing touch. Men joining in the labors -of the family, the mutual sacrifices of the club or the church in the -union of forces for self-defence and for the gains of co-operation on -the largest scale in labors of universal concern, like letter-carrying, -have come to be so far civilized. - -History is condensed in the catchwords of the people. In the phrases of -individual self-interest which have been the shibboleths of the main -activities of our last hundred years were prophesied: the filling up of -the Mississippi by the forest-destroying, self-seeking lumber companies -of the North; the disintegration of the American family--among the rich -by too little poverty, and among the poor by too much; the embezzlement -of public highways and public franchises into private property; the -devolution of the American merchants and manufacturers into the -business dependants--and social and political dependants, therefore--of -a few men in each great department of trade, from dry-goods to whiskey; -the devolution of the free farmer into a tenant, and of the working-man -into a fixture of the locomotive or the factory, forbidden to leave -except by permission of his employer or the public; and that mêlée of -injunctions, bayonets, idle men and idle machinery, rich man's fear of -poor man and poor man's fear of starvation, we call trade and industry. - -Where the self-interest of the individual is allowed to be the rule -both of social and personal action, the level of all is forced down -to that of the lowest. Business excuses itself for the things it -does--cuts in wages, exactions in hours, tricks of competition--on -the plea that the merciful are compelled to follow the cruel. "It is -pleaded as an excuse by those" (common carriers) "who desire to obey -the" (Interstate Commerce) "law that self-preservation drives them to -violate it because other carriers persist in doing so," says Senator -Cullom. When the self-interest of society is made the standard the -lowest must rise to the average. The one pulls down, the other up. That -men's hearts are bad and that bad men will do bad things has a truth -in it. But whatever the general average of morals, the anarchy which -gives such individuals their head and leaves them to set the pace for -all will produce infinitely worse results than a policy which applies -mutual checks and inspirations. Bad kings make bad reigns, but monarchy -is bad because it is arbitrary power, and that, whether it be political -or industrial, makes even good men bad. - -A partial truth universally applied as this of self-interest has been -is a universal error. Everything goes to defeat. Highways are used to -prevent travel and traffic. Ownership of the means of production is -sought in order to "shut down" production, and the means of plenty -make famine. All follow self-interest to find that though they have -created marvellous wealth it is not theirs. We pledge "our lives, our -fortunes, and our sacred honor" to establish the rule of the majority, -and end by finding that the minority--a minority in morals, money, and -men--are our masters whichever way we turn. We agonize over "economy," -but sell all our grain and pork and oil and cotton at exchanges where -we pay brokerage on a hundred or a thousand barrels or bushels or bales -of wind to get one real one sold. These intolerabilities--sweat-shops -where model merchants buy and sell the cast-off scarlet-fever skins -of the poor, factory and mine where childhood is forbidden to become -manhood and manhood is forbidden to die a natural death, mausoleums in -which we bury the dead rich, slums in which we bury the living poor, -coal pools with their manufacture of artificial winter--all these are -the rule of private self-interest arrived at its destination. - -A really human life is impossible in our cities, but they cannot be -reconstructed under the old self-interest. Chicago was rebuilt wrong -after the fire. Able men pointed out the avenues to a wider and better -municipal life, but they could not be opened through the private -interpositions that blocked the way. The slaughter of railway men -coupling cars was shown, in a debate in the United States Senate, to be -twice as great as it would be if the men were in active service in war. -But under the scramble for private gain our society on its railway side -cannot develop the energy to introduce the improved appliances ready to -hand which would save these lives, all young and vigorous. The cost of -the change would be repaid in 100-per-cent. dividends every year by the -money value alone to us of the men now killed and wounded. But we shall -have to wait for a nobler arithmetic to give us investments so good as -that. The lean kine of self-interest devour the fat kine. The railroad -stockholder, idolater of self-interest, lets himself be robbed--like -the stockholder of all the railroads in this story--either because he -is too rich to mind, too feeble to make himself heard, or too much -implicated elsewhere as principal in the same kind of depredation to -care or dare to stir what he knows to be a universal scandal. He has -become within himself the battle-ground of a troop of warring devils of -selfishness; his selfishness as a stockholder clutched at the throat by -his selfishness as a parasite, in some "inside deal," feeding on the -stockholder; some rebate arrangement, fast-freight line, sleeping-car -company, or what not. And, as like as not, upon this one's back is -another devil of depredation from some inner ring within a ring. Torn -at the vitals, the enlightened swinishness of our _leit-motif_ is -hastening to throw itself into the sea. - -We are very poor. The striking feature of our economic condition is -our poverty, not our wealth. We make ourselves "rich" by appropriating -the property of others by methods which lessen the total property of -all. Spain took such riches from America and grew poor. Modern wealth -more and more resembles the winnings of speculators in bread during -famine--worse, for to make the money it makes the famine. What we -call cheapness shows itself to be unnatural fortunes for a very few, -monstrous luxury for them and proportionate deprivation for the people, -judges debauched, trustees dishonored, Congress and State legislatures -insulted and defied, when not seduced, multitudes of honest men ruined -and driven to despair, the common carrier made a mere instrument for -the creation of a new baronage, an example set to hundreds of would-be -commercial Cæsars to repeat this rapine in other industries and call it -"business," a process set in operation all over the United States for -the progressive extinction of the independence of laboring men, and all -business men except the very rich, and their reduction to a state of -vassalage to lords or squires in each department of trade and industry. -All these--tears, ruin, dishonor, and treason--are the unmarked -additions to the "price marked on the goods." - -Shall we buy cheap of Captain Kidd, and shut our ears to the agony -that rustles in his silks? Shall we believe that Captain Kidd, who -kills commerce by the act which enables him to sell at half-price, is -a cheapener? Shall we preach and practise doctrines which make the -Black Flag the emblem of success on the high seas of human interchange -of service, and complain when we see mankind's argosies of hope and -plenty shrink into private hoards of treasure, buried in selfish sands -to be lost forever, even to cupidity? If this be cheapness, it comes -by the grace of the seller, and that is the first shape of dearness, -as security in society by the grace of the ruler is the first form of -insecurity. - -The new wealth now administers estates of fabulous extent from -metropolitan bureaus, and all the profits flow to men who know -nothing of the real business out of which they are made. Red tape, -complication, the hired man, conspiracy have taken the place of the -watchful eye of the owner, the old-fashioned hand at the plough that -must "hold or drive." We now have Captains of Industry, with a few -aids, rearranging from office-chairs this or that industry, by mere -contrivances of wit compelling the fruits of the labor of tens of -thousands of their fellows, who never saw them, never heard of them, -to be every day deposited unwilling and unwitting to their own credit -at the bank; setting, as by necromancy, hundreds of properties, large -and small, in a score of communities, to flying through invisible -ways into their hands; sitting calm through all the hubbub raised in -courts, legislatures, and public places, and by dictating letters -and whispering words remaining the master magicians of the scene; -defying, though private citizens, all the forces and authorities of a -whole people; by the mere mastery of compelling brain, without putting -hand to anything, opening or closing the earth's treasures of oil or -coal or gas or copper or what not; pulling down or putting up great -buildings, factories, towns themselves; moving men and their money this -way and that; inserting their will as part of the law of life of the -people--American, European, and Asiatic--and, against the protest of -a whole civilization, making themselves, their methods and principles, -its emblematic figures. - -Syndicates, by one stroke, get the power of selling dear on one side, -and producing cheap on the other. Thus they keep themselves happy, -prices high, and the people hungry. What model merchant could ask -more? The dream of the king who wished that all his people had but one -neck that he might decapitate them at one blow is realized to-day in -this industrial garrote. The syndicate has but to turn its screw, and -every neck begins to break. Prices paid to such intercepters are not -an exchange of service; they are ransom paid by the people for their -lives. The ability of the citizen to pay may fluctuate; what he must -pay remains fixed, or advances like the rent of the Irish tenant to the -absentee landlord until the community interfered. Those who have this -power to draw the money from the people--from every railroad station, -every street-car, every fireplace, every salt-cellar, every bread-pan, -wash-board, and coal-scuttle--to their own safes have the further -incentive to make this money worth the most possible. By contracting -the issue of currency and contracting it again by hoarding it in their -banks, safe-deposit vaults, and the government treasury, they can -depress the prices of all that belongs to the people. Their own prices -are fixed. These are "regular prices," established by price-lists. -Given, as a ruling motive, the principles of business--to get the -most and give the least; given the legal and economic, physical and -mechanical control, possible under our present social arrangements, to -the few over the many, and the certain end of all this, if unarrested, -unreversed, can be nothing less than a return to chattel slavery. There -may be some finer name, but the fact will not be finer. Between our -present tolerance and our completed subjection the distance is not so -far as that from the equality and simplicity of our Pilgrim Fathers to -ourselves. - -Everything withers--even charity. Aristocratic benevolence spends -a shrunken stream in comparison with democratic benevolence. In an -address to the public, soliciting subscriptions, the Committee of the -United Hospitals Association of New York said, in December, 1893: "The -committee have found that, through the obliteration of old methods of -individual competition by the establishment of large corporations and -trusts in modern times, the income of such charitable institutions -as are supported by the individual gifts of the benevolent has been -seriously affected." - -Franklin pricked the bubble of the lottery by showing that to buy all -the tickets and win all the prizes was to be most surely the loser. Our -nascent common-sense begins to see that the many must always lose where -all spend their lives trying to get more than they give, and that all -lose when any lose. The welfare of all is more than the welfare of the -many, the few, or the one. If the few or the one are not fine enough -to accept this truth from sentiment or conscience, they can find other -reasons as convincing, though not as amiable. From the old régime of -France, the slave-holders of the South, the death-rate of tyrants, -the fear of their brothers which the rich and the great of to-day are -printing on their faces, in fugitive-slave treaties with Russia, and in -the frowning arsenals and armories building in our cities for "law and -order," they can learn how to spell self-interest. - -If all will sacrifice themselves, none need be sacrificed. But if one -may sacrifice another, all are sacrificed. That is the difference -between self-interest and other-self interest. In industry we have -been substituting all the mean passions that can set man against man -in place of the irresistible power of brotherhood. To tell us of the -progressive sway of brotherhood in all human affairs is the sole -message of history. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is not the phrase -of a ritual of sentiment for the unapplied emotion of pious hours; -it is the exact formula of the force to-day operating the greatest -institutions man has established. It is as secular as sacred. Only -by each neighbor giving the other every right of free thought, free -movement, free representation which he demands for himself; only by -calling every neighbor a friend, and literally laying down his life -for his friend against foreign invasion or domestic tumult; only by -the equalization which gives the vote to all and denies kingship to -all, however strong or "fittest"--only thus is man establishing the -community, the republic, which, with all its failings, is the highest -because the realest application of the spirit of human brotherhood. -Wonderful are the dividends of this investment. You are but one, and -can give only yourself to America. You give free speech, and 65,000,000 -of your countrymen will guard the freedom of your lips. Your single -offer of your right arm puts 65,000,000 of sheltering arms about you. -Does "business" pay such profits? Wealth will remain a secret unguessed -by business until it has reincorporated itself under the law which -reckons as the property of each one the total of all the possessions of -all his neighbors. - -Society could not live a day, the Bishop of Peterborough said, if -it put the principles of Christ into practice. There is no rarer -gift than that of eyes to see what we see. Society is society, and -lives its day solely by virtue of having put into actual routine and -matter-of-fact application the principles of Christ and other bringers -of the same message. Imperfect and faulty though the execution, it is -these principles which are the family, the tribe, the sect, the club, -the mutual-benefit society, the State, with their mutual services, -forbearance, and guarantees. The principles of Christ are the cause -and essence of society. They are not the ideal of which we dream; they -are the applied means with which we are working out our real life in -"the light of common day." They have not been so much revealed to us -by our inspired ones as best seen and best said by them. Insurance for -fire, accident, sickness, old age, death--the ills that flesh is heir -to--has the same co-operation for its innermost forces. Limited now by -the intervention of the selfishness of profit-seeking, it needs only to -be freed from this, and added, as in New Zealand, to the growing list -of the mutualities of the general welfare operated by the State to be -seen as what it is. The golden rule is the original of every political -constitution, written and unwritten, and all our reforms are but the -pains with which we strive to improve the copy. - -In the worst governments and societies that have existed one good can -be seen--so good that the horrors of them fall back into secondary -places as extrinsic, accidental. That good is the ability of men to -lead the life together. The more perfect monopoly makes itself the more -does it bring into strong lights the greatest fact of our industry, of -far more permanent value than the greed which has for the moment made -itself the cynosure of all eyes. It makes this fair world more fair to -consider the loyalties, intelligences, docilities of the multitudes who -are guarding, developing, operating with the faithfulness of brothers -and the keen interest of owners properties and industries in which -brotherhood is not known and their title is not more than a tenancy at -will. One of the largest stones in the arch of "consolidation," perhaps -the key-stone, is that men have become so intelligent, so responsive -and responsible, so co-operative that they can be intrusted in great -masses with the care of vast properties owned entirely by others and -with the operation of complicated processes, although but a slender -cost of subsistence is awarded them out of fabulous profits. The -spectacle of the million and more employés of the railroads of this -country despatching trains, maintaining tracks, collecting fares and -freights, and turning over hundreds of millions of net profits to the -owners, not one in a thousand of whom would know how to do the simplest -of these things for himself, is possible only where civilization -has reached a high average of morals and culture. More and more the -mills and mines and stores, and even the farms and forests, are being -administered by others than the owners. The virtue of the people is -taking the place Poor Richard thought only the eye of the owner could -fill. If mankind, driven by their fears and the greed of others, can do -so well, what will be their productivity and cheer when the "interest -of all" sings them to their work? - -This new morality and new spring of wealth have been seized first -by the appropriating ones among us. But, as has been in government, -their intervention of greed is but a passing phase. Mankind belongs -to itself, not to kings or monopolists, and will supersede the one as -surely as the other with the institutions of democracy. Yes, Callicles, -said Socrates, the greatest are usually the bad, for they have the -power. If power could continue paternal and benign, mankind would not -be rising through one emancipation after another into a progressive -communion of equalities. The individual and society will always be -wrestling with each other in a composition of forces. But to just -the extent to which civilization prevails, society will be held as -inviolable as the individual; not subordinate--indeed inaudible--as -now in the counting-room and corporation-office. We have overworked -the self-interest of the individual. The line of conflict between -individual and social is a progressive one of the discovery of point -after point in which the two are identical. Society thus passes from -conflict to harmony, and on to another conflict. Civilization is the -unceasing accretion of these social solutions. We fight out to an -equilibrium, as in the abolition of human slavery; then upon this new -level thus built up we enter upon the struggle for a new equilibrium, -as now in the labor movement. The man for himself destroys himself and -all men; only society can foster him and them. - -The greatest happiness of the greatest number is only the doctrine of -self-interest writ large and made more dangerous by multitude. It is -the self-interest of the majority, and this has written some of the -unloveliest chapters of history. There have never been slaves more -miserable than those of Sparta, where the State was the owner. American -democracy prepares to repeat these distresses of the selfishness of -the many, and gives notice to its railway employés of a new divine -right--"the convenience of the public"--to which they must forego every -right of manhood. No better definition of slave could be found than -one who must work at the convenience of another. This is the position -into which recent legal decisions and acts of the Federal executive -force railway men. These speak in the name of Interstate Commerce, but -their logic can be as easily applied by State judges to State commerce, -and all working-men are manifestly as necessary, each in his function, -to the convenience of the public as the men of the rail. The greatest -happiness of all must be the formula. When Lamennais said, "I love my -family more than myself, my village more than my family, my country -more than my village, and mankind more than my country," he showed -himself not only a good lover, but the only good arithmetician. - -Children yet, we run everything we do--love or war, work or leisure, -religion or liberty--to excess. Every possibility of body and mind -must be played upon till it is torn to pieces, as toys by children. -Priests, voluptuaries, tyrants, knights, ascetics--in the long -procession of fanatics a new-comer takes his place; he is called -"the model merchant"--the cruelest fanatic in history. He is the -product of ages given to progressive devotion to "trading." He is the -high-priest of the latest idolatry, the self-worship of self-interest. -Whirling-dervish of the market, self, friends, and family, body and -soul, loves, hopes, and faith, all are sacrificed to seeing how many -"turns" he can make before he drops dead. Trade began, Sir Henry Sumner -Maine tells us, not within the family or community, but without. Its -first appearances are on the neutral borderland between hostile tribes. -There, in times of peace, they meet to trade, and think it no sin -that "the buyer must beware," since the buyer is an enemy. Trade has -spread thence, carrying with itself into family and State the poison of -enmity. From the fatherhood of the old patriarchal life, where father -and brother sold each other nothing, the world has chaffered along to -the anarchy of a "free" trade which sells everything. One thing after -another has passed out from under the régime of brotherhood and passed -in under that of bargainhood. The ground we move on, the bodies we -work with, and the necessaries we live by are all being "exchanged," -by "rules fetched with cupidity from heartless schools," into the -ownership of the Jacobs of mankind. By these rules the cunning are -the good, and the weak and the tender the bad, and the good are to -have all the goods and the weak are to have nothing. These rules give -one the power to supply or deny work to thousands, and to use the -starvation terms of the men he disemploys as the measure of the cost -of subsistence of all workmen. This must be near the end. The very -churches have become mercantilized, and are markets in which "prophets" -are paid fancy prices--"always called of God," as Milton said, "but -always to a greater benefice"--and worshippers buy and sell knee-room. - -Conceptions of duty take on a correspondingly unnatural complexion. -The main exhortations the world gives beginners are how to "get -on"--the getting on so ardently inculcated being to get, like the -old-man-of-the-sea, on somebody's back. "If war fails you in the -country where you are, you must go where there is war," said one of the -successful men of the fourteenth century to a young knight who asked -him for the Laws of Life. "I shall be perfectly satisfied with you," I -heard one of the great business geniuses of America say to his son, "if -you will only always go to bed at night worth more than when you got up -in the morning." The system grows, as all systems do, more complicated, -and gets further away from its first purposes of barter of real things -and services. It goes more under the hands of men of apt selfishness, -who push it further away from general comprehension and the general -good. Tariffs, currencies, finances, freight-rate sheets, the laws, -become instruments of privilege, and just in proportion become puzzles -no people can decipher. "I have a right to buy my labor where I can buy -it cheapest"--beginning as a protest against the selfish exclusions of -antiquated trade-guilds outgrown by the new times--has at last come to -mean, "I have a right to do anything to cheapen the labor I want to -buy, even to destroying the family life of the people." - -When steaming kettles grew into beasts of burden and public highways -dwindled into private property administered by private motives for -private ends, all previous tendencies were intensified into a sudden -whirl redistributing wealth and labors. It appears to have been -the destiny of the railroad to begin and of oil to lubricate to its -finish the last stage of this crazy commercialism. Business colors the -modern world as war reddened the ancient world. Out of such delirium -monsters are bred, and their excesses destroy the system that brought -them forth. There is a strong suggestion of moral insanity in the -unrelieved sameness of mood and unvarying repetition of one act in the -life of the model merchant. Sane minds by an irresistible law alternate -one tension with another. Only a lunatic is always smiling or always -weeping or always clamoring for dividends. Eras show their last stages -by producing men who sum up individually the morbid characteristics -of the mass. When the crisis comes in which the gathering tendencies -of generations shoot forward in the avalanche, there is born some -group of men perfect for their function--good be it or bad. They need -to take time for no second thought, and will not delay the unhalting -reparations of nature by so much as the time given to one tear over the -battle-field or the bargain. With their birth their mission is given -them, whether it be the mission of Lucifer or Gabriel. This mission -becomes their conscience. The righteous indignation that other men feel -against sin these men feel against that which withstands them. Sincere -as rattlesnakes, they are selfish with the unconsciousness possible to -only the entirely commonplace, without the curiosity to question their -times or the imagination to conceive the pain they inflict, and their -every ideal is satisfied by the conventionalities of church, parlor, -and counting-room. These men are the touchstones to wither the cant of -an age. - -We preach "Do as you would be done by" in our churches, and "A fair -exchange no robbery" in our counting-rooms, and "All citizens are -equal as citizens" in courts and Congress. Just as we are in danger -of believing that to say these things is to do them and be them, -there come unto us these men, practical as granite and gravitation. -Taking their cue not from our lips, but from our lives, they better -the instruction, and, passing easily to the high seats at every table, -prove that we are liars and hypocrites. Their only secret is that they -do, better than we, the things we are all trying to do, but of which in -our morning and evening prayers, seen of all men, we are continually -making believe to pray: Good Lord, deliver us! When the hour strikes -for such leaders, they come and pass as by a law of nature to the -front. All follow them. It is their fate and ours that they must work -out to the end the destiny interwoven of their own insatiate ambition -and the false ideals of us who have created them and their opportunity. - -If our civilization is destroyed, as Macaulay predicted, it will not -be by his barbarians from below. Our barbarians come from above. Our -great money-makers have sprung in one generation into seats of power -kings do not know. The forces and the wealth are new, and have been -the opportunity of new men. Without restraints of culture, experience, -the pride, or even the inherited caution of class or rank, these men, -intoxicated, think they are the wave instead of the float, and that -they have created the business which has created them. To them science -is but a never-ending répertoire of investments stored up by nature for -the syndicates, government but a fountain of franchises, the nations -but customers in squads, and a million the unit of a new arithmetic of -wealth written for them. They claim a power without control, exercised -through forms which make it secret, anonymous, and perpetual. The -possibilities of its gratification have been widening before them -without interruption since they began, and even at a thousand millions -they will feel no satiation and will see no place to stop. They are -gluttons of luxury and power, rough, unsocialized, believing that -mankind must be kept terrorized. Powers of pity die out of them, -because they work through agents and die in their agents, because what -they do is not for themselves. - -Of gods, friends, learnings, of the uncomprehended civilization they -overrun, they ask but one question: How much? What is a good time -to sell? What is a good time to buy? The Church and the Capitol, -incarnating the sacrifices and triumphs of a procession of martyrs -and patriots since the dawn of freedom, are good enough for a -money-changer's shop for them, and a market and shambles. Their -heathen eyes see in the law and its consecrated officers nothing but -an intelligence-office and hired men to help them burglarize the -treasures accumulated for thousands of years at the altars of liberty -and justice, that they may burn their marbles for the lime of commerce. - -By their windfall of new power they have been forced into the position -of public enemies. Its new forms make them seem not to be within the -jurisdiction of the social restraints which many ages of suffering -have taught us to bind about the old powers of man over man. A fury -of rule or ruin has always in the history of human affairs been a -characteristic of the "strong men" whose fate it is to be in at the -death of an expiring principle. The leaders who, two hundred years ago, -would have been crazy with conquest, to-day are crazy with competition. -To a dying era some man is always born to enfranchise it by revealing -it to itself. Men repay such benefactors by turning to rend them. Most -unhappy is the fate of him whose destiny it is to lead mankind too -far in its own path. Such is the function of these men, such will be -their lot, as that of those for whom they are building up these wizard -wealths. - -Poor thinking means poor doing. In casting about for the cause of -our industrial evils, public opinion has successively found it in -"competition," "combination," the "corporations," "conspiracies," -"trusts." But competition has ended in combination, and our new wealth -takes as it chooses the form of corporation or trust, or corporation -again, and with every change grows greater and worse. Under these -kaleidoscopic masks we begin at last to see progressing to its terminus -a steady consolidation, the end of which is one-man power. The -conspiracy ends in one, and one cannot conspire with himself. When this -solidification of many into one has been reached, we shall be at last -face to face with the naked truth that it is not only the form but the -fact of arbitrary power, of control without consent, of rule without -representation that concerns us. - -Business motived by the self-interest of the individual runs into -monopoly at every point it touches the social life--land monopoly, -transportation monopoly, trade monopoly, political monopoly in all -its forms, from contraction of the currency to corruption in office. -The society in which in half a lifetime a man without a penny can -become a hundred times a millionaire is as over-ripe, industrially, as -was, politically, the Rome in which the most popular bully could lift -himself from the ranks of the legion on to the throne of the Cæsars. -Our rising issue is with business. Monopoly is business at the end of -its journey. It has got there. The irrepressible conflict is now as -distinctly with business as the issue so lately met was with slavery. -Slavery went first only because it was the cruder form of business. - -Against the principles, and the men embodying them and pushing them -to extremes--by which the powers of government, given by all for all, -are used as franchises for personal aggrandizement; by which, in the -same line, the common toil of all and the common gifts of nature, -lands, forces, mines, sites, are turned from service to selfishness, -and are made by one and the same stroke to give gluts to a few and -impoverishment to the many--we must plan our campaign. The yacht of -the millionaire incorporates a million days' labor which might have -been given to abolishing the slums, and every day it runs the labor -of hundreds of men is withdrawn from the production of helpful things -for humanity, and each of us is equally guilty who directs to his own -pleasure the labor he should turn to the wants of others. Our fanatic -of wealth reverses the rule that serving mankind is the end and wealth -an incident, and has made wealth the end and the service an accident, -until he can finally justify crime itself if it is a means to the -end--wealth--which has come to be the supreme good; and we follow him. - -It is an adjudicated fact of the business and social life of America -that to receive the profits of crime and cherish the agents who -commit it does not disqualify for fellowship in the most "solid" -circles--financial, commercial, religious, or social. It illustrates -what Ruskin calls the "morbid" character of modern business that -the history of its most brilliant episodes must be studied in the -vestibules of the penitentiary. The riches of the combinations are -the winnings of a policy which, we have seen, has certain constant -features. Property to the extent of uncounted millions has been changed -from the possession of the many who owned it to the few who hold it: - -1. Without the knowledge of the real owners. - -2. Without their consent. - -3. With no compensation to them for the value taken. - -4. By falsehood, often under oath. - -5. In violation of the law. - -Our civilization is builded on competition, and competition -evolves itself crime--to so acute an infatuation has the lunacy of -self-interest carried our dominant opinion. We are hurried far beyond -the point of not listening to the new conscience which, pioneering in -moral exploration, declares that conduct we think right because called -"trade" is really lying, stealing, murder. "The definite result," -Ruskin preaches, "of all our modern haste to be rich is assuredly and -constantly the murder of a certain number of persons by our hands every -year." To be unawakened by this new voice is bad enough, but we shut -our ears even against the old conscience. - -We cannot deal with this unless we cleanse our hearts of all -disordering rage. "The rarer action is in virtue rather than in -vengeance." Our tyrants are our ideals incarnating themselves in men -born to command. What these men are we have made them. All governments -are representative governments; none of them more so than our -government of industry. We go hopelessly astray if we seek the solution -of our problems in the belief that our business rulers are worse men in -kind than ourselves. Worse in degree; yes. It is a race to the bad, and -the winners are the worst. A system in which the prizes go to meanness -invariably marches with the meanest men at the head. But if any could -be meaner than the meanest it would be they who run and fail and rail. - -Every idea finds its especially susceptible souls. These men are -our most susceptible souls to the idea of individual self-interest. -They have believed implicitly what we have taught, and have been the -most faithful in trying to make the talent given them grow into ten -talents. They rise superior to our half-hearted social corrections: -publicity, private competition, all devices of market-opposition, -private litigation, public investigation, legislation, and criminal -prosecution--all. Their power is greater to-day than it was yesterday, -and will be greater to-morrow. The public does not withhold its favor, -but deals with them, protects them, refuses to treat their crimes as it -treats those of the poor, and admits them to the highest places. The -predominant mood is the more or less concealed regret of the citizens -that they have not been able to conceive and execute the same lucky -stroke or some other as profitable. The conclusion is irresistible that -men so given the lead are the representatives of the real "spirit of -the age," and that the protestants against them are not representative -of our times--are at the best but intimators of times which may be. - -Two social energies have been in conflict, and the energy of reform has -so far proved the weaker. We have chartered the self-interest of the -individual as the rightful sovereign of conduct; we have taught that -the scramble for profit is the best method of administering the riches -of earth and the exchange of services. Only those can attack this -system who attack its central principle, that strength gives the strong -in the market the right to destroy his neighbor. Only as we have denied -that right to the strong elsewhere have we made ourselves as civilized -as we are. And we cannot make a change as long as our songs, customs, -catchwords, and public opinions tell all to do the same thing if they -can. Society, in each person of its multitudes, must recognize that the -same principles of the interest of all being the rule of all, of the -strong serving the weak, of the first being the last--"I am among you -as one that serves"--which have given us the home where the weakest -is the one surest of his rights and of the fullest service of the -strongest, and have given us the republic in which all join their labor -that the poorest may be fed, the weakest defended, and all educated -and prospered, must be applied where men associate in common toil as -wherever they associate. Not until then can the forces be reversed -which generate those obnoxious persons--our fittest. - -Our system, so fair in its theory and so fertile in its happiness and -prosperity in its first century, is now, following the fate of systems, -becoming artificial, technical, corrupt; and, as always happens in -human institutions, after noon, power is stealing from the many to the -few. Believing wealth to be good, the people believed the wealthy to -be good. But, again in history, power has intoxicated and hardened its -possessors, and Pharaohs are bred in counting-rooms as they were in -palaces. Their furniture must be banished to the world-garret, where -lie the out-worn trappings of the guilds and slavery and other old -lumber of human institutions. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV - -AND THE NEW - - -We have given the prize of power to the strong, the cunning, the -arithmetical, and we must expect nothing else but that they will use it -cunningly and arithmetically. For what else can they suppose we gave -it to them? If the power really flows from the people, and should be -used for them; if its best administration can be got, as in government, -only by the participation in it of men of all views and interests; if -in the collision of all these, as in democracy, the better policy is -progressively preponderant; if this is a policy which, with whatever -defects, is better than that which can be evolved by narrower or more -selfish or less multitudinous influences of persons or classes, then -this power should be taken up by the people. "The mere conflict of -private interests will never produce a well-ordered commonwealth of -labor," says the author of the article on political economy in the -_Encyclopædia Britannica_. The failure of monarchy and feudalism and -the visibly impending failure of our business system all reveal a -law of nature. The harmony of things insists that that which is the -source of power, wealth, and delight shall also be the ruler of it. -That which is must also seem. It is the people from whom come the -forces with which kings and millionaires ride the world, and until -the people take their proper place in the seat of sovereignty, these -pseudo owners--mere claimants and usurpers--will, by the very falsity -and iniquity of their position, be pushed into deceit, tyranny, and -cruelty, ending in downfall. - -Thousands of years' experience has proved that government must begin -where it ends--with the people; that the general welfare demands that -they who exercise the powers and they upon whom these are exercised -must be the same, and that higher political ideals can be realized -only through higher political forms. Myriads of experiments to get -the substance of liberty out of the forms of tyranny, to believe -in princes, to trust good men to do good as kings, have taught the -inexorable truth that, in the economy of nature, form and substance -must move together, and are as inextricably interdependent as are, -within our experience, what we call matter and spirit. Identical is the -lesson we are learning with regard to industrial power and property. We -are calling upon their owners, as mankind called upon kings in their -day, to be good and kind, wise and sweet, and we are calling in vain. -We are asking them not to be what we have made them to be. We put power -into their hands and ask them not to use it as power. If this power is -a trust for the people, the people betrayed it when they made private -estates out of it for individuals. If the spirit of power is to change, -institutions must change as much. Liberty recast the old forms of -government into the Republic, and it must remould our institutions of -wealth into the Commonwealth. - -The question is not whether monopoly is to continue. The sun sets every -night on a greater majority against it. We are face to face with the -practical issue: Is it to go through ruin or reform? Can we forestall -ruin by reform? If we wait to be forced by events we shall be astounded -to find how much more radical they are than our utopias. Louis XVI. -waited until 1793, and gave his head and all his investitures to the -people who in 1789 asked only to sit at his feet and speak their mind. -Unless we reform of our own free will, nature will reform us by force, -as nature does. Our evil courses have already gone too far in producing -misery, plagues, hatreds, national enervation. Already the leader is -unable to lead, and has begun to drive with judges armed with bayonets -and Gatling guns. History is the serial obituary of the men who thought -they could drive men. - -Reform is the science and conscience with which mankind in its manhood -overcomes temptations and escapes consequences by killing the germs. -Ruin is already hard at work among us. Our libraries are full of the -official inquiries and scientific interpretations which show how our -master-motive is working decay in all our parts. The family crumbles -into a competition between the father and the children whom he breeds -to take his place in the factory, to unfit themselves to be fathers in -their turn. A thorough, stalwart resimplification, a life governed by -simple needs and loves, is the imperative want of the world. It will be -accomplished: either self-conscious volition does it, or the slow wreck -and decay of superfluous and unwholesome men and matters. The latter -is the method of brutes and brute civilizations. The other is the -method of man, so far as he is divine. Has not man, who has in personal -reform risen above the brute method, come to the height at which he can -achieve social reform in masses and by nations? We must learn; we can -learn by reason. Why wait for the cruder teacher? - -We have a people like which none has ever existed before. We have -millions capable of conscious co-operation. The time must come in -social evolution when the people can organize the free-will to choose -salvation which the individual has been cultivating for 1900 years, -and can adopt a policy more dignified and more effective than leaving -themselves to be kicked along the path of reform by the recoil of their -own vices. We must bring the size of our morality up to the size of our -cities, corporations, and combinations, or these will be brought down -to fit our half-grown virtue. - -Industry and monopoly cannot live together. Our modern perfection of -exchange and division of labor cannot last without equal perfection of -morals and sympathy. Every one is living at the mercy of every one else -in a way entirely peculiar to our times. Nothing is any longer made by -a man; parts of things are made by parts of men, and become wholes by -the luck of a good-humor which so far keeps men from flying asunder. -It takes a whole company to make a match. A hundred men will easily -produce a hundred million matches, but not one of them could make one -match. No farm gets its plough from the cross-roads blacksmith, and -no one in the chilled-steel factory knows the whole of the plough. -The life of Boston hangs on a procession of reciprocities which must -move, as steadily and sweetly as the roll of the planets, between its -bakeries, the Falls of St. Anthony, and the valley of the Red River. -Never was there a social machinery so delicate. Only on terms of love -and justice can men endure contact so close. - -The break-down of all other civilizations has been a slow decay. It -took the Northerners hundreds of years to march to the Tiber. They -grew their way through the old society as the tree planting itself on -a grave is found to have sent its roots along every fibre and muscle -of the dead. Our world is not the simple thing theirs was, of little -groups sufficient to themselves, if need be. New York would begin to -die to-morrow if it were not for Illinois and Dakota. We cannot afford -a revulsion in the hearts by whose union locomotives run, mills grind, -factories make. Practical men are speculating to-day on the possibility -that our civilization may some afternoon be flashed away by the tick of -a telegraph. All these co-operations can be scattered by a word of hate -too many, and we left, with no one who knows how to make a plough or a -match, a civilization cut off as by the Roman curse from food and fire. -Less sensitive civilizations than ours have burst apart. - -Liberty and monopoly cannot live together. What chance have we against -the persistent coming and the easy coalescence of the confederated -cliques, which aspire to say of all business, "This belongs to us," -and whose members, though moving among us as brothers, are using -against us, through the corporate forms we have given them, powers -of invisibility, of entail and accumulation, unprecedented because -impersonal and immortal, and, most peculiar of all, power to act as -persons, as in the commission of crimes, with exemption from punishment -as persons? Two classes study and practise politics and government: -place hunters and privilege hunters. In a world of relativities -like ours size of area has a great deal to do with the truth of -principles. America has grown so big--and the tickets to be voted, and -the powers of government, and the duties of citizens, and the profits -of personal use of public functions have all grown so big--that the -average citizen has broken down. No man can half understand or half -operate the fulness of this big citizenship, except by giving his whole -time to it. This the place hunter can do, and the privilege hunter. -Government, therefore--municipal, State, national--is passing into the -hands of these two classes, specialized for the functions of power by -their appetite for the fruits of power. The power of citizenship is -relinquished by those who do not and cannot know how to exercise it to -those who can and do--by those who have a livelihood to make to those -who make politics their livelihood. - -These specialists of the ward club, the primary, the campaign, the -election, and office unite, by a law as irresistible as that of the -sexes, with those who want all the goods of government--charters, -contracts, rulings, permits. From this marriage it is easy to imagine -that among some other people than ourselves, and in some other -century than this, the off-spring might be the most formidable, -elusive, unrestrained, impersonal, and cruel tyranny the world has -yet seen. There might come a time when the policeman and the railroad -president would equally show that they cared nothing for the citizen, -individually or collectively, because aware that they and not he were -the government. Certainly such an attempt to corner "the dear people" -and the earth and the fulness thereof will break down. It is for us -to decide whether we will let it go on till it breaks down of itself, -dragging down to die, as a savage dies of his vice, the civilization -it has gripped with its hundred hands; or whether, while we are still -young, still virtuous, we will break it down, self-consciously, as the -civilized man, reforming, crushes down the evil. If we cannot find a -remedy, all that we love in the word America must die. It will be an -awful price to pay if this attempt at government of the people, by the -people, for the people must perish from off the face of the earth -to prove to mankind that political brotherhood cannot survive where -industrial brotherhood is denied. But the demonstration is worth even -that. - -Aristotle's lost books of the Republics told the story of two hundred -and fifty attempts at free government, and these were but some of -the many that had to be melted down in the crucible of fate to teach -Hamilton and Jefferson what they knew. Perhaps we must be melted by the -same fierce flames to be a light to the feet of those who come after -us. For as true as that a house divided against itself cannot stand, -and that a nation half slave and half free cannot permanently endure, -is it true that a people who are slaves to market-tyrants will surely -come to be their slaves in all else, that all liberty begins to be -lost when one liberty is lost, that a people half democratic and half -plutocratic cannot permanently endure. - -The secret of the history we are about to make is not that the world is -poorer or worse. It is richer and better. Its new wealth is too great -for the old forms. The success and beauties of our old mutualities -have made us ready for new mutualities. The wonder of to-day is the -modern multiplication of products by the union of forces; the marvel -of to-morrow will be the greater product which will follow when that -which is co-operatively produced is co-operatively enjoyed. It is the -spectacle of its concentration in the private fortunes of our day which -reveals this wealth to its real makers--the whole people--and summons -them to extend the manners and institutions of civilization to this new -tribal relation. - -Whether the great change comes with peace or sword, freely through -reform or by nature's involuntary forces, is a mere matter of detail, -a question of convenience--not of the essence of the thing. The change -will come. With reform, it may come to us. If with force, perhaps not -to us. But it will come. The world is too full of amateurs who can play -the golden rule as an aria with variations. All the runs and trills -and transpositions have been done to death. All the "sayings" have -been said. The only field for new effects is in epigrams of practice. -Titillation of our sympathies has become a dissipation. We shed a daily -tear over the misery of the slums as the toper takes his dram, and our -liver becomes torpid with the floods of indignation and sentiment we -have guzzled without converting them into their co-efficients of action. - -"Regenerate the individual" is a half-truth; the reorganization of the -society which he makes and which makes him is the other half. Man alone -cannot be a Christian. Institutions are applied beliefs. The love of -liberty became liberty in America by clothing itself in the complicated -group of structures known as the government of the United States. Love -is a half-truth, and kissing is a good deal less than half of that. -We need not kiss all our fellow-men, but we must do for them all we -ask them to do for us--nothing less than the fullest performance of -every power. To love our neighbor is to submit to the discipline and -arrangement which make his life reach its best, and so do we best love -ourselves. - -History has taught us nothing if not that men can continue to associate -only by the laws of association. The golden rule is the first and last -of these, but the first and last of the golden rule is that it can -be operated only through laws, habits, forms, and institutions. The -Constitution and laws of the United States are, however imperfectly, -the translation into the language of politics of doing as you would be -done by--the essence of equal rights and government by consent. To ask -individuals to-day to lead by their single sacrifices the life of the -brother in the world of business is as if the American colonist had -been asked to lead by his individual enterprise the life of the citizen -of a republic. That was made possible to him only by union with others. -The business world is full of men who yearn to abandon its methods and -live the love they feel; but to attempt to do so by themselves would be -martyrdom, and that is "caviare to the general." "We admire martyrdom," -Mazzini, the martyr, said, "but we do not recommend it." The change -must be social, and its martyrdoms have already begun. - -The new self-interest will remain unenforced in business until we -invent the forms by which the vast multitudes who have been gathered -together in modern production can organize themselves into a people -there as in government. Nothing but this institutionalization will save -them from being scattered away from each other again, and it can be -achieved only by such averaging and concessions and co-operations as -are the price of all union. These will be gains, not losses. Soldiers -become partners in invincibility by the discipline which adopts an -average rate of march instead of compelling all to keep step with the -fastest and stay with the strongest. Moralists tell men to love each -other and the right. How, by doing what things, by leaving what undone, -shall men love each other? What have the ethicals to say upon the -morality of putting public highways in private hands, and of allowing -these private hands to make a private and privileged use of them? If -bad, will a mere "change of heart," uninstitutionalized, change them? - -New freedoms cannot be operated through the old forms of slavery. The -ideals of Washington and Hamilton and Adams could not breathe under -kingly rule. Idle to say they might. Under the mutual dependence of -the inside and outside of things their change has all through history -always been dual. Change of heart is no more redemption than hunger -is dinner. We must have honesty, love, justice in the heart of the -business world, but for these we must also have the forms which will -fit them. These will be very different from those through which the -intercourse of man with man in the exchange of services now moves to -such ungracious ends. Forms of Asiatic and American government, of -early institutions and to-day's, are not more different. The cardinal -virtues cannot be established and kept at work in trade and on the -highways with the old apparatus. In order that the spirit that gave -rebates may go to stay, the rebate itself must go. If the private -use of private ownership of highways is to go, the private ownership -must go. There must be no private use of public power or public -property. These are created by the common sacrifices of all, and -can be rightfully used only for the common good of all--from all, by -all, for all. All the grants and franchises that have been given to -private hands for private profit are void in morals and void in that -higher law which sets the copy for the laggard pens of legislatures and -judges. "No private use of public powers" is but a threshold truth. The -universe, says Emerson, is the property of every creature in it. - -No home so low it may not hope that out of its fledglings one may grow -the hooked claw that will make him a millionaire. To any adventurer -of spirit and prowess in the Italy of the Renaissance might come -the possibility of butchering or poisoning his way to a castle or a -throne. Such prizes of power made the peninsula a menagerie of tyrants, -murderers, voluptuaries, and multitudes of misery. We got republican -liberty by agreeing each with the other never to seek to become kings -or lords or dukes. We can get industrial and economic liberty only by a -like covenant never to let ourselves or any one else be millionaires. - -There can be no public prosperity without public virtue, and no public -virtue without private virtue. But private cannot become public except -by organization. Our attempts at control, regulation, are but the -agitations of the Gracchi, evidencing the wrong, but not rising to the -cure. We are waiting for some genius of good who will generalize into -one body of doctrine our partial truths of reform, and will help us -live the generalization. Never was mankind, across all lines of race, -creed, and institutions, more nearly one in discontent and restless -consciousness of new powers and a new hope and purpose, never more -widely agitated by influences leading in one direction, never more -nearly a committee of the whole on the question of the day. Never -before were the means for flashing one thought into the minds of the -million, and flashing that thought into action, what they are to-day. -The good word or good deed of Chicago in the morning may be the -inspiration of Calcutta before nightfall. The crusades were but an eddy -in comparison with the universal tide waiting for another Peter the -Hermit to lead us where the Man who is to rise again lies in the hands -of the infidel. - -Our problem can be read from its good side or its bad, and must be read -from both, as: Business has become a vice, and defeats us and itself; -or, Humanity quickens its step to add to its fellowships the new -brotherhood of labor. The next emancipation, like all emancipations, -must destroy and build. The most constructive thinker in history -said, Love one another; but he also drove the money-changers from the -temple, and denounced the scribes and Pharisees, and has been busy for -nineteen hundred years pulling down tenements unfit for the habitation -of the soul. We see something new and something old. Old principles -run into mania, a wicked old world bursting into suicidal explosion, -as Carlyle said of the French Revolution. New loves, new capabilities, -new institutions, created by the expansion of old ideals and new -opportunities of human contact. Our love of those to whom we have been -"introduced" is but unlocking a door through which all men will pass -into our hearts. What makes men lovable is not the accident of our -knowing them. It is that they are men. Before 1776 there were thirteen -patriotisms in America. - -The bishops of Boswell's day had no ear for the lamentations of the -victims of the slave-trade, but there came a new sympathy which rose -superior to their divine displeasure that this commerce of Christian -merchants should be attacked. We are coming to sympathize with the -animals, and Queen Victoria contributes money to a hospital for the -succor of decayed old gentlemen and lady cats. By-and-by royal hearts -may widen to include men and women evicted in Ireland, or--worse -fate--not evicted from Whitechapel. The spirit that defended the -slave-trade now finds its last ditch behind the text, The poor ye -have with you always. But a new sympathy rises again, like that which -declared that the poor should be free of the slave-trade and slavery, -and declares that the poor shall be freed from starvation of body, -mind, and soul. Slave-trade, slavery, poverty; the form varies, but -against them all runs the refusal of the human heart to be made happy -at the cost of the misery of others, and its mathematical knowledge -that its quotient of satisfactions will increase with the sum of the -happiness of all. - -The word of the day is that we are about to civilize industry. -Mankind is quivering with its purpose to make men fellow-citizens, -brothers, lovers in industry, as it has done with them in government -and family, which are also industry. We already have on our shelves -the sciences--hygienic, industrial, political, ethical--to free the -world almost at a stroke from war, accidents, disease, poverty, -and their flowing vices and insanities. The men of these sciences -are here at call praying for employment. The people, by the books -they read, show themselves to be praying to have them put at work. -If we who call ourselves civilization would for one average span -devote to life-dealing the moneys, armies, and genius we now give -to death-dealing, and would establish over the weaker peoples a -protectorate of the United States of Europe and America, we would take -a long step towards settling forever the vexed question of the site of -the Garden of Eden. - -"Human nature," "monotony," and "individuality" are the lions which -the reformer is always told will stop the way to a better world. "You -cannot change human nature." There are two human natures--the human -nature of Christ and of Judas; and Christ prevails. There is the human -nature which seeks anonymity, secrecy, the fruits of power without -its duties; and there is the human nature which rises against these -and, province by province, is abolishing them from human affairs. Men -have always been willing to die for their faith. The bad have died as -bravely as the good, Charles I. with as smooth a front as Sir Harry -Vane. In this readiness to die lies folded every loyalty of life. - -"You would make the world a dead level of monotony." Good society does -not think it monotonous that all its women should at the same time dust -the streets with long-tailed gowns, or that its men should meet every -night in funereal black and identical cut, but it shrinks from the -monotony of having all share in reforms which would equalize surfeit -and starvation. "Good society" is still to come, and it will find some -better definition of "monotony" than a fair share for all--a better -definition of variety than too much for ourselves at the cost of too -little for all others. Shall we choose the monotony of sharing with -every one under George III. or Alexander II. the denial of all right to -participate in the supreme power, or shall we choose the monotony of -sharing with every fellow-citizen the right to become President?--the -monotony of being forbidden to enter all the great livelihoods, some -syndicate blocking each way with "This business belongs to us"? Or the -monotony of a democracy, where every laborer has equal rights with all -other citizens to decide upon the administration of the common toil for -the common welfare, and an equal right with every other to rise to be a -Captain of Industry? Such are the alternatives of "monotony." We have -made an historic choice in one; now for the other. - -And "individuality." "You are going to destroy individuality." We can -become individual only by submitting to be bound to others. We extend -our freedom only by finding new laws to obey. Life outside the law is -slavery on as many sides as there are disregarded laws. The locomotive -off its tracks is not free. The more relations, ties, duties, the -more "individual." The isolated man is the mere rudiment of an -individual. But he who has become citizen, neighbor, friend, brother, -son, husband, father, fellow-member, in one, is just by so many times -individualized. Men's expanding powers of co-operation bring them to -the conscious ability to unite for new benefits; but this extension of -individuality is forbidden in the name of individuality. There are two -individualities: that of the dullard, who submits to take his railroad -transportation, his light, his coal, his salt, his reaping-machine at -such prices and of such quality as arbitrary power forces upon him, and -that of the shrewder man who, by an alliance of the individualities of -all, supplies himself at his own price. - -Time carries us so easily we do not realize how fast we move. This -social debate has gone far beyond the question whether change there -must be. What shall the change be? is the subject all the world is -discussing. Exposure of abuses no longer excites more than a languid -interest. But every clear plan how things might be rearranged raises -the people. Before every revolution marches a book--the _Contrat -Social_, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. "Every man nowadays," says Emerson, -"carries a revolution in his vest-pocket." The book which sells more -copies than any other of our day abroad and at home, debated by all -down to the boot-blacks as they sit on the curb-stones, is one calling -men to draw from their success in insuring each other some of the -necessaries of life the courage to move on to insure each other all -the necessaries of life, bidding them abandon the self-defeating -anarchy which puts railroad-wreckers at the head of railroads and -famine-producers at the head of production, and inspiring them to share -the common toil and the fruits of the toil under the ideals which make -men Washingtons and Lincolns. You may question the importance of the -plan; you cannot question the importance of its welcome. It shows the -people gathering-points for the new constitution they know they must -make. - -In nothing has liberty justified itself more thoroughly than in the -resolute determination spreading among the American people to add -industrial to political independence. It is the hope of the world that -good has its effects as well as evil, and that on the whole, and in -the long-run, the seed of the good will overgrow the evil. "Heaven has -kindly given our blood a moral flow." Liberty breeds liberties, slavery -breeds slaveries, but the liberties will be the strongest stock. If -the political and religious liberties which the people of this country -aspired to set up had in them the real sap and fibre of a better life -than the world had yet known, it must certainly follow that they -would quicken and strengthen the people for discovery and obedience -in still higher realms. And just this has happened. Nowhere else has -the new claim to tax without representation been so quickly detected, -so intelligently scrutinized, and so bravely fought. Nowhere else has -this spreading plague of selfishness and false doctrine found a people -whose average and general life was pitched on so high a level that they -instantly took the alarm at its claims over their lives and liberties. -It has found a people so disciplined by the aspiration and achievement -of political and religious rights that they are already possessed of -a body of doctrine capable, by an easy extension, of refuting all the -pretensions of the new absolutism. At the very beginning of this new -democratic life among the nations it was understood that to be safe -liberty must be complete on its industrial as well as on its political -and religious sides. This is the American principle. "Give a man power -over my subsistence," said Alexander Hamilton, "and he has power over -the whole of my moral being." To submit to such a power gives only the -alternative of death or degradation, and the high spirit of America -preferred then, as it prefers now, the rule of right, which gives life. - -The mania of business has reached an acuter and extremer development -in America than elsewhere, because nowhere else have bounteous nature -and free institutions produced birthrights and pottages so well worth -"swapping." But the follies and wickedness of business have nowhere -been so sharply challenged as in free America. "Betake yourself to -America," said Carlyle to a friend beginning a literary career; "there -you can utter your freest thoughts in ways impossible here." It is to -this stern wakefulness of a free people that the world owes it that -more light has been thrown in America than in any other country on the -processes of modern money-making. A free press, organ of a free people, -has done invaluable service. The legislatures have pushed investigation -after investigation into the ways in which large masses of the people -have been deprived, for the benefit of single men or groups of men, -of rights of subsistence and government. Through the courts the free -people have pursued their depredators by civil and criminal process, by -public and private prosecutions. Imperfect and corrupt, these agencies -of press, courts, legislatures have often been; they have still done a -work which has either been left undone altogether in other countries, -or has been done with but a fraction of our thoroughness. - -It is due to them that there exists in the reports of legislative -investigations, State and national, in the proceedings of lawsuits and -criminal trials, in the files of the newspapers, a mass of information -which cannot be found in any other community in the world. There is in -these archives an accumulation of the raw material of tragedy, comedy, -romance, ravellings of the vicissitudes of human life, and social -and personal fate, which will feed the fires of whole generations of -literary men when once they awake to the existence of these precious -rolls. In these pigeon-holes are to be found keys of the present and -clews to the future. As America has the newest and widest liberty, it -is the stage where play the newest and widest forces of evil as well as -good. America is at the front of the forward line of evolution. It has -taken the lead in developing competition to the extreme form in which -it destroys competition, and in superfining the processes of exchange -of services into those of the acquisition of the property of others -without service. - -The hope is that the old economic system we inherited has ripened so -much more rapidly than the society and government we have created that -the dead matter it deposits can be thrown off by our vigorous youth and -health. "It is high time our bad wealth came to an end," says Emerson. -It has grown into its monstrous forms so fast that the dullest eye can -separate it from the Commonwealth, and the slowest mind comprehend its -mischievousness. In making themselves free of arbitrary and corrupt -power in government the Americans prepared themselves to be free in all -else, and because foremost in political liberty they have the promise -of being the first to realize industrial liberty--the trunk of a tree -of which political liberty is the seed, and without which political -liberty shrinks back into nothingness. - -"The art of Italy will blossom over our graves," Mazzini said when, -with true insight, he saw that the first artistic, first literary task -before the Italians was to make their country free. Art, literature, -culture, religion, in America, are already beginning to feel the -restrictive pressure which results from the domination of a selfish, -self-indulgent, luxurious, and anti-social power. This power, mastering -the markets of a civilization which gives its main energies to markets, -passes without difficulty to the mastery of all the other activities. -When churches, political campaigns, the expounding of the law, -maintenance of schools and colleges, and family life itself all depend -on money, they must become servile to the money power. Song, picture, -sermon, decrees of court, and the union of hearts must pass constantly -under stronger control of those who give their lives to trade and -encourage everybody else to trade, confident that the issue of it all -will be that they will hold as property, in exclusive possession, to be -doled out on their own terms, the matter by which alone man can live, -either materially or spiritually. - -In America, where the supreme political power and much of the -government of church and college have been taken out of traditional -hands and subjected to the changing determinations of popular will, it -has inevitably resulted that the State, church, and school have passed -under this mercantile aristocracy to a far greater extent than in -other countries where stiffer régimes under other and older influences -still stand. Our upper classes--elected, as always, by the equipoise -of effort and opinion between them and the lower classes--are, under -this commercial system, the men who trade best, who can control their -features and their consciences so that they can always get more than -they give, who can play with supply and demand so that at the end of -the game all their brethren are their tributaries for life. It is the -birthright-buying minds that, by the adoption of this ideal, we choose -for our rulers. The progressive races have altered their ideals of -kings with the indescribable advantage of being ruled by Washingtons -and Lincolns and Gladstones instead of Caligulas and Pharaohs. We -have now to make a similar step forward in another part of life. The -previous changes expressed outwardly an inner change of heart. The -reformer of to-day is simply he who, with quicker ear, detecting that -another change of heart is going on, goes before. - -Another great change is working in the inner mind of man, and will -surely be followed by incorporation in institutions and morals and -manners. The social head and heart are both being persuaded that too -many are idle--rich and poor; too many are hurt in body and soul--rich -and poor; too many children are "exposed," as in the old Greek and -Roman market-places; too many are starving within reach of too much -fertile waste; too many passions of envy, greed, and hate are raging -among rich and poor. There is too much left undone that ought to be -done along the whole scale of life, from the lowest physical to the -highest spiritual needs, from better roads to sweeter music and nobler -worship. It cannot be long, historically speaking, before all this -new sense and sentiment will issue in acts. All will be as zealously -protected against the oppression of the cruel in their daily labor -as now against oppression from invader or rioter, and will be as -warmly cheered in liberty to grow to their fullest capabilities as -laborers--_i.e._, users of matter for the purpose of the spirit--as -they are now welcomed to the liberty of the citizen and the worshipper. -Infinite is the fountain of our rights. We can have all the rights we -will create. All the rights we will give we can have. The American -people will save the liberties they have inherited by winning new ones -to bequeath. - -With this will come fruits of new faculty almost beyond calculation. -A new liberty will put an end to pauperism and millionairism and the -crimes and death-rate born of both wretchednesses, just as the liberty -of politics and religion put an end to martyrs and tyrants. The new -liberty is identical in principle and purpose with the other; it is -made inevitable by them. Those who love the liberties already won must -open the door to the new, unless they wish to see them all take flight -together. There can be no single liberty. Liberties go in clusters like -the Pleiades. - -We must either regulate, or own, or destroy, perishing by the sword -we take. The possibility of regulation is a dream. As long as this -control of the necessaries of life and this wealth remain private -with individuals, it is they who will regulate, not we. The policy -of regulation, disguise it as we may, is but moving to a compromise -and equilibrium within the evil all complain of. It is to accept the -principle of the sovereignty of the self-interest of the individual and -apply constitutional checks to it. The unprogressive nations palter -in this method with monarchy. But the wits of America are equal to -seeing that as with kingship and slavery so with poverty--the weeding -must be done at the roots. Sir Henry Sumner Maine says mankind moves -from status to contract; from society ruled by inherited customs to -one ruled by agreement, varied according to circumstances. Present -experience suggests the addition that the movement, like all in -nature, is pendulous, and that mankind moves progressively from status -to contract, and from this stage of contract to another status. We -march and rest and march again. If our society is settling down to an -interval of inertia, perhaps ages long, we must before night comes -establish all in as much equality and comfort as possible. - -The aspirations are not new. We have had them since Plato. The -knowledge of means for realizing them is not new. We have had it since -Aristotle, and the history of civilization is but the record of the -progressive embodiment of the ideals in institutions for the life -together--sexual, social, spiritual. What is new in our moment is that -mankind's accumulating forces are preparing for another step forward -in this long processional realization of its best possible. Nothing -so narrow as the mere governmentalizing of the means and processes of -production. It is only the morally nerveless who ask government to -do that which they will not rise to do. The conversion which is now -working itself out within us, and perhaps is more nearly born than we -suspect ("We shall not live to see slavery abolished," said Emerson, in -1859) is making itself felt on all sides of our life. In manners, in -literature, in marriage, in church, in all, we see at work the saving -ferment which is to make all things new by bringing them nearer to -the old ideals. George Sand was revolted by the servile accent of the -phrase of her day, "Madame est servie." Society has grown to the better -fellowship her finer ear found wanting in these words, and is now told -it is dinner, not madame or monsieur, that is served. - -We are to have, of course, great political changes. We are to apply -the co-operative methods of the post-office and the public school to -many other common toils, to all toils in which private sovereignty has -become through monopoly a despotism over the public, and to all in -which the association of the people and the organization of processes -have been so far developed that the profit-hunting Captain of Industry -may be replaced by the public-serving Captain of Industry. But we are -to have much more. We are to have a private life of a new beauty, of -which these are to be merely the mechanical exhibitions on the side -of politics. We are to move among each other, able, by the methodical -and agreed adherence of all, to do what the words of Lamennais mean, -instead of being able, as now, in most things, to afford only an -indulgence in feeling them. We are to be commoners, travellers to -Altruria. - -We are to become fathers, mothers, for the spirit of the father and -mother is not in us while we can say of any child it is not ours, and -leave it in the grime. We are to become men, women, for to all about -reinforcing us we shall insure full growth and thus insure it to -ourselves. We are to become gentlemen, ladies, for we will not accept -from another any service we are not willing to return in kind. We are -to become honest, giving when we get, and getting with the knowledge -and consent of all. We are to become rich, for we shall share in the -wealth now latent in idle men and idle land, and in the fertility of -work done by those who have ceased to withstand but stand with each -other. As we walk our parks we already see that by saying "thine" to -every neighbor we say "mine" of palaces, gardens, art, science, far -beyond any possible to selfishness, even the selfishness of kings. -We shall become patriots, for the heart will know why it thrills to -the flag. Those folds wave the salute of a greater love than that of -the man who will lay down his life for his friend. There floats the -banner of the love of millions, who, though they do not know you and -have never seen you, will die for you and are living for you, doing -in a thousand services unto you as you would be done by. And the -little patriotism, which is the love of the humanity fenced within our -frontier will widen into the reciprocal service of all men. Generals -were, merchants are, brothers will be, humanity's representative men. - -There is to be a people in industry, as in government. The same rising -genius of democracy which discovered that mankind did not co-operate in -the State to provide a few with palaces and king's-evil, is disclosing -that men do not co-operate in trade for any other purpose than to -mobilize the labor of all for the benefit of all, and that the only -true guidance comes from those who are led, and the only valid titles -from those who create. Very wide must be the emancipation of this new -self-interest. If we free America we shall still be not free, for the -financial, commercial, possessory powers of modern industrial life are -organized internationally. If we rose to the full execution of the -first, simplest, and most pressing need of our times and put an end -to all private use of public powers, we should still be confronted by -monopolies existing simply as private property, as in coal-mines, oil -lands. - -It is not a verbal accident that science is the substance of the word -conscience. We must know the right before we can do the right. When it -comes to know the facts the human heart can no more endure monopoly -than American slavery or Roman empire. The first step to a remedy is -that the people care. If they know, they will care. To help them to -know and care; to stimulate new hatred of evil, new love of the good, -new sympathy for the victims of power, and, by enlarging its science, -to quicken the old into a new conscience, this compilation of fact -has been made. Democracy is not a lie. There live in the body of the -commonalty the unexhausted virtue and the ever-refreshened strength -which can rise equal to any problems of progress. In the hope of -tapping some reserve of their powers of self-help this story is told to -the people. - - - - -APPENDIX - -PARTIAL LIST OF TRADE COMBINATIONS, OR TRUSTS, ACHIEVED OR ATTEMPTED, -AND OF THE COMMODITIES COVERED BY THEM[770] - - - I.--LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER - - Boilers, for house heating. - - Candle-makers, Great Britain, United States. - - Coal: anthracite, bituminous. - - Coke. - - Electric: carbon points, 1885; - candles,1888; - electric goods, national, 1887; - lighting, United States, Great Britain, 1882; - light-fixtures, national, 1889. - - Gas: illuminating and fuel, local, sectional, national; fixtures, - national; pipes, 1875; natural. - - Gasoline stoves, 1894. - - Governors of steam-boilers. - - Hot-water heaters, 1892. - - House furnaces, 1889. - - Kerosene, 1874. - - Kindling wood, Boston, 1891. - - Matches: United States; Great Britain; - Canada; - Sweden; - international, 1894. - - Paraffine. - - Petroleum and its products, 1874. - - Radiators, steam and hot-water, Western, 1891. - - Scotch mineral oil, 1888. - - Steam and hot-water master fitters, national, 1889. - - Stearine. - - Stove-boards, zinc, national, 1890. - - Stoves and ranges, 1872. - - Stoves, vapor, national, 1884. - - -II.--CHEMICALS - - Acids: acetic, citric, muriatic, nitric, sulphuric, American, 1889; - oxalic, Great Britain, 1882. - - Alkali Union, England, 1888. - - Alkaloids, United States. - - Alum, sectional, 1889. - - Ammonia, 1889. - - Bismuth salts, United States. - - Bleaching-powder, England, 1888. - - Boracic acid, United States. - - Borax: United States; - Great Britain, 1888. - - Chemical Union, England, 1890. - - Chloroform, United States. - - Drug manufacturers: United States; - Canada, 1884. - - Iodine, England, 1890. - - Iodoform, United States, 1880. - - Lime, acetate of, 1891. - - Mercurials: as calomel, corrosive sublimate, etc., United States. - - Nitrates, Chili, 1884. - - Paris-green, 1889. - - Potash: bichromate of, Great Britain; - bichloride of, United States; - chlorate, prussiate, Great Britain, 1888. - - Quinine, international, 1893. - - Rochelle salts, United States. - - Saltpetre. - - Santonine, United States. - - Soda, bichromate, United States; carbonate, - caustic, England, 1888; - nitrate of, Chili and England, 1884. - - Strychnine. - - Sulphur, Italy. - - Ultramarine: United States; Germany, 1890. - - Vitriol, 1889. - - -III.--METALS - - Aluminum, national, 1888. - - Barbed wire, 1881. - - Brass: sectional, 1884; - rolled and sheet, sheet German silver, copper rivets and burrs, copper - and German-silver wire, kerosene-oil burners and lamp trimmings, and - braised brass tubing. - - Copper: cold, bolt, rolled, sheet, 1888; - ore, Lake Superior, 1879; - international, 1887; - bath-tubs, boilers, sinks, and general ware, 1891; - wire. - - Iron: founders; galvanized, national, 1875; - malleable, national, 1882; - manufacturers, Germany, 1887; - nuts, 1884; - ore, Germany, 1884, Atlantic coast, 1886, Michigan, 1882, Southern, - 1884, Northwestern, 1887, Lake Superior, 1893; - pig, Eastern, Southern, 1883, national, 1889; - pipes, steam and gas, 1884; - wrought iron, 1887; - sheet, enamelled, Germany, 1893; - structural, national, 1881; - tubes, 1884; - wire-cloth, national, 1882; - Russian, 1893. - - Lead: pig, pipe; - sheet-lead, 1888; - white, national, 1884. - - Mica, national, 1887. - - Nickel. - - Quicksilver, California. - - Silver and lead smelters. - - Steel: armor-plate, Bessemer beams (in - existence nearly thirty years), castings, 1894; - galvanized; rails (see traffic and travel); - rods, United States and Germany, 1888; - rolling-mills. - - Tin: jobbers; American, national, 1883; - English, 1889. - - Zinc. - - -IV.--SOME OTHER INSTRUMENTS AND MATERIALS OF INDUSTRY - - Alcohol. - - Axes and axe-poles. - - Belting, leather, rubber. - - Blankets (press), American Papermakers' Felt and Jacket Association. - - Bobbins, spools, and shuttles, 1886, for cotton, woollen, silk, and linen - mills. - - Bolts, 1884. - - Boxes, wooden, local, 1885; - Western and Southern. - - Bridge-builders: Eastern, 1886; - Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, 1889. - - Butchers' skewers and supplies, Western, 1889. - - Carpet yarns, Eastern, 1889. - - Cash-registers, national, 1890. - - Celluloid, lythoid, zylonite, Eastern, 1890. - - Chains, national, 1883. - - Color trust, Great Britain, 1889. - - Cordage: rope, twine, United States, 1875; - England, 1892. - - Corks. - - Cotton duck, national, 1891. - - Cotton-seed oil, national, 1884. - - Creels, for cloth and woollen mills, national, 1893. - - Damasks, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Emery wheels, national. - - Felting. - - Fibre, indurated, pails, bowls, measures, water-coolers, filters, etc., - national, 1888. - - Files, 1875. - - Fire-brick, 1875. - - Fish-oil, menhaden, New England, 1885. - - Forge companies, national, 1889. - - Glass bottles: beer, United States, 1884; - green glass, English bottle manufacturers, 1889. - - Glass: flint, Western, 1891; - crown, cylinder, unpolished; - plate, French, 1888; - German, 1887; - international, 1890; - window, 1875; - sectional, national, international, 1884. - - Glass, plate, Underwriters, 1894. - - Glue. - - Gutta-percha. - - Hardware manufacturers, 1884. - - Label printers. - - Leather: belting, national; board, national, 1891; - hides, Northwestern, 1888; - morocco, Eastern, 1886; - patent, national, 1888; sole, 1893; - Tanners' Association, 1882; - Oak Harness Leather Tanners, national, 1890. - - Linen mills, Eastern, Western, 1892. - - Linseed oil: local, 1877; - national, 1887; - dealers, Canada, 1892. - - Manilla, international, 1887. - - Oil: lubricating, 1874; - for curing leather; menhaden; - safety burning oil for miners. - - Onyx, Mexican, 1890. - - Paper: local, sectional, national; - bags, Eastern and Western, 1887; - book and newspaper; boxes, national, 1883; - card-board, 1890; - flour sacks, 1887; - straw; tissue, 1892; - wrapping, Western, 1878, Eastern, 1881; - writing, national, 1884. Papermakers' trust in Great Britain to check - the operation of the Alkali trust, 1889; - Papermakers' Felt and Jacket Association, national; - rags, Eastern, 1883; - wood-pulp, Western, 1890; - New York, Canada, Eastern, 1891. - - Pitch, national, 1887 or earlier. - - Planes, carpenters'. - - Pumps, national, 1871. - - Rubber: belting, 1875; - electric web goring (for shoes), national, 1893; - gossamers, 1887; - hose, 1875; - importers, national, 1882; - manufacturers, national, 1882; - Brazil producers, 1890; - stamps and stencils, national, 1893. - - Sandpaper, emery and emery cloth, flint, garnet, ruby, sand cloth, - national, 1887. - - Saws, national, 1890. - - Scales. - - Screws: machine, 1887; - wood, national, international. - - Seed Crushers' Union, England, 1889. - - Sewer pipe, 1875. - - Sewing-machines, 1885. - - Sewing-machine supplies, New York and New England, 1883. - - Spirits. - - Straw braid. - - Straw-board, 1887. - - Tacks, 1875. - - Talc mills, New York, 1893. - - Tar, national, 1886. - - Teasel, national, 1892. - - Textile manufacturers, Pennsylvania, 1886--embracing dress goods, - ginghams, upholstery goods, woollens, yarns, chintzes, worsteds, damasks. - - Tools, edge, American Axe and Edged Tool Company, national, 1890. - - Turpentine, Southern, 1892. - - Type founders, national, 1888. - - Washers, 1884. - - Watch-cases, 1886. - - Well tools, for oil, gas, and artesian wells, 1889. - - Wood, excelsior, shavings for packing, national, 1889. - - Wooden-ware, 1883 or earlier. - - Woodworking machines, 1891. - - Wool felt. - - Wrenches, 1875. - - -V.--TRAFFIC AND TRAVEL - -_The Road, Horse, and Wagon_ - - Bicycles, United States, 1893. Board of Trade formed to regulate prices. - - Bicycle tires. - - Bridge-builders, 1886. - - Buggy pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Carriage builders, national, 1884. - - Carriage hardware, 1884. - - Harness dealers, manufacturers, national, 1886. - - Liverymen's Associations, local, 1884. - - Paving: asphalt, 1886; - brick, Western, 1892; - pitch, national, 1887. - - Road-making machines, Western, 1890. - - Saddlery Association, national, 1891. - - Saddle-trees, Indiana, Missouri, 1892. - - Wagons, local, 1886. - - Wheels, Western, 1889. - - Whips, national, 1892. - - -_Shipping_ - - Ballast, Havana, 1882. - - Canal-boats, 1884. - - Cotton duck, sail-cloth, national, 1888. - - Ferries, New York and Brooklyn. - - Lake carriers, Hull pool, 1886. - - Lake Dock Trust. - - Marine insurance, 1883. - - Naval stores. - - Ocean steamers: European, Asiatic, and American; - German steamship companies, 1894. - - Pilotage, New York, San Francisco. - - Steamboats: in the Cincinnati and New Orleans trade, 1884; - forwarding lines along the Hudson River, 1891. - - -_Railroads_ - - Car-axles, 1890. - - Car-springs, steel, national, 1887. - - Cars, freight and cattle. - - Elevators, grain, local, Western, 1887. - - Express companies. - - Locomotives: national, 1892; - boiler flues, 1875; - tires, national, 1892. - - Railroad: pools, freight and passenger, sectional, national; - Eastern Railroad Association, of 800 railroads, to fight patents. - - Steel sleepers, 1885; - steel rails, national. - - Street railways, local, sectional. - - -VI.--BUILDING - - Asbestos, for paints, roofing, steam-pipe and boiler coverings, 1891. - - Beams and channels, iron and steel, national, 1875. - - Blinds: Northwestern, 1885; - national, 1888. - - Brass, gas, plumbing, steam, water goods, 1884. - - Brick: local, sectional, 1884; - Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Washington (State); - pressed brick, 1890. - - Cement: Mississippi valley, 1883; - Eastern, 1884; - Northwestern, 1884. - - Cornice-makers, national, 1884. - - Doors: Northwestern, 1885; - national, 1888. - - Fire engines, including hook and ladder trucks, hose-carriages, heaters, - carts, stationary pumps, and other supplies, United States and Canada, - 1892. - - Fire insurance. - - Glue, national, 1894. - - Gypsum stucco, Eastern, Northwestern, 1884. - - Hinges, 1875. - - Lime, Western, 1883. - - Lumber: California pine, 1883; - California redwood, 1883; - Chicago; Mississippi valley; - Northwestern, 1880; - Pacific coast, 1883; - poplar, 1889; - Puget Sound, 1883; - yellow pine, Southern, 1890, Eastern, 1891; - dealers, national, 1878. - - Nails: Pennsylvania, 1875; - Western Association, 1882; - Atlantic States Association, 1883. - - Paint. - - Plaster, national, 1891. - - Roofing: felt; - iron; - pitch, Vermont, national, 1887. - - Sanitary pottery. - - Sash, doors, and blinds, national. - - Sewer pipes, national, 1884. - - Stone: brown stone, Lake Superior, 1890, New York, 1884; - cut-stone quarry owners, Western, 1892; - free-stone; granite, national, 1891; - limestone, rubble, and flag, Illinois, 1884; - marble, Western dealers, 1885; - Vermont marble quarries, 1889; - sandstone, New York, 1883. - - Structural steel. - - Stucco, 1883. - - Varnish dealers, national, 1888. - - Wall-paper: national, 1879; international, 1882. - - -VII.--FARM AND PLANTATION - - Agricultural implements, manufacturers, dealers, 1891. - - Binders, Harvester Trust, 1883. - - Churns, 1884. - - Corn-harvesters, national, 1892. - - Cotton bagging, 1888. - - Cotton presses, local, 1892. - - Drain tile, Indiana, 1894. - - Fencing, barbed wire, national, 1881. - - Fertilizers: 1888; - guano; - menhaden oil, New England, 1885; - phosphate, South Carolina, 1887; - Canada, 1890; - Florida, 1891. - - Forks, national, 1890. - - Harrow manufacturers, national, 1890. - - Harvesting-machines, national, 1883. - - Hay-presses, national, 1889. - - Hay tools, Western and Northwestern, 1884. - - Hoes, national, 1890. - - Horse-brushes, prison-made, 1889. - - Jute grain bags, national, 1888. - - Mowers, national, 1883. - - Pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Paris green. - - Ploughs, Northwestern, 1884. - - Rakes, national, 1890. - - Reapers, 1883. - - Scythe-makers, national, 1884. - - Shovels, national, 1890. - - Snath manufacturers, national, 1891. - - Threshing-machines, national, 1890, 1891. - - Twine, binding, 1887. - - Vehicles. - - -VIII.--SCHOOL, LIBRARY, AND COUNTING-ROOM - - Blank-books, 1888. - - Envelopes, 1888. - - Lead-pencils, 1878. - - Lithographic printers, national, 1892. - - Novels (paper-covered "libraries"), 1890. - - School-books, national, 1884. - - School-furniture, national, 1892. - - Slates and slate-pencils, national, 1887. - - Subscription-books, local, sectional, 1892. - - Type-founders, national, 1888. - - Type-writers. - - Writing-paper, national, 1884. - - -IX.--"THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD" - - Ammunition, 1883. - - Arms, 1883. - - Cartridges, national, 1883. - - Dynamite, Germany. - - Fireworks, national, 1890. - - Gunpowder, national, 1875. - - Guns, 1883. - - Shot-tower companies, national, 1873. - - -X.--FOR THE PERSON - - Barbers, National Tonsorial Parlor Company, organized to establish - barber-shops in all the large cities of the United States, 1890. - - Buttons. - - Calico, England, 1891. - - Clothes-brushes, prison-made, 1889. - - Coat and cloak manufacturers: New York, 1883; - Chicago, 1893. - - Collars and cuffs, New York, 1890. - - Cotton: England, 1890; - Fall River; Southern mills, 1881; - thread (spool-cotton), 1888. - - Diamonds: mines in South Africa; - dealers in Europe, 1889. - - Dress-goods, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Furs. - - Ginghams, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Gloves, New York. - - Hats: fur, 1885; - woollen, national. - - Knit goods: New York, 1884; - Western, 1889. - - Jewellers, national. - - Laundries: Chicago; - Chinese Laundry Union, New York City, 1889; - St. Louis, 1893. - - Pocket-knives, national, 1892. - - Ribbons, national, 1892. - - Rubber boots and shoes, national, 1882. - - Seal-skin, national, 1892. - - Shirts: Troy, New York City, 1890. - - Shoe: manufacturers, national, 1887; - retailers, New England, 1885; - national, 1886. - - Silk: manufacturers, international. France, England, Italy, Germany, - 1888; - sewing, national, 1887; - ribbon, 1884. - - Trunks, national, 1892. - - Umbrellas, Eastern, 1891. - - Watch: - manufacturers, makers and jewellers, national, 1886; - National Association of Jobbers of American Watches and Cases, 1886. - - Woollens: - manufacturers, 1882; - worsteds, yarns, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - -XI.--SMOKING AND DRINKING - - Beer, United States Brewers' Association, 1861. - - Champagne, New York City, 1889; - France, 1891. - - Meerschaum pipes, New Jersey, 1892. - - Soda fountains, 1890. - - Spittoons, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Tobacco and cigars, local, sectional, national, 1882; - cigarettes, 1890. - - Waters, mineral, national, 1889. - - Whiskey and "domestic"--or artificial--brandy, rum, gin, and cordials made - in imitation of the genuine. - - Wine-growers, California, 1889. - - -XII.--"HOME, SWEET HOME" - -_In General_ - - Candles, coal, furnaces, gas, oil, matches, ranges, stoves, etc. (see - Light, Heat, and Power). - - Carpets: - Eastern, 1885; - Brussels, in-grain, 1888. - - Chairs: - cane, 1889; - manufacturers, Western, 1880; - seats, perforated, national, 1888. - - Furniture: - national, 1883; - Chicago manufacturers, 1886; - retailers, New England, 1888; - national, 1893. - - Hair-cloth, Rhode Island, 1893. - - Oil-cloth, table and stair, Oil-cloth Association, 1887. - - Pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Soap, national, 1890. - - Upholsterers' felt. - - Upholstery goods, textile manufacturers, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Window-shades, 1888. - - -_The Kitchen_ - - Boilers. - - Bottles. - - Brooms, 1886. - - Brushes, scrubbing, prison-made, 1889. - - Chopping-bowls, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Crockery, national, 1883. - - Fruit-jars, 1891. - - Glass-ware, 1883. - - Hollow-ware, prison-made, 1888. - - Keelers, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Kettles, prison-made, 1888. - - Lamp-chimneys, 1883. - - Measures, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Pans and pots, prison-made, 1888. - - Potato-mashers, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Pottery, yellow-ware, national, 1889. - - Sinks, copper. - - Stamped-ware, national, 1882. - - Tin-ware: - national, 1883; - English, 1889. - - Water-coolers, filters, pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Water-pails, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - -_Laundry_ - - Borax. - - Clothes-pins, New York, 1888. - - Clothes-wringers. - - Soap, national, 1890. - - Soda, 1884. - - Starch: - Western, 1882; - national, 1890. - - Washboards, New York, 1888. - - Wash-tubs, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Washing-machines, national, 1891. - - Water-tubs, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Zinc, sheet, 1890. - - -_Dining-room_ - - Butter-dishes, 1886. - - China, England, 1888. - - Glass table-ware, 1889. - - Plated-ware. - - Silver-plated ware. - - Silver-ware, national, 1892. - - Table cutlery, national, 1881. - - Table oil-cloth, national, 1888. - - Tables, extension-tables, national, 1893. - - -_Parlor_ - - For carpets, furniture, upholstery, etc., see under "In General," above. - - Mantel lambrequin, wool felt, 1888. - - Music, books and instruments, Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, 1892. - - Organs, local, sectional, 1889. - - Parlor frame manufacturers. - - Parlor furniture, Western Association, 1886. - - Pianos, local, sectional, 1889; - national, 1893. - - Piano-covers, wool felt, 1888. - - Picture-frames, 1890. - - Rugs, Eastern, 1885. - - Table-covers, wool felt, 1888. - - Tapestries, Eastern, 1885. - - -_Bath-room_ - - Bath-tubs (see "Copper"). - - Sanitary-ware, 1889. - - Sponges, Florida, New York, 1892. - - -_Bedroom_ - - Chintzes, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Looking-glass: - French silvered plate-glass, 1888; - German, national, 1887; - international, 1890. - - Spring beds, national, 1890. - - Wire mattress: - Northwestern, 1886; - national, 1890. - - -XIII.--"OUR DAILY BREAD" - - Bread, biscuit, crackers, local, sectional, national. - - Butter, local, 1889. - - Candy, local, national, 1884. - - Canned goods: - Western, 1885; - national, 1889; - California canned fruit, 1891. - - Cider and vinegar, national, 1882. - - Coffee, Arbuckle trust, 1888. - - Corn-meal, Western, 1894. - - Cotton-seed oil. - - Dairy Association, national, 1893. - - Eggs, local, in United States and Canada. - - Fish: - England, 1749 and before; - New York and New England, 1892; - salmon, Alaska, 1891; - salmon canners of the Pacific coast, 1893; - sardines, Eastern, 1885; - international, 1890; - sardine canneries, Canada, 1893. - - Flour: - United States, National Millers' Association, 1883; - winter wheat mills, national, 1888; - spring wheat mills of the United States; - millers of northeast England, 1889; - rye flour, local, 1891; - flour-mills of Utah and Colorado, 1892. - - Food Manufacturers' Association, United States, 1891. - - Fruit: - bananas, Southern, 1888; - California fruit-growers, 1892; - cranberries, Cape Cod, 1888; - England, 1884; - Florida, 1889; - foreign fruit, New York, 1884; - Fruit-trade Association, New York, 1882; - fruit-growers of the Eastern and Middle States against - commission-merchants, 1887; - preserves and jellies, Western, 1883; - American Preservers' Company, 1889; - prunes, California; - strawberry-growers, Wisconsin, 1892; - watermelons, Indiana, South Carolina, 1889. - - Grape-growers, northern Ohio, 1894. - - Grocers: wholesale, retail; local, sectional, national. - - Honey, local, 1888. - - Ice: - local, sectional, 1883; - artificial, Southern, 1889. - - Lard-refiners, Eastern, 1887. - - Meat and cattle: - beef, mutton, pork; - Butchers' National Protective Association; - Chicago packers; - Inter-mountain Stock-growers' Association, Utah, 1893; - International Cattle Range Association; - Live-stock Association, 1887; - Northwest Texas Live-stock Association, 1878; - Western Kansas Stock-growers' Association, 1883; - Wyoming Stock-growers' Association, 1874. - - Milk: - local, sectional, 1883; - condensed milk, New York, Illinois, 1891. - - Oatmeal, 1885; - Canada, 1887. - - Olive-oil. - - Oysters, local, 1890. - - Pea-nuts, 1888. - - Pickles, national, 1891. - - Produce: - Produce Commission-merchants, eight large cities--North, South, East, - West, 1883; - West, 1888. - - Raisins, California, 1894. - - Rice-mills, Southern, 1888. - - Salt: - rock; - English Salt Union, 1888; - international, United States and Canada, 1889; - Canada, 1891. - - Sugar: - Hawaii, 1876; - United States, 1887. - Glucose, national, 1883; - international, 1891. - - Wine, California, 1894. - - -XIV.--LIFE AND DEATH - - Artificial teeth, United States, 1889. - - Castor-oil, 1885. - - Cocoa-nut oil, American importers, 1881. - - Coffins, National Burial-case Association, 1884. - - Dental machines and supplies, United States, 1889. - - Drugs: - importers; - druggists, retail, sectional, national, 1883; - wholesale, sectional, national, 1884; - Canada, 1874; - manufacturers, national, 1884. - - Ergot, 1891. - - Glycerine, New York, 1888. - - Life insurance, 1883, - national, 1891. - - Patent medicines, national, 1884. - - Peppermint, local, 1887. - - Quinine, 1882. - - Tombstones, local, Brooklyn, Chicago, 1891. - - Vaseline. - - -XV.--MISCELLANEOUS - - Athletic clubs, 1893, to reduce charges made by prize-fighters for - exhibition. - - Base-ball, national, 1876. - - Billiard-tables and furniture, 1884. - - Bill-posters, United States, Canada, 1872. - - Dime museums, national, 1883. - - Landlords' Union, London, England, 1890. - - News-dealers, 1884; - newspapers, Associated Press, United Press; - sectional, national. - - Photographers, national, 1889. - - Playing-cards. - - Printers, show and job, 1893. - - Racing trust, jockey club, 1894. - - Retailers, 1891. - Small retail store-keepers of Kansas City protest against mammoth - department stores. - - Safes, national, 1892. - - Theatrical trust, Interstate Amusement Company, Springfield, Ill., 1894. - - Warehouses: - Brooklyn, 1887; - national, 1891. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote 1: Annual Report Attorney-General of the United States, 1893.] - -[Footnote 2: People of the State of New York _vs._ The North River -Sugar Refining Company. Supreme Court of New York--at Circuit (January -9, 1889). New York Senate Trusts, 1889, p. 278.] - -[Footnote 3: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 19.] - -[Footnote 4: References: - -1. Investigation by the Senate of Pennsylvania into the Anthracite Coal -Difficulties, 1871. - -2. Morris Run Coal Company _vs._ The Barclay Coal Company. Pennsylvania -State Reports, Vol. 68, p. 173. - -3. Report on the Coal Combination. New York Assembly Committee on -Railroads, 1878. - -4. Labor Troubles in Anthracite Regions, 1887-1888. House of -Representatives, 50th Congress, Second Session. Report No. 4147. - -5. New York Senate Investigation of the Coal Combination, 1892. - -6. Alleged Coal Combination. House of Representatives, 52d Congress, 2d -Session. Report No. 2278. January 18, 1893. - -7. Coxe Brothers & Co. _vs._ The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, -before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Report and Opinion of the -Commission. - -8. John C. Haddock _vs._ Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad -Company, before the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1890. - -9. Hocking Valley Investigation. General Assembly of Ohio, 1885. - -10. Trusts or Pools. Investigation by Legislature of Ohio, 1889. - -11. Alleged Combinations in Manufactures, Trade, etc. Dominion House of -Commons, 1888.] - -[Footnote 5: Richardson _vs._ Buhl _et al._ Michigan State Reports, -vol. lxxvii., p. 632.] - -[Footnote 6: Page ii.] - -[Footnote 7: Page xxii.] - -[Footnote 8: Coal Combination, Congress, 1893. Testimony of John C. -Haddock, pp. 242-261.] - -[Footnote 9: Same, p. iv.] - -[Footnote 10: Report, p. xlv.] - -[Footnote 11: Coal Combination, Congress, 1893, pp. iii., iv., vi.] - -[Footnote 12: Same, p. i.] - -[Footnote 13: Same. p. v.] - -[Footnote 14: Report, pp. xiv., xv., xlix.] - -[Footnote 15: Combinations, Canadian Parliament, 1888, pp. 5, 6, 7.] - -[Footnote 16: Report, p. lxx.] - -[Footnote 17: Investigation by the Senate of Pennsylvania into the -Anthracite Coal Difficulties, 1871.] - -[Footnote 18: Report, pp. lxx., and following.] - -[Footnote 19: Same, p. lxxvi.] - -[Footnote 20: Same, p. lxxvii.] - -[Footnote 21: Report, pp. ix., xciv., and following.] - -[Footnote 22: Same, p. xlv.] - -[Footnote 23: Same, p. xiii.] - -[Footnote 24: Coxe case before Interstate Commerce Commission, Coal -Combination, Congress, 1893, p. 183.] - -[Footnote 25: Same, p. v.] - -[Footnote 26: Whiskey Trust Investigation. Committee on the -Judiciary Report, March 1, 1893. 52d Congress, 2d Session, House of -Representatives, Report No. 2601, p. 16 and following.] - -[Footnote 27: Same testimony, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 28: Whiskey Trust Investigation, Congress, 1893, p. 62.] - -[Footnote 29: Whiskey Trust Investigation, Congress, 1893, pp. 14, 15.] - -[Footnote 30: Report of the Investigating Committee appointed by the -Legislature of Minnesota of 1891, to determine whether wheat was taken -without inspection from a public elevator in Duluth. April 7, 1892, p. -11.] - -[Footnote 31: Trusts, New York Senate, 1891, pp. 9, 11.] - -[Footnote 32: Meat Products, United States Senate, 51st Congress, 1st -Session, Report No. 829, 1890, p. 2.] - -[Footnote 33: New York Assembly, "Hepburn Report," 1879, p. 70.] - -[Footnote 34: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, p. 3.] - -[Footnote 35: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, pp. 1, 2.] - -[Footnote 36: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, p. 6.] - -[Footnote 37: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, Testimony, pp. -464, 465.] - -[Footnote 38: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890.] - -[Footnote 39: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888. Combinations, Canadian -Parliament, 1888.] - -[Footnote 40: F.H. Storer, _American Journal of Science_, vol. xxx., -1860.] - -[Footnote 41: Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 159.] - -[Footnote 42: Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 160.] - -[Footnote 43: Testimony of Simon Bernheimer, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3549 and following.] - -[Footnote 44: Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 93.] - -[Footnote 45: Same, p. 93.] - -[Footnote 46: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 214.] - -[Footnote 47: Titusville _Morning Herald_, March 20, 1872.] - -[Footnote 48: Testimony, Erie Investigation, New York Assembly, 1873, -p. 418.] - -[Footnote 49: Testimony of Simon Bernheimer, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3548.] - -[Footnote 50: Testimony, Freight Discriminations, Ohio House of -Representatives, 1879, pp. 184-5.] - -[Footnote 51: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 304.] - -[Footnote 52: Testimony, Pennsylvania Tax Case, 1883, p. 486.] - -[Footnote 53: This contract is printed in full in Exhibits, New -York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 418-51, and Trust Report, -Congress, 1888, pp. 357-61.] - -[Footnote 54: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 353.] - -[Footnote 55: Art. 2, sec. 3.] - -[Footnote 56: Art. 2, sec. 4.] - -[Footnote 57: Art. 2, sec. 5.] - -[Footnote 58: Art. 2, Sec. 4.] - -[Footnote 59: The same.] - -[Footnote 60: Art. 2, Sec. 8.] - -[Footnote 61: Art. 2, Sec. 5.] - -[Footnote 62: Art. 3.] - -[Footnote 63: Art. 4.] - -[Footnote 64: Exhibits, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, pp. 418-51.] - -[Footnote 65: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 1566.] - -[Footnote 66: Testimony, Erie Investigation, New York Assembly, 1873, -p. 300.] - -[Footnote 67: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 42.] - -[Footnote 68: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, p. -418.] - -[Footnote 69: Report of the Executive Committee of the Petroleum -Producers' Union, 1872, p. 23.] - -[Footnote 70: Testimony, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, p. 237.] - -[Footnote 71: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2525.] - -[Footnote 72: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2527.] - -[Footnote 73: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2525-35.] - -[Footnote 74: See ch. xxxii. for "the state of the business" -"unproductive of profit."] - -[Footnote 75: Standard Oil Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._ Court -of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, O. Affidavit of the President of the -Standard Oil Company.] - -[Footnote 76: 11 Harris.] - -[Footnote 77: Debates of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, -1873, v. 3, pp. 522-3.] - -[Footnote 78: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2766.] - -[Footnote 79: Report of Executive Committee of the Petroleum Producers' -Union, 1872.] - -[Footnote 80: See ch. xxxiii.] - -[Footnote 81: Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.] - -[Footnote 82: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 290.] - -[Footnote 83: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 420.] - -[Footnote 84: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 289.] - -[Footnote 85: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad Company _et al._, 1879, p. 707.] - -[Footnote 86: Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.] - -[Footnote 87: Exhibit A, Answer of Defendants, Case of Standard Oil -Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, Cleveland, 1880.] - -[Footnote 88: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 385.] - -[Footnote 89: Exhibit A, Answer of Defendants, Case of Standard Oil -Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, Cleveland, 1880, Section 7.] - -[Footnote 90: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 91: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 92: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 93: Same.] - -[Footnote 94: Same.] - -[Footnote 95: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 547.] - -[Footnote 96: Petition for Relief and Injunction, Standard Oil Company -_vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, etc.] - -[Footnote 97: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 98: _Combinations_, etc., S.C.T. Dodd, p. 25.] - -[Footnote 99: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 422.] - -[Footnote 100: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 772.] - -[Footnote 101: Affidavit of Levi T. Scofield.] - -[Footnote 102: Exhibit A, etc., Section 12.] - -[Footnote 103: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 388, 421.] - -[Footnote 104: Scofield _et al._ _vs._ Lake Shore and Michigan Southern -Railway Company, 43 Ohio State Report, p. 571.] - -[Footnote 105: See ch. xxvii.] - -[Footnote 106: See ch. xxvii.] - -[Footnote 107: See Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 800.] - -[Footnote 108: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad -_et al._, 1879, Testimony, p. 472.] - -[Footnote 109: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1879, Testimony, p. 490.] - -[Footnote 110: Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.] - -[Footnote 111: See ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 112: Glasgow _Herald_, June 16, 1892.] - -[Footnote 113: Affidavit, Oct. 18, 1880, Case of Standard Oil Company -_vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, Cleveland, 1880.] - -[Footnote 114: Affidavit, Nov. 17, 1880.] - -[Footnote 115: Affidavit, Nov. 30, 1880.] - -[Footnote 116: Affidavit, May 1, 1880.] - -[Footnote 117: See chapter "Not to Exceed Half."] - -[Footnote 118: Affidavit, May 1, 1880.] - -[Footnote 119: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad -Company _et al._, Testimony, p. 751.] - -[Footnote 120: Exhibit A, Affidavit, October 18, 1880.] - -[Footnote 121: See ch. xxvii.] - -[Footnote 122: See ch. xviii. and following.] - -[Footnote 123: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.] - -[Footnote 124: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1693.] - -[Footnote 125: Rutter Circular, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.] - -[Footnote 126: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 127: Rutter Circular, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.] - -[Footnote 128: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1596.] - -[Footnote 129: Same, Report, p. 43.] - -[Footnote 130: Same, Testimony, p. 3429.] - -[Footnote 131: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2792-95.] - -[Footnote 132: Same, p. 2795.] - -[Footnote 133: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 445.] - -[Footnote 134: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 670.] - -[Footnote 135: Testimony of A.J. Cassatt, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -_vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 666, 669, 671.] - -[Footnote 136: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 137: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc., 1879, p. -665.] - -[Footnote 138: Appeal to the Executive of Pennsylvania, Trusts, -Congress, 1888, p. 354.] - -[Footnote 139: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 735.] - -[Footnote 140: Same, p. 672.] - -[Footnote 141: Same, p. 460.] - -[Footnote 142: See ch. vi.] - -[Footnote 143: Standard Oil Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._ -Affidavit of the treasurer of the Standard.] - -[Footnote 144: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 771-72.] - -[Footnote 145: For the full report of these remarkable interviews with -the President and Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad see -Testimony, Investigation Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, -1878, pp. 47 _et seq._, 60 _et seq._; Testimony, Commonwealth of -Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 160 _et -seq._, 204 _et seq._, 237 _et seq._] - -[Footnote 146: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 225-26.] - -[Footnote 147: Testimony, Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of -Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. 49, 59; Testimony, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 710, 3548-56; Exhibits, same, p. 176; -Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et -al._, 1879, p. 247.] - -[Footnote 148: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, p. 712.] - -[Footnote 149: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -720.] - -[Footnote 150: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 445.] - -[Footnote 151: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 725-26.] - -[Footnote 152: Exhibits, pp. 453-514.] - -[Footnote 153: Testimony, pp. 174-207.] - -[Footnote 154: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 11.] - -[Footnote 155: Same, p. 352.] - -[Footnote 156: Same, p. 510.] - -[Footnote 157: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 420.] - -[Footnote 158: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 374.] - -[Footnote 159: Testimony, Discriminations in Freight Rates, Ohio House -of Representatives, 1879, pp. 181-85.] - -[Footnote 160: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -800.] - -[Footnote 161: Exhibits, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -238-45.] - -[Footnote 162: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, pp. -479-514.] - -[Footnote 163: This was always denied by the New York Central. "I never -heard of the American Transfer Company," Vanderbilt told the New York -Legislature. "I don't know that we ever paid the American Transfer -Company a dollar. If we did, I have no knowledge of it." New York -Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 1577.] - -[Footnote 164: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, p. 702. Same, Exhibits Nos. 45-47, pp. -732-33.] - -[Footnote 165: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad -_et al._, 1879, p. 691.] - -[Footnote 166: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -3666-69.] - -[Footnote 167: Same, p. 3959.] - -[Footnote 168: Same, p. 2664.] - -[Footnote 169: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 656-57.] - -[Footnote 170: Art. 1, sec. 4.] - -[Footnote 171: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 40-44.] - -[Footnote 172: Speech of Simon Sterne, counsel of the New York Chamber -of Commerce, before New York Assembly "Hepburn" Committee, 1879, p. -3964.] - -[Footnote 173: Testimony, same, p. 2772.] - -[Footnote 174: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 175: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 176: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 302, 314.] - -[Footnote 177: Testimony, same, Pipe Line Appendix, pp. 36-37; -Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. -19, 29.] - -[Footnote 178: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc., 1879, -Pipe Line Appendix, pp. 36-37; Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of -Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. 19, 29, 32, 42.] - -[Footnote 179: A History, etc. Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 690, 697, -705, 706.] - -[Footnote 180: Testimony of B.B. Campbell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -_vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, pp. 298-99.] - -[Footnote 181: Same, p. 300.] - -[Footnote 182: Testimony of B.B. Campbell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -_vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, p. 300.] - -[Footnote 183: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 78-79.] - -[Footnote 184: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 295.] - -[Footnote 185: Same, p. 212.] - -[Footnote 186: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 45.] - -[Footnote 187: Franklin B. Gowen, before House Committee of Commerce, -Washington, Jan. 27, 1880.] - -[Footnote 188: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -before Interstate Commerce Commission, pp. 299-300.] - -[Footnote 189: Same, pp. 521, 539.] - -[Footnote 190: Same, p. 534.] - -[Footnote 191: Franklin B. Gowen, before House Committee of Commerce, -Washington, Jan. 27, 1880.] - -[Footnote 192: Report, p. 45.] - -[Footnote 193: Franklin B. Gowen, before Pennsylvania House of -Representatives Committee on Railroads, Feb. 13, 1883.] - -[Footnote 194: See ch. xiii.] - -[Footnote 195: See ch. xxvi.] - -[Footnote 196: Testimony of General Freight Agent of Pennsylvania -Railroad (Logan, Emery, and Weaver _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad), McKean -County Court of Common Pleas, 1889.] - -[Footnote 197: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases -before the Interstate Commerce Commission, Deposition, pp. 531-34.] - -[Footnote 198: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme Oil Company, Supreme Court -of New York, Buffalo, May, 1888, before Judge Childs; Deposition of -David McKelvey.] - -[Footnote 199: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases; Interstate -Commerce Commission reports, vol. v., pp. 4, 5.] - -[Footnote 200: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 572.] - -[Footnote 201: Same, pp. 389-99.] - -[Footnote 202: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 658.] - -[Footnote 203: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 925.] - -[Footnote 204: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 205: New York _Independent_, March 17, 1893.] - -[Footnote 206: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -Nos. 153, 154, 163, Interstate Commerce Commission; Deposition of -General Freight Agent Pennsylvania Railroad, pp. 531, 534.] - -[Footnote 207: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 389.] - -[Footnote 208: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 27.] - -[Footnote 209: Same, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 210: Same, p. 27.] - -[Footnote 211: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 17.] - -[Footnote 212: Answer of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Testimony, -Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, p. 365.] - -[Footnote 213: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 256.] - -[Footnote 214: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Petition -and Complaint.] - -[Footnote 215: Same, Testimony, p. 367.] - -[Footnote 216: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 372.] - -[Footnote 217: Same, pp. 380, 382.] - -[Footnote 218: Same, p. 256.] - -[Footnote 219: National Oil Company, Limited, to Interstate Commerce -Commission, March 30, 1893.] - -[Footnote 220: _Combinations: Their Uses and Abuses_, by S.C.T. Dodd, -p. 26.] - -[Footnote 221: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3688.] - -[Footnote 222: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 71.] - -[Footnote 223: Same, p. 426.] - -[Footnote 224: Same, p. 425.] - -[Footnote 225: _The Railways and the Republic_, by J.F. Hudson, p. 83.] - -[Footnote 226: See pp. 69-70.] - -[Footnote 227: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Nos. 153, -154, 163. Petition and Complaint, p. 4.] - -[Footnote 228: Interstate Commerce Commission, "In the Matter of -Relative Tank and Barrel Rates on Oil," 1888. Letter of G.B. Roberts.] - -[Footnote 229: See ch. v.] - -[Footnote 230: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 231: See below, and ch. xvii.] - -[Footnote 232: See ch. xxxiii.] - -[Footnote 233: Rice, Robinson & Witherop case, Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1890.] - -[Footnote 234: In the matter of Relative Tank and Barrel Rates on Oil. -Letter of President Roberts, Interstate Commerce Commission reports, -vol. ii., p. 365.] - -[Footnote 235: Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.] - -[Footnote 236: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Exhibits, -pp. 6, 7, 10.] - -[Footnote 237: Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.] - -[Footnote 238: Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.] - -[Footnote 239: Same.] - -[Footnote 240: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 462.] - -[Footnote 241: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 542, 543.] - -[Footnote 242: Same, p. 542.] - -[Footnote 243: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Petition -and Complaint.] - -[Footnote 244: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 44, 110, 393, 396.] - -[Footnote 245: Same, p. 401.] - -[Footnote 246: Same, p. 335.] - -[Footnote 247: See p. 145.] - -[Footnote 248: See ch. xv.] - -[Footnote 249: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 283-84.] - -[Footnote 250: Same, p. 283.] - -[Footnote 251: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Interstate -Commerce Commission Reports, vol v., p. 415.] - -[Footnote 252: See chs. xv., xvi., xvii.] - -[Footnote 253: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 268-336.] - -[Footnote 254: Same, p. 476.] - -[Footnote 255: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 163, 461, 537.] - -[Footnote 256: Same, p. 267.] - -[Footnote 257: Same, p. 296.] - -[Footnote 258: Same, Testimony of General Freight Manager of the Lehigh -Valley Railroad, pp. 161-62.] - -[Footnote 259: Same, Testimony of General Freight Agent of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, pp. 523, 537.] - -[Footnote 260: Testimony of General Freight Agent of the Pennsylvania -Railroad in Nicolai and Brady _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, -before Interstate Commerce Commission, Jan. 28, 1888.] - -[Footnote 261: The new rates prohibited the traffic. Testimony, -Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, pp. 97, 110, 139, 141, -146-48, 383-84, 393, 396, 397, 400, 401, 402.] - -[Footnote 262: Decision in Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, -Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. 131.] - -[Footnote 263: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 283.] - -[Footnote 264: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 265: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 36.] - -[Footnote 266: Same, p. 270.] - -[Footnote 267: Same, p. 221.] - -[Footnote 268: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 269: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -Mr. Confer, June 17, 1891, p. 12.] - -[Footnote 270: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 237-38.] - -[Footnote 271: Same, Report and Opinion of the Commission.] - -[Footnote 272: Same.] - -[Footnote 273: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 127-28.] - -[Footnote 274: Report of Senate Select Committee, Interstate Commerce, -49th Congress, 1st Session, 1886, p. 214.] - -[Footnote 275: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 252.] - -[Footnote 276: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 20, 45, 75, 128-29, 175-77.] - -[Footnote 277: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 304-5.] - -[Footnote 278: Same, p. 486.] - -[Footnote 279: Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. -131.] - -[Footnote 280: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 188, 193, 446, 466, 467.] - -[Footnote 281: See chs. xvi, and xvii.] - -[Footnote 282: Rice cases, Nos. 184, 185, 194. Interstate Commerce -Commission Reports, vol v., p. 193.] - -[Footnote 283: Same.] - -[Footnote 284: George Rice _vs._ The St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. -_et al._, and same _vs._ Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. -_et al._ Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. v., p. 660.] - -[Footnote 285: See chap. ix.] - -[Footnote 286: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 695.] - -[Footnote 287: Same, p. 69.] - -[Footnote 288: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 449.] - -[Footnote 289: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 7, 19, 27, 28.] - -[Footnote 290: See ch. xviii.] - -[Footnote 291: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 64.] - -[Footnote 292: New York _Tribune_, June 29, 1889.] - -[Footnote 293: United States Department of the Interior. "Petroleum," -by Joseph D. Weeks, p. 300. Annual Oil Supplement to _Oil City -Derrick_, 1893 and 1894.] - -[Footnote 294: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 68.] - -[Footnote 295: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 387.] - -[Footnote 296: Same, p. 405.] - -[Footnote 297: Same, p. 449.] - -[Footnote 298: Annual Oil Supplement to _Oil City Derrick_, Jan. 2, -1893.] - -[Footnote 299: Trusts, Congress, 1888. p. 52.] - -[Footnote 300: Same, p. 67.] - -[Footnote 301: Same, p. 29.] - -[Footnote 302: Same, p. 65.] - -[Footnote 303: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 304: See ch. xxiii.] - -[Footnote 305: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3482.] - -[Footnote 306: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 330.] - -[Footnote 307: Testimony of P.M. Shannon, J.W. Lee, T.B. Westgate, in -the case of J.J. Carter _vs._ Producers and Refiners' Oil Co., Ld., -Court of Common Pleas, Crawford County, Pa., May, 1894.] - -[Footnote 308: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 309: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, _ex rel._ Bolard and Dale -_vs._ National Transit Co., Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, -Pa., December, 1893.] - -[Footnote 310: See ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 311: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, p. 527.] - -[Footnote 312: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania -Legislature on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883. Testimony of -Auditor-General Schell, p. 11 _et seq._, pp. 394-95, and of Corporation -Clerk, same, p. 58 _et seq._] - -[Footnote 313: Same, pp. 60, 61, 62.] - -[Footnote 314: Same, pp. 374, 383.] - -[Footnote 315: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, pp. 68, 69, 70, 381.] - -[Footnote 316: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, pp. 53, 70, 81-85.] - -[Footnote 317: Appeal of Standard Oil Company to the Court of Common -Pleas of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, June 20, 1881.] - -[Footnote 318: Trusts, Congress, 1886, p. 707.] - -[Footnote 319: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 143, 196, 476.] - -[Footnote 320: Same, pp. 316-17.] - -[Footnote 321: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 229, 478.] - -[Footnote 322: Same, pp. 478-79.] - -[Footnote 323: Same, pp. 228-29.] - -[Footnote 324: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 163, 185.] - -[Footnote 325: Same, p. 631.] - -[Footnote 326: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 267-70, 762-63.] - -[Footnote 327: Same, pp. 310, 789.] - -[Footnote 328: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 640-43, 830.] - -[Footnote 329: Same, p. 231.] - -[Footnote 330: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 229-30, 284-95.] - -[Footnote 331: Same, p. 498.] - -[Footnote 332: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 343.] - -[Footnote 333: Same, p. 500.] - -[Footnote 334: Same, pp. 339-41.] - -[Footnote 335: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 502-6.] - -[Footnote 336: Same, pp. 297, 310, 315, 327.] - -[Footnote 337: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 467, 521.] - -[Footnote 338: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 661.] - -[Footnote 339: Same, F.B. Gowen, p. 650.] - -[Footnote 340: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 713.] - -[Footnote 341: Hudson's _Railways and Republic_, p. 465.] - -[Footnote 342: "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, Special -Agent, U.S. Census, 1885, p. 93.] - -[Footnote 343: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme Oil Company. Tried in the -Supreme Court at Buffalo, N.Y., May 14, 1888.] - -[Footnote 344: _The Early and Later History of Petroleum_, by J.G. -Henry, 1873, p. 186.] - -[Footnote 345: "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, Special -Agent, U.S. Census, 1885, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 346: Trusts, Congress, 1888, Testimony of Joshua Merrill, p. -566.] - -[Footnote 347: Trusts, Congress, 1888, Testimony of Joshua Merrill, pp. -567-69.] - -[Footnote 348: Same, p. 568.] - -[Footnote 349: Same, p. 568.] - -[Footnote 350: Same, p. 570.] - -[Footnote 351: Supreme Court of New York: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme -Oil Company. Tried at Buffalo, New York, May 14, 1888.] - -[Footnote 352: Testimony, same.] - -[Footnote 353: Testimony, same.] - -[Footnote 354: Supreme Court of New York: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme -Oil Company. Tried at Buffalo, New York, May 14, 1888.] - -[Footnote 355: Testimony, same.] - -[Footnote 356: See ch. xxi.] - -[Footnote 357: Samuel Van Syckel died in Buffalo, March 3, 1894, aged -83.] - -[Footnote 358: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 573.] - -[Footnote 359: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 28.] - -[Footnote 360: Testimony, same, pp. 5, 41, 42, 124, 141, 162, 166, 170.] - -[Footnote 361: Testimony, same, p. 129.] - -[Footnote 362: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 12, 34, 172.] - -[Footnote 363: See ch. xviii.] - -[Footnote 364: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 129.] - -[Footnote 365: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 579.] - -[Footnote 366: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 33, 40-42.] - -[Footnote 367: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 49, 51, 56.] - -[Footnote 368: Same, pp. 159, 163.] - -[Footnote 369: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 169.] - -[Footnote 370: Same, pp. 249-50.] - -[Footnote 371: Same, p. 250.] - -[Footnote 372: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 260.] - -[Footnote 373: Same, p. 116.] - -[Footnote 374: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 574.] - -[Footnote 375: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 577-78.] - -[Footnote 376: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 377: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 578. Hardy and another _vs._ -Cleveland and Marietta Railroad _et al._, Circuit Court, Ohio, E.D., -1887. _Federal Reporter_, vol. xxxi., pp. 689-93.] - -[Footnote 378: 49th Congress, 1st Session, Report of the Senate Select -Committee on Interstate Commerce, p. 199.] - -[Footnote 379: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 534, 535.] - -[Footnote 380: Same, pp. 730-38.] - -[Footnote 381: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 743.] - -[Footnote 382: Same, p. 729.] - -[Footnote 383: Same, p. 732.] - -[Footnote 384: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 416-20.] - -[Footnote 385: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 442-43.] - -[Footnote 386: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 524-30.] - -[Footnote 387: Same, p. 620.] - -[Footnote 388: Same, pp. 534-36.] - -[Footnote 389: Same, p. 533.] - -[Footnote 390: Same, p. 536.] - -[Footnote 391: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 729.] - -[Footnote 392: Same, p. 534.] - -[Footnote 393: Same, p. 730.] - -[Footnote 394: Same, p. 733.] - -[Footnote 395: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 735.] - -[Footnote 396: Same, p. 535.] - -[Footnote 397: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 578.] - -[Footnote 398: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 579-80.] - -[Footnote 399: Same, p. 584.] - -[Footnote 400: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, p. 147.] - -[Footnote 401: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 682-83.] - -[Footnote 402: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -1887, Nos. 51-60, p. 57.] - -[Footnote 403: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 529-32.] - -[Footnote 404: Supreme Court of Ohio: the State, _ex rel._, _vs._ The -Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway Company. The State, -_ex rel._, _vs._ The Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railway -Company, 47 Ohio State Reports, p. 130.] - -[Footnote 405: Testimony, Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, p. 384.] - -[Footnote 406: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 397, 398, 615-17.] - -[Footnote 407: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 622.] - -[Footnote 408: Same, pp. 586, 676. Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate -Commerce Commission, Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 391-92.] - -[Footnote 409: Same, pp. 676-77.] - -[Footnote 410: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 119.] - -[Footnote 411: Trusts, Congress, 1880, p. 520.] - -[Footnote 412: Trusts, Congress, 1880, pp. 410-11.] - -[Footnote 413: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 599.] - -[Footnote 414: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 688-89.] - -[Footnote 415: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 416: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 607.] - -[Footnote 417: Same, p. 678.] - -[Footnote 418: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 29.] - -[Footnote 419: "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, U.S. -Census, 1885, p. 92.] - -[Footnote 420: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 614.] - -[Footnote 421: See ch. xxiv.] - -[Footnote 422: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 144.] - -[Footnote 423: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 587, 675, 680. Rice cases, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 487-88. For similar preferences to the palace -cattle-car companies, see report on "Meat Products," United States -Senate, 1890, p. 18.] - -[Footnote 424: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 477.] - -[Footnote 425: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 675, 679-87.] - -[Footnote 426: Same, p. 682.] - -[Footnote 427: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 47.] - -[Footnote 428: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 675.] - -[Footnote 429: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 108-9.] - -[Footnote 430: Same, p. 120.] - -[Footnote 431: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 432: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 674.] - -[Footnote 433: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 480.] - -[Footnote 434: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 674.] - -[Footnote 435: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 531-33.] - -[Footnote 436: Same, pp. 646-47.] - -[Footnote 437: Same, pp. 668-85.] - -[Footnote 438: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, p. 65.] - -[Footnote 439: Same, p. 131.] - -[Footnote 440: Same, pp. 128-29, 143-47, 239.] - -[Footnote 441: Same, p. 109. Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 675-76.] - -[Footnote 442: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 688.] - -[Footnote 443: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 689.] - -[Footnote 444: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 598-99. Testimony, Rice -cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 445: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 622.] - -[Footnote 446: See p. 205.] - -[Footnote 447: See p. 206.] - -[Footnote 448: Brundred, _et al._ _vs._ Rice, decided November 1, 1892, -49 Ohio State Reports.] - -[Footnote 449: See p. 219.] - -[Footnote 450: For the decisions in these Rice cases see Interstate -Commerce Commission Report, vol. i., p. 503; same, p. 722; vol. ii., p. -389; vol. iii., p. 186; vol. iv., p. 228; vol. v., p. 193, and same, p. -660.] - -[Footnote 451: The State of Ohio _ex rel._ David K. Watson, -Attorney-General, _vs._ The Standard Oil Company, _N.E. Reporter_, vol. -xxx., p. 279; 49 Ohio State Reports, p. 317.] - -[Footnote 452: Rice _vs._ Standard Oil Trust. New York Court of -Appeals--Case on Appeal, 1888.] - -[Footnote 453: Testimony, Trusts, New York, 1888, pp. 385-87.] - -[Footnote 454: People of the State of New York _vs._ Everest _et -al._ Court of Oyer and Terminer, Erie County, February, 1886, court -stenographer's report. This item is omitted in the transcript of -evidence furnished by the oil trust to the Committee of Congress -investigating trusts in 1888. See Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 801.] - -[Footnote 455: See p. 52.] - -[Footnote 456: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 814, 882, 883.] - -[Footnote 457: Same, p. 815.] - -[Footnote 458: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 1135.] - -[Footnote 459: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 816.] - -[Footnote 460: Same, p. 816.] - -[Footnote 461: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 817, 872-74.] - -[Footnote 462: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 818, 873.] - -[Footnote 463: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 820.] - -[Footnote 464: See p. 64.] - -[Footnote 465: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 854.] - -[Footnote 466: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 826.] - -[Footnote 467: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 821-22.] - -[Footnote 468: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 824-25.] - -[Footnote 469: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 825-26.] - -[Footnote 470: See ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 471: History, etc., Petroleum Producers' Unions. Trusts, -Congress, 1888, pp. 690-716.] - -[Footnote 472: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 942.] - -[Footnote 473: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 814-15.] - -[Footnote 474: Same, p. 834.] - -[Footnote 475: Same, p. 847.] - -[Footnote 476: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 842.] - -[Footnote 477: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 821.] - -[Footnote 478: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 842-43.] - -[Footnote 479: Same, pp. 843-44.] - -[Footnote 480: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 823.] - -[Footnote 481: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 844.] - -[Footnote 482: Same, p. 825.] - -[Footnote 483: Same, p. 845.] - -[Footnote 484: Same, p. 844.] - -[Footnote 485: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 2049. The last statement -is omitted in the transcript furnished by the trust for the Congress -Trust Report of 1888.] - -[Footnote 486: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 911.] - -[Footnote 487: Court Stenographer's Report, pp. 454-55.] - -[Footnote 488: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 2164.] - -[Footnote 489: Testimony, Rice cases, before Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1887, Nos. 51-60, p. 367. Testimony, Trusts, New York -Senate, 1888, pp. 571, 577, 578, 579, 658. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 295.] - -[Footnote 490: Testimony, Alleged Discriminations in Railroad Freights, -Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, pp. 36-39.] - -[Footnote 491: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 410.] - -[Footnote 492: Court Stenographer's Report.] - -[Footnote 493: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 871.] - -[Footnote 494: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 456, 571.] - -[Footnote 495: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 892.] - -[Footnote 496: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 869.] - -[Footnote 497: Same, p. 825.] - -[Footnote 498: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 902.] - -[Footnote 499: Same, pp. 905-41.] - -[Footnote 500: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 939.] - -[Footnote 501: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 932-33, 937.] - -[Footnote 502: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 816.] - -[Footnote 503: See chs. xxii. to xxvi.] - -[Footnote 504: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 847.] - -[Footnote 505: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 424.] - -[Footnote 506: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 849.] - -[Footnote 507: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 847.] - -[Footnote 508: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 429, 894.] - -[Footnote 509: Same, p. 894.] - -[Footnote 510: Testimony, Stenographic Report, p. 895. This passage -also is omitted in the transcript furnished the committee of Congress -by the counsel of the trust.] - -[Footnote 511: See p. 214.] - -[Footnote 512: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 533; see also p. -734.] - -[Footnote 513: See ch. xxv.] - -[Footnote 514: Report of Citizens' Committee on City of Toledo and Its -Natural Gas Bonds, p. 5.] - -[Footnote 515: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 5.] - -[Footnote 516: Chs. xiv and xxi.] - -[Footnote 517: State, _ex rel._, _vs._ City of Toledo, 48th Ohio State -Reports, p. 112.] - -[Footnote 518: _Federal Court Reporter_, vol. xxxix., pp. 651-54.] - -[Footnote 519: Report of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company, -January 7, 1889.] - -[Footnote 520: Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, pp. 36-37.] - -[Footnote 521: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 3.] - -[Footnote 522: See ch. xxix.] - -[Footnote 523: See ch. xx.] - -[Footnote 524: October 19, 1889.] - -[Footnote 525: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, pp. 6-7.] - -[Footnote 526: Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 527: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 3.] - -[Footnote 528: Toledo Natural Gas Trustees' Report, 1890, p. 7.] - -[Footnote 529: Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 8.] - -[Footnote 530: "Constitutional History as Seen in the Development of -American Law." Lecture by D.H. Chamberlain. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New -York.] - -[Footnote 531: Report of the Toledo Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, pp. -8-9.] - -[Footnote 532: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 659.] - -[Footnote 533: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 428.] - -[Footnote 534: See p. 99.] - -[Footnote 535: See p. 206.] - -[Footnote 536: Annual Report of Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 537: Toledo _Blade_, February 7 and 27, 1889.] - -[Footnote 538: New York _Sun_ of March 31, 1891.] - -[Footnote 539: New York _Tribune_, April 23, 1889.] - -[Footnote 540: From _Life of William Lloyd Garrison, Told by His -Children_, vol. iii., ch. i., p. 12.] - -[Footnote 541: Petition of the Isaac Harter Company _vs._ the -Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company, Court of Common Pleas, Seneca -County, Ohio, June 16, 1890.] - -[Footnote 542: Annual Report of the Toledo Natural Gas Trustees, 1891, -p. 6.] - -[Footnote 543: See p. 250 and ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 544: See p. 154.] - -[Footnote 545: See p. 250.] - -[Footnote 546: See p. 21.] - -[Footnote 547: Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees of Toledo, -1891, p. 4.] - -[Footnote 548: Report to Stockholders, Northwestern Natural Gas -Company, January 7, 1889.] - -[Footnote 549: Report to Stockholders, Toledo Natural Gas Company, -January, 1889.] - -[Footnote 550: See ch. xxxii.] - -[Footnote 551: See p. 113.] - -[Footnote 552: See chs. ix. and xxxi.] - -[Footnote 553: See ch. xxx.] - -[Footnote 554: _Railroad Transportation_, by Arthur T. Hadley. G.P. -Putnam's Sons, 1886.] - -[Footnote 555: Speech of Simon Sterne, New York Assembly "Hepburn" -Report, 1879, pp. 98-118.] - -[Footnote 556: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2723-24 and p. 3900.] - -[Footnote 557: New York _Herald_, January 19, 1884.] - -[Footnote 558: Appeal to the Executive of Pennsylvania by the Petroleum -Producers' Union, 1878. Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 354.] - -[Footnote 559: New York _Herald_, January 19, 1884.] - -[Footnote 560: See ch. vii.] - -[Footnote 561: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 1.] - -[Footnote 562: Testimony, Appendix to the Journal of the House of -Representatives of the State of Ohio, 67th General Assembly, 1886, vol. -lxxxii., p. 499.] - -[Footnote 563: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 60.] - -[Footnote 564: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, pp. 77, 78.] - -[Footnote 565: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 58.] - -[Footnote 566: Same, pp. 37, 40, 66; Miscellaneous Document No. 106, -United States Senate, 49th Congress, 1886, pp. 32, 46, 214, and -_passim_.] - -[Footnote 567: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 50.] - -[Footnote 568: Miscellaneous Document 106, United States Senate, 49th -Congress, 1886, p. 18.] - -[Footnote 569: Miscellaneous Document 106, United States Senate, 49th -Congress, 1886, pp. 81-82.] - -[Footnote 570: _The Payne Bribery Case and the United States Senate_, -by Albert H. Walker.] - -[Footnote 571: Minority Report of Senators Hoar and Frye, 49th -Congress, 1st Session, Senate, No. 1490, p. 34.] - -[Footnote 572: Same, pp. 38, 39.] - -[Footnote 573: Hudson's _Railways and the Republic_, p. 467.] - -[Footnote 574: _Congressional Globe_, September 12, 1888, pp. -8520-8604.] - -[Footnote 575: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 395.] - -[Footnote 576: Speech of John M. Forbes, Boston, April 30, 1889.] - -[Footnote 577: Congress Record, 51st Congress, 2d Session, p. 3651.] - -[Footnote 578: Mr. John M. Forbes, in _Fossils, Free Ships, and -Reform_.] - -[Footnote 579: See p. 307.] - -[Footnote 580: See p. 386.] - -[Footnote 581: See chs. xviii.-xxi.] - -[Footnote 582: Senate Report No. 485, 53d Congress, 2d Session, June -21, 1894.] - -[Footnote 583: Supplemental Report of Senator W.V. Allen, of the -Senate Special Committee (ordered May 17, 1894) to Investigate Alleged -Attempts at Bribery by the Sugar Trust.] - -[Footnote 584: United States _vs._ E.C. Knight & Co., _et al._ United -States Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, March 26, 1894, 60 -_Federal Reporter_, p. 34.] - -[Footnote 585: Letter of President Cleveland to Hon. W.L. Wilson, -Chairman House Committee of Ways and Means, July 2, 1894, read to the -House of Representatives July 18, 1894.] - -[Footnote 586: New York _Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin_, -Sept. 21, 1893.] - -[Footnote 587: II. Coke, 84.] - -[Footnote 588: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 589: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, Exhibits, pp. -614-19.] - -[Footnote 590: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3678.] - -[Footnote 591: Same, p. 3683.] - -[Footnote 592: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3684.] - -[Footnote 593: See ch. xiv., "I Want to Make Oil."] - -[Footnote 594: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, pp. -3683-94.] - -[Footnote 595: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Interstate -Commerce Commission Reports, vol. v., p. 415.] - -[Footnote 596: Testimony, New York Assembly, 1879, p. 3678.] - -[Footnote 597: See pp. 216, 320.] - -[Footnote 598: See p. 188.] - -[Footnote 599: Second Annual Report, Fire Marshal of Boston, May, 1888, -p. 9.] - -[Footnote 600: See p. 84.] - -[Footnote 601: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 602: Journal of the Senate of Minnesota, March, 1891, p. 716.] - -[Footnote 603: Omaha _Daily Bee_, November 24, 27; December 5, 13, 21, -1891.] - -[Footnote 604: See p. 291.] - -[Footnote 605: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 670.] - -[Footnote 606: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 389.] - -[Footnote 607: Same, p. 317.] - -[Footnote 608: See p. 62.] - -[Footnote 609: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 369-85, 435, 534-35.] - -[Footnote 610: Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company _vs._ Everest _et al._ -Supreme Court Erie Co., N.Y., 1886.] - -[Footnote 611: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 846-47.] - -[Footnote 612: Testimony in the case of George Rice _vs._ Trustees of -the Standard Oil Trust, New York Court of Appeals, 1888.] - -[Footnote 613: Testimony, Independent Refiners' Associations _vs._ -Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad Company _et al._, p. 401.] - -[Footnote 614: Testimony, George Rice _vs._ Louisville and Nashville -Railroad _et al._, cases 51-60, p. 425.] - -[Footnote 615: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 609-10.] - -[Footnote 616: Same, p. 732.] - -[Footnote 617: Same, p. 735.] - -[Footnote 618: See chs. xii. and xxxi.] - -[Footnote 619: See ch. xxii.] - -[Footnote 620: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 734, 745.] - -[Footnote 621: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 372.] - -[Footnote 622: Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 12.] - -[Footnote 623: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 624: President E. Benjamin Andrews, of Brown University, -"Trusts According to Official Investigation," _Quarterly Journal of -Economics_, January, 1889, p. 146.] - -[Footnote 625: See ch. xiv.] - -[Footnote 626: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2623-40.] - -[Footnote 627: Same, Report, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 628: Testimony, same, pp. 2615, 2696.] - -[Footnote 629: George Rice _vs._ Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad -_et al._ Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. 228.] - -[Footnote 630: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 528-29.] - -[Footnote 631: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 386, 425.] - -[Footnote 632: See pp. 56-57.] - -[Footnote 633: Before the Pennsylvania Legislature, Harrisburg, -February 19, 1891. Harrisburg _Daily Patriot_, February 25, 1891.] - -[Footnote 634: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 422.] - -[Footnote 635: _Scotsman_, October 7, 1892.] - -[Footnote 636: _Pall Mall Gazette_, January 27, 1892.] - -[Footnote 637: _Standard_, Shoe Lane, January 26, 1892.] - -[Footnote 638: See p. 408.] - -[Footnote 639: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, 1888, p. 31.] - -[Footnote 640: _Die Monopolisirung des Petroleum Handels und der -Petroleum Industrie_, by E.F. Scemann. L. Simeon, Berlin.] - -[Footnote 641: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 792.] - -[Footnote 642: Harrisburg _Patriot_, February 25, 1891.] - -[Footnote 643: Translation from the Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_, June -12, 1891. Report of Consul-General Edwards, of Berlin.] - -[Footnote 644: See p. 106.] - -[Footnote 645: See ch. xii.] - -[Footnote 646: See chs. xi. and xxx.] - -[Footnote 647: Testimony of J.J. Carter in the case of J.J. Carter -_vs._ Producers and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited. Court of Common -Pleas, Crawford County, Pa., May Term, 1894.] - -[Footnote 648: See pp. 111, 366.] - -[Footnote 649: Affidavit of the President of the Standard Oil Company -of New York before the Attorney-General, May, 1894.] - -[Footnote 650: State of Ohio _ex rel._ David K. Watson, -Attorney-General, _vs._ Standard Oil Company of Ohio. 49 Ohio State -Reports, p. 317.] - -[Footnote 651: Rice _vs._ Trustees of the Standard Oil Trust. Supreme -Court, Special Term, Part I. Andrews, Judge. Reported in the New York -_Law Journal_, April 26, 1894.] - -[Footnote 652: Testimony, Rice _vs._ Louisville and Nashville Railroad -_et al._, before Interstate Commerce Committee, p. 366.] - -[Footnote 653: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 577.] - -[Footnote 654: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 18, 38, 65, 89, -111.] - -[Footnote 655: W.H. Vanderbilt, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, -1879, pp. 1597, 1669. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 218.] - -[Footnote 656: Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 657: Same, pp. 9, 10.] - -[Footnote 658: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 679.] - -[Footnote 659: Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 9, 10.] - -[Footnote 660: Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. i., p. 722.] - -[Footnote 661: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 398, 407, -411, 412, 415, 419-43, 594.] - -[Footnote 662: Same, p. 571.] - -[Footnote 663: Before the Attorney-General of New York. In the matter -of the application of the Central Labor Union and others to the -Attorney-General to have him apply to the Supreme Court for leave to -begin action against the Standard Oil Company of New York to vacate the -charter thereof. Affidavit, president Standard Oil Company, May, 1894.] - -[Footnote 664: New York _Mail and Express_, November 12, 1890.] - -[Footnote 665: Dr. J.P. Hale, of Charleston, West Virginia, in the -volume prepared by Prof. M.L. Maury, and issued by the State Centennial -Board, on the resources of the State. Quoted by S.F. Peckham, United -States Census, 1885, p. 6.] - -[Footnote 666: _Petroleum and Its Products_, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. -Census, 1885, p. 7.] - -[Footnote 667: S. Dana Hayes, quoted in Henry's _Early and Later -History of Petroleum_, p. 186.] - -[Footnote 668: Testimony, Joshua Merrill, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. -570.] - -[Footnote 669: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 386, 425.] - -[Footnote 670: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 82.] - -[Footnote 671: See p. 165.] - -[Footnote 672: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 258.] - -[Footnote 673: See chs. xi. and xvii.] - -[Footnote 674: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44. -Testimony, same, pp. 2623, 2645. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. -223-26, 542, 543, 548.] - -[Footnote 675: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 43. -Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 213.] - -[Footnote 676: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 712. -Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et -al._, 1879, p. 302.] - -[Footnote 677: See p. 405.] - -[Footnote 678: See pp. 61, 153.] - -[Footnote 679: See p. 420.] - -[Footnote 680: See pp. 49, 217.] - -[Footnote 681: See p. 306.] - -[Footnote 682: See p. 108.] - -[Footnote 683: See pp. 111, 291, 446.] - -[Footnote 684: See p. 291.] - -[Footnote 685: See p. 162.] - -[Footnote 686: See pp. 118-27.] - -[Footnote 687: See pp. 97, 224.] - -[Footnote 688: See pp. 106, 164.] - -[Footnote 689: See pp. 107, 154.] - -[Footnote 690: See pp. 62, 79.] - -[Footnote 691: See pp. 42, 72, 188.] - -[Footnote 692: See p. 251.] - -[Footnote 693: See p. 216.] - -[Footnote 694: See pp. 216, 413.] - -[Footnote 695: See pp. 189, 228, 437.] - -[Footnote 696: See pp. 102, 140.] - -[Footnote 697: See pp. 182-98.] - -[Footnote 698: See p. 298.] - -[Footnote 699: See pp. 149, 447.] - -[Footnote 700: _Railways and the Republic_, by J.F. Hudson, p. 77.] - -[Footnote 701: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, pp. 637-42.] - -[Footnote 702: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 298.] - -[Footnote 703: Same, p. 784.] - -[Footnote 704: Same, p. 295.] - -[Footnote 705: Same, pp. 295, 778-80.] - -[Footnote 706: Investigation of Relations of Standard Oil Company to -the State, 1883, p. 473.] - -[Footnote 707: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2665.] - -[Footnote 708: Same, p. 2667.] - -[Footnote 709: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 296, 322, 787, -788.] - -[Footnote 710: Same, p. 365.] - -[Footnote 711: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2603.] - -[Footnote 712: Same, pp. 2604-14.] - -[Footnote 713: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, pp. 929, 931, -932.] - -[Footnote 714: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 417.] - -[Footnote 715: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1636.] - -[Footnote 716: Testimony, Rice cases, 51-60, Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1887, pp. 366, 368.] - -[Footnote 717: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 455, 577.] - -[Footnote 718: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 576-89.] - -[Footnote 719: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 391, 392.] - -[Footnote 720: Same, p. 294.] - -[Footnote 721: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 658.] - -[Footnote 722: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 580.] - -[Footnote 723: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 266, 287, 314, -365, 387, 395, 526, 537, 565, 627, 768, 790, 799.] - -[Footnote 724: House of Representatives, 50th Congress, 2d Session. -Report No. 4165, Part II., Appendix C, p. 33.] - -[Footnote 725: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 174-210, 801-951.] - -[Footnote 726: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, printed in Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 195.] - -[Footnote 727: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, printed in Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 206.] - -[Footnote 728: Same, p. 208.] - -[Footnote 729: Testimony in Buffalo Explosion case, printed in Trusts, -Congress, 1888, p. 894.] - -[Footnote 730: Deposition of Albert N. Reynolds, Buffalo Lubricating -Oil Company, Limited, vs. Everest & Everest. Supreme Court, New York, -Erie County, City of Buffalo, August 29, 1884.] - -[Footnote 731: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2668.] - -[Footnote 732: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 215, 223, 226.] - -[Footnote 733: Interstate Commerce Law, sec. 10.] - -[Footnote 734: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 40-41.] - -[Footnote 735: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 736: See p. 202.] - -[Footnote 737: Rice _vs._ Louisville and Nashville Railroad _et al._ -Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. i., p. 722. Trusts, -Congress, 1888, pp. 675-84.] - -[Footnote 738: Scofield _vs._ Lake Shore and Michigan Southern -Railroad. Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. ii., p. 90.] - -[Footnote 739: Rice, Robinson and Witherop _vs._ Western New York and -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._ Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, -vol. iv., p. 131.] - -[Footnote 740: Same.] - -[Footnote 741: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 597.] - -[Footnote 742: South Improvement Company, p. 45; American Transfer -Company, p. 99; Rutter Circular, p. 85; Contract with Pennsylvania -Railroad in 1877, p. 89; Contract with New York Central and Lake Shore -and Michigan Central Railroads, 1875 and 1876; New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, p. 175; Contract with the Erie road, -same, p. 573; Contract in the "Agreement for an Adventure" case, p. 62.] - -[Footnote 743: See pp. 69, 130, 146, 149, 151, 208, 219, 224, 239.] - -[Footnote 744: Wm. C. Bissel _vs._ Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé -Railroad Company _et al._] - -[Footnote 745: Testimony, United States Pacific Railway Commission -Report, 1887, p. 3301.] - -[Footnote 746: Same, p. 3581.] - -[Footnote 747: Same, pp. 1132-33.] - -[Footnote 748: Sec pp. 49, 200, 218.] - -[Footnote 749: See p. 48.] - -[Footnote 750: Titusville _World_, July 12, 1894.] - -[Footnote 751: Standard Oil Company _vs._ Southern Pacific Railroad and -Whittier, Fuller & Co., 48 _Federal Reporter_, p. 109.] - -[Footnote 752: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2753.] - -[Footnote 753: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 333, 534.] - -[Footnote 754: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2656-57.] - -[Footnote 755: See pp. 145, 319, 320.] - -[Footnote 756: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 354.] - -[Footnote 757: Debates, Constitutional Convention to amend the -Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1872, vol. viii., pp. 261, 262.] - -[Footnote 758: See p. 69.] - -[Footnote 759: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -1314-15.] - -[Footnote 760: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 529.] - -[Footnote 761: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 367-68.] - -[Footnote 762: Same, p. 396.] - -[Footnote 763: Report of the United States Senate Committee on Meat -Products, 51st Congress, 1st Session, 1890, No. 829, p. 18.] - -[Footnote 764: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -397, 781, 825, 924, 1383. United States Senate Report on Meat Products, -p. 23.] - -[Footnote 765: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -808-9.] - -[Footnote 766: Same, speech of Simon Sterne, p. 3996.] - -[Footnote 767: See pp. 13, 19.] - -[Footnote 768: Franklin B. Gowen, before the United States Senate -Interstate Commerce Committee, March, 1888.] - -[Footnote 769: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 215.] - -[Footnote 770: See page 4.] - - - - -INDEX - - - Abusive language, use of, 319, 485. - - Acme Oil Company, Samuel Van Syckel _vs._, 187. - - Adams, H.C., quoted on municipal monopolies, 322. - - Adulteration of liquors, 27. - - Advice of counsel, 249. - - Alcohol in industry and politics, 20. - - Allen, W.V., supplemental report on sugar-trust bribery, 404. - - American, early, refiners of petroleum, 39. - - American Transfer Company receives from 20 to 35 cents per barrel on all - oil shipped by competitors, 99; - the South Improvement Company reappears in, 100; - false map of, before New York Legislature, 101. - - Andrews, E. Benjamin, on prices under monopoly, 428; - on oil-trust prices, 430 _n._ - - Anonymous circulars, in war against Toledo, 327. - - Artificial liquors, 27. - - Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad _et al._, William C. Bissell - _vs._, 479. - - Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and South Improvement Company, 48, - 50; - war of 1877, 88. - - Attorney-General, of Pennsylvania, management of tax-case against - Standard Oil Company by, 170-81; - of United States, on monopoly, 37; - report for 1893, 3, 6; - cases against the sugar trust, 404. - - Austria, refineries of, consolidated, 439. - - - Bad oil, 405-19. - - Baltimore and Ohio, and railroad war of 1877, 88; - closes Baltimore to independent shippers, 102; - withdraws rates, 221; - freight agent escapes from Congress, 222. - - Baltimore closed to independent shippers by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, - 102; - sale of refineries at, 421. - - Bank of England's income compared with an American millionaire's, 459. - - Bankers indemnified for withdrawing bids on Toledo bonds, 336. - - Bankruptcy of oil refineries in 1873, 60; - 1879-92, 455-70. - - _Baptist_, the _National_, quoted, 341. - - Barrel shipments better for railroads than tanks, 138, 231; - destroyed by railroads, 138. - - Barrett, Judge, defines monopoly, 3; - on sugar trust, 3, 4. - - Batoum refuses Rothschild permission to lay pipe line, 443. - - Baxter, Judge, decision on rebates paid oil combination, 207. - - _Bee_, Omaha _Daily_, investigates oil inspection of Nebraska, 414. - - Beef, combination of packers of, 33, 36; - price of, under combination, 35. - - Belgium, 437. - - Bernheimer, Simon, testimony as to abundance of capital for early - refiners, 41. - - "Big Four" combination, 35. - - Binney, E.W., quoted, 40. - - Biscuit Association, 30. - - Bissell, William C., _vs._ Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad - _et al._, 479. - - Black-mail, when competition is, 215. - - Blind-billing, 229; - shippers benefited by, deny, 231. - - Blount, Representative, on subsidies and bribery, 394. - - Bolard & Dale _vs._ National Transit Company, 165. - - Bonds not to refine, 79, 80. - - Books, natural-gas companies will not show, 363; - oil trust keeps none, 469. - - Boston, South Improvement Company rates to, 47; - fire marshal on bad oil, 411; - prices of oil reduced from 20 to 8 by competition, 422. - - Boycott, of butchers by packers' combination, 35; - how working-men were punished for, 287. - - Boyle, P.C., Ohio _vs._, 324. - - Bread Union in London, 30. - - Bremen, Congress of Chambers of Commerce, 406. - - Bribery of jurors, 286; - of Congress by Pacific Mail Steamship Company, 394. - - British government lowers test on oil, 436. - - Brooklyn, consolidation of street-railways, 5. - - Brundred _et al._ _vs._ Rice, 239. - - Buffalo, explosion in Matthews' refinery, 250; - pipe line to, destroyed, 291; - prices reduced by competition, 421. - - Buhl, Richardson _vs._, 10. - - _Bulletin_, New York _Daily Commercial_, on oil-trust prices, 430 _n._; - on sugar trust, 32, 449. - - Burdick bill, Pennsylvania Legislature, 126. - - Burial Case, National Association, 37. - - Business, politics of, 403; - "this belongs to us," 432; - golden rule of, 495; - runs into monopoly, 512. - - Butchers, independent, refused cars by Erie Railroad, 35; - National Protective Association, 34. - - Butterworth, Benjamin, represents Ohio before the United States Senate in - the Payne matter, 376. - - Buyer, the only, refuses to buy, 106; - only one, in Ohio, 107. - - - _Call_, San Francisco, on commercial treaty with China, 449. - - Campaign contributions from trusts, 403. - - Campbell, B.B., averts outbreak at Parker, 106. - - Canada oil interests attacked by American combination, 12; - retail coal-dealers' associations, 15; - Grocers' Guild, 30; - Parliamentary debate on American oil prices, 424; - Parliament reduces tariff in 1894, 435; - finance minister favors American oil trust, 435. - - Canadian Copper Company, litigation among stockholders, 403. - - Canal, independent shippers escape by, 96; - tank-boats for, 96; - railroad war against, 97. - - Cancer, hospital for, endowed, 181. - - Capital, of combinations, 4; - easy for early refiners to get, 41; - of oil combination, 457. - - Carlyle, Thomas, on literary freedom in America, 529. - - Cars, refusal of, by railroads to independent shippers, 12, 91, 94, 106. - - Carter, J.J., _vs._ Producers' and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited, - 164, 446. - - Cassatt, A.J., testimony concerning railroad war of 1877, 88; - on lower rates to Standard Oil Company, 94, 472; - on refusal of cars and rates, 94; - on cheapness of oil, 428. - - Cattle combination, 5, 33; - traffic, railroad preferences in, 33; - decline in prices of, 34; - shippers discriminated against by the railroads, 36. - - Cattle Range Association, International, 34. - - Census, United States, on petroleum, 39; - sugar trust refuses to answer questions, 404. - - Charity decreases under monopoly, 502. - - Cheapness of oil, 420; - under the trusts, 431 _n._; - how produced, 464-65; - analysis of, 500. - - Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, charges for oil and cattle - compared, 481. - - Chicago, number of dry-goods stores in, in 1894, 488; - Union Stock Yards, secrecy as to ownership of its stock, 487. - - China, commercial treaty with, 449. - - Church and wealth, 294. - - Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway, Ohio _vs._, 220; - "mistakes," 234. - - Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railway, Ohio _vs._, 220. - - Circulars, anonymous, in war against Toledo, 327. - - Clamorer for dividends, 101. - - Clarion County, Pennsylvania, indictment of members of Standard Oil - Company, 170, 258; - Supreme Court of Pennsylvania interferes, 180. - - Clark, Horace F., on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Cleveland, disadvantages of, for the oil business, 53, 464; - starting-point of the founders of the oil combination, 44; - South Improvement Company rates to, 46; - pipe line to, 65; - pioneer refiner, 73; - crude oil carried to, free for oil combination, 85. - - Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, Handy _vs._, 206-8. - - Cleveland, President, on sugar tariff, 404. - - Clinton, De Witt, on petroleum, 38. - - Coal, combination, capital of, 4; - in Nova Scotia, 5, 11, 461; - State, national, and judicial investigations, 9; - bituminous lands bought by railroads, 11; - anthracite monopolized by railroads, 11, 14; - freights on, higher in 1893 than in 1879, 13; - independent producers crushed by railroad discriminations, 13; - miners oppressed by coal companies, 16, 17; - price of, advanced by combination, 14, 431 _n._; - extortion of anthracite monopoly, 14; - combination between American and Canadian dealers, 15; - retail associations of dealers, 15; - dealers terrorized, 15; - miners, freedom under competition, 16; - miners' strike in Pennsylvania in 1871, 16; - policemen in Pennsylvania, 18. - - Coffin combination, 37. - - Coke, Lord, on monopolies, 405. - - Collusion between oil trust and railroads, 143, 482-4. - - Colorado, oil war in, 427; - prevented by railroads from shipping its oil to Pacific States, - 427, 481. - - Columbus, Miss., war on merchants of, 300; - Ohio, gas shut off, 365. - - Combinations, capital of, 4. - - Communipaw, monopoly of terminals at, 142. - - Competition, impossible in the meat and cattle business, 36; - oil combination likes, 87; - when it is black-mail, 215; - cuts price, 281, 294; - power for evil, 422. - - Congress, investigation of South Improvement Company suppressed, 45; - bribing by Pacific Mail Steamship Company, 394. - - Conspiracy, adoption of, 277. - - Constitutional amendments concerning trusts, 451; - convention of New York, 1894, 451. - - Contract to restrict refining, 62; - to shut down oil flow, 153; - between dealers and the oil combination, 425. - - Corners, 4. - - Cotton-seed oil, rates on, 232. - - Court records gone in Cleveland, 83; - mutilated transcript for Congress, 244, 267; - records mutilated in California, 484. - - Coxe Brothers & Company _vs._ the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, 19. - - Cracker-bakers' meeting, 30. - - - Dayton, experience with natural-gas company, 364. - - Deaths from bad oil, in Michigan, 416; - in Great Britain from explosiveness of American oil, 410. - - Delay, before Interstate Commerce Commission, 147, 149, 150; - in legal procedure in New York, 285; - of Pennsylvania Supreme Court in acting on appeal of independents, 447. - - Democratic party and sugar trust, 404. - - Detectives and coal-dealers, 15; - railroads as, 48; - in Wall Street, 334. - - Detroit _Times_, on reduction of oil test, 416; - _Tribune_, on reduction of oil test, 416. - - Dewar, Thomas S., letter of United States Commissioner of Internal - Revenue to, 26. - - Discrimination in favor of oil combination, "wanton and oppressive," 207; - of 333 per cent., 217; - called "a vast discrepancy," 219; - Supreme Court of Ohio on, 219; - against Rice, Interstate Commerce Commission on, 227; - charges of, sustained by Interstate Commerce Commission, 235; - by natural-gas company in rates for gas, 365; - no, by German railroads, 438; - inures to the benefit of one powerful combination, 478. - (See Freight Rates, Railroads, Rebates.) - - Dismantling of petroleum refineries, 42, 72; - Joshua Merrill's refinery, 188. - - Disorder, public, in oil regions, 43, 54; - in Pennsylvania, 1878, 105, 106; - in Pennsylvania and Ohio, 456. - - Dividends of oil trust, 246; - of sugar trust, 32, 33, 404. - - Dodd, S.C.T., on "parent of trust system," 8; - in Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1872, 55; - on pipe lines, 117; - on pipe-line rates, 125; - on bonuses to railroad officials, 486. - - Drake, E.L., strikes oil, 40; - pensioned, 462. - - Dressed-beef men, railroad rates to, 36. - - Dynamite, and the whiskey trust, 21; - in the "shut-down" of 1887, 154; - threats of, against Toledo City pipe - line, 357; - oil that is as dangerous as, 416. - - - Electricity, 9. - - Elevators, combination of Northwestern railroads with, 5, 31; - State erection and operation of, recommended by Minnesota - Legislature, 31. - - Embargo on sales of oil, 1872, 56. - - Emery, Jr., Hon. Lewis, testifies as to "immediate shipment," 104. - - Eminent domain, use of, by railroads, 97. - - Empire Transportation Company, 87. - - Engineers, Society of American Marine, protest against foreign - engineers, 399. - - England oil trade meets to protest against poor American oil, 405. - - Equality, railroad idea of, 86. - - Erie Canal used by independent shippers, 96. - - Erie Railroad, refuses cars to independent butchers, 35; - New York Legislature investigates, 43; - and South Improvement Company, 48, 50; - refuses rates to competitor of South Improvement Company, 52; - railroad war of 1877, 88; - its oil-cars owned by oil combination, 92; - payments to American Transfer Company, 99; - contract with Standard Oil Company, 102; - renews broken promises of equal rates, 119; - invites independent refiners to rebuild, 119; - refuses to ship independent oil to seaboard, 140; - sends armed force against independent pipe line, 161; - gives land to oil trust's pipe lines, 162; - destroys line by force, 291. - - "Evening" pool of cattle-shippers, 33. - - Everest _et al._, People of the State of N.Y. _vs._, 244. - - _Examiner_, The, quoted, 341, 345. - - Expert testifies about pipe-line pool, 86; - false maps of American Transfer Company, 101. - - Explosions, in distillery, 21; - during "shut-down," 154; - in Buffalo refinery, - 250; - Louisville, 252; - Rochester, 252. - - Explosiveness of petroleum gases, 282; - of American oil compared with Scotch and Russian, 410. - - Extradition treaty between Russia and America, 448. - - - False accounts, 64. - - Fellows _et al._ _vs._ Toledo _et al._, 314. - - Field code of New York, 285. - - Fires from bad oil, in Great Britain, 410; - in Boston, 411; - in Iowa, 413; - in Michigan, 416; - in San Francisco, 416; - at Oil City and Titusville, June 5, 1892, 417; - in Bradford refinery, 447. - - Fish, 32. - - Flour, dearer, wanted, 30. - - Forbes, John M., speech on free ships, 393. - - Foster, Charles, as Secretary of the Treasury favors retention of - foreign captains, 398; - issues license to foreign engineers, 399; - his part in the war on Toledo, 400. - - Fostoria, Ohio, Sunday raid on the flour-mill, 348. - - Foucon, Felix, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 39. - - France, manufactures coal-oil in 1845, 38; - government of, lowers oil tariff, 440; - oil refiners of, make terms with American oil trust, 441. - - Free breakfast-table, 32. - - Freight rates on coal, 13; - discriminations investigated by Ohio Legislature, 44; - 8 cents a barrel less than nothing on oil, 88; - rates advanced by pipe and rail, 122; - rates increased at instance of oil combination, 132; - rate 88 cents to oil combination, $1.68 to competitors, 210; - increased 333 per cent. to one shipper, 217. - (See Rebates, Discriminations.) - - Freight-handlers strike, 296. - - Fruit, 32. - - Frye, William P., on subsidy to International line, 391, 395. - - Furnaces, 9. - - - Gas, 9; - natural, 9, 305. - - Geologist, State, of Ohio, takes sides in Toledo contest, 329. - - Germany changes oil tariff, 437; - the German-American Oil Company, 437; - decline in prices, 438; - independents in, 439. - - Gladden, Rev. Washington, on oil trust, 344. - - Good society, 527. - - Gospel Cars, 237. - - Government and monopoly, 311. - - Governors, steam-boiler, 9. - - Gowen, Franklin B., on war against Tidewater, 108, 110; - admits surrender of Tidewater Pipe Line, 112; - severs connection with Tidewater, 114; - speech before Pennsylvania Legislature, 1883, 115; - on Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 181; - on yearly loss of railroad revenue by rebates, 491. - - Grand Trunk saves independent oil refiners, 136. - - Granger movement, 371. - - Great Britain, Railway Commission of 1873, 369; - government lowers test of oil, 408. - - Griffin, C.P., representative of Toledo in State Legislature, 333. - - Grocers' Guild, Canadian Parliament on, 30. - - - Haddock, John C., testimony of, 13. - - Hadley, A.T., on British railroads, 370. - - Hale, J.P., quoted, 462. - - Hamilton, Alexander, on power over subsistence, 529. - - Hancock, Erie stops independent pipe line, 162. - - Handy _vs._ Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, 206. - - Harter, the Isaac Harter Company _vs._ the Northwestern Ohio Natural-gas - Company, 349. - - Hatch, Edward, quoted, 255, 281. - - Haul, long and short, 221, 222, 223. - - Heaters, hot-water and steam, 9. - - _Herald_, Boston, on relations of oil combination and State - inspectors, 411. - - Hermann, Von, on Paris Exhibition of 1839, 39. - - Highway, ownership of, is ownership of all, 12. - - Hoar, George F., on oil trust in the President's Cabinet, 401. - - Holland, 437. - - Hopkins, Representative, moves for investigation of railroads by - Congress, 372. - - Human nature, 526. - - - Illinois Central Railroad, "mistakes," 234. - - Immediate shipment, 104. - - Improvement companies of Pennsylvania, 55. - - Income of members of oil trust, 459. - - _Independent_, the New York, quoted, 348. - - Independents, rates withdrawn from, by Pennsylvania Railroad, 90; - Pennsylvania Railroad refuses cars to, 91; - Pennsylvania Railroad increases rates to, 91; - crushed by oil combination's use of railroad terminals, 102; - promised equal rates again, 119; - invited to rebuild by the railroads, 119; - attacked by Pennsylvania Railroad after being invited to rebuild, 120; - survive attack by railroad and oil-trust pool, 128; - appeal to Interstate Commission, 1888, 128; - discrimination against, 130; - freight rates to, increased at suggestion of oil combination, 132; - forced to close their works, 135; - saved by Grand Trunk Railroad, 136; - lose trade of New England, 1888, 136; - forced to sell oil to combination, 140; - prevented by railroads from using tank-cars, 140; - exactions suffered by, at the seaboard, 141; - appeal to Interstate Commerce Commission against delay, 148; - lose five years' business, 149; - get tank-cars and terminals, 151; - project pipe line to the seaboard in 1887, 152; - in 1892, 160; - pipe line stopped by Erie cannon at Hancock, 162; - survival - of, delays Russian-American division of world's oil market, 445; - delay of Pennsylvania Supreme Court in acting on appeal of, 447; - in Germany, 439. - - Indianapolis People's Trust, 320. - - Individuality, 527 - - Industry, new law of, 12. - - Inspection, State, used to end competition, 215, 216. - - Inspectors, State, also in employ of those they inspect, 216, 411; - of oils in New York represent oil combination in Bremen congress, 406; - in Iowa, charged with allowing sellers to brand oil, 412; - sued in Iowa for damages for passing bad oil, 413; - in Minnesota, investigated by State Senate, 413; - in Illinois, 415; - in Nebraska, 414-16. - - International steamship line subsidized, 389-400. - - Interstate Commerce Commission, on coal rates, 13; - Pennsylvania independent coal-mine operators appeal to, 19; - decision on coal rates disregarded by the Pennsylvania railroads, 19; - on pool of oil combination with Tidewater Pipe Line, 113; - refuses to require production of secret contract between railroad and - pipe line, 124; - bullied by counsel of Pennsylvania Railroad, 124; - orders reduction of freight rate on barrels in South, 130; - decision misapplied by Pennsylvania Railroad, 131; - interview with Pennsylvania Railroad officials, 132; - correspondence with president of Pennsylvania railroad, 132; - orders discrimination stopped, 139; - on monopoly of terminal facilities, 142; - chairman on collusive relations of oil trust and railroads, 143; - witnesses refuse to appear before, 145; - refrains from decision in case of Pennsylvania Railroad, 146; - decision in Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, 1890, 147; - delays for two years decision against Pennsylvania Railroad, 147; - grants Pennsylvania Railroad rehearings for two years, 148; - railroads disobey orders of, 149; - decision against Pennsylvania Railroad, 1892, 149; - brings independents no help, 149; - proceedings before, by railroads as only preliminary to litigation in - the courts, 150; - cannot decide after three years' hearings, 150; - grants Pennsylvania Railroad further delay, 150; - George Rice lets cases before, go by default, 151; - theatre for litigation and delay, 160; - calls discrimination "a vast discrepancy," 219; - decides refusal to give rates "illegal," 224; - on discriminations against Rice, 227; - on "astonishingly low" rates, 232; - on "mistakes" of railroads, 234; - sustains charges of discrimination, 235; - on control of industry by the oil combination, 433; - on immense power of oil combination, 458; - describes preferences given to the oil combination, 478. - - Interstate Commerce law, only conviction under, 19; - disobeyed by railroad managers, 218; - opposed by Senator Payne, 388; - Senator Cullom on railroads' excuses for violating, 498. - - Investigation, of South Improvement Company by Congress, in 1872, not - continued, 60; - of railroad discriminations by Congress, suspended, 1876, 71; - testimony stolen, 373. - - _Investors' Review_, of London, on English government jobbery, 450. - - Iowa, Governor of, refuses to investigate charges of violation of - inspection law, 412. - - Iron, railroads buying iron lands, 12; - interests of members of oil combination, 461. - - Italy, 440. - - - Jackson, Judge H.E., sustains Toledo, 315. - - Joy, Professor, on explosiveness of naphtha, 253. - - Judge, Federal, quashes indictment - against secretary of whiskey trust, 22; - of Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, charged with violating the law, 181; - fixes damages in Van Syckel's case at 6 cents, 195; - excludes evidence against oil trust members, 268; - rules out evidence concerning oil trust, 273; - orders acquittal of members of oil trust, 278; - how made, 296; - decides anti-trust law not applicable to sugar trust, 404. - - Jurors bribed to petition for mercy, 286. - - Justice, delay of, 149. - - - Kanawha salt-wells, 462. - - Karns, General S.D., suggests pipe-lines, 41. - - Keystone refinery, 291; - causes Oil City disaster, 418. - - King's horses and king's men, 198. - - Knight, E.C., _et al._, United States _vs._, 404. - - - _Laissez-faire_, true, 497. - - Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad and South Improvement - Company, 48, 50; - contract with the oil combination, 69; - Scofield _et al._ _vs._, 70; - railroad war of 1877, 88; - contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, 89; - gives its oil traffic to competing pipe line, 127. - - Lamennais quoted, 507. - - Lands, ownership changes, of coal, 11; - of oil, 434. - - Laugh, the, 257-71. - - Law, Anti-trust, 3, 6, 404; - Pennsylvania Free Pipe-Line, worthless, 57; - delays of, 285; - of oil inspection, how changed in Nebraska, 415. - (See Interstate Commerce). - - Lawson, J.D., _Leading Cases Simplified_, 181. - - Lawsuits, threats of, 278, 289; - to cripple competition, 290. - - Lawyers, officers of the court, 114; - relations of, to law-breakers, 249; - pamphlet against Toledo issued by, 354. - - Leases, oil and gas, rights claimed under, 306. - - Leather, 5. - - Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, Coxe Brothers & Co., _vs._, 19; - railroad war of 1877, 88. - - Little, John, represents Ohio before the United States Senate in the - Payne matter, 376. - - Locomotives, 9. - - Louisville and Nashville Railroad turns another screw, 213; - "mistakes" of, 234. - - - _Mail_, New York, on income of members of oil trust, 459. - - Mails, slower under subsidy, 397. - - Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, on trade, 507; - on contract and status, 533. - - Marcy, W.L., in Buffalo explosion case, 259. - - Marietta, freight rates raised against refiners at, 200. - - Market, for oil, becomes erratic, 42; - manipulation by oil trust, 104, 164, 420, 439; - only one buyer, 104. - - Matches, 9; - combination, Supreme Court of Michigan on, 10. - - Mather, People _vs._, 277. - - Matthews, C.B., experiences of, 243-98. - - Matthews, Hon. Stanley, 67; - on the rebates of the oil combination, 69. - - Maxim gun, English War Office opposition to, silenced, 450. - - McClellan, Gen. G.B., on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Meat combination, 5; - at Chicago, 33. - - Medicine, adulterated liquors for, 27. - - Merrill, Joshua, 39; - testimony before Congress, 188; - appeals to Railroad Commission of Massachusetts, 189; - pioneer in oil, 463. - - Michigan State Board of Health on fires and deaths from bad oil, 416. - - Mileage paid to preferred shippers, 233. - - Millers' national conventions, 30. - - Millionaires, abolition of, 312, 524. - - Minnesota Legislature recommends State elevators, 31; - Senate investigation of oil inspectors, 413. - - "Mistakes," by railroads not corrected, 138; - always in favor of preferred shippers, 223, 234. - - Monopoly, defined by Federal courts, 3; - Judge Barrett defines, 3; - difference of definitions, 3, 6; - defined by United States Attorney-General, 37; - of Standard Oil Company, Supreme Court of Ohio on, 70; - ignorance of the public is the real capital of, 117; - must control all, 298; - and government, 311; - Lord Coke on, 405; - E. Benjamin Andrews on price manipulation, 428; - State, advocated by national economists in Germany, 438; - of oil in Germany, 438; - Ohio Supreme Court and New York Supreme Court pronounce Standard Oil - Trust a, 453; - and industry, 518; - and liberty, 519. - - Monotony, 527. - - Monthly reports required by the oil combination, 62; - from producers in "shut-down," 155; - of competitors' shipments, 212. - - Morris, "Billy," inventor of the "slips," 463. - - Municipal enterprise better and cheaper than private, 360. - - Mutilation of court records, 83, 244, 267, 484. - - - National Transit Company, 87; - controls pipe-line business, 113, 114; - owned by oil combination, 113; - president of the oil combination denies connection with, 114; - Bolard & Dale _vs._, 165; - secrecy as to ownership of its stock, 487. - - Natural-gas company owned by Standard Oil Trust, 337. - - Navy, Secretary of, urges subsidy, 389; - and nickel appropriation, 402; - relations to subsidy, 402. - - Netherlands, East India colonies, 441. - - Nettleton, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, rules against - retaining foreign captains, 398. - - New England, trade in, lost by independent refiners, 136. - - Newport News and Mississippi Valley Railroad, "mistakes," 234. - - Newspapers controlled by oil combination, 160. - (See Press.) - - New York Central Railroad, and South Improvement Company, 48, 49; - refuses rates to competitors of South Improvement Company, 52; - war of 1877, 88; - contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, 89; - oil cars of, owned by oil combination, 92; - payments to American Transfer Company, 99. - - New York, People of, _vs._ North River Sugar Refining Company, 3; - refiners do not dare to build large refineries, 107; - People of, _vs._ Everest _et al._, 244; - legal procedure, 285; - Railway Commission of 1857, 370; - in danger from refineries and tanks, 419; - Senate committee on oil trust and prices, 429; - Constitution of 1846 on railroads, 370; - Constitutional Convention of 1894, 451; - "Hepburn" legislative investigation on rebates, 476. - - New York and New England Railroad, oil trustee president of, 189. - - New Zealand Fire Insurance Company sues for losses by bad oil, 416. - - Nickel appropriation, 402. - - North River Sugar Refining Company, People of New York _vs._, 3. - - Northwestern Natural-gas Company, the Isaac Harter Company _vs._, 349. - - Notice, freights raised without, 136, 200. - - "Not yet," president of the oil trust, 454. - - Nova Scotia coal-mines, consolidation of, by American syndicate, - 5, 12, 461. - - - Ohio, oil-field, oil combination the only buyer of oil in, 107; - Supreme Court of, on discriminations, 219; - State of, _vs._ Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific - Railway, 220; - State of, _vs._ Cincinnati, Washington, and Baltimore Railway, 220; - _vs._ Standard Oil Company, 239, 453; - senatorial election of 1884, 373; - Legislature demands investigation of the election of Senator - Payne, 374; - Legislature defeats free pipe-line bill, 385; - State of, _vs._ City of Toledo, 314; - State of, _vs._ P.C. Boyle, 324; - distress among oil producers in 1892, 456; - Legislative report of 1879 on relations of railroads and oil - combination, 477. - - Ohio Oil Company _vs._ Toledo, Findlay and Springfield Railway, 306. - - Oil, Canada, 12; - Canada producers attacked by American combination, 12. - - Oil City fire, June 5, 1892, 417. - - Oil combination, parent of trust system, 8; - founders of, 44; - and South Improvement Company the same, 49; - president of, explains its origin, 53; - contracts with competitors to limit production, 61, 65; - requires monthly reports, 62; - insists on secrecy, 63, 65, 79; - use of spies by, 65, 298, 334; - contract in restraint of trade, 66; - profits of restraint of trade, 66, 67; - restricts its capacity one-half, 68; - rebates from the railroads, 69, 474-87; - scarcity the object of, 72; - control of transportation, 76; - buys out its widow competitor, 78; - puts her under bonds not to refine, 79; - binds competitors not to refine, 79, 80; - secret of success, testimony of president, 80; - value of the "works" of, 82; - issues $90,000,000 of stock on $6,000,000 of works, 82; - buys oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, 88; - owns oil cars of New York Central and Erie railroads, 92; - member of, denies, then admits, rebates, 95; - receipts from American Transfer Company, 100, 101; - owns United Pipe Lines, 101; - owns American Transfer Company, 101; - controls railroads' oil terminal facilities, 102; - uses railroad terminals to crush opposition, 102; - forces producers to sell below the market, 104; - will not pipe or buy oil, 106, 164; - shuts back Ohio oil wells, 107; - restricts production in Ohio, 107; - the only buyer of oil in Ohio oil-fields, 107; - and railroads fight the Tidewater Pipe Line, 108; - cuts prices of pipeage, 109; - speculates on its "advance knowledge" of cut in freight rates, 110; - enters into pool with Tidewater Pipe Line, 112; - owns National Transit Company, 113; - had no pipe line to seaboard, 116; - builds pipe line to seaboard, 116; - builds pipe lines from rebates given it by railroads, 116, 118; - and railroads advance rates, 118; - secret contract of 1885 with Pennsylvania Railroad, 120; - guarantees Pennsylvania Railroad 26 per cent. of the oil traffic, 121; - and Pennsylvania Railroad advance rates, 122; - pool with Pennsylvania Railroad, 123; - advances pipe-line rates, 125, 126; - Interstate Commerce Commission, on discrimination in favor of, 130; - gets New England business of independents, 137; - controls seaboard terminals of railroads, 142; - keeps Oil City and Titusville refineries closed, 143; - prompts railroad litigation before Interstate Commerce Commission, 144; - makes contract with producers to shut down wells, 153; - compels subordinate companies to make monthly reports, 155; - opposes piping of refined oil, 165; - owns $40,000,000 in 1883 in Pennsylvania, 166; - Pennsylvania tax case, 166; - Clarion County indictment, 170; - member of, admits rebates, 188; - president New York and New England Railroad is member of, 189; - prevents trial of Van Syckel's process of refining, 191; - member of, forecloses mortgage on Solar refinery, 193; - "another way of getting rid" of competitors, 200; - makes money by closing its refineries, 201; - how its earnings are pooled, 201; - its freight rates lowered while competitors' rates are raised, 202; - gets rebate of 25 cents out of 35 cents in freight, paid by - competitor, 206; - not popular in the South, 209; - competes with grocers, 214, 300; - relations to State inspectors, 216, 413; - denies receipt of discriminating rates, 219; - Supreme Court of Ohio oil monopoly of, 220; - denies blind-billing, 231; - denies receipt of mileage, 234; - denies discriminations, 235; - pleasant relations with competitors, 243; - dividends of, 246; - political power of, 260, 372-404; - and press, in Pennsylvania, 160; - in Buffalo, 298; - in Toledo, 317, 327; - defeated in suits on patents, 290; - brings suits to embarrass competitors, 290; - buys from the court suits against itself, 293; - refuses to meet competitive prices, 299; - abandons suit against Toledo in United States Supreme Court, 331; - detectives of, in Wall Street, 334; - evangelical and explosive, 358; - natural-gas companies, profits of, at Toledo, 362; - spends money in elections, 386; - members of, interested in subsidy legislation, 390; - acts with both political parties, 403; - defence before Bremen congress, 406; - its success explained by the president, 407; - has State inspectors in its pay, 411; - restricts production, 420; - buys Baltimore refineries, 421; - binds dealers not to buy of its competitors, 425; - oil made scarce by, 68, 420-29; - price of oil under, 67, 420-29, 431 _n._; - drives out schooners, 433; - controls 90 per cent. of industry, 433; - pushing into every part of the world, 434; - owns no oil lands in 1880, 434; - large buyer of oil lands, 434; - favored by Canadian government, 435; - in Germany, 437; - sells refined oil in Europe cheaper than crude, 439; - in France, 440; - denial of negotiations with Russian oil-men, 442; - admits negotiations with Russian oil-men, 442; - reasons for war upon independents, 455; - and Extradition Treaty with Russia, 448; - prosperous during panic, 455; - growth of capitalization of, 457; - produces "infinitesimal amount" of oil, 463; - not an inventor, producer, pioneer, or capitalist, 464; - produces poverty, 464-65; - principals of, not practical oil-men, 466, 467; - members of, deny rebates, 476; - secrecy as to ownership of certain shares, 487. - - Oil, regions, early prosperity of, 42, 43; - public disorder in, 43; - producers refuse to sell to members of South Improvement Company, 56; - running on the ground, 91, 105, 106, 164; - European congress on poor quality of American, 406; - test of, lowered in Great Britain, 408; - financial distress in 1879-92, 455-56. - - - Pacific Mail Steamship Company, report on bribery of Congress by, 394. - - Pacific Railway officials admit rebates, 480. - - Packers' Combination at Chicago investigated by Congress, 33. - - Paint, to conceal numbers of tank-cars, 235. - - _Pall Mall Gazette_ on prices of refined and crude oil, 439. - - Panics in oil, 43. - - Parker district, on verge of civil war, 106. - - Pastor, visit from the, 294. - - Payne, Henry B., objects to investigation of railroads, 70, 372; - election of, to the Senate of the United States, 374; - candidate for President, 387; - votes against Interstate Commerce Commission bill, 388; - solicits Democratic votes in the Senate for confirmation of - Republican nominee, 400. - - Peckham, S.F., United States Census report on petroleum, 39, 41; - on railroads and tank-cars, 228. - - Pennsylvania, Constitution of 1873 disobeyed by the railroads, 18; - Legislature nullifies Constitution in interest of railroads, 18; - uprising of 1872, 54; - Constitutional Convention, 1873, 54; - Commonwealth of, _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, 94; - Secretary of Internal Affairs hung in effigy, 105; - Attorney-General brings tax suit against Standard Oil Company, 169; - Legislature investigates Standard Oil Company tax case, 176; - Supreme Court of, delays hearing on appeal of independents, 447; - Constitution on railroads, 451; - Secretary of Internal Affairs on relations of railroads and oil - combination, 477. - - Pennsylvania Railroad and South Improvement Company, 48; - and Improvement Company charters, 55; - put under bond not to refine, 79; - keeps faith "some months," 84; - reaches out for control of oil trade, 87; - carries oil at eight cents a barrel less than nothing, 88; - sells its refineries and pipe lines, 88; - contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, 89; - pledges not to compete with oil combination, 89; - withdraws rates from independent refiners, 90; - officials threaten independent pipe lines, 91; - officials recommend "fix-up" with the oil combination to independent - shippers, 90, 91; - increases rates, refuses cars, to independent shippers, 91; - refuses to haul cars owned by independent shippers, 92; - refuses a business of ten thousand barrels of oil a day, 93; - Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._, 1879, 94; - pays American Transfer Company three months' back pay, 99; - refuses to furnish cars to oil producers, 106; - officials testify to war on Tidewater Pipe Line, 109; - discriminations against refineries using the Tidewater, 110; - Titusville and Oil City Independent Refiners' Associations - _vs._, 118, 165; - renews broken promises of equal rates, 119; - makes war on refiners it invited to rebuild, 120; - secret contract of 1885, with oil combination, 120; - guaranteed 26 per cent. of seaboard oil traffic by oil - combination, 121; - refuses to produce contract with oil combination, 121; - and oil combination advance rail and pipe rates, 122; - oil rates of, extortionate, 123; - counsel of, bullies Interstate Commerce Commission, 124; - perverts decision of Interstate Commerce Commission, 131; - increases rates to barrel shippers, 131; - ignores directions of Interstate Commerce Commission, 133-34; - refuses to haul tank-cars for independents, 140; - Interstate Commerce Commission delays for two years to enforce - law against, 147; - gets another rehearing from Interstate Commerce Commission, 150; - said to run Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 181; - divides the coal business of Pennsylvania among three dealers, 490. - - Perth Amboy, independent shipments from, 135. - - Peru, 441. - - Petroleum, combination in, 38-493; - De Witt Clinton's suggestion, 38; - early manufacture of, 38, 44; - Reichenbach's prediction, 38; - in exhibitions of 1839 and 1851, 39; - early American refiners, 39; - early American manufacturers ready for new supply of oil, 40; - price of, in 1862, 40. - - Petroleum Producers' Union, report of General Council of, on attempts to - lessen production of oil, 153. - - Phantom Party, in McKean County, 105. - - Philadelphia, Sharpless _vs._, 315. - - Phillips, Wendell, on Pennsylvania Railroad, 147. - - Piano-makers' combination, 5. - - Pilots, Brotherhood of Steamboat, protest against foreign engineers, 399. - - Pioneer refiner of Cleveland, 73. - - Pipe lines, origin of, 41; - first laid by Van Syckel, 41; - Pennsylvania Free Pipe Line law worthless, 57; - to Cleveland, 65; - number of, in 1874, 84; - Eighty per cent. of, died in 1874-5, 84; - pool of 1874, 86; - frozen out, 87; - bankrupt, bought up by oil trust, 87; - Equitable Pipe Line proposed, 91; - independent, threatened by Pennsylvania Railroad, 91; - United Pipe Lines, owned by the oil combination, 101; - industry closed to the people, 1877, 104; - refuse to carry oil unless sold to oil combination, 104; - of oil combination refuse to pipe, 106; - Tidewater, first to seaboard, 107; - rates cut by oil combination in war with Tidewater, 109; - to seaboard not built first by the oil combination, 116; - competitors of the railway, 116; - New York _Sun_ on, 117; - pool with railroads, 121; - cost of service, 122; - rates of, advanced by oil combination, 125, 126; - profits of, 126; - rates higher under the oil combination, 125, 126; - independent, to seaboard projected in 1887, 152; - in 1892, 160; - oil combination lays, upon railroad right of way, 162; - refuse to take oil, 1893, 164; - independent, transport refined oil, 165; - built by George Rice, 208; - independent, destroyed by Erie Railroad by force, 291; - Toledo builds better than private company, 360; - bill for free, defeated by the Ohio Legislature, 385; - independent, and Russian-American monopoly, 445; - independent, consolidate in 1894, 446; - independent, cut, 447. - (See Tidewater Pipe Line). - - Policemen, coal and iron, 18. - - Politics of business, 403. - - Pool, steamship, 395; - for sale of oil, 420. - - Poor's _Railroad Manual_, railroad interests of members of oil - combination, 460. - - Pork, combination of packers of, 36. - - Postal subsidy law, passed, 389-400; - payment under, 396; - Postmaster-General makes subsidy contracts, 390; - his relations to those who receive postal subsidies, 403. - - Poverty, abolition of, 526. - - Premium on oil advanced, 144. - - President of the oil combination denies contracts with railroads, 51; - on "ways of making money you know nothing of," 52; - the "only party that would buy," 52; - offers 50 cents on the dollar, 52; - explains its origin, 53; - testifies about Southern Improvement Company, 59; - member of South Improvement Company, 60; - denies contracts to restrict competition, 61; - testifies to "very small profit," 67; - argues for restriction of production, 68; - denies that it gets cheaper freights, 70; - testifies as to secret of success, 80; - testifies that it likes competition, 87; - knew about freight rates, 96; - cannot recall discriminating freight rates, 96; - frequents office of Erie Railroad, 102; - denies pool with the Tidewater Pipe Line, 113; - sole attorney of the trust, 114; - denies any connection with National Transit Company, 114; - denies the "shut-down" of 1887, 158; - described by Van Syckel, 184; - interview about rebates on Rice's business, 207; - on pleasant relations with competitors, 243; - testifies the oil trust is not a manufacturing company, 272; - testifies to reports by subordinate companies, 274; - does not know about monthly reports by subordinate companies, 274; - explains its success, 407; - on its cheapness, 420; - in the commission business, 432; - on its ownership of oil lands, 434; - its properties "not yet" sufficiently numerous, 454; - testifies to shares in the trust owned by trustees individually, 458; - "does not know," 467-68; - made attorney of the trust, 470. - - President of the Standard Oil Company denies ownership of company by - Standard Oil Trust, 458. - - Press, and oil combination, 160, 298, 317, 327; - use of, to make subsidy popular, 392; - Philadelphia, on Russian Extradition Treaty, 448. - - Price of oil advances under restraint of trade, 66, 67; - under oil combination, 67, 420, 431 _n._; - manipulated by oil combination, 104; - in Ohio, 107; - in New York and Europe, 164; - higher for crude than for refined oil, 164; - manipulation of, 210; - lowered by competition, 281, 294; - advances after Baltimore consolidation, 421; - regulated by committee, 421; - in New York, fixed by oil combination, 423; - in Texas, independent of competition, 423; - evidence gathered by Congress, 423-24; - put higher after "wars" than before, 424; - fixation of, 425; - E. Benjamin Andrews on, 430 _n._; - New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ on, 430 _n._; - under trusts, 431 _n._; - decline in Germany, 438; - refined oil lower than crude, 439; - under monopoly, 502. - - Private enterprise and public, 311. - - Producers of oil, and South Improvement Company, 54; - organization in Pennsylvania, 56; - embargo broken, 57; - Union, report, 1872, 60; - forced to sell oil to trust, 104; - forced to sell below market price, 105; - lose their land, 434. - - Producers and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited, Carter _vs._, 164, 446. - - Production restricted, 72; - in Ohio, 107; - at Oil City and Titusville, 143; - by shut-down of 1887, 153, 157; - cheapness of, 217, 429, 445. - - Profits of natural-gas company, at Toledo, 362. - - Property, "is monopoly," 37; - of the combinations, 513. - - Prosperity, early, in oil regions, 42, 43. - - Public powers and property, private use of, 523. - - Publication of railroad tariff, how evaded, 230. - - Punishment nominal, 292. - - - Quality, deterioration of, under monopoly, 405-19; - of oil in Germany, 438. - - Quinby, District Attorney, 247-98. - - - Railroads, northwestern, combination with elevators, 5; - buying bituminous coal lands, 11; - buying iron and timber lands, 12; - refuse cars to independent coal shippers, 12; - crushing independent coal producers, 13; - monopolize anthracite coal, 11, 14; - raise freights to prevent settlement of coal strike, 1871, 16; - forbidden in Pennsylvania to own or operate coal-mines, 18; - disregard Interstate Commerce Commission's decision on coal rates, 19; - and elevators combined in Minnesota, 31; - northwestern, coerce grain buyers, 31; - northwestern, fix the price of wheat, 31; - give discriminating rates to dressed-beef men, 36; - contract with South Improvement Company, 45; - contract to overcome competition for preferred shippers, 48; - as detectives, 48; - advance freight rates on oil 100 per cent., 50; - grant special privileges to railroad directors, 54; - lobbying at Harrisburg, 55; - rebates to oil combination, 69; - facilities controlled by oil combination, 76; - carry crude oil to Cleveland for preferred shippers without charge, 85; - force Cleveland refiners into unnatural equality, 85; - how they equalize persons and places, 86; - make war on Pennsylvania Railroad for oil combination, 87; - of New York received $40,000,000 of public cash, 97; - tribute paid by, to American Transfer Company, 99; - pay American Transfer Company on oil not handled by it, 100; - officials members of American Transfer Company, 100; - oil terminal facilities transferred to oil combination, 101; - fight Tidewater Pipe Line for the oil combination, 108; - lose $10,000,000 in war against Tidewater Pipe Line, 109; - will not tell how low rates were made against Tidewater Pipe Line, 109; - give use of their lands to pipe lines of oil combination, 116; - give oil combination money to build pipe lines, 116, 118; - pool with pipe lines of the oil trust, 118; - officials drive business from railroads to competing pipe - line, 119, 134; - broken pledges of, to independent refiners, 119; - pool with pipe lines, 121; - make war on barrel-shippers, 129, 132; - carry tank-cars free, 131; - increase freight rate on barrels, 131, 132; - increase freight rates at instance of the oil combination, 132; - raise freights without legal notice, 136, 218; - vary rates according to destination beyond their lines, 137; - mistakes not corrected, 138; - destroy barrel shipments, 138; - promises of reparation unfulfilled, 139; - make rates that prohibit traffic, 139; - surrender terminals to oil combination, 140, 142; - relations with oil trust collusive, 143; - litigation before Interstate Commerce Commission prompted by - oil combination, 144; - disobey Interstate Commerce Commission's decision, 149, 218; - oppose new independent pipe line to seaboard, 160; - give use of lands to pipe lines of the oil trust, 162; - officials wasting stockholders' money in hopeless litigation, 163; - force Joshua Merrill out of business, 189; - consult with oil combination about raising rates against - independents, 200; - make rates that prohibit traffic at Marietta, 201, 203; - refuse rates to Marietta refiners, 202; - officials refuse to testify in Ohio in 1879, 202; - increase rates 333 per cent. to one shipper, 217; - deny discrimination, 218; - make their favorites "sole people," 219; - consult with preferred shippers as to freight rates to - competitors, 219; - refuse to answer letters of shippers, 220, 227; - charge more for the shorter hauls, 221, 222, 223; - "mistakes" for favored shippers, 223, 234; - officials refuse to testify before Congress, 224; - "illegal" refusal to give rates, 224, 227; - refuse to answer questions about tank-car rates, 228; - make charges regardless of quantity for preferred shippers, 229; - haul tank-cars free for preferred shippers, 229; - evasions of the law regarding publication of tariffs, 230; - misstate tank-car rates to shippers, 230; - make rates to preferred shippers "astonishingly low," 232; - refuse to give rates, 233; - pay preferred shippers mileage, 233; - conceal mileage from independent shippers, 233; - give Standard Oil Company 25 cents out of 35 cents freight paid - by George Rice, 206; - allegiance to the company, 203; - construction aided by Toledo, 313; - Commission of 1873, in Great Britain, 369; - regulation, Duke of Wellington on, 369; - and Constitution of New York of 1846, 370; - British, A.T. Hadley on, 370; - New York Commission of 1857, 370; - procure abolition of New York Railway Commission of 1857, 371; - State commissions to regulate, 371; - officials refuse to answer questions of Congress, 373; - prevent shipment of Colorado oil to Pacific states, 427; - no discrimination on German, 438; - Pennsylvania Constitution on, 451; - lose the oil business worth $30,000,000 a year, 456; - ownership of members of oil trust in, 460, 461; - rates to oil combination secret, 474; - preferences to oil combination described by the Interstate Commerce - Commission, 478; - officials admit rebates, 480; - shut off shipments of Colorado and Wyoming oil, 481; - collusive litigation between Southern Pacific Railroad and oil - combination, 483; - officials charged with receiving a bonus for giving rebates, 486; - officials owners of stock in Chicago Union Stockyards, 487; - tax the poor for the rich, 489; - give $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 rebates out of $800,000,000 freights - yearly, 491; - excuses for violating Interstate Commerce law, 498; - accidents to employés, 499; - rights of employés, 506. - - Ramsdell, Homer, on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Reading Railroad and railroad war of 1877, 88. - - Rebates, to South Improvement Company, 46; - equal to 21 per cent. a year on capital, 69; - Ohio Supreme Court decision on, 69; - to the oil combination, 69, 474-87; - denied by president of the oil combination, 96; - to Standard Oil Company, 96, 206; - to American Transfer Company, 100; - from railroads build pipe lines for oil combination, 116, 118; - to oil combination admitted, 188; - unknown to outside shippers, 475; - giving or receiving, a penitentiary offence, 475; - denied by members of the oil trust, 476; - to oil combination, summary of evidence of, 479; - admitted by officials of the Pacific railways, 480; - to A.T. Stewart & Co., 489; - given by Pennsylvania Railroad to three coal-dealers, 490; - refusal of givers and takers to testify in Chicago, 490; - $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year, 491. - - Refineries, petroleum, dismantling of, 42; - oil, put under contract to limit production, 61, 65; - shut down and pulled down, 71. - - Refiners, compelled to sell to South Improvement Company, 51; - put under bonds not to refine, 79; - New York, do not dare to build large refineries, 107. - - Refuse oil delivered to competitors, 291. - - Reichenbach on petroleum, 38. - - Reports by subordinate companies of oil trust, 274. - - Republican party and sugar trust, 404. - - Restriction, of competing refineries by oil combination, 61; - of its capacity to one-half by the oil combination, 68; - of production, by oil combination, 421; - in Scotland, 435. - - Rice, George, 199-242; - lets Interstate Commerce Commission cases go by default, 151; - _vs._ Brundred _et al._, 239; - cases before Interstate Commerce Commission, 239 _n._; - _vs._ Standard Oil Trust, 241; - _vs._ trustees of Standard Oil Trust, 453. - - Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, 1890, before Interstate Commerce - Commission, 147. - - Richardson _vs._ Buhl _et al._, 10. - - River, interference with shipments by, 224; - shipments stopped by oil combination, 433; - trade in Germany appropriated by oil trust, 437. - - Rochester, explosion in Vacuum refinery, 250, 252. - - Rosebery, Lord, comments of _Investors' Review_, 450. - - Rothschilds, position in Russian oil industry, 443. - - Ruffner Brothers, 462. - - Russia, American oil combination in, 442; - every producer allowed to enter international trust, 444; - Minister of Finance organizes combination with American oil trust, 444; - why government of, favored American oil combination, 448; - treaty with, 448. - - Rutter circular, 85. - - - Salt, 32. - - Sanford case, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 54. - - Scandinavia, 437. - - Scarcity, the object of oil combination, 72; - Oil City and Titusville refineries kept closed, 142. - - _Schenck, U.P._, libel against the, 225. - - Scofield, Representative, resolution for investigation of South - Improvement Company, 56; - W.C., Standard Oil Company _vs._, 61, 89; - decision, 66; - _et al._ _vs._ Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company, 70. - - Scotch refiners in 1850, 39; - pool of, 72; - make superior article, 408; - precluded from discussing poor quality of American oil, 409; - pool with Americans broken in 1892, 427; - pool with American combination, 435; - compelled to reduce production, 435; - shrinkage of capital, 436. - - Scott, Thomas, on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Screw, turn another, 213. - - Seaboard, Tidewater, first pipe line to, 107. - - Seamen, American, not employed by American subsidized steamers, 400. - - Secrecy, insisted on by oil combination, 63, 65, 79; - in the increase of freights, 218, 474; - as to ownership of oil-trust stock, 487. - - Secretary, of oil combination, testifies before Ohio Legislature, 51; - testifies to "scarcely any profits," 67; - testifies to purchase of oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, 89; - not a practical oil-man, 465; - refused to give Congress names of owners of certain shares in its - pipe lines, 487. - - Seemann, E.F., Die _Monopolisirung des Petroleum Handels und der - Petroleum Industrie_, 438. - - Selligue, 38, 462. - - Senate, United States, the Payne scandal, 374-88. - - Sharpless _vs._ Philadelphia, 315. - - Shrouds, combination, 37. - - "Shut-down," of 1887, 72, 153; - advances prices of kerosene, 158. - - Silliman, Professor Benjamin, analyzes petroleum, 39; - on oil not monopolized, 40. - - Slave-trade, 525. - - Smith, Adam, 494. - - Socrates, the great are the bad, 506. - - South Improvement Company, investigated by Congress, 43, 45; - investigation suppressed, 45; - contract of railroads with, 45; - rebates, 46; - and oil combination, same, 49; - to have complete monopoly, 49; - compels refiners to sell to it, 51; - contracts not cancelled, 57; - charter repealed, 57; - arrangement still exists "in reality," 58; - President of Standard Oil Company on, 59; - plan of, reproduced, 85; - reappears in American Transfer Company, 100; - espionage in operation in 1880, 213; - charged to be now in operation in California, 479. - - South, oil combination not popular in the, 209. - - Southern Pacific Railroad Company and Whittier, Fuller & Co., Standard - Oil Company _vs._, 484. - - Speculation, in sugar-trust stock, 32, 403; - in oil, 42; - by oil combination, on advance knowledge of freight reduction, 110; - follows "shut-down" of 1887, 157. - - Spies, 65; - watch shipments, 212; - pay of, 298; - in war on Toledo, 334. - - Standard Oil Company, interview with president of, concerning South - Improvement Company, 59; - president of, testifies about Southern Improvement Company, 59; - _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, 61, 89; - decision, 65; - contract with Lake Shore road decided to be "unlawful," 70; - Supreme Court of Ohio on its monopoly, 70; - and war of rates, 1877, 88; - contracts for rebate of one-tenth of all oil freights, 89; - lower rates by Pennsylvania Railroad to, 90, 94; - freight rate of 38 cents to, 95; - Erie contract with, 102; - independents forced to sell to, 141; - tax investigation, by Pennsylvania Legislature, 166; - members of, indicted in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, 170; - saved from trial by Supreme Court, 180; - members of, object to taking witness-stand, 171; - People of Ohio _vs._, 239; - sued by Toledo for $1,000,000 damages, 367; - spends money in elections, 386; - Senator Payne on the, 386; - pays State inspectors, 414; - owned by Standard Oil Trust, 458; - its president denies ownership by Standard Oil Trust, 458; - application to Attorney-General of New York for forfeiture of - charter of, 458; - _vs._ Southern Pacific Railroad and Whittier, Fuller Co., 484. - - Standard Oil Trust, purchase of works of widow competitor by three - trustees of, 80; - dissolution of, 240; - Rice _vs._, 241; - and the Buffalo explosion, 253-98; - not a manufacturing company, 272; - members of, ordered acquitted by the judge, 272-84; - trustees personally own majority of each company in, 273, 458; - controls every movement of subordinate companies, 274; - how it pools the control and profits of subordinate companies, 275; - owns natural-gas companies, 337; - counsel of, is president of the New York Constitutional - Convention, 452; - declared void by Supreme Court of New York, 453; - People of Ohio _vs._, 453; - Rice _vs._ Trustees of, 453; - Supreme Court of Ohio pronounces it a monopoly, and void, 453; - New York Legislature on formidable money power of, 457; - dividends, 457; - capital of, worth $148,000,000 in 1888, 457; - Interstate Commerce Commission on immense power of, 458; - keeps no books, 469; - operations not business, 470; - makes president its attorney, 470; - executes large contracts through attorneys, 470; - asks Congress to hear additional defence, 471; - discrepancy between the facts and its evidence, 471; - claims same rebates were granted to other shippers, 472; - its offer to prove to Congress that C.B. Matthews testified - falsely, 472; - its employment of detectives admitted by latter, 472; - its threats of litigation against competitors, 473; - member of, denies rebates, 478. - - Steamship, discrimination in favor of meat combination, 37; - pool, 395. - - Sterne, Simon, on oil terminals of Erie Railroad, 102; - on railroads taxing poor for the rich, 489. - - Stewart, A.T., & Co., rebate to, 489. - - St. Louis, forty reductions in oil prices in three years, 427. - - Stock watering in natural-gas companies at Toledo, 363. - - Stock Yards, Chicago, Union, 34. - - Storage, ordinances for, used to overcome competition, 215. - - Storer, F.H., on Selligue, 38. - - Stoves, 9; - Manufacturers, National Association, 10. - - Street-railways, Brooklyn, consolidation, 5. - - Strike of New York freight-handlers, 1882, 296. - - Subsidy, urged by Secretary of the Navy, 389; - voted by Congressmen of both parties, 389; - postal, 389-400; - press used to popularize, 392; - policy of limitations, 393; - got by bribery, 394; - advocated by United States Commissioner of Navigation, 401. - - Sugar trust, Judge Barrett's decision, 3, 4; - investigation by New York Legislature, 32, 33; - capital and dividends, 32, 33, 404; - contributes to Republican and Democratic parties, 403; - president testifies about campaign contributions, 403; - securities and profits, 404; - and government, 404; - and anti-trust law, 404; - president admits it has increased price, 431 _n._; - and tariff bill of 1894, 449. - - Sumatra, 441. - - _Sun_, New York, on income of members of oil trust, 459. - - Suppression, of congressional investigation, 1872, 45, 60; - 1876, 71; - evidence in Cleveland, 83. - - Supreme Court of Ohio, decision on rebates, 69; - of Pennsylvania, interferes to save members of Standard Oil Company - from trial, 180; - said to be run by Pennsylvania Railroad, 181; - of New York, on Standard Oil Trust, 453. - - Survival of the unfittest, 14. - - - Tank-boats for canal, 96. - - Tank-cars, origin of, 41; - carried free by railroads, 131; - less profitable to railroads than barrels, 138; - free carriage of 62 gallons in each, 139; - worse than powder, 139; - prohibitory discrimination against competitors', 189; - independent shippers cannot get rates, 228; - of preferred shippers, hauled free by railroads, 229; - numbers painted out, 235. - - Tank-steamers, German, refused oil, 437. - - Tariff, changes in Germany, 437; - lowered in France, 440; - and sugar trust, 404, 449; - and trusts, John De Witt Warner on, 449. - - Taxes, oil combination refuses to pay, in Pennsylvania, 166. - - Terminal facilities, of railroads, controlled by oil combination, 102; - surrendered by railroads to oil combination, 140, 142. - - Testimony, in Cleveland case disappears, 83; - mutilated transcript for Congress of Buffalo explosion case, - 244, 267, 298; - taken in Congressional investigation of 1876 stolen, 373. - - Thurman, Allen G., on the election of Senator Payne, 376. - - Tidewater Pipe Line, organized, 107; - rate of 10 cents per barrel made by railroads against, 108; - plugged, 111; - surrenders to the oil combination, 112. - - Timber lands, railroads buying, 12. - - Titusville fire, June 5, 1892, 417. - - Titusville and Oil City Independent Refiners' Associations _vs._ - Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 118-65. - - Toledo, Findlay and Springfield Railway _vs._ Ohio Oil Company, 306. - - Toledo, war upon, 305-68; - undertakes municipal supply of natural gas, 307; - municipal aid to railroads, 313; - People of Ohio _vs._, 314; - Fellows _et al._ _vs._, 314; - part of the oil combination in the war against, admitted, 339; - city natural-gas line, financial results, 359-68; - public enterprise builds better pipe line than private, 360; - gas shut off, 366; - brings suit against Standard Oil Company and others for $1,000,000 - damages, 367. - - Treasurer, of oil combination, denies purchase of oil plant of - Pennsylvania Railroad, 89. - - Treasury, Secretary of United States, business associate of oil - combination, 400; - orders it paid drawbacks, 401; - Commissioner of Navigation, advocates subsidies, 401. - - Truesdale, George, testimony of, 246. - - Trust, anti, law, 3, 7, 404; - oil combination, parent of system of, 8; - in politics, 403; - all contribute to campaign expenses, 403; - prices, 429; - prices of, superior to panic, 431 _n._; - and tariff, 449. - - Turpentine, rates on, 232. - - - Undertakers combination, 37. - - United Pipe Lines, buy bankrupt pipe lines, 87; - owned by oil combination, 101, 125. - - United States, _vs._ E.C. Knight & Co. _et al._, 404; - marshal libels river steamers, 225. - - United States Pipe Line forced to abandon Hancock route, 163; - makes success of piping refined oil, 165; - opposition to extension beyond Wilkes-barre, 445. - - Uprising in the oil regions, 1872, 55. - - - Vanderbilt, Commodore Cornelius, wealth of, at 44, 460; - William H., on South Improvement Company contract, 51; - surprised by ready cash of oil combination, 88; - never heard of American Transfer Company, 99 _n._ - - Van Syckel, Samuel, lays first pipe line, 41, 185; - history and inventions of, 182-98; - _vs._ Acme Oil Company, 187; - gets United States patents for new process of refining, 193; - given 6 cents damages by the judge, 195; - dies in poverty, 462. - - - Wagons cheaper than railroads, 211. - - Warner, A.J., on bill to regulate river shipments, 225. - - Warner, John De Witt, on trusts and tariff, 449. - - Washington, Constitution concerning trusts, 451. - - Wealth, concentrated, greatest sovereign, 134; - of the combinations, certain features of, 513. - - Webster, Daniel, on extemporaneous acquisition, 462. - - Weehawken oil docks, 140. - - Well-drillers' Union and the "shut-down" of 1887, 154. - - Wellington, Duke of, on State and railroads, 369. - - Whalebacks, 460. - - Whiskey, ring of 1874, 20; - trust, secretary of, arrested, 21. - - Widow, competitor of oil combination, 75; - forced to sell, 77. - - Wilkes-barre railroads oppose independent pipe-line crossing, 161. - - Wilson, William L., on sugar trust, 32; - President Cleveland to, 404. - - Witnesses, before United States Senate Committee investigating Chicago - meat combination intimidated, 34; - before committee of Congress refuse to testify, 60; - refuse to appear before Interstate Commerce Commission, 145; - railroad officials refuse to testify in Ohio, 202; - railroad, refuse to testify before Congress, 224; - coached, 279. - - Woman refiner, 73. - - Working-men, thrown out of work, 54, 68, 135, 154, 159, 455; - punished for boycott, 287; - of Toledo support city natural-gas pipe line, 308; - in Toledo subscribe for city gas bonds, 340; - reduction of wages in Scotland, 436; - decline of wages in oil regions, 456. - - _World_, New York, on Russian Extradition Treaty, 448. - - Wright, Henry C., discussion on slavery, 346. - - Wyoming oil, railroads prevent shipments of, 481. - - - - Young, T. Graham, on British oil test, 409. - - -THE END - - - - -_By the Same Author_ - -A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES AGAINST MINERS - -OR, THE - -Story of Spring Valley - -AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MILLIONAIRES - - -_Notices by the Press_ - - -The Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_ (editorial). - - Those who keep note of passing events will not have forgotten the - lock-out of coal miners at Spring Valley, Illinois, in the early - months of 1889, and the sufferings of the families of the workmen in - consequence. - - This sad story of corporate inhumanity has been effectively told by - Henry D. Lloyd in a book entitled _A Strike of Millionaires against - Miners_. It merits no less a volume than this. It is not an isolated - case--an industrial phenomenon springing from conditions rarely - repeated--but one of many similar cases, a part only of the whole - story of coal mining in the United States. More than this, it is an - aggravated illustration of the soullessness of the corporation in - general, through the agency of which the bulk of the producing powers - of the nation is working. - - Behind this legal fiction men hide and do deeds of grasping cruelty - that disgrace manhood, and are fast bringing the industrial organism - into contempt. In the case of Spring Valley, the directors and - stockholders of the Chicago and North-Western Railroad and the Spring - Valley Coal Company--controlled by the same men--are as responsible - for the sufferings and death from starvation of miners in Spring - Valley in 1889 as if they had all been personally present and assisted - in the business of bringing men from a distance to work in their mines - on assurance of steady employment, and then of locking them out - without warning, to starve them into submission to lower wages, for - the sake of higher profits on their stock. This is the conclusion of - Mr. Lloyd, and we see no escape from it. - - If the corporation is to be considered an impersonality without moral - responsibility, it will either have to go, or the industrial system - which makes it an essential part will have to go. All the power of - government, or wealth, or vested interests cannot maintain that - system which, resting as our present system must on the charitable - instincts of men, offers a way of escape from the responsibilities - imposed thereby to the most powerful factors of the society. Against - that system "the pulses of men will beat until they beat it down." - What must be the condition of that society which allows the wealthy - capitalists who starved these thousands of miners not only to go - unpunished, but to move in the very highest circles of business power - and social influence? And one of them in particular is to-day figuring - upon representing the Democratic party of Pennsylvania in the United - States Senate. - - -The New York _Commercial Advertiser_ (editorial). - - It is to be remembered that Mr. Lloyd's book does not profess to be - a dispassionate review of the situation. It is an indictment. The - corporation's side should be given a fair hearing. But it must be - heard soon. Mr. Lloyd's charges are too important, his formulation - of them too worthy of respect to be treated with silent contempt. To - ignore them is to confess their truth. Should such a reply be made, - the readers of this column will be informed of it. _A Strike of - Millionaires against Miners_ describes the poverty, the suffering, the - utter misery among the miners in Spring Valley, Illinois, during the - past year. In the simplicity and restraint of his style, and in the - massing of his facts, Mr. Lloyd shows genuine literary power. There is - no attempt at rhetoric in his narrative. He depends upon statements - of facts, many of them incontrovertible, to rouse the hot indignation - of his readers. If the story is true, and it bears every appearance - of truth, the Spring Valley mine owners have been guilty of damnable - treachery and cruelty to their fellow-men. - - -Chicago _Herald_ (editorial). - - The _Herald_ commends to the attention of its readers the open - letter in another column, from Henry D. Lloyd, addressed to various - millionaires of New York, Chicago, and St. Paul. It contains what the - _Herald_ believes to be the truth as to the Spring Valley scandal, - and while in most respects it is a plain statement of facts, it is - nevertheless one of the most powerful appeals for justice, and one of - the most eloquent denunciations of wrong, which has come under the - public eye in many a day. - - Mr. Lloyd's high character, his superb attainments, and his well-known - philanthropy give force to the arraignment it might not otherwise - possess. His letter is a history of a crime--a crime resulting, no - doubt, from an infamous conspiracy--and the story leads naturally and - inevitably to the conclusion which Mr. Lloyd avows, that there must - be conspiracy laws for millionaires as well as for working-men. - - Civilization must be bottomed on justice, or it cannot endure. A - society which permits such inhuman outrages as that at Spring Valley - is either asleep or in an advanced stage of decay. The money god - cannot crush out the lives of human beings with impunity. Let its - devotees look well to the ground on which they stand. The wise and - humane will be warned in time. The foolish and insatiate must be left - to the stern judgment of their fellow-men, who must some day pass upon - their act. - - -The _Labor World_, London, England. - - What does Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who chants vulgar pæans to "Triumphant - Democracy" say to such a book as this of Mr. Lloyd? This story of the - robbery and betrayal of thousands of working miners in Illinois by - a great millionaire corporation is one of the worst things we have - read for a long time, and is a terribly scathing satire on American - "democracy." - - Let us hear no more trash about "free" America as compared with - down-trodden Europe. Both continents are down-trodden by the rich - men who own the raw material out of which wealth is created by human - labor. When the land of the United States is all absorbed by private - persons, as it will be in twenty years' time, there will not be a - pin to choose between America and Europe, so far as wage-workers are - concerned. Wages may be higher in America, but the increased cost of - living there will nearly equalize the condition of the two continents; - while for swindling, lying, and merciless oppression many American - capitalists leave their European brethren far behind. Mr. Lloyd's - book, which is the first of a new "Bad Wealth Series," ought to open - men's eyes to the fact that true freedom is impossible when a few men - have a right to appropriate to themselves the raw material of the - globe. - - -Chicago _Daily Inter-Ocean_. - - Mr. Lloyd's reputation as a writer on economic questions is - sustained in the manner of handling the usually dry statistical - matter which tells the story of strikes and lock-outs. He makes the - story interesting and often graphic, while he gives the facts and - figures relating to the intricacy of contracts in a way to be easily - understood by the ordinary reader. The book is a valuable compilation - of the facts gathered relating to this shameless abuse of corporative - power in Spring Valley. - - -The _New Ideal_. - - Mr. Lloyd has been until recently on the editorial staff of the - Chicago _Tribune_, and is now devoting his time to first-hand - investigations into labor troubles. This book gives an account of a - lock-out in one of the mining districts of Illinois, and is the more - forcible and eloquent an arraignment of the "millionaires," as the - statements are throughout verifiable. As Mr. Lloyd in effect says, - professors of political economy do not come near enough to realities - to discover such details as he portrays, and the working-men do not - know how to bring them before public opinion. Hence the necessity of - a mediator, who shall thoroughly investigate the facts and at the - same time give them to the public, not in statistical reports, but in - a form that compels its attention. Mr. Lloyd is a practised writer; - no one can read this narrative without being profoundly moved, and - for the directors and stockholders of the Spring Valley Coal Company - (and, besides, of the Chicago and North-Western Railway, an aider - and abettor of the nefarious business) the effect must be to set - their blood on fire--so far as they are blessed (or unblessed) with - any moral sensitiveness. Every thoughtful citizen--whether man or - woman--should read this book, and have fully brought home to him or - her the problems it suggests. It belongs to the literature both of - fact and of power. - - -The _Religio-Philosophical Journal_. - - Mr. Lloyd admits that Spring Valley and its miseries and wrongs were, - at the beginning, but the conception and achievement of one or two - of the leading owners of railroad and other companies who did the - planning, secured the approval of the Board of Directors, and the - active influence of the railroads through whom, by special freights, - the business of competitors was stolen, coal land was bought, and - the scheme was invented by which fortunes were to be made from - working-men's necessities and the misuse of the powers of the common - carrier. But none of the directors, none of the stockholders, who - received the profits of the scheme, protested against it; on the - contrary, all accepted unprotestingly their "share of the guilt and - gilt." Mr. Lloyd gives a mass of facts and figures which prove, on - the part of corporations employing men at Spring Valley, an amount - of greed and heartlessness which seems incredible in an enlightened - country. - - Mr. Lloyd is a literary artist as well as a man of deep feeling, - and he combines felicity of diction with fervor and eloquence of - expression, and writes with effectiveness and power. The book should - be read by all who are interested in the labor question--the practical - issue of the hour. - - -Chicago _Times_. - - It is a pitiful story, a heart-breaking story, and Mr. Lloyd tells it - with a great deal of force and earnestness. - - -The _Dawn_. - - Can it be possible in these happier days among men who share the - Christian civilization of the very eve of the twentieth century, - that there can exist any analogy to this relentless war of savagery, - this cruel and cowardly subjugation of a competitor, not in honest, - open combat, but by taking advantage of a position to deny him food, - shelter, and the very necessaries of life? For an answer, such as - would bring indignant emotion to every heart not indurated by avarice - of gold, and shame to every cheek not rendered incapable of blushing - by hardened selfishness, we refer to the terrible facts, so calmly - told with the severity of simple truth by Mr. Lloyd. - - Starved Rock and Spring Valley are not isolated instances. The malady - is constitutional, not local. "The whole head is sick and the whole - heart faint," may be said of our modern system of business. - - -The _Nationalist_. - - In this age of strikes it is not always the workers who strike, as - is indicated by the title of Mr. Lloyd's book. That brilliant and - great-hearted journalist and publicist several months ago, in the - shape of an open letter of several columns, printed in the Chicago - _Herald_, told the story of the criminal and cold-blooded conspiracy - of a group of enormously rich men against a body of honest and - industrious workingmen. That letter he has made the basis of the - present volume, which deserves a wide circulation among patriotic - citizens of the United States. The strong and truthful words here - uttered ought to ring throughout the land and arouse the people to a - realizing sense of the greatest danger that has ever threatened our - republic--the danger of its conversion into the worst of despotisms, - that of rule by an irresponsible plutocracy. - - -The Burlington _Hawkeye_. - - Mr. Lloyd proves every charge he makes, the testimony he brings - forward being so presented as to leave no question as to its absolute - correctness. In all the dark record of tyranny, cruelty, and brutality - made by the coal barons of this country there is not a blacker chapter - than that which tells of their crimes against the miners of Spring - Valley in the year 1889. This is not the verdict of the "labor crank" - alone; the people of Chicago and the whole of northern Illinois, in - the press and pulpit and on the platform, have denounced the outrage, - and the cooler judgment of to-day, when the lock-out is about worn out - and the majority of the old miners are scattered all over the country, - is in accord with the denunciation made by Mr. Lloyd. - - -The _Rock Islander_, Rock Island, Ill. - - _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring - Valley._ The above is the title of a beautifully printed volume of - 264 pages, by Henry D. Lloyd. Its prelude is the story of the starved - Indians of Starved Rock, and it proceeds to parallel that by the - starvation of labor by the millionaires. The story of Spring Valley - is given in detail, with official proof of its truthfulness, and is - graphically told by Mr. Lloyd. Its exposure of the oppressors of - labor is terrific. It shows who they are; who has done this thing; - how the town was boomed; how it was doomed; how the ghost of Starved - Rock walks abroad; and how people are bought and enslaved in this - boasted free country. It gives Governor Fifer a deserved slap for - not going in person to the scene of starvation, and it roasts his - military toady of the rich (Adjutant-General Vance) who was sent - there by the governor to investigate, and whose report is proven to - be a tissue of sneers at the poor, and falsehoods in regard to them - and their situation. He quotes freely and approvingly from the report - of Judge Gould and Mr. Wines, proving all that was claimed for the - suffering there. He shows (page 66) that the Chicago, Milwaukee and - St. Paul Railroad Company generously acknowledged the necessity for - help by hiring a physician for its miners at Braceville, and sending - supplies of necessaries for sick women and children to be given out by - its agent there. He shows up the campaign of slander against Spring - Valley, which was carried on through capitalistic newspapers and - corporation tools; says the Spring Valley case is only a preliminary - skirmish of capital against labor, and, after showing the first - fruits, asks what the last will be. He closes with a chapter giving - part of the moral. An appendix is added, showing what the millionaires - said of themselves, and the replies by the miners and the press. - Everybody should read this most remarkable and ably prepared story of - the crime of capital upon labor. - - -_Seed-Time_ (London), the organ of the New Fellowship. - - Perhaps the most striking of all the American object-lessons on the - tendencies of capitalism has been given us by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of - Chicago, who has recently published a book entitled, _A Strike of - Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring Valley_. A more - complete exposure of the tyranny and cruelty of capitalism has never - before been made. Its great importance for us, however, lies in the - fact that all the tyranny and wrong he witnessed and describes are but - the natural outcomes of the principles of commercialism when those - principles are carried to their logical conclusion, and capitalism has - unchecked sway. Such terrible scenes do not occur everywhere, simply - because capitalism is held in check by other social forces, and has - not everywhere attained that full and unfettered development which - discloses the evils which in its more undeveloped stage lie concealed. - - -The _Twentieth Century_. - - It is a mind-agitating and heart-rending tale, and unless I am much - mistaken the publication of it will create an epoch in economic - thinking and social regeneration. What is the remedy for such crimes - as Mr. Lloyd has exposed? The remedy will be found if open-minded - persons will read such books as Mr. Lloyd's, and keep themselves - informed as to what is being done to reduce a people to servitude. - This single book ought to produce such a revulsion of feeling against - the monstrous millionaires who perpetrated this awful crime that they - would be looked upon by all decent people with abhorrence. - - If you will read Mr. Lloyd's book I think you will agree with me that - if before long, as many persons believe, this county is to be deluged - in the blood of revolution, the catastrophe will be brought on by - condoning such crimes as that at Spring Valley; it will be brought on - because you and I read such stories as this, and, knowing they are - true, straightway forget all about them; it will be brought on because - editors and preachers, and others who have the public ear, keep silent - through negligence or fear of the rich who misrule the land. If people - will not think, if they will not care, you may depend upon it that the - price of their indifference will be slavery or war. - - -From a letter to the _Twentieth Century_. - - Your article, and the extracts from Mr. Lloyd's book in your issue of - June 12, portraying the outrageous injustice inflicted on the Spring - Valley coal miners by the railway and coal-mining barons, was read - before our club by Judge Frank T. Reid, of this city, a member of the - club, at its regular weekly meeting, Monday, June 23. A resolution - was unanimously passed and sent to the General Executive Board of the - Nationalist clubs at Boston, requesting it to get up a memorial to - the Government Bureau of Labor, petitioning that body to institute - a special inquiry into the outrages; that this be done with a view - of publishing these crimes to the whole country, under the proper - authority, and also with the view of memorializing Congress for the - government to work either all or part of the coal-mining industry on - the same principle that it works the postal service, the government - printing-office at Washington, and other industries, as the present - method of running the coal mines by corporations has resulted, and - will continue to result, in rioting and bloodshed, and imperils - the very existence of society. We would suggest that copies of the - memorial be sent to all the Nationalist clubs for signatures, and also - to the Federated trades, Knights of Labor, and other organized bodies - and to individuals. Might we also suggest that you kindly communicate - with the Executive Board of Boston, and with our worthy and earnest - brothers, Messrs. Bellamy, Bliss, and others? - - Yours fraternally, - J.L. Johnson, - _Secretary Nationalist Club_. - - Tacoma, Wash. #/ - - -The _Open Court_. - - The story of Spring Valley will make every American citizen of healthy - morals uncomfortable and ashamed.... A story which must be read, and - the lesson of it heeded, or worse things come. - - -The St. Louis _Republic_. - - A stirring account of the great mining strike, lock-out, and - consequent misery at Spring Valley, Illinois, in 1888-89, the main - features of which are still familiar to the reading public. Mr. Lloyd - lays the blame where it belongs, and shows how the whole transaction - worked to the profit of the plutocrats at the expense of their - dupes--the enterprising thousands who believed in the promises made - in booming the location. The booming of the town was followed by the - dooming, and, as the _Republic_ and many other papers showed at the - time, the action of the mine operators all through was "a cruel abuse - of intellectual strength to use it to force weakness and ignorance - into such a condition of helplessness." The author gives facts and - figures, and his account of the matter is borne out by the news - columns of the times. It is a sad story, and its truthfulness is a - shameful comment upon the tendencies of our day. - - -The Pittsburg _Labor Tribune_. - - _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring - Valley_, is a handsome edition of the important matter written by - Henry D. Lloyd when the notable strike was on at the mines located at - Spring Valley, Illinois. Our miner readers especially will read with - satisfaction the vim and ability with which Mr. Lloyd handles the - literary end of that eventful period, and will be pleased to know that - he has issued the matter in consecutive form. - - -The _Democrat_ (London). - - Bad as the social and industrial condition of Great Britain is, that - of the United States threatens to become as bad or even worse unless - the power of landlordism there is subjected to popular control. A - striking instance of the rapid growth of monopoly and its ruinous - effect on industry, as well as its atrocious tyranny over labor, is - recorded in a striking little book by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, - called _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners_. - - -_Rights of Labor_ (Chicago). - - This narrative of the rapacity and greed of our coal barons we most - earnestly commend to all our readers as a plain, clear statement of - facts, admirably put; it deserves the widest circulation. - - -New York _Herald_. - - This is one of the saddest, most enraging stories ever put on paper; - of course the corporations protested, as corporations always do in - such cases, that they were not to blame, but the awful facts cannot be - denied or explained away. The _Herald_ expressed its mind editorially - at the time. Now that the whole case is presented, the _Herald's_ - readers can see how easily a scheming gang of heartless scoundrels - can quickly reduce thousands of families to a condition worse than - old-fashioned African slavery. - - -Tacoma (Washington) _Globe_. - - Among the many books recently published on the labor question and the - relations between the rich and the poor, none has excited a deeper - interest than _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners_. Before the - atrocities perpetrated in Spring Valley by the coal mining company, - composed of some of the wealthiest men in the United States, the - wrongs inflicted on the peasants in Ireland fade into insignificance. - This book should have a wide reading, that all may know whither the - nation is drifting. - - -Boston _Herald_. - - The story of the labor disturbances at Spring Valley, Illinois, - caused by a shut-down of the mines in 1888, is told by H.D. Lloyd in - a thrilling presentation. In perusing the whole history, from the - first alluring advertisements of the mining companies to the editorial - comments in Chicago papers after the lock-out took place, a dweller in - happier laboring regions will hardly believe that so much injustice - could have been done in free America. - - -The _Worker_ (Brisbane, Queensland). - - A simple but complete account of a terrible injustice. - - -The _Christian Union_. - - Six or eight years ago there appeared in the _North American Review_ - an article entitled "The Lords of Industry," by Henry D. Lloyd, which - set forth with such power the nature and extent of the combinations to - diminish production and increase prices that its author may be said - to have initiated the anti-trust agitation of the last few years. - Since that time he has gone on in the work thus begun, putting heart - and soul into it. The _Strike of Millionaires against Miners_ carries - perhaps less weight with our intellects than Mr. Lloyd's earlier work, - but it appeals so strongly to our hearts that we are carried with him - through the volume, and share with him his indignation over the wrongs - he describes. - - * * * * * - - CONCORD, New Hampshire, _October 22, 1892_. - - DEAR MR. LLOYD,--I am reading the _Study_ you so kindly sent me. I - have read most of it, including the "Word to Coal Miners," and what a - "study!" What a lesson! What an apocalypse! Through it, "the voice of - our brothers' blood cries to us from the ground," literally, and in - tones scarcely ever heard before by human or heavenly ear! - - Would that you could peal out all the seven thunders of Patmos. I wish - your work might outsell in number _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, and _Robert - Elsmere_ combined, till its note filled the earth as the waters the - seas. Print the whole of this hasty testimony over my name, if it will - be of service to the working man and woman. - - Faithfully and fraternally yours, for every good thought, word, and - work, - - PARKER PILLSBURY. - - - - -A BOOK FOR THE TIMES - -THE RAILWAYS AND THE REPUBLIC. - -By JAMES F. HUDSON. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. - - -The author studies carefully the evils of the system, inquires into the -power of legislation to cure them, and describes the remedies which -will preserve the usefulness of the railways, and at the same time -protect legitimate investors.--_N.Y. Evening Post._ - -It is seldom the public is given a work at once so timely, so brave, -and so able.... Mr. Hudson writes with the most exhaustive knowledge -of his subject, and with an unusual ability in setting forth his ideas -so that they are easily and clearly understood. There is hardly a more -vigorous chapter in modern literature than that in which he discusses -the rise and growth of the Standard Company.... The book is everywhere -marked by unusual ability, accuracy, and fearlessness, which make it -one of the most important contributions of the day to a subject which -of necessity engages more and more attention every day. The political -principles of the writer are thoroughly sound and practical.--_Boston -Courier._ - -The subject is of such vital importance that no man or woman in the -country should be ignorant about it.--_N.Y. Times._ - -Mr. Hudson writes in the interests of the people, calmly and without -passion, as one who thoroughly understands his subject, and in harmony -with many others who have dealt with the same problems.--_Critic_, N.Y. - - -Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK - - _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, - postage pre-paid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, - on receipt of price._ - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wealth against commonwealth, by -Henry Demarest Lloyd - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH *** - -***** This file should be named 60473-8.txt or 60473-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/7/60473/ - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Wealth against commonwealth - -Author: Henry Demarest Lloyd - -Release Date: October 12, 2019 [EBook #60473] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH *** - - - - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - - - - - -<p class="ph1">WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH</p> - - -<p class="ph5" style="margin-top: 5em;">BY</p> - -<p class="ph4">HENRY DEMAREST LLOYD</p> - - - - - -<p class="ph5" style="margin-top: 10em;">NEW YORK<br /> -HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> -1894</p> - - - - - - -<p class="ph6" style="margin-top: 5em;">Copyright, 1894, by <span class="smcap">Henry Demarest Lloyd</span>.<br /> -<br /> -<i>All rights reserved.</i></p> - - - - - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - - - - - - -<table summary="toc" width="80%"> -<tr><td align="right"><small>CHAPTER</small></td> <td align="right"><small> PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">"THERE ARE NONE"—"THEY ARE LEGION"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CUT OFF FROM FIRE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">PROHIBITION THAT PROHIBITS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">"SQUARE EATERS"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">STRIKING OIL</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">"NOT TO EXCEED HALF"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">"YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">"NO!"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IX.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">WHO PIPED AND WHO DANCED</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">X.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHEAPENING TRANSPORTATION</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">SONG OF THE BARREL</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">UNFINISHED MARCH TO THE SEA</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">PURCHASE OF PEACE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">"I WANT TO MAKE OIL"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">SYMPATHETICAL CO-OPERATION</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XVI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">"TURN ANOTHER SCREW"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td align="right">XVII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">IN THE INTEREST OF ALL</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XVIII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">ORDINARY SUPPLY AND DEMAND</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XIX.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">THROUGH THE WOMAN'S EYES</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XX.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE</a></td> <td align="right">272</td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td align="right">XXIII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">FREEDOM OF THE CITY</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXIV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">HIGH FINANCE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">A SUNDAY IN JUNE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXVI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">TOLEDO VICTOR</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXVII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">"YOU ARE A—SENATOR"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_369">369</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXVIII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">FOR "OLD GLORY" AND AN—APPROPRIATION</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_389">389</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXIX.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">"THE COMMODITY IS NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE"—<i>Coke</i></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_405">405</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXX.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">"TO GET ALL WE CAN"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_420">420</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXXI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">ALL THE WORLD UNDER ONE HAT</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_432">432</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXXII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">"NOT BUSINESS"</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_455">455</a></td> -</tr> -<tr><td align="right">XXXIII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">THE SMOKELESS REBATE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_474">474</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXXIV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">THE OLD SELF-INTEREST</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_494">494</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">XXXV.</td><td> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">AND THE NEW</a> </td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_516">516</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td></td><td><a href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX—PARTIAL LIST OF TRADE COMBINATIONS, OR -TRUSTS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_537">537</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td></td><td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_545">545</a></td></tr> -</table> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2">WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH</p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></p> - -<p class="center">"THERE ARE NONE"—"THEY ARE LEGION"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Nature</span> is rich; but everywhere man, the heir of nature, is poor. Never -in this happy country or elsewhere—except in the Land of Miracle, -where "they did all eat and were filled"—has there been enough of -anything for the people. Never since time began have all the sons -and daughters of men been all warm, and all filled, and all shod and -roofed. Never yet have all the virgins, wise or foolish, been able to -fill their lamps with oil.</p> - -<p>The world, enriched by thousands of generations of toilers and -thinkers, has reached a fertility which can give every human being -a plenty undreamed of even in the Utopias. But between this plenty -ripening on the boughs of our civilization and the people hungering for -it step the "cornerers," the syndicates, trusts, combinations, with -the cry of "over-production"—too much of everything. Holding back the -riches of earth, sea, and sky from their fellows who famish and freeze -in the dark, they declare to them that there is too much light and -warmth and food. They assert the right, for their private profit, to -regulate the consumption by the people of the necessaries of life, and -to control production, not by the needs of humanity, but by the desires -of a few for dividends. The coal syndicate thinks there is too much -coal. There is too much iron, too much lumber, too much flour—for this -or that syndicate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> - -<p>The majority have never been able to buy enough of anything; but this -minority have too much of everything to sell.</p> - -<p>Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty. "The splendid -empire of Charles V.," says Motley, "was erected upon the grave of -liberty." Our bignesses, cities, factories, monopolies, fortunes, -which are our empires, are the obesities of an age gluttonous beyond -its powers of digestion. Mankind are crowding upon each other in the -centres, and struggling to keep each other out of the feast set by the -new sciences and the new fellowships. Our size has got beyond both our -science and our conscience. The vision of the railroad stockholder is -not far-sighted enough to see into the office of the General Manager; -the people cannot reach across even a ward of a city to rule their -rulers; Captains of Industry "do not know" whether the men in the -ranks are dying from lack of food and shelter; we cannot clean our -cities nor our politics; the locomotive has more man-power than all the -ballot-boxes, and mill-wheels wear out the hearts of workers unable to -keep up beating time to their whirl. If mankind had gone on pursuing -the ideals of the fighter, the time would necessarily have come when -there would have been only a few, then only one, and then none left. -This is what we are witnessing in the world of livelihoods. Our ideals -of livelihood are ideals of mutual deglutition. We are rapidly reaching -the stage where in each province only a few are left; that is the -key to our times. Beyond the deep is another deep. This era is but a -passing phase in the evolution of industrial Cæsars, and these Cæsars -will be of a new type—corporate Cæsars.</p> - -<p>For those who like the perpetual motion of a debate in which neither -of the disputants is looking at the same side of the shield, there are -infinite satisfactions in the current controversy as to whether there -is any such thing as "monopoly." "There are none," says one side. -"They are legion," says the other. "The idea that there can be such a -thing is absurd," says one, who with half a dozen associates controls -the source, the price, the quality, the quantity of nine-tenths of a -great necessary of life. But "There will soon be a trust for every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> -production, and a master to fix the price for every necessity of -life," said the Senator who framed the United States Anti-Trust Law. -This difference as to facts is due to a difference in the definitions -through which the facts are regarded. Those who say "there are none" -hold with the Attorney-General of the United States and the decision -he quotes from the highest Federal court which has yet passed on this -question<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> that no one has a monopoly unless there is a "disability" -or "restriction" imposed by law on all who would compete. A syndicate -that had succeeded in bottling for sale all the air of the earth -would not have a monopoly in this view, unless there were on the -statute-books a law forbidding every one else from selling air. No -others could get air to sell; the people could not get air to breathe, -but there would be no monopoly because there is no "legal restriction" -on breathing or selling the atmosphere.</p> - -<p>Excepting in the manufacture of postage-stamps, gold dollars, and a -few other such cases of a "legal restriction," there are no monopolies -according to this definition. It excludes the whole body of facts -which the people include in their definition, and dismisses a great -public question by a mere play on words. The other side of the shield -was described by Judge Barrett, of the Supreme Court of New York. A -monopoly he declared to be "any combination the tendency of which is -to prevent competition in its broad and general sense, and to control -and thus at will enhance prices to the detriment of the public.... Nor -need it be permanent or complete. It is enough that it may be even -temporarily and partially successful. The question in the end is, Does -it inevitably tend to public injury?"<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - -<p>Those who insist that "there are none" are the fortunate ones who came -up to the shield on its golden side. But common usage agrees with -the language of Judge Barrett, because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> it exactly fits a fact which -presses on common people heavily, and will grow heavier before it grows -lighter.</p> - -<p>The committee of Congress investigating trusts in 1889 did not report -any list of these combinations to control markets, "for the reason -that new ones are constantly forming, and that old ones are constantly -extending their relations so as to cover new branches of the business -and invade new territories."</p> - -<p>It is true that such a list, like a dictionary, would begin to be -wrong the moment it began to appear. But though only an instantaneous -photograph of the whirlwind, it would give an idea, to be gained -in no other way, of a movement shadowing two hemispheres. In an -incredible number of the necessaries and luxuries of life, from meat -to tombstones, some inner circle of the "fittest" has sought, and very -often obtained, the sweet power which Judge Barrett found the sugar -trust had: It "can close every refinery at will, close some and open -others, limit the purchases of raw material (thus jeopardizing, and in -a considerable degree controlling, its production), artificially limit -the production of refined sugar, enhance the price to enrich themselves -and their associates at the public expense, and depress the price when -necessary to crush out and impoverish a foolhardy rival."</p> - -<p>Corners are "acute" attacks of that which combinations exhibit as -chronic. First a corner, then a pool, then a trust, has often been -the genesis. The last stage, when the trust throws off the forms of -combination and returns to the simpler dress of corporations, is -already well along. Some of the "sympathetical co-operations" on record -have no doubt ceased to exist. But that they should have been attempted -is one of the signs of the time, and these attempts are repeated again -and again until success is reached.</p> - -<p>The line of development is from local to national, and from national -to international. The amount of capital changes continually with the -recrystallizations in progress. Not less than five hundred million -dollars is in the coal combination, which our evidence shows to have -flourished twenty-two years; that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> in oil has nearly if not quite two -hundred millions; and the other combinations in which its members are -leaders foot up hundreds of millions more. Hundreds of millions of -dollars are united in the railroads and elevators of the Northwest -against the wheat-growers. In cattle and meat there are not less than -one hundred millions; in whiskey, thirty-five millions; and in beer -a great deal more than that; in sugar, seventy-five millions; in -leather, over a hundred millions; in gas, hundreds of millions. At -this writing a union is being negotiated of all the piano-makers in -the United States, to have a capital of fifty millions. Quite beyond -ordinary comprehension is the magnitude of the syndicates, if there is -more than one, which are going from city to city, consolidating all -the gas-works, electric-lighting companies, street-railways in each -into single properties, and consolidating these into vast estates for -central corporations of capitalists, controlling from metropolitan -offices the transportation of the people of scores of cities. Such -a syndicate negotiating in December, 1892, for the control of the -street-railways of Brooklyn, was said by the New York <i>Times</i>, "on -absolute authority, to have subscribed $23,000,000 towards that end, -before a single move had been made or a price set on a single share -of stock." It was in the same hands as those busy later in gathering -together the coal-mines of Nova Scotia and putting them under American -control. There are in round numbers ten thousand millions of dollars -claiming dividends and interest in the railroads of the United -States. Every year they are more closely pooled. The public saw them -marshalled, as by one hand, in the maintenance of the high passenger -rates to the World's Fair in the summer of 1893.</p> - -<p>Many thousands of millions of dollars are represented in these -centralizations. It is a vast sum, and yet is but a minority of our -wealth.</p> - -<p>Laws against these combinations have been passed by Congress and by -many of the States. There have been prosecutions under them by the -State and Federal governments. The laws and the lawsuits have alike -been futile.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> - -<p>In a few cases names and form of organization have been changed, in -consequence of legal pursuit. The whiskey, sugar, and oil trusts had -to hang out new signs. But the thing itself, the will and the power to -control markets, livelihoods, and liberties, and the toleration of this -by the public—this remains unimpaired; in truth, facilitated by the -greater secrecy and compactness which have been the only results of the -appeal to law.</p> - -<p>The Attorney-General of the national government gives a large part of -his annual report for 1893 to showing "what small basis there is for -the popular impression" "that the aim and effect of this statute" (the -Anti-Trust Law) "are to prohibit and prevent those aggregations of -capital which are so common at the present day, and which sometimes -are on so large a scale as to practically control all the branches -of an extensive industry." This executive says of the action of the -"co-ordinate" Legislature: "It would not be useful, even if it were -possible, to ascertain the precise purposes of the framers of the -statute." He is the officer charged with the duty of directing the -prosecutions to enforce the law; but he declares that since, among -other reasons, "all ownership of property is a monopoly, ... any -literal application of the provisions of the statute is out of the -question." Nothing has been accomplished by all these appeals to the -legislatures and the courts, except to prove that the evil lies deeper -than any public sentiment or public intelligence yet existent, and is -stronger than any public power yet at call.</p> - -<p>What we call Monopoly is Business at the end of its journey. The -concentration of wealth, the wiping out of the middle classes, are -other names for it. To get it is, in the world of affairs, the chief -end of man.</p> - -<p>There are no solitary truths, Goethe says, and monopoly—as the -greatest business fact of our civilization, which gives to business -what other ages gave to war and religion—is our greatest social, -political, and moral fact.</p> - -<p>The men and women who do the work of the world have the right to the -floor. Everywhere they are rising to "a point<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> of information." They -want to know how our labor and the gifts of nature are being ordered -by those whom our ideals and consent have made Captains of Industry -over us; how it is that we, who profess the religion of the Golden Rule -and the political economy of service for service, come to divide our -produce into incalculable power and pleasure for a few, and partial -existence for the many who are the fountains of these powers and -pleasures. This book is an attempt to help the people answer these -questions. It has been quarried out of official records, and it is a -venture in realism in the world of realities. Decisions of courts and -of special tribunals like the Interstate Commerce Commission, verdicts -of juries in civil and criminal cases, reports of committees of the -State Legislatures and of Congress, oath-sworn testimony given in legal -proceedings and in official inquiries, corrected by rebutting testimony -and by cross-examination—such are the sources of information.</p> - -<p>One important exception is in the description of the operations of -a great international combination in England, Germany, Holland, and -elsewhere in Europe; this has had to be made from unofficial material. -The people there are neither economically nor politically developed -to the point we have reached in America, of using the legislative -investigation and the powers of the courts to defend livelihoods and -market rights, and enforce the social responsibilities of industrial -power. Full and exact references are given throughout for the guidance -of the investigator. The language of witnesses, judges, and official -reports has been repeated verbatim, except for the avoidance of the -surplusage and reduplication usual in such literature, and that, to -permit the use of the dialogue form, the construction has been changed -from the third person to the first in quotations from evidence. With -these qualifications, wherever quotation marks have been used, the -transcription is word for word. Evidence from such sources is more -exact, circumstantial, and accurate than that upon which the mass of -historical literature is founded.</p> - -<p>To give the full and official history of numbers of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> -combinations, which are nearly identical in inspiration, method, and -result, would be repetition. Only one of them, therefore, has been -treated in full—the oil trust. It is the most successful of all the -attempts to put gifts of nature, entire industries, and world markets -under one hat. Its originators claim this precedence. It was, one of -its spokesmen says, "the parent of the trust system."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It is the best -illustration of a movement which is itself but an illustration of the -spirit of the age.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></p> - -<p class="center">CUT OFF FROM FIRE</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Rome</span> banished those who had been found to be public enemies by -forbidding every one to give them fire and water. That was done by -all to a few. In America it is done by a few to all. A small number -of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but themselves to supply -the people with fire in nearly every form known to modern life and -industry, from matches to locomotives and electricity. They control -our hard coal and much of the soft,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and stoves, furnaces, and steam -and hot-water heaters; the governors on steam-boilers and the boilers; -gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and gas-pipes; electric lighting, -and all the appurtenances. You cannot free<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> yourself by changing from -electricity to gas, or from the gas of the city to the gas of the -fields. If you fly from kerosene to candles, you are still under the -ban.</p> - -<p>The report adopted by the National Association of Stove Manufacturers, -at the Thirteenth Annual Convention, 1884, said: "While it is true -that iron is a dollar or two lower than last year, and that the cost -of labor has also been reduced, your committee is confident that there -is not a manufacturer present who can truthfully say he can afford to -reduce the price of his goods." "It is a chronic case," the President -said in 1888, "of too many stoves, and not enough people to buy them."</p> - -<p>The match company, by whose consent all the fires in the United States -and Canada are lighted, was organized, as stated, by the Supreme Court -of Michigan, for the purpose of controlling the manufacture and trade. -Thirty-one manufacturers, owning substantially all the factories -where matches were made in the United States, either went into the -combination, or were purchased by the match company, and out of this -number all were closed except about thirteen.</p> - -<p>One of the company, who has been a conspicuous candidate for a -nomination to the presidency of the United States, testified that the -price of matches was kept up to pay the large sums of money expended -to exclude others from the match business, remove competition, buy up -machinery and patents, and purchase other match factories. This was -told in a suit between two stockholders on a question of their relative -rights; but the court, of its own motion, declared the combination -illegal, and took notice of the public interests involved.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> - -<p>"Such a vast combination is a menace to the public," said the court. -"It is no answer to say that this monopoly has, in fact, reduced the -price of friction-matches. That policy may have been necessary to -crush competition. The fact exists that it rests in the discretion of -this company at any time to raise the price to an exorbitant degree." -"Indeed, it is doubtful if free government can long exist in a country -where such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> enormous amounts of money are allowed to be accumulated in -the vaults of corporations, to be used at discretion in controlling the -property and business of the country against the interest of the public -and that of the people, for the personal gain and aggrandizement of a -few individuals."</p> - -<p>Within the last thirty years, 95 per cent. of the anthracite coal of -America—practically the entire supply, it was reported by Congress in -1893—has passed from the ownership of private citizens, many thousands -in number, into the possession of the railroads controlling the -highways of the coal-fields.</p> - -<p>These railroads have been undergoing a similar process of -consolidation, and are now the property of eight great corporations. -This surrender of their property by the individual coal-mine owners is -a continuing process, in operation at this moment, for the complete -extinction of the "individual" and the independents in this field. It -is destined, according to the report of Congress of 1893,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> to end -"in the entire absorption ... of the entire anthracite coal-fields and -collieries by ... the common carriers."</p> - -<p>Anthracite coal is geographically a natural monopoly contained in three -contiguous fields which, if laid close together, would not cover more -than eight miles by sixty. But bituminous coal, although scattered -in exhaustless measures all over the continent, is being similarly -appropriated by the railroads, and its area is being similarly limited -artificially by their interference.</p> - -<p>"Railroad syndicates," says the investigation of 1888,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> "are buying -all the best bituminous coal lands along their lines in Missouri, -Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, and other Western -States and Territories, no doubt with a view of levying tribute upon -the people's fuel and the industrial fires of the country."</p> - -<p>Canada remains unannexed politically, but its best coal deposits -have become a part of the United States. In 1892 a syndicate of -American capitalists obtained the control of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> principal bituminous -coal-mines of Nova Scotia. Among them were men connected both with the -anthracite pool and with the combination which seeks control of the oil -market of Canada and of the United States.</p> - -<p>The process of consolidation is shown by official and judicial -investigations to have been in progress in the bituminous fields at -least as far back as 1871, with the same purposes, methods, and results -as in the anthracite fields, though more slowly, on account of the -greater number and vastness of the deposits. From Pennsylvania to the -Pacific coast these are narrowed to the territory along the railroads, -and narrowed there again to the mines owned or favored by the railroad -managers.</p> - -<p>The investigations by Congress in 1888 and 1893 both state that the -railroads of the country are similarly becoming the owners of our iron -and timber lands, and both call upon the people to save themselves. A -new law of industry is rising into view. Ownership of the highways ends -in ownership of everything and everybody that must use the highways.</p> - -<p>The railroads compel private owners to sell them their mines or all the -product by refusing to supply cars for their business, and by charging -rates for the transportation of coal so high that every one but -themselves loses money on every ton sent to market. When the railroads -elect to have the output large, they furnish many cars; when they elect -to have the output small, they furnish few cars; and when they elect -that there shall be no output whatever, they furnish no cars.</p> - -<p>One of the few surviving independent coal producers, who is losing -heavily on every ton he sends to market, but keeps on in the hope that -the law will give him redress, was asked by a committee of Congress why -he did not sell out and give up the business? He was willing, he said, -to abide the time when his rights on the railroad could be judicially -determined. There was another reason. "It might be considered a very -sentimental one. I have spent, sir, considerable time and a large -amount of energy and skill in building up my business, and I rather -like to continue it."</p> - -<p>"In other words, you don't want to be forced to sell out?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> - -<p>"No, sir; I don't want to be forced to sell my product, any more than I -want to be forced to sell my collieries."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> - -<p>Though coal is an article of commerce greater in volume than any other -natural product in the United States carried on railroads, amounting to -not less than 130,000,000 tons a year; and though the appliances for -its transportation have been improved, and the cost cheapened every -year, so that it can be handled with less cost and risk than almost any -other class of freight, the startling fact appears in the litigations -before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the investigations by -Congress, that anthracite freight rates have been advanced instead of -being decreased, are higher now than they were in 1879, and that coal -is made by these confederated railroads to pay rates vastly higher -than the average of all other high and low class freight, nearly -double the rate on wheat or cotton. These high freight rates serve -the double purpose of seeming to justify the high price of coal, and -of killing off year by year the independent coal-producers. What the -railroad coal-miner pays for freight returns to its other self, the -railroad. What the independent coal-producer pays goes also to the -railroad, his competitor. "This excess over just and reasonable rates -of transportation constitutes an available fund by which they (the -railroads) are enabled to crush out the competition of independent -coal-producers."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> - -<p>By these means, as Congress found in 1888,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> the railroad managers -have forced the independent miners to sell to them or their friends -at the price they chose to pay. They were the only possible buyers, -because only they were sure of a supply of cars, and of freight rates -at which they could live.</p> - -<p>The private operators thus being frozen out are able, as the -investigation by the New York Legislature in 1878 showed, to produce -coal more economically than the great companies, because not burdened -with extravagant salaries, royalties, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> leases, interest on -fictitious bonded debts, and dividends on false capitalization of -watered stock. By the laws of supply and demand they would compete out -the unwieldy corporations, but these administer a superior political -economy in their supply and demand of cars and freight rates. The -unfittest, economically, survives.</p> - -<p>"The railroad companies engaged in mining and transporting coal -are practically in a combination to control the output and fix the -price.... They have a practical monopoly of the production, the -transportation, and sale of anthracite coal."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> This has been the -finding in all the investigations for twenty years. "More than one, if -not all, of the anthracite monopolies," Congress reported in 1888, "run -several of their mines in the name of private operators to quiet the -general clamor against carrying companies having a monopoly of mining -also."</p> - -<p>The anthracite collieries of Pennsylvania could now produce 50,000,000 -tons a year. The railroads restrict them to 40,000,000 or 41,000,000 -tons,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> nine or ten million tons less than they could furnish to ward -off the frosts of winter and to speed the wheels of the world, and this -creation of artificial winter has been in progress from the beginning -of the combination.</p> - -<p>In the ten months between February and November, 1892, the price of -coal in the East, as investigated by Congress in 1893,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> was advanced -by the coal railroads as much as $1.25 and $1.35 a ton on the kinds -used by house-keepers, and the combinations, the report of Congress -says, "exercise even a more baleful influence on the production and -transportation of coal for the Western market." The extortion in the -price fixed by the coal railroads was found by Congress, in 1888, to -be an average of one dollar a ton—"considerably more than a dollar -a ton"—on all consumed in the United States, or $39,000,000 in that -year, and now $40,000,000 to $41,000,000 a year. The same investigation -found that be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>tween 1873 and 1886 $200,000,000 more than a fair market -price was taken from the public by this combination.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> - -<p>This in anthracite alone. How many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of -millions more have been taken by the railroads which control the -bituminous coal-fields from Pennsylvania to the Pacific, there are no -adjudicated means of estimating.</p> - -<p>By the same power which has crushed out the independent coal-miner, -the retailer in the cities has been reduced from a free man to -an instrument to despoil his neighbors—with whom he is often a -fellow-victim—for the benefit of absentee capitalists; he is hounded -by detectives; by threats of cutting off his supply, is made a -compulsory member of a secret oath-bound society to "maintain prices." -"Combinations exist," says the Canadian report, "among coal-dealers -in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and London. Detectives are employed -and the dealers placed under surveillance.... Oaths of fidelity to -the constitution and rules are required not only of the members, but -also of their salesmen, and the oaths in the cases of these employés -are made in some instances retroactive as well as prospective. All -violations of oaths are adjudicated upon by the executive committee -referred to, the penalties being heavy fines or expulsion.... In -accordance with arrangements made with the American coal-dealers, those -who were in default in membership, either from inability to pay fines -or from other causes, were prevented from purchasing coal in the United -States."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> - -<p>The retailer dare not tell his wrongs even in the committee-rooms -of Congress. "Your committee," says the report of 1893 to Congress, -"experienced great difficulty in obtaining testimony from retail -coal-dealers, who apparently labor under fears of injury to their -business in case they should appear and give evidence."</p> - -<p>"During the first forty years," Congress reported in 1888, "the -mines were worked by individuals, just as are farms. The hundreds of -employers were in active competition with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> each other for labor. The -fundamental law of supply and demand alike governed all parties. As to -engagement, employer and employé stood upon a common level of equality -and manhood. Skill and industry upon the part of the miner assured to -him steady work, fair wages, honest measurement, and humane treatment. -Should these be denied by one employer many other employers were ready -to give them. The miner had the same freedom as to engagement, the same -reward for faithful service, and protection against injustice that -the farm-hand possesses because of the competition between farmers -employing hands.... This virtual combination of all employers into one -syndicate has practically abolished competition between them as to -wages; and gradually, but inexorably, the workmen have found themselves -encoiled as by an anaconda until now they are powerless."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> - -<p>There was an investigation of the coal combination by the Pennsylvania -Legislature in 1871, the testimony taken in which showed that when, -after a thirty days' strike by the men, a number of private coal-mine -owners acceded to their terms, and wished to reopen their mines and -send coal again to market, the railroads, by which alone they could get -to market, raised their freights, as their men were still on strike, -to three times the previous figures. These great corporations had -determined not to yield to their men, and as they were mine-owners and -coal-sellers as well as carriers, they refused to take coal for their -competitors.... The result was that the price of coal was doubled, -rising to $12 a ton; the resumption by the private mine-owners was -stopped; and they, the workmen, and the consumer were all delivered -over to the tender mercies of the six great companies.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> - -<p>The coal companies in the anthracite regions keep thousands of -surplus laborers on hand to underbid each other for employment and -for submission to all exactions; hold them purposely ignorant when -the mines are to be worked and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> closed, so that they cannot -seek employment elsewhere; bind them as tenants by compulsion in the -companies' houses, so that rent shall run against them, whether wages -run on or not, and under leases by which they can be turned out with -their wives and children on the mountain-side in midwinter if they -strike; compel them to fill cars of larger capacity than agreed upon; -make them buy their powder and other working outfit of the companies at -an enormous advance on the cost; compel them to buy coal of the company -at the company's price, and in many cases to buy a fixed quantity, -more than they need; compel them to employ the doctor named by the -company, and to pay him whether sick or well; "pluck" them at the -company's stores, so that when pay-day comes around the company owes -the men nothing, there being authentic cases where "sober, hard-working -miners toiled for years or even a lifetime without having been able to -draw a single dollar, or but a few dollars, in actual cash," in "debt -until the day they died;" refuse to fix the wages in advance, but pay -them upon some hocus-pocus sliding scale, varying with the selling -price in New York, which the railroad slides to suit itself; and, most -extraordinary of all, refuse to let the miners know the prices on which -their living slides—a fraud, says the report of Congress, "on its -face."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> - -<p>The companies dock the miners' output arbitrarily for slate and other -impurities, and so can take from their men five to fifty tons more in -every hundred than they pay for.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> - -<p>In order to keep the miners disciplined and the coal-market -under-supplied, the railroads restrict work so that the miners often -have to live for a month on what they can earn in six or eight days; -and these restrictions are enforced upon their miners by withholding -cars from them to fill, as upon competitors by withholding cars to go -to market.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> - -<p>Labor organizations are forbidden, and the men intentionally provoked -to strike, to affect the coal-market.</p> - -<p>The laboring population of the coal regions, finally, is kept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> -"down" by special policemen enrolled under special laws, and often -in violation of law, by the railroads and coal and iron companies -practically when and in what numbers these companies choose. These -coal and iron policemen are practically without responsibility to any -one but their employers, are armed as the corporations see fit with -army revolvers, or Winchester rifles, or both, are made detectives -by statute, and not required to wear their shields. They provoke the -people to riot, and then shoot them legally.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> - -<p>"By the percentage of wages," says the report of Congress, "by false -measurements, by rents, stores, and other methods, the workman is -virtually a chattel of the operator." It says, to summarize: "The -carrier drives out both operator and owner, obtains the property, works -the mine, 'disciplines' the miner, lowers wages by the importation of -Huns and Italians, restricts the output, and advances the price of coal -to the public. It is enabled to commit such wrongs upon individuals -and the public by virtue of exercising absolute control of a public -highway."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> - -<p>The people of Pennsylvania, in 1873, adopted a new Constitution. To -put an end to the consolidation of all the anthracite coal lands into -the hands of the railroads, this Constitution forbade common carriers -to mine or manufacture articles for transportation over their lines, -or to buy land except for carrying purposes. These provisions of the -Constitution have been disobeyed "defiantly." "The railroads have -defiantly gone on acquiring title to hundreds of thousands of acres of -coal, as well as of neighboring agricultural lands." They have been -"aggressively pursuing the joint business of carrying and mining coal." -So far from quitting it, they "have increased their mining operations -by extracting bituminous as well as anthracite."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> - -<p>Instead of enacting "appropriate legislation," as commanded by the -new Constitution, to effectuate its prohibitions, the Legislature has -passed laws to nullify the Constitution by pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>venting forever any -escheat to the State of the immense area of lands unlawfully held by -the railroads. Every effort breaking down to meet the evil by State -action, failure was finally confessed by the passage in 1878, by the -Pennsylvania Legislature, of a joint resolution asking Congress to -legislate "for equity in the rates of freight."</p> - -<p>In 1887 Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Law, and established -the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce justice on the railway -highways. The independent mine-owners of Pennsylvania appealed to -it. Two years and a half were consumed in the proceedings. The -Commission decided that the rates the railroad charged were unjust -and unreasonable, and ordered them reduced.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> But the decision has -remained unenforced, and cannot be enforced. The railroads treat the -Commission with the same contumely they visit on the Constitution of -Pennsylvania, and two years after the decision Congress in 1893 found -their rates to be 50 cents a ton higher than what the Commission had -declared to be just and equitable.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The Interstate Commerce Law -provides for the imprisonment in the penitentiary of those guilty of -the crimes it covers. But the only conviction had under it has been of -a shipper for discriminating against a railroad.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></p> - -<p class="center">PROHIBITION THAT PROHIBITS</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">That</span> which governments have not yet been equal to has been accomplished -by the private co-operation of a few citizens. They decree at their -pleasure that in this town or that State no one shall manufacture -alcohol, and they enforce the decree. Theirs is the only prohibition -that prohibits.</p> - -<p>From the famous whiskey ring of 1874 to the pool of 1881 and the -trust of 1887, and from the abandonment of that "trust" dress and -the reorganization into one corporation in 1890 down to the present, -this private regulation of the liquor traffic has gone on. It is -a regulation of a good deal more than the liquor traffic. Through -its control of alcohol it is a power over the arts and sciences, -the manufacture and the preparation of medicines, and a power -over politics. More than one chapter of our history exhibits the -government itself holding to these rectifiers relations suggestive -of anything but rectification. The report of the investigation by -Congress in 1893 notes the fact that on the strength of a rumor that -the internal-revenue tax was to be increased by Congress, the Trust -raised its prices 25 cents a gallon. This would amount to a profit of -$12,500,000 on its yearly output.</p> - -<p>By February, 1888, all the important distilleries in the Northern -States—nearly eighty—were in the Trust, excepting two, the larger of -which was in Chicago. The cases of these irreconcilable competitors -were set for consideration, according to the <i>Chicago Tribune's</i> -report, at a private meeting of the trustees February 3d. In April -the Chicago distillery firm published the fact that they had caught a -spy of the Trust in their works. He had given them a confession in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> -writing. In September it was discovered that the valve of a vat in this -distillery had been tampered with in such a way as to have caused an -explosion had it not been found out in time. The next month its owners -made known that they had been offered and refused $1,000,000 from the -Trust for their works. In December the country was startled by the -news that this distillery had been the scene of an awful explosion of -dynamite. All the buildings in the neighborhood were shaken and many -panes of glass were broken. A jagged hole about three feet square was -torn in the roof. There were 15,000 barrels of whiskey stored under -the roof that was torn open, and if these had been ignited a terrible -fire would have been added to the effect of the explosion. A package of -dynamite which had failed to explode, though the fuse had been lighted, -was found on the premises by the Chicago police.</p> - -<p>The Chicago representative of the whiskey combination ridiculed the -idea that the Trust had had anything to do with this. "Such a thing," -he said, "is contrary to the genius of a trust."</p> - -<p>The wholesale liquor-dealers threatened, at a conference in 1890 -with the president of the Trust, to manufacture for themselves, to -escape the advance which had been made in the price of high-wines. The -president said, as reported in the <i>Wine and Spirit Gazette</i>:</p> - -<p>"I do not believe there is a spirits distillery in the country that you -can buy. We own nearly all of them, and have at present seventy-eight -idle distilleries."</p> - -<p>February 11, 1891, the explosion of December, 1888, was recalled by -the unexpected arrest of the secretary of the combination in Chicago -by the United States authorities. The Grand Jury of Cook County found -an indictment, February 17th, against the prisoner. April 20th he was -indicted by the Federal Grand Jury. The crime of which he was charged -was attempting to bribe a government gauger to blow up the troublesome -distillery. The gauger whom the secretary endeavored to enlist had -been loyal to his trust, the govern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>ment, and had made known to his -superiors the offer and purpose of the bribe.</p> - -<p>If the explosion had been carried out 150 men at work in the distillery -would have been destroyed. The evidence given Congress afterwards -tended to show that part of the plan was that the bribed gauger who -was to set and explode the infernal-machine was not to be allowed to -survive to claim his reward and perhaps repent and tell. The fuse was -fixed so that the explosion would be instantaneous instead of giving -the time promised him to get out of the way.</p> - -<p>In a statement to the press, February 15th, the president of the Trust -said, as the result of a conference of the trustees:</p> - -<p>"We have unanimously agreed to stand by the secretary."</p> - -<p>Early in June rumors were in circulation in New York that the Chicago -independent had sold out; and soon after the confirmation of the -report, with full details, was authoritatively published.</p> - -<p>June 8th the judge of the United States Court in Chicago quashed the -Federal indictment, on the ground that it is not a crime under any of -the United States laws for an internal-revenue officer to set fire to -a distillery of his own volition and impulse, and that it is not a -crime against the United States for another person to bribe him to do -such an act. He held that the offender could be punished only through -the State courts. The United States had property in the distillery -to the extent of $800,000 due for taxes, which was a legal lien on -the property; but the United States District Attorney and the judge -could find no Federal law under which, for the gauger to destroy this -property of the United States, or for the Whiskey Trust to bribe him -to do so, it was a crime. When the indictments framed by the State -Attorney of Chicago came before the State courts, three of the four -were found defective and were quashed. The Chicago correspondent of -the New York <i>World</i> telegraphed that he had been told by the State -Attorney, at the time the Federal proceedings were quashed, that of his -four indictments he relied most upon that for conspiracy; "but in court -yesterday the State<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Attorney let the charge of conspiracy fall to the -ground because, as he said, there was not evidence enough to secure a -conviction."</p> - -<p>"We haven't the evidence of the gauger; I don't know where he is," the -State Attorney said.</p> - -<p>But this witness declared in a public letter in February, 1893, "Myself -and others with positive evidence were always ready to testify, and I -have the facts to-day."</p> - -<p>The judge of the State court held the motion to quash until July, and -then announced that he would make no decision until August. He withheld -his ruling until October. Then he held the secretary for trial on -two counts, charging conspiracy to bribe the gauger and destroy the -independent distillery; but remarked "informally," the newspapers said, -that conviction would be difficult.</p> - -<p>When the case was called March 22, 1892, a delay was granted "until -next Monday," to enable the prisoner's counsel to read the "bill of -particulars" to find out what he was charged with. The secretary did -not trouble himself to attend court. His case was not heard of again -until June 24th, when he was released on a nolle prosequi entered by -the State Attorney because the evidence was insufficient, and became a -free man. That was the end.</p> - -<p>Owing to this success of State and United States attorneys in being -unsuccessful, the people have never had an opportunity of hearing in -court the evidence on which the Government acted in making the arrest, -and on which the grand juries found the indictments. But the gauger -through whom the secretary of the Trust had attempted to execute his -plans was called as a witness before the Committee of Congress which -investigated the Trust in 1893, and he told again the story of the -infernal-machine. It was as follows, in his own words, omitting names -and unnecessary details:</p> - -<p>"I was United States internal-revenue gauger from 1879 until after -Mr. Cleveland's election, and I was reappointed in 1889, and have -been continuously since that time. Late in December, 1890, I received -a letter from the secretary of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> whiskey combination at Peoria, -telling me that he would like to meet me at the Grand Pacific Hotel on -New-year's Day. I met him. He said, 'You may be able to do considerable -good here; not only for us, but of considerable advantage to yourself. -Your $1500 a year is nothing to what you would get by helping us. You -can get $10,000 by assisting us in this thing; in fact, to make matters -right, you could get in three months $25,000.'" The gauger reported -this to his superiors, who told him to go on. "Be particular, and -after every interview with him make a note of everything that passes -between you while it is fresh in your mind." "I did that," the witness -continued, "and I have the original notes in my pocket. There are the -original notes," exhibiting them to the committee. "They have never -left my possession. I have kept them on my person right along." After -some correspondence and another interview, he met the secretary again -January 25th. "Now," said the latter, "I can give you something which, -if put under a cistern, will in three or four hours go off, and no -person know what it was or who did it, and all the trouble that has -been caused us will be stopped at once, the sufferings of many people -stopped, and no loss to those folks, as they are well insured." "When I -recovered from my surprise I asked if it was an explosive. He replied, -'No; a simple but effective thing which would shoot a ball into a tub -through the bottom. You will have $10,000 for your work of placing -this under a cistern of high-proof, either alcohol or spirits, or what -is better than cash, 200 shares of stock.' I asked at what they sold. -He said, 'Forty-seven, but it would be up ten points at once,' and I -could profit by the raise. 'This will raise a big row.' 'Yes,' he said, -'one cistern well caught, all would go, and it would be right into the -warehouse and stop everything at once. It is the most effective way to -help us and make a clean job, and you having access to all parts of the -distillery and unsuspected is why you could do it so easily.' He had -then, in room 35, powder and four steel elongated balls, solid, turned, -and with long points. The principal article, however, was a kind of -yellowish liquid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> which when exposed to sixty-five degrees temperature -would produce a flame caused by evaporation. I remarked that there -was probably no hurry about this thing, and he said, 'The sooner the -better; you may be ordered away from here, and I am come all prepared; -everything is ready to load, and that can be done quickly.'"</p> - -<p>The gauger reported all this to his superior and told him that "I -proposed to take the infernal apparatus." His superior said, "Of -course." "I then returned to Grand Pacific, room 35; found loading just -completed and much material scattered about, oakum in can saturated -slightly with kerosene and alcohol to give good start. The secretary -said that three fuses were attached to the gun, one of which would go -off under water. He had one steel shell which had been shot through -three inches of wood in experimenting. He showed me particularly -how to place can; to feel underneath for timbers; put it where ball -will enter tub. Also, that in stopping over to meet the president -of the combination to-morrow he would have a chance to buy up stock -reasonably before our work caused the raise. He expected to buy 1000 -shares. Friday, the 30th of January, I rather anticipated a visit from -the secretary at my hotel, but I received a letter from him instead -of a visit, and Judge Hart, the solicitor of the Internal-Revenue -Department, who was there in Chicago, when he read the letter thought -that the evidence was certainly conclusive." On Sunday, the 8th, the -gauger surrendered the box containing the infernal-machine, which was -sealed, to a high official who had come on from New York. "The reason -why he came on is that the authorities would not believe my testimony. -They did not think it was possible a gentleman in the secretary's -position would undertake so heinous a crime, and they did not know -but what I was a crank. On Monday, the 9th, I was instructed to write -a letter. The thing was to arrest in a proper way. The next day I -received a despatch: 'Will be at Pacific to-morrow (Wednesday) morning.'</p> - -<p>"Wednesday morning the secretary was arrested, as he was about to enter -the hotel, by a deputy marshal, and conducted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> to the Marshal's office -in the Government building. There was a bottle of this composition -found in his grip. He had told me it would go off in three or four -hours. I was in the anteroom of the city grand jury after the chemist -had given his testimony. The chemist said that it was his opinion -it would have or might have gone off in three seconds. Fire would -cause the shooting of the ball, and the ball making a hole in the -tub—alcohol or high-proof spirits—coming down, of course all would -have gone up. It could not have helped it, and the explosion would -have followed at once, not from the machine, but from the contents of -the cistern. They are very explosive indeed, alcohol and high-proof -spirits."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> - -<p>What the Government authorities thought of all this is shown in a -letter which is spread upon the records of the Treasury Department. It -is addressed by the Commissioner of Internal-Revenue to the gauger. -After thanking him for his "highly commendable" conduct in relation to -the bribe the Commissioner says to Mr. Thomas S. Dewar:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"While your rejection of the offer was just what was expected -from you, considering your official and personal standing, yet I -realize that you have done more than simply reject the offer. You so -conducted the affair as to place the guilty party, it is hoped, in a -position in which he will be punished for this violation of law. The -proposition was not only to attempt to corrupt an honest officer of -the Government, but was to induce you, by the offer of a large sum of -money, to commit a most heinous and inhuman act."</p></blockquote> - -<p>No attempt was made by the representatives of the Trust before -the committee to deny this testimony. They simply disclaimed any -responsibility for what their associate and employé had done. "Whatever -there was in that," testified the president of the Whiskey Trust, "was -with the former secretary of this company, if there be anything of -it."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> - -<p>The Trust increased the number of plants under its control from -"nearly eighty" to eighty-one or eighty-two, the num<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>ber reported by -the investigation of Congress in 1893. Its annual production was then -50,000,000 gallons; about 7,500,000 gallons of it alcohol, 42,500,000 -spirits. It is evident, says the report, that the company will soon -have within its grasp the entire trade, and be able to dictate prices -to consumers at pleasure.</p> - -<p>"How do you account for spirits going up and corn going down at the -same time in two or three instances?" the treasurer was asked.</p> - -<p>"Simply because the distillers were getting in a position whereby they -ran less than their capacity."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> - -<p>The experience of mankind has always found, as Lord Coke pointed out, -that monopoly adulterates.</p> - -<p>The report of Congress states that unquestionably the largest part of -the product of the combination finds its way into the open markets in -the form of "compounded"—or artificial—bourbon and rye whiskeys, -brandies, rums, gins, cordials. The testimony establishes the fact -that about one half of the whiskey consumed in the country is of -this compound product. These compounded liquors are supplied from -the drug-stores to the sick as medicine. One of the expert witnesses -summoned to explain the process of this adulteration appeared before -the committee with two demijohns, one containing pure alcohol and the -other spirits, and a number of bottles containing essential oils, -essences, etc., with which he proposed to make some experiments. "The -basis here, this white product, is what is known as 'spirits' in the -trade. With the use of these essential oils and essences now before -you any kind of imitation liquor can be produced at almost a moment's -notice. My first experiment will be with Jamaica rum. I put a drop of -Jamaica-rum essence into this white spirits, a few drops of coloring -matter, and some sugar syrup. Try of it and smell of it. Does it -smell like rum and taste like it? If they want to make it cheaper, -they reduce it with water. I will reduce it with water, and you will -now notice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> that the bead has disappeared from it. I will reproduce -the bead by the use of bead oil. I put one drop in, and here is the -result. Now, using rye-whiskey essence instead of Jamaica-rum essence, -I will flavor this spirits. I will now put some prune juice into it to -tone it. I will put some raisin oil in it to age it, and I will now -commence to color it. This first exhibit" (holding it up before the -committee) "is about the color of one-year-old whiskey that has been -properly bonded. I will now color it so it will imitate a two-year-old -whiskey. This is about the three-year-old now" (exhibiting it). "I will -now give this the color of 'velvet whiskey,' which is sold as high as -$4 a gallon" (exhibiting it). "The present price of spirits, to-day, -I think, is $1.30 a gallon. The utilization of any of these essential -oils and essences and coloring matter to make the transfer does not -exceed a cost of one and a half cents a gallon. I am prepared to make -imitations of any of these liquors at any time with this spirits -basis—all the different whiskeys, Scotch and Irish whiskeys, the -foreign gins and rums and brandies, after-dinner cordials and liqueurs. -These materials as you have them exhibited before you of essential oils -and essences are part and parcel of the stock in trade of every man -in the United States of America who has got a rectifying license as a -wholesale liquor dealer.... They are very generally and extensively in -use throughout our entire country, in every hamlet and village, in all -the branches of trade, the wholesale liquor dealer, the grocer having -a liquor dealer's license, and retail druggists.... When a doctor -prescribes French brandy, he expects to get a production which is a -distillation of wine made from the grape. In that imitation brandy made -from spirits and cognac oil he gets a crude product of corn, defeating -entirely his purpose in the prescription. The same applies to gin, rum, -and other articles wherever the imitations are found."<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> - -<p>Some of the substances named by witnesses as occurring in the oils and -essences used for this adulteration are sulphuric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> acid, prussic acid, -fusel oil, creosote, nitro-benzol—all poisons, and some of them so -virulent that a teaspoonful would kill.</p> - -<p>"I have been warned when in the employ of these people not to take -the crude material into my mouth," said one of the witnesses. Another -witness denied that there was any danger in the infinitesimal portions -used of the flavoring matter.</p> - -<p>"The only result," said one of the members of the committee, "of the -testimony and hearing of the committee will be to educate the public to -the Trust methods. It will have no effect on the Trust."</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></p> - -<p class="center">"SQUARE EATERS"</p> - -<p class="center">"By Heaven, square eaters, more meat I say!"</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 45%;">—<i>Beaumont and Fletcher.</i></span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">A delegate</span> to one of the millers' national conventions said, "We want -cheaper wheat and dearer flour."</p> - -<p>The Canadian Parliament reports that "the Biscuit Association," -which had been in existence six years, had kept up the prices of its -products, "although the prices of the ingredients used have in that -time very materially decreased."</p> - -<p>An Associated Press despatch from Chicago announced that at "a joint -meeting of all the cracker bakers between Pittsburg and the Rocky -Mountains, held this morning, it was unanimously agreed to advance the -price of crackers."</p> - -<p>A "Bread Union" has been formed in London for the amalgamation of -concerns controlling hundreds of shops. Its chairman instructed the -stockholders that by concentrating a large number of shops under one -management in any district it could "quickly stifle the opposition of -any small unprincipled trader bent on reducing prices for competition -purposes." The Dominion Parliament, in condemning the Grocers' Guild as -"obnoxious to the public interest in limiting competition, in enhancing -prices," pointed out that "no reasonable excuse exists for many of its -arbitrary acts and agreements. The wholesale grocery trade had been for -many years in a flourishing condition; failures were almost unknown."</p> - -<p>But though prosperous the grocers formed this guild, admitting some, -proscribing others, and established by private legislation the profits -they desired. The profits were "afterwards increased, and in no -instance lowered, though values generally had fallen."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> - -<p>At Minneapolis, the seat of the greatest flour-manufacturing industry -in the world, the elevators and railroads have united against the -wheat-growers in a way which does much to realize the dream of the -miller, of "cheaper wheat and dearer flour." A committee of the -Minnesota legislature investigated this combination in 1892. The -majority stopped short of reporting that it fixed the prices of wheat, -but admitted that some of the testimony tended that way, and that -the evidence "would seem to establish" that one of the most powerful -railroads had done so, and "had attempted to coerce compliance with -its requirements in the matter of prices by threats to embarrass the -business of local buyers."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> A report from a minority of the same -committee was more outspoken. It summarizes the evidence, which shows -that the railroads and the elevator companies united to enforce a -uniform price for wheat. This price was six and a quarter cents below -what it should be. All the railroads adjusted their freight rates to -the artificial "list-price," and though rivals, they all charged the -same rates. The elevator companies, owning an aggregate of fifteen -hundred elevators, had a common agent who sent word daily, by telegram -and letter, to all wheat-buyers as to the price to be paid the farmers. -The report calculates the amount thereby taken from the wheat-growers -by the elevators at from four to five millions of dollars a year.</p> - -<p>The findings of this report were ratified by the adoption of its -suggestions for a remedy. "There is," it said, "no agency but the State -itself adequate to protect, now, the producer of wheat in Minnesota -and the Northwest from the influence of this combine." It therefore -recommended the erection and operation of elevators by the State. This -was approved by the Legislature and by the Governor, appropriations -were made, and the officials of the State went forward with the plan -until the Supreme Court of the State stopped them on the ground of -"unconstitutionality."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> - -<p>That which we see the national associations of winter-wheat millers and -spring-wheat millers, and the fish, and the egg, and the fruit, and the -salt, and the preserves, and other combinations reaching out to do for -a "free breakfast table," to put the "square meal" out of the reach of -the "square eater," has been achieved to the last detail in sugar and -meat. Every half-cent up or down in the price of sugar makes a loss or -gain to the sugar combination at the rate of $20,000,000 a year. When -it was capitalized for $50,000,000 it paid dividends of $5,000,000 a -year. The value of the refineries in the combination was put by the New -York Legislative Investigation of 1891 at $7,000,000.</p> - -<p>The Hon. Wm. Wilson, of the committee of Congress investigating trusts -in 1888, and the framer of the tariff bill of 1893, in a public -communication quoted figures showing that this Trust had a surplus of -$10,000,000 at the end of 1888, after paying its 10 per cent. dividend. -The profits for the next five and a half months were $13,000,000. This -surplus of one year and net profits of less than half a year together -amount to $23,000,000, nearly half the then nominal capital, and -several times more than the real value of all the concerns, as given -above. These profits so conservative a paper as the New York <i>Daily -Commercial Bulletin</i> called "plunder," and it reaffirmed that epithet -when called to account. Stock was issued for this "fabulous valuation" -of $50,000,000, put on this $7,000,000 of original value, and was made -one of the specialties of the stock market.</p> - -<p>"There has been an enormous and widespread speculation in the -certificates of the trust," says the report of the New York Senate. "It -was plainly one of the chief purposes of the trust to provide for the -issue of these certificates, affording thereby an opportunity for great -speculation in them, obviously to the advantage of the persons managing -the trust. The issue of $50,000,000 certificates was amply sufficient -for a speculation of many hundreds of millions of dollars."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> - -<p>Since this investigation by the New York Legislature, the Sugar Trust -has been reorganized into a single corporation. The capital of this -is $75,000,000, all "water," since the value of the plants is fully -covered by the bonds to the amount of $10,000,000. The actual value of -the refineries in the Trust, excluding those which have been closed or -dismantled, was investigated by the New York <i>World</i>, January 8, 1894, -and put at $7,740,000. On this actual value of $7,740,000 in operation -the Trust paid in regular and extra dividends in 1893 no less than -$10,875,000, and acknowledged that there was in addition a surplus of -$5,000,000 in the treasury. This was in addition to the interest on the -$10,000,000 of bonds.</p> - -<p>When a farmer sells a steer, a lamb, or a hog, and the house-keeper -buys a chop or roast, they enter a market which for the whole -continent, and for all kinds of cattle and meats, is controlled by the -combination of packers at Chicago known as "the Big Four."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> This had -its origin in the "evening" arrangement, made in 1873 by the railroads -with preferred shippers, on the ostensible ground that these shippers -could equalize or even the cattle traffic of the roads. They received -$15 as "a commission" on every car-load of cattle shipped from the West -to New York, no matter by whom shipped, whether they shipped it or had -anything to do with it or not. The commission was later reduced to -$10. They soon became large shippers of cattle; and with these margins -in their favor "evening" was not difficult business.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> By 1878 the -dressed-beef business had become important. As the Evener Combine had -concentrated the cattle trade at Chicago, the dressed-beef interest -necessarily had its home at the same place. It is a curious fact that -the Evener Combine ceased about the time the dressed-beef interest -began its phenomenal career.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> - -<p>The committee appointed by the United States Senate to investigate -the condition of the meat and cattle markets fixed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> upon St. Louis, -Mo., and November 20, 1888, as the time and place of meeting, because -the International Cattle Range Association and the Butchers' National -Protective Association assembled at the same time and place. It was -supposed that prominent members of these associations would avail -themselves of the opportunity to appear before the committee. Some of -them did testify frankly, but the presence of antagonistic influences, -especially in the International Cattle Range Association, immediately -became apparent, and industrious efforts were made to prevent the -inquiries of the committee from affecting injuriously the dressed-beef -interest at Chicago. The committee found that under the influence -of the combination the price of cattle had gone down heavily. For -instance: In January, 1884, the best grade of beef cattle sold at -Chicago for $7.15 per hundred pounds, and in January, 1889, for $5.40; -Northwestern range and Texas cattle sold in January, 1884, at $5.60, -and in January, 1889, at $3.75; Texas and Indian cattle sold in 1884 at -$4.75, the price declining to $2.50 in December, 1889. These are the -highest Chicago prices for the months named.</p> - -<p>"So far has the centralizing process continued that for all practical -purposes," the report says, "the market of that city dominates -absolutely the price of beef cattle in the whole country. Kansas -City, St. Louis, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg are subsidiary to -the Chicago market, and their prices are regulated and fixed by the -great market on the lake."<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> This great business is practically in -the hands of four establishments at Chicago. The largest houses have -a capacity for slaughtering 3,500 cattle, 3,000 sheep, and 12,000 -hogs every ten hours. When the Senate committee visited Chicago, -it was found impossible to obtain the frank and full testimony of -either the commission men doing business at the Union Stock Yards, or -of the employés of the packing and dressed-beef houses. The former -testified reluctantly, and were unquestionably under some sort of -constraint as to their public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> declarations. In private they stated -to the members of the committee that a combination certainly existed -between the "Big Four;" but when put on the stand as witnesses they -shuffled and prevaricated to such a degree as, in many cases, to excite -commiseration. The committee reported that the overwhelming weight of -testimony from witnesses of the highest character, and from all parts -of the West, is to the effect that cattle-owners going with their -cattle to the Chicago and Kansas City markets find no competition among -buyers, and if they refuse to take the first bid are generally forced -to accept a lower one.</p> - -<p>As to the effect upon retailers, local butchers, and consumers, it was -admitted by the biggest of the Big Four "that they combined to fix -the price of beef to the purchaser and consumer, so as to keep up the -cost in their own interest."<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> They combined in opening shops and -underselling the butchers of cattle at places all over the country, in -order to force them to buy dressed meat. They combined in refusing to -sell any meat to butchers at Washington, D.C., because the butchers -had bid against them for contracts to supply with meats the Government -institutions in the District of Columbia.</p> - -<p>The compulsion put upon local butchers is illustrated in the S—— -case. The following telegram was sent from the office of one of the -combination at Chicago to an agent in Pennsylvania: "Cannot allow -S—— to continue killing live cattle. If he will not stop, make other -arrangements, and make prices so can get his trade."</p> - -<p>S—— was a local butcher. He testified that he was approached by -the agent with a proposition that he should sell dressed-beef. He -refused, and was then informed that he would be broken up in business. -Notwithstanding this threat, he continued to butcher, and made his -purchases of cattle at Buffalo. From the time of his refusal to sell -dressed-beef as proposed, he could not buy any meat from Chicago, -and could not get any cars from the Erie Railroad to ship his cattle -from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Buffalo. He was boycotted for his refusal to discontinue killing -cattle.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> One of the combination, when testifying to this matter, -disclaimed responsibility for the despatch, but stated that he did not -think a butcher should be permitted to kill cattle and at the same time -sell dressed-beef. "He could not serve both interests." "We have no -hesitation in stating as our conclusion, from all the facts," says the -report, "that a combination exists at Chicago between the principal -dressed-beef and packing houses, which controls the market and fixes -the price of beef cattle in their own interest."</p> - -<p>When pork is cheap, less beef is eaten. Beef monopoly must therefore -widen into pork monopoly. This has happened. There is a combination -between the pork-packers at Chicago and the large beef-packers. It -began in 1886. The existence of such an arrangement was admitted by its -most important member; and it is found to have seriously affected the -prices of beef cattle, both to the producer and consumer. It was shown -that one of the companies of the Big Four made in 1889 profits equal -to 29 per cent. on its capital stock—which may, or may not, have been -paid in—and this was not the largest of the companies. As to the idea -that other capitalists might enter into competition with those now in -possession, the report says: "The enormous capital of the great houses -now dominating the market, which each year becomes larger, enables them -to buy off all rivals."</p> - -<p>The favoritism on the highways, in which this power had its origin in -1873, has continued throughout to be its main stay. The railroads give -rates to the dressed-beef men which they refuse to shippers of cattle, -even though they ship by the train-load—"an unjust and indefensible -discrimination by the railroads against the shipper of live cattle." -The report says: "This is the spirit and controlling idea of the great -monopolies which dominate the country.... No one factor has been more -potent and active in effecting an entire revolution in the methods -of marketing the meat supply of the United States<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> than the railway -transportation."<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> There have been discriminations by the common -carriers of the ocean as well as by the railroads. The steamship -companies exclude all other shippers, by selling all their capacity to -the members of the beef combine, sometimes for months in advance. It is -useless for any other shipper to apply.</p> - -<p>Property is monopoly, the Attorney-General of the United States says. -Those who own the bread, meat, sugar, salt, can fix the price at which -they will sell. They can refuse to sell. It is to these fellow-men we -must pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." And when we have broken -bread for the last time, we can get entrance to our "long home" only -by paying "exorbitant" toll for our shrouds and our coffins to the -"Undertakers'" and the "National Burial Case" associations.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></p> - -<p class="center">STRIKING OIL</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was an American idea to "strike oil." Those who knew it as the -"slime" of Genesis, or used it to stick together the bricks of the -Tower of Babel, or knelt to it in the fire temples, were content to -take it as it rose, the easy gift of nature, oozing forth on brook or -spring. But the American struck it.</p> - -<p>The world, going into partial eclipse on account of the failing supply -of whale oil, had its lamps all ready for the new light, and industries -beyond number needed only an expansion of the supply.</p> - -<p>De Witt Clinton, with the same genius that gave us the Erie Canal, -suggested as early as 1814 the use of petroleum for light. Reichenbach, -the great German chemist, predicted in 1830 that petroleum would yield -an illuminating oil equal to the finest. Inventors and money-makers -kept up close with scientific investigators in France, Great Britain, -and America.</p> - -<p>As early as 1845 the manufacture of coal-oil, both for light and -other purposes, had become important in France. Selligue had made -himself master of the secrets of petroleum. His name, says one of his -chroniclers, "must forever remain inseparably connected with that of -the manufacture of light from oil, and to his researches few have been -able to add."<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> - -<p>The name of this genius and benefactor of humanity has remained almost -unknown, except within a small scientific world. He was a member of the -French Academy, and almost every year between 1834 and 1848 he came to -it with some new dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>covery. On one occasion he reminds his associates -that he holds a patent, granted in 1832, for making illuminating oil -from coal, and declares that the business can be developed to any -extent which commerce or the arts may require. By 1845 he had unlocked -nearly every one of the hidden places in which this extraordinary -product has stored its wonders. He found out how to make illuminating -oil, illuminating gas, lubricating oil, colors, paraffine for candles, -fertilizers, solvents for resin for painters, healing washes, -chemicals. He had three refineries in operation in the Department -Saône-et-Loire, as described in the report of a committee of the French -Academy in 1840. He exhibited his oils in the London Exhibition of -1851, and twelve years before, in the Parisian Industrial Exhibition of -1839, he had crude and refined oils and paraffine to show. "Among the -most important objects of the exhibition," said its German historian, -Von Hermann, "if they can be prepared economically." This Selligue -accomplished. Between 1837 and 1843 he refined more than 4,000,000 -pounds of oil, and 50 per cent. of his product was good illuminating -oil.</p> - -<p>Before 1850, the Scotch had succeeded in getting petroleum, called -shale oil, out of bituminous coal, had found how to refine it, and had -perfected lamps in which it would burn. Joshua Merrill, the pioneer of -oil refining in this country, with his partners, successfully refined -petroleum at Waltham, Mass., where they established themselves in 1853. -The American manufacturers were making kerosene as early as 1856 from -Scotch coal,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> imported at a cost of $20 to $25 a ton, and getting -experts like Silliman to analyze petroleum, in the hope that somehow -a supply of it might be got. By 1860 there were sixty-four of these -manufactories in the United States. "A crowd of obscure inventors," -says Felix Foucon, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, "with unremitting -labors perfected the lamp—when it was premature to dream that -illumination by mineral oil should become universal." All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> was ready, -as the eminent English geologist, Binney, said, "for the start of the -vast American petroleum trade." It was not a lack of knowledge, but -a lack of petroleum, that hampered the American manufacturer before -1860.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> The market, the capital, the consumer, the skilled labor, the -inventions, and science were all waiting for "Colonel" Drake.</p> - -<p>With Drake's success in "striking oil" came to an end the period, -lasting thousands of years, of fire temples, sweep and bucket, Seneca -oil; and came to an end, also, the Arcadian simplicity of the old -times—old though so recent—in which Professor Silliman could say, "It -is not monopolized by any one, but is carried away freely by all who -care to collect it."</p> - -<p>The oil age begins characteristically. As soon as Drake's well had -made known its precious contents, horses began running, and telegrams -flying, and money passing to get possession of the oil lands for the -few who knew from those who did not know. The primitive days when "it -was not monopolized by any one" were over. Thousands of derricks rose -all over the territory, and oil scouts pushed with their compasses -through the forests of the wilderness in all directions. Wells were -bored all over Europe, as well as America, wherever traces of oil -showed themselves, sometimes so close together that when one was pumped -it would suck air from the other.</p> - -<p>As soon as the petroleum began to flow out of the ground, refineries -started up at every available place. They were built near the wells, -as at Titusville and Oil City, and near the centres of transportation, -such as Pittsburg and Buffalo, and near the points of export, as -Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York. Numbers of little establishments -appeared on the Jersey flats opposite New York.</p> - -<p>There was plenty of oil for every one; at one time in 1862 it was only -ten cents a barrel. The means of refining it had long before been -found by science and were open to all; and even poor men building -little stills could year by year add on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> to their works, increase their -capital, and acquire the self-confidence and independence of successful -men. The business was one of the most attractive possible to capital. -"There is no handsomer business than this is," said one of the great -merchants of New York. "You can buy the (crude) oil one week, and sell -it the next week refined, and you can imagine the quantity of business -that can be done." Men who understood the business, he said, "if they -had not the capital could get all of the money they wanted."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> - -<p>Whatever new processes and contrivances were needed the fertile -American mind set about supplying. To carry the oil in bulk on the -railroads tubs on flat cars were first used; but it was not long before -the tub was made of iron instead of wood, and, laid on its side instead -of bottom, became the tank of the cylinder car now so familiar.</p> - -<p>The fluid which lubricates so many other things on their way through -the world is easily made to slip itself along to market. General S.D. -Karns was the author,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> in 1860, of the first suggestion of a pipe -line. He planned only for oil to run down hill. Then Hutchinson, the -inventor of the Hutchinson rotary pump, saw that oil could be forced -through by pressure, and the idea of the pipe line was complete. -The first successful pipe line, put down by Samuel Van Syckel,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> -of Titusville, in 1865, from Pithole to Miller's Farm, four miles, -has grown into a net-work of thousands of miles, running through the -streets of towns, across fields and door-yards, under and over and -beside roads, with trunk lines which extend from the oil regions to -Pittsburg, Cleveland, Buffalo, Baltimore, New York, Williamsport, -Chicago, and the Ohio River.</p> - -<p>There was a free market for the oil as it came out of the wells -and out of the refineries, and free competition between buyers and -sellers, producers and consumers, manufacturers and traders. Industries -auxiliary to the main ones flourished.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Everywhere the scene was of -expanding prosperity, with, of course, the inevitable percentage of -ill-luck and miscalculation; but with the balance, on the whole, of -such happy growth as freedom and the bounty of nature have always -yielded when in partnership. The valleys of Pennsylvania changed into -busy towns and oil fields. The highways were crowded, labor was well -employed at good wages, new industries were starting up on all sides, -and everything betokened the permanent creation of a new prosperity for -the whole community, like that which came to California and the world -with the discovery of gold.</p> - -<p>But shadows of sunset began to creep over the field in its morning -time, and the strange spectacle came of widespread ruin in an industry -prospering by great leaps. Wherever men moved to discover oil lands, to -dig wells, to build refineries or pipe lines, to buy and sell the oil, -or to move it to market, a blight fell upon them.</p> - -<p>The oil age began in 1860. As early as 1865 strange perturbations were -felt, showing that some undiscovered body was pulling the others out of -their regular orbits.</p> - -<p>Before the panic of 1873—days of buoyant general prosperity, with -no commercial revulsion for a cause—the citizens of this industry -began to suffer a wholesale loss of property and business among the -refineries in New York, Pittsburg, Cleveland, and elsewhere, the wells -of the oil valleys, and the markets at home and abroad.</p> - -<p>To the building of refineries succeeded the spectacle—a strange one -for so new a business—of the abandonment and dismantling of refineries -by the score. The market for oil, crude and refined, which had been a -natural one, began to move erratically, by incalculable influences. It -went down when it should have gone up according to all the known facts -of the situation, and went up when it should have gone down. This sort -of experience, defying ordinary calculations and virtues, made business -men gamblers.</p> - -<p>"We began speculating in the hope that there would be a change some -time or other for the better," testified one who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> had gone into the -business among the first, and with ample capital and expert skill.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> - -<p>The fright among the people was proportionate to the work they had -done and the value of what they were losing. Since the first well was -sunk the wilderness had become a busy region, teeming with activity -and endowed with wealth. In ten years the business had sprung up from -nothing to a net product of 6,000,000 barrels of oil a year, using a -capital of $200,000,000 and supporting a population of 60,000 people. -The people were drilling one hundred new wells per month, at an average -cost of $6000 each. They had devised the forms, and provided the -financial institutions needed in a new business. They invented many -new and ingenious mechanical contrivances. They had built up towns and -cities, with schools, churches, lyceums, theatres, libraries, boards of -trade. There were nine daily and eighteen weekly newspapers published -in the region and supported by it. All this had been created in ten -years, at a cost of untold millions in experiments and failures, and -the more precious cost of sacrifice, suffering, toil, and life.</p> - -<p>The ripe fruit of all this wonderful development the men of the oil -country saw being snatched away from them.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p> - -<p>More than once during these lean years, as more than once later, the -public alarm went to the verge of violent outbreak. This ruinous -prosperity brought stolid Pennsylvania within sight of civil war -in 1872, which was the principal subject before the Pennsylvania -Legislature of that year, and forced Congress to make an official -investigation.</p> - -<p>The New York Legislature followed Congress and the Pennsylvania -Legislature with an investigation in 1873.</p> - -<p>"There was great popular excitement.... It raged like a violent fever," -was the description it heard of the state of things in Pennsylvania.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> - -<p>There were panics in oil speculation, bank failures, defalca<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>tions. -Many committed suicide. Hundreds were driven into bankruptcy and insane -asylums.</p> - -<p>Where every one else failed, out of this havoc and social disorder -one little group of half a dozen men were rising to the power and -wealth which have become the marvel of the world. The first of them -came tardily into the field about 1862. He started a little refinery -in Cleveland, hundreds of miles from the oil wells. The sixty and -more manufacturers who had been able to plant themselves before 1860, -when they had to distil coal into petroleum before they could refine -petroleum into kerosene, had been multiplied into hundreds by the -arrival of petroleum ready made from below. Some of the richest and -most successful business men of the country had preceded him and were -flourishing.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> He had been a book-keeper, and then a partner, in a -very small country-produce store in Cleveland. As described by his -counsel some years later, he was a "man of brains and energy without -money." With him were his brother and an English mechanic. The mechanic -was bought out later, as all the expert skill needed could be got for -wages, which were cheaper than dividends.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> Two or three years later -another partner was added, who began life as "a clerk in a country -store,"<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and had been in salt and lumber in the West. A young -man, who had been in the oil region only eleven years, and for two -of the eleven had been errand-boy and book-keeper in a mixed oil and -merchandise business,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> a lawyer, a railroad man, a cotton broker, -a farm laborer who had become refiner, were admitted at various times -into the ruling coterie.</p> - -<p>The revolution which revolved all the freemen of this industry down -a vortex had no sooner begun than the public began to show its -agitation through every organ. The specta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>cle of a few men at the -centre of things, in offices rich with plate glass and velvet plush, -singing a siren song which drew all their competitors to bankruptcy -or insanity or other forms of "co-operation," did not progress, as it -might have done a hundred years ago, unnoticed save by those who were -the immediate sufferers. The new democracy began questioning the new -wealth. Town meetings, organizations of trades and special interests, -grand juries, committees of State legislatures and of the United States -Senate and House of Representatives, the civil and criminal courts, -have been in almost constant action and inquiry since and because.</p> - -<p>It was before the Committee of Commerce of the National House of -Representatives in 1872 that the first authentic evidence was obtained -of the cause of the singular ruin which was overwhelming so fair a -field. This investigation in 1872 was suppressed after it had gone -a little way. Congress said, Investigate. Another power said, Don't -investigate. But it was not stopped until the people had found out that -they and the production, refining, and transportation of their oil—the -whole oil industry, not alone of the valleys where the petroleum was -found, but of the districts where it was manufactured, and the markets -where it was bought and sold, and the ports from which it was shipped -abroad—had been made the subject of a secret "contract"<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> between -certain citizens. The high contracting parties to this treaty for the -disposal of an industrial province were, on one side, all the great -railroad companies, without whose services the oil, crude or refined, -could not be moved to refineries, markets, or ports of shipment on -river, lake, or ocean. On the other side was a body of thirteen men, -"not one of whom lived in the oil regions, or was an owner of oil wells -or oil lands," who had associated themselves for the control of the oil -business under the winning name of the South Improvement Company.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> - -<p>By this contract the railroads had agreed with this company of citizens -as follows:</p> - -<p>1. To double freight rates.</p> - -<p>2. Not to charge them the increase.</p> - -<p>3. To give them the increase collected from all competitors.</p> - -<p>4. To make any other changes of rates necessary to guarantee their -success in business.</p> - -<p>5. To destroy their competitors by high freight rates.</p> - -<p>6. To spy out the details of their competitors' business.</p> - -<p>The increase in rates in some cases was to be more than double.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> -These higher rates were to be ostensibly charged to all shippers, -including the thirteen members of the South Improvement Company; but -that fraternity only did not have to pay them really. All, or nearly -all, the increase it paid was to be paid back again—a "rebate."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> -The increase paid by every one else—"on all transported by other -parties"—was not paid back. It was to be kept, but not by the -railroads. These were to hand that, too, over to the South Improvement -Company.</p> - -<p>This secret arrangement made the actual rate of the South Improvement -Company much lower—sometimes half, sometimes less than half, what all -others paid. The railroad officials were not to collect these enhanced -freight rates from the unsuspecting subjects of this "contract" to -turn them into the treasury of the railroads. They were to give -them over to the gentlemen who called themselves "South Improvement -Company." The "principle" was that the railroad was not to get the -benefit of the additional charge it made to the people. No matter how -high the railroads put the rates to the community, not the railroads, -but the Improvement Company, was to get the gain. The railroads -bound themselves to charge every one else the highest nominal rates -mentioned. "They shall not be less," was the stipulation. They might be -more up to any point; but less they must not be.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> - -<p>The rate for carrying petroleum to Cleveland to be refined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> was to be -advanced, for instance, to 80 cents a barrel. When paid by the South -Improvement Company, 40 cents of the 80 were to be refunded to it; when -paid by any one else, the 40 cents were not merely not to be refunded, -but to be paid over to his competitor, this aspiring self-improvement -company.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> The charge on refined oil to Boston was increased to -$3.07; and, in the same way, the South Improvement Company was to get -back a rebate of $1.32 on every barrel it sent to Boston, and on every -barrel any one else sent. The South Improvement Company was to receive -sums ranging from 40 cents to $1.32, and averaging a dollar a barrel on -all shipments, whether made by itself or by others. This would give the -company an income of a dollar a day on every one of the 18,000 barrels -then being produced daily, whether its members drilled for it, or piped -it, or stored it, or refined it, or not.</p> - -<p>To pay money to the railroads for them to pay back was seen to be a -waste of time, and it was agreed that the South Improvement Company -for its members should deduct from the ostensible rate the amount to -be refunded, and pay the railroads only the difference. Simplification -could not go further. The South Improvement Company was not even to be -put to the inconvenience of waiting for the railroads to collect and -render to it the tribute exacted for its benefit from all the other -shippers. It was given the right to figure out for its members what the -tribute would amount to, and pay it to them out of the money they owed -the railroads for freight, and then pay the railroad what was left, -if there was any left.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> The railroads agreed to supply them with -all the information needed for thus figuring out the amount of this -tribute, and to spy out for them besides other important details of -their competitors' business. They agreed to make reports every day to -the South Improvement Company of all the shipments by other persons, -with full particulars as to how much was shipped, who shipped, and to -whom, and so on.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> - -<p>The detective agency thus established by the railroads to spy out -the business of a whole trade was to send its reports "daily to -the principal office" of the thirteen gentlemen. If the railroads, -forgetting their obligations to the thirteen disciples, made any -reduction in any manner to anybody else, the company, as soon as it was -found out, could deduct the same amount from its secret rate.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> If -the open rate to the public went down, the secret rate was to go down -as much. For the looks of things, it was stipulated that any one else -who could furnish an equal amount of transportation should have the -same rates;<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> but the possibility that any one should ever be able to -furnish an equal amount of transportation was fully taken care of in -another section clinching it all.</p> - -<p>The railway managers, made kings of the road by the grant to them of -the sovereign powers of the State, covenanted, in order to make their -friends kings of light, that they would "maintain the business" of the -South Improvement Company "against loss or injury by competition," so -that it should be "a remunerative" and "a full and regular business," -and pledged themselves to put the rates of freight up or down, as -might be "necessary to overcome such competition."<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Contracts to -this effect, giving the South Improvement Company the sole right for -five years to do business between the oil wells and the rest of the -world, were made with it by the Erie, the New York Central, the Lake -Shore and Michigan Southern, the Pennsylvania, the Atlantic and Great -Western, and their connections, thus controlling the industry north, -south, east, west, and abroad. The contracts in every case bound all -the roads owned or leased by the railroads concerned.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> The contracts -were duly signed, sealed, and delivered. On the oil business of that -year, as one of the members of the committee of Congress figured out -from the testimony, the railroad managers could collect an increase of -$7,500,000 in freights, of which they were to hand over to the South -Im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>provement Company $6,000,000, and pay into the treasury of their -employers—the railways—only $1,500,000.</p> - -<p>The contract was signed for the New York Central and Hudson River -Railroad by its vice-president, but this agreement to kill off a whole -trade was too little or too usual to make any impression on his mind. -When publicly interrogated about it he could not remember having seen -or signed it.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> - -<p>"The effect of this contract," the vice-president of the Erie Railway -Company was asked, "would have been a complete monopoly in the -oil-carrying trade?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir; a complete monopoly."<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> - -<p>Of the thirteen members of the South Improvement Company which was to -be given this "complete monopoly," ten were found later to be active -members of the oil trust. They were then seeking that control of the -light of the world which it has obtained. Among these ten were the -president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, and a majority of -the directors of the oil trust into which the improvement company -afterwards passed by transmigration. Any closer connection there could -not be. One was the other.</p> - -<p>The ablest and most painstaking investigation which has ever been -had in this country into the management of the railroads found and -officially reported to the same effect:</p> - -<p>"The controlling spirits of both organizations being the same."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p> - -<p>The freight rates were raised as agreed and without notice. Rumors had -been heard of what was coming. The public would not believe anything so -incredible. But the oil regions were electrified by the news, February -26, that telegrams had been sent from railroad headquarters to their -freight agents advising them of new rates, to take effect immediately, -making the cost of shipping oil as much again as it had been. The -popular excitement which broke out on the same day and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> "raged like a -violent fever" became a national sensation. The Titusville <i>Morning -Herald</i> of March 20, 1872, announces that "the railroads to the oil -regions have already put up their New York freight from $1.25 to -$2.84, an advance of over one hundred per cent." Asked what reason -the railroads gave for increasing their rates, a shipper said, "They -gave no reason; they telegraphed the local roads to put up the rates -immediately." This advance, the superintendents of the railroads told -complaining shippers, had been made under the direction of the South -Improvement Company, and they had been instructed to make their monthly -collections of oil freights from that concern.</p> - -<p>The evidence even seems to show that the South Improvement Company was -so anxious for the dance of death to begin that it got the freight -agents by personal influence to order the increased rates before the -time agreed upon with the higher officials. Strenuous efforts were -made to have the public believe that the contracts, though sealed, -signed, delivered, and put into effect, as the advance in rates most -practically demonstrated, had really not been put into effect. The -quibbles with which the president of the South Improvement Company -sought to give that impossible color to the affair before the committee -of Congress drew upon him more than one stinging rebuke from the -chairman of the committee.</p> - -<p>"During your whole examination there has not been a direct answer given -to a question." "I wish to say to you," said the chairman, "that such -equivocation is unworthy of you."</p> - -<p>The plea needs no answer, but if it did, the language of the -railroad men themselves supplies one that cannot be bettered. To the -representatives of the people, who had telegraphed them for information -"at once, as the excitement is intense, and we fear violence and -destruction of property," General McClellan, of the Atlantic and Great -Western, replied that the contract was "cancelled;" President Clark, -of the Lake Shore, that it was "formally abrogated and cancelled;" -Chairman Homer Ramsdell, of the Erie, that it was "abrogated;" -Vice-president Thomas Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> that it was -"terminated officially;"<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Vice-president Vanderbilt, of the New York -Central and Hudson River Railroad, that it was "cancelled with all the -railroads."</p> - -<p>Contracts that were not complete and in force would not need to be -"cancelled" and "abrogated" and "terminated." These announcements were -backed up by a telegram from the future head of the oil trust then -incubating, in which he said of his company: "This company holds no -contracts with the railroad companies."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> But in 1879 its secretary, -called upon by the Ohio Legislature to produce the contracts the -company had with the railroads, showed, among others, one covering the -very date of this denial in 1872.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> - -<p>Before Congress the South Improvement Company sought to shelter -themselves behind the plea that "their calculation was to get all the -refineries in the country into the company. There was no difference -made, as far as we were concerned, in favor of or against any refinery; -they were all to come in alike."</p> - -<p>How they "were all to be taken in" the contract itself showed. It bound -the South Improvement Company "to expend large sums of money in the -purchase of works for refining," and one of the reasons given by the -railroads for making the contract was "to encourage the outlay." Upon -what footing buyer and seller would meet in these purchases when the -buyer had a secret arrangement like this with the owners of the sole -way to and from wells, refineries, and markets, one does not need to -be "a business man" to see. The would-be owners had a power to pry the -property of the real owners out of their hands.</p> - -<p>One of the Cleveland manufacturers who had sold was asked why he did so -by the New York Legislature. They had been very prosperous, he said; -their profits had been $30,000 to $45,000 a year; but their prosperity -had come to a sudden stop.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> - -<p>"From the time that it was well understood in the trade that the South -Improvement Company had ... grappled the entire transportation of -oil from the West to the seaboard ... we were all kind of paralyzed, -perfectly paralyzed; we could not operate.... The South Improvement -Company, or some one representing them, had a drawback of a dollar, -sometimes seventy cents, sometimes more, sometimes less, and we were -working against that difference."<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> - -<p>It was a difference, he said, which destroyed their business.</p> - -<p>He went to the officials of the Erie and of the New York Central to try -to get freight rates that would permit him to continue in business. -"I got no satisfaction at all," he said; "I am too good a friend of -yours," said the representative of the New York Central, "to advise you -to have anything further to do with this oil trade."</p> - -<p>"Do you pretend that you won't carry for me at as cheap a rate as you -will carry for anybody else?"</p> - -<p>"I am but human," the freight agent replied.</p> - -<p>He saw the man who was then busily organizing the South Improvement -Company. He was non-committal. "I got no satisfaction, except 'You -better sell, you better get clear.' Kind of <i>sub rosa</i>: 'Better sell -out, no help for it.'"</p> - -<p>His firm was outside the charmed circle, and had to choose between -selling and dying. Last of all, he had an interview with the president -of the all-conquering oil company, in relation to the purchase of their -works. "He was the only party that would buy. He offered me fifty cents -on the dollar, on the construction account, and we sold out.... He made -this expression, I remember: 'I have ways of making money that you know -nothing of.'"</p> - -<p>For the works, which were producing $30,000 to $45,000 a year profit, -and which they considered worth $150,000, they received $65,000.</p> - -<p>"Did you ascertain in the trade," he was asked, "what was the average -rate that was paid for refineries?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> - -<p>"That was about the figure.... Fifty cents on the dollar."</p> - -<p>"It was that or nothing, was it not?"</p> - -<p>"That or nothing."</p> - -<p>The freight rates had been raised in February. This sale followed in -three weeks.</p> - -<p>"I would not have sold out," he told the Legislature, "if I could have -got a fair show with the railways. My business, instead of being an -enterprise to buy and sell, became degraded into running after the -railways and getting an equal chance with others."<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> - -<p>"The only party that would buy" gave his explanation a few years later -of the centralization of this business.</p> - -<p>"Some time in the year 1872," he swore, "when the refining business of -the city of Cleveland was in the hands of a number of small refiners, -and was unproductive of profit,<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> it was deemed advisable by many of -the persons engaged therein, for the sake of economy, to concentrate -the business, and associate their joint capital therein. The state -of the business was such at that time that it could not be retained -profitably at the city of Cleveland, by reason of the fact that points -nearer the oil regions were enjoying privileges not shared by refiners -at Cleveland, and could produce refined oil at a much less rate than -could be done at this point. It was a well-understood fact at that -time among refiners that some arrangement would have to be made to -economize and concentrate the business, or ruinous losses would not -only occur to the refiners themselves, but ultimately Cleveland, as a -point of refining oil, would have to be abandoned. At that time those -most prominently engaged in the business here consulted together, and -as a result thereof several of the refiners conveyed" to his company, -then as always the centre of the centralization, "their refineries, and -had the option, in pay therefor, to take stock" in this company, "at -par, or to take cash." This company, he continued, "had no agency in -creating this state of things which made that change in the refining -business neces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>sary at that time, but the same was the natural result -of the trade, nor did it in the negotiations which followed use any -undue or unfair means, but in all cases, to the general satisfaction of -those whose refineries were acquired, the full value thereof, either in -stock or cash, was paid as the parties preferred."<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> - -<p>The producers were not to fare any better than the refiners. The -president of the South Improvement Company said to a representative of -the oil regions substantially: "We want you producers to make out a -correct statement of the average production of each well, and the exact -cost per barrel to produce the oil. Then we propose to allow you a fair -price for the oil."</p> - -<p>Within forty-eight hours after the freight rates were raised, according -to programme, "the entire business of the oil regions," the Titusville -<i>Herald</i>, March 20, 1872, reported, "became paralyzed. Oil went down -to a point seventy cents below the cost of production. The boring of -new wells is suspended, existing wells were shut down. The business in -Cleveland stopped almost altogether. Thousands of men were thrown out -of work."</p> - -<p>The people rose. Their uprising and its justification were described -to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1873 by a brilliant -"anti-monopolist," "a rising lawyer" of Franklin, Venango Co. -The principal subject to which he called the attention of his -fellow-members was the South Improvement Company, and the light it -threw on the problems of livelihood and liberty. Quoting the decision -of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Sanford case,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> he said:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"That is the law in Pennsylvania to-day. But in spite of this -decision, and in spite of the law, we well know that almost every -railroad in this State has been in the habit, and is to-day in the -habit, of granting special privileges to individuals, to companies in -which the directors of such railroads are interested, to particular -business, and to particular localities. We well know that it is their -habit to break down certain localities, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> build up others, to break -down certain men in business and to build up others, to monopolize -certain business themselves by means of the numerous corporations -which they own and control, and all this in spite of the law, in -defiance of the law.</p> - -<p>"The South Improvement Company's scheme would give that corporation -the monopoly of the entire oil business of this State, amounting to -$20,000,000 a year. That corporation was created by the Pennsylvania -Legislature along with at least twenty others, under the name -of improvement companies, within a few years past, all of which -corporations contain the names as original corporators of men who may -be found in and about the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, -in Philadelphia, when not lobbying at Harrisburg. The railroads -took but one of those charters which they got from the Legislature, -and by means of that struck a deadly blow at one of the greatest -interests of the State. Their scheme was contrary to law, but before -the legal remedy could have been applied, the oil business would -have lain prostrate at their feet, had it not been prevented by an -uprising of the people, by the threatenings of a mob, if you please, -by threatening to destroy property, and by actually commencing to -destroy the property of the railroad company, and had the companies -not cancelled the contract which Scott and Vanderbilt and others had -entered into, I venture to say there would not have been one mile of -railroad track left in the County of Venango—the people had come to -that pitch of desperation.... Unless we can give the people a remedy -for this evil of discriminations in freight, they will sooner or later -take the remedy into their own hands."<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p>Soon after this attorney for the people was promoted from the poor -pay of patriotism to a salary equal to that of the President of the -United States, and to the place of counsel for the principal members of -the combination, whose inwardness he had descried with such hawk-eye -powers of vision. Later, as their counsel, he drafted the famous trust -agreement of 1882.</p> - -<p>The South Improvement Company was formed January 2d. The agreement -with the railroads was evidently already worked out in its principal -details, for the complicated contracts were formally signed, sealed, -and delivered January 18th. The agreed increase of freights went into -effect February 26th. The pacific insurrection of the people began<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> -with an impromptu mass-meeting at Titusville the next day, February -27th. Influential delegations, or committees, on transportation, -legislation, conference with press, pipe lines, arresting of drilling, -etc., were set to work by the organization thus spontaneously formed -by the people. A complete embargo was placed on sales of oil at any -price to the men who had made the hateful bargain with the railroads. -The oil country was divided into sixteen districts, in each of which -the producers elected a local committee, and over all these was -an executive committee composed of representatives from the local -committees—one from each. No oil was sold to be used within any -district except to those buyers whom the local committee recommended; -no oil was sold to be exported or refined outside the district, except -to such buyers as the executive committee permitted. One cent a barrel -was paid by each producer into a general fund for the expenses of the -organization.</p> - -<p>Steps were taken to form a company with a capital of $1,000,000, -subscribed by the producers, to advance money, on the security of their -oil, to those producers who did not want to sell.</p> - -<p>Able lawyers were employed and sent with the committees to all the -important capitals—Harrisburg, Washington, the offices of the railway -companies. The flow of oil was checked, the activities of the oil world -brought near a stop.</p> - -<p>Monday, March 15th, by the influence of the Washington committee, -a resolution was introduced into the House of Representatives by -Representative Scofield, ordering an investigation of the South -Improvement Company. Immediately upon this the frightened participants -cancelled the contracts. By the 26th of March the representatives -of the people had secured a pledge in writing from the five great -railroads concerned of "perfect equality," and "no rebates, drawbacks, -or other arrangements," in favor of any one thereafter. March 30th, -Congress began the investigation which brought to light the evidence -of the contracts, and meanwhile the committees on legislation and pipe -lines were securing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> from the Pennsylvania Legislature the repeal of -the South Improvement Company charter, and the passage of a "so-called" -Free Pipe Line law, discovered afterwards to be worthless on account of -amendments shrewdly inserted by the enemy.</p> - -<p>It was an uprising of the people, passionate but intelligent and -irresistible, if the virtue of the members held good. Until April 9th -the non-intercourse policy was stiffly and successfully maintained. But -by that time one man had been found among the people who was willing -to betray the movement. This man, in consideration of an extra price, -violating his producer's pledge, sold to some of those concerned in -the South Improvement Company a large quantity of oil, as they at once -took pains to let the people know. The seller hoped to ship it quietly, -but, of course, the object in buying and paying this additional price -was to have it shipped openly, and the members of the South Improvement -Company insisted that it should be done so.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> - -<p>This treachery had the effect planned. Every one became suspicious -that his neighbor would be the next deserter, and would get the price -he would like to have for himself. To prevent a stampede, the leaders -called a mass-meeting. Reports were made to it of what had been done in -Congress, the Legislature, and the other railway offices; the telegrams -already referred to were read affirming the cancellation of the -contracts. Amid manifestations of tumultuous approbation and delight -the embargo on the sale of oil was declared raised.</p> - -<p>"We do what we must," says Emerson, "and call it by the best name -possible." The people, as every day since has shown, grasped the shell -of victory to find within the kernel of defeat.</p> - -<p>The committee of Congress noticed when the contracts were afterwards -shown to it, that though they had been so widely declared to be -"cancelled," they had not been cancelled, but were as fresh—seals, -stamps, signatures and all—as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> the day they were made. This little -circumstance is descriptive of the whole proceeding. Both parties -to this scheme to give the use of the highways as a privilege to a -few, and through this privilege to make the pursuit of livelihood a -privilege, theirs exclusively—the railroad officials on one side, and -their beneficiaries of the South Improvement Company on the other—were -resolute in their determination to carry out their purpose. All that -follows of this story is but the recital of the sleuth-like tenacity -with which this trail of fabulous wealth has been followed.</p> - -<p>The chorus of cancellation from the railroads came from those who -had meant never to cancel, really. In their negotiations with the -representatives of the people they had contested to the last the -abandonment of the scheme. "Their friendliness" to it "was so -apparent," the Committee of the Producers reported, "that we could -expect little consideration at their hands,"<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> and the committee -became satisfied that the railroads had made a new contract among -themselves like that of the South Improvement Company, and to take -its place. Its head frankly avowed before the Investigating Committee -of Congress their intention of going ahead with the plan. "They are -all convinced that, sooner or later, it will be necessary to organize -upon the basis on which the South Improvement Company was organized, -including both producers and refiners."</p> - -<p>This conviction has been faithfully lived up to. Under the name of the -South Improvement Company the arrangement was ostentatiously abandoned, -because to persist in it meant civil war in the oil country as the -rising young anti-monopolist lawyer pointed out in the Constitutional -Convention. Mark Twain, in describing the labors of the missionaries -in the Sandwich Islands, says they were so successful that the vices -of the natives no longer exist in name—only in reality. As every page -will show, this contract no longer exists in name—only in reality. -In the oil world, and in every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> other important department of our -industrial life—in food, fuel, shelter, clothing, transportation,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> -this contract, in its various new shapes, has been kept steadily at -work gerrymandering the livelihoods of the people.</p> - -<p>The men who had organized the South Improvement Company paid the public -revolt the deference of denial, though not of desistance. The company -had got a charter, organized under it, collected twenty per cent. of -the subscription for stock, made contracts with the railroads, held -meetings of the directors, who approved of the contracts and had -received the benefits of the increase of freights made in pursuance of -the agreement. This was shown by the testimony of its own officers.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> - -<p>But "the company never did a dollar's worth of business," the Secretary -of the Light of the World told Congress,<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> and "there was never the -slightest connection between the South Improvement Company and the -Standard Oil Company," the president of the latter and the principal -member of both said in an interview in the New York <i>World</i>, of March -29, 1890. "The South Improvement Company died in embryo. It was never -completely organized, and never did any business. It was partly born, -died, and was buried in 1872," etc.</p> - -<p>Still later, before a committee of the Legislature of New York, in -1888, he was asked about "the Southern Improvement Company."</p> - -<p>"There was such a company?"</p> - -<p>"I have heard of such a company."</p> - -<p>"Were you not in it?"</p> - -<p>"I was not."<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> - -<p>So help me God!</p> - -<p>At almost the moment of this denial in New York, an associate in this -and all his other kindred enterprises, asked before Congress who made -up the South Improvement Com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>pany, named as among them the principal -members of the great oil company, and most conspicuous of them all was -the name of this denier.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> - -<p>The efficiency with which this "partly born" innocent lived his little -hour, "not doing a dollar's worth of business," was told in a summary -phrase by one of the managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, describing -the condition of the oil business in 1873:<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> - -<p>"All other of our largest customers had failed."</p> - -<p>When the people of the oil regions made peace after their uprising it -was, as they say, with "full assurance from the Washington committee -that the throwing off the restrictions from trade will not embarrass -their investigation (by Congress), but that the Sub-Committee of -Commerce will, nevertheless, continue, as the principle involved, and -not this particular case alone, is the object of the investigation."<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p> - -<p>The Committee of Commerce did not "continue." The principal witness, -who had negotiated the contracts by which the railroads gave over -the business of the oil regions to a few, refused in effect, beyond -producing copies of the contract, to be a witness. Permission was given -by the Committee of Congress during its first zeal to the Committee -of Producers from Pennsylvania to copy the testimony as it was taken, -but no official record of its discoveries exists. This transcript was -published by the producers, and copies are possessed by a few fortunate -collectors. The committee did not report, and in the archives of the -national Capitol no scrap of the evidence taken is to be found. All has -vanished into the bottomless darkness in which the monopoly of light -loves to dwell.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></p> - -<p class="center">"NOT TO EXCEED HALF"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Notwithstanding</span> the ceremonial treaty of equal rights on the railroads -to all, which had been secured by the uprising of the people against -the South Improvement Company in 1872, the independents, one after the -other, continued to be side-tracked by an unseen power. Four years -later, on the 20th of July, 1876, their only two important survivors in -Cleveland, frightened by the high death-rate of the business, and by -a deepening pressure on themselves, answered a summons to come to the -palace of the President of the Light of the World. The contract which -was then made was afterwards produced in court.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> It was called an -"Agreement for an Adventure," in something like "the merry sport" in -which the good Antonio gave a bond for a pound of his flesh.</p> - -<p>A few years after this "adventure" with his competitors and his efforts -to have them closed by the courts, the President was asked if his trust -had sought in any way to diminish the production of refineries in -competition with it.</p> - -<p>"Oh no, sir," he replied.</p> - -<p>"Nothing of the kind?"</p> - -<p>"Oh no, sir."<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p> - -<p>He was asked the question again, and again the denial was repeated.</p> - -<p>"Done nothing of the sort?"</p> - -<p>"Not at all."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> - -<p>But now he said, You must bind yourselves for ten years to refine only -85,000 barrels of oil a year.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p> - -<p>They had refined 120,000 barrels the year before, and could have done -180,000, and were growing up with the country. "The prospects were much -better for the future."<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> - -<p>But they agreed.</p> - -<p>You must give me and my associates all the profits you make during this -period above $35,000 a year, until we too have got $35,000 a year out -of your business, and we will guarantee you $35,000 a year, if we let -you run.</p> - -<p>They had made $41,000 the year before, but they agreed.</p> - -<p>You must divide with "us," after each has got $35,000 a year, all the -additional profits.</p> - -<p>They had to put into this "adventure" all their buildings and -machinery, valued at $61,760.42, all their time and attention, and -$10,000 in cash, while their conquerors put in only $10,000 cash and no -plant and no time. But they agreed to this demand for "half."</p> - -<p>You must stop refining altogether, and let us take out our $10,000 -whenever we send you notice that through competition, or a decrease or -change in the production of petroleum, Cleveland can "barely compete" -with other places. You must sell the kerosene you manufacture, and buy -the petroleum you make it of at the prices we fix.</p> - -<p>The combination could make the business unprofitable whenever it chose, -and under the previous stipulation could close them up at its own -pleasure, until the ten years had rolled by. But they agreed.</p> - -<p>You must resume again after any such suspension, and let us take half -the profits whenever we give you notice. You must let us enter or -withdraw, throw our $10,000 in or out, suspend or resume, again and -again, as we choose! They agreed.</p> - -<p>You must make us monthly reports of all your transactions. You must not -enlarge nor contract your works without our consent. They agreed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> - -<p>You must not go into the manufacture of petroleum, nor any other new -business anywhere else in the world during this adventure! You must -ship your products by such routes as we direct! They agreed.</p> - -<p>You must keep this adventure secret. Our name must not appear, and even -if you all die, you must agree that we may continue the business in -your name, or any other name we choose.</p> - -<p>"The firm name," as their counsel pointed out, "was to be kept up even -when the members were mouldering in their graves. But the public were -to understand that the business of that firm, as it had been conducted -in the lifetime of those men, was still being carried on."</p> - -<p>You are to be thus tied up for ten years, limited at the best to half -the profit on half your capacity, with a right in us to close you up -altogether, or to close and resume whenever we choose, with no right in -you to start or stop or withdraw. But we are to be left free, in our -own refineries, to refine all the oil the market will take, and keep -all the profit, and enlarge our works and extend our business.</p> - -<p>And, finally, you must put your hand and seal to a statement that you -do this to "reconcile interests that have seemed to conflict" and -"equalize the business," and that this agreement gives you your "due -proportion thereof."</p> - -<p>This "free contract" two of the three men who were to make it knew -nothing of until their consent was demanded.</p> - -<p>One of the partners had secretly been won over. Through him all -preliminary negotiations had been conducted.</p> - -<p>"I was not consulted," testified one of the other two, until after the -contract was "all drawn and prepared," and at first he refused to sign -it. The plan was concocted "secretly and unknown to me."</p> - -<p>"I was at first opposed to the arrangement," declared the other.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> - -<p>But this was not all the contract. The President, who, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> he -testified, "conducted most of the negotiations," and "had been familiar -with the dealings thereunder," supplemented the written documents with -oral instructions:<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> - -<p>You must not seem to be prosperous. You must not put on style,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> he -cautioned them; above all, you must not drive fast horses or have fine -rigs; you must not even let your wives know of this arrangement.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> - -<p>A false account was opened on the books to conceal the nature and -origin of this transaction from their own book-keepers. In the name of -that account false and fictitious checks were drawn, bills made out, -balances struck. A box was taken out at the Cleveland post-office—box -125—in the name of an imaginary "Mr. G.A. Mason," and through this -box the correspondence of the "adventure" was carried on. Each of the -three parties to the "adventure" continued to march and fight under -its own flag as before. All possible pains were taken to conceal the -fact that they had ceased competition with each other. They kept up -every appearance to the public of being actively engaged in competitive -business. The inevitable spy appears in this scene as in every other -in the play. The "reconciler," to enforce the provisions that the -"reconcilees" should not engage in business elsewhere, extended a -system of espionage over them, and followed their movements, and kept -watch what they did with their money, and made oath to the courts of -the results of these "inquiries and investigations." The espionage -continued after this.</p> - -<p>A year or two after this contract had been broken by the help of -the courts, the then secretary of the great oil company, through an -intermediary, approached the book-keeper of the firm which had been -freed from the trust.</p> - -<p>"Would you not like to make some money?"</p> - -<p>"He inclined to let him believe he did want to make some money," his -employer afterwards told Congress. "He came and told me about it. I -requested that he continue and find out what information they wanted. -He was to have had so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> much per year, but he was to have been paid a -down payment; he got $25."</p> - -<p>"What service was he to render for that?"</p> - -<p>"I have a memorandum. There were so many things he was to do that I -cannot carry it in my head."</p> - -<p>"One of the questions was, 'What was the result of last year's -business?' The other was, 'A transcript of the daily shipments, with -net prices received from the same; what is the cost for manufacturing -outside of the crude; the kind of gasoline and naphtha made, and -the net prices received for the same; what they do with tar and the -percentages of the same; what per cent. of water white and what per -cent. of Michigan water white; how much oil exported last year?' This -information, as fast as received, to be mailed to Box 164, Cleveland -post-office.... He (the book-keeper) made an affidavit of it, and I -took the money back myself personally."<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> - -<p>When orders came in for more oil than the limit put upon them, the -"reconcilees," asserting their commercial manhood, went on refining -to supply the demands of the public instead of the commands of the -clique. They contended that they were not bound by the limitation, and -in this were afterwards upheld by the court; but, meanwhile, they were -called to account and frightened into another "reconciliation." He was -present, the chief reconciler told the court, at the interview in which -they "agreed to diminish their manufacture ... to bring the entire -amount within the terms" of the contract.</p> - -<p>But again they began to refine to supply the needs of the people -evidenced by the market demand. Then their supply of crude was shut -off. Their suzerain owned the pipe line to Cleveland. When its escaping -victims got around that difficulty, it took its "contract" to the -courts.</p> - -<p>To shut these competitors down to half their capacity, and to reconcile -and equalize interests by taking half of all they made on that was -merely an incident, collateral to the grander plan, the vaster -"adventure," of getting all the profits<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of that greater field out -of which these competitors were barred altogether. Such contracts as -these, its counsel said, were made with refiners all over the country. -The chief profit of the adventure lay, not in the divided profits of -the picayune business it let the vassals do, but in the undivided -profits of the empire kept for itself. Why should the reconciler hurry -with expensive lawyers into court for a summary injunction to prevent a -"reconcilee" from making more oil, when the reconciler, who toiled not -nor spun, was to get half of the gain of $2.05 on every barrel of it? -Why, but that every "co-operative" barrel so made would displace in the -markets a barrel, all the profits of which went to it.</p> - -<p>The "reconcilees" were called into court. A judge was asked to issue -an injunction forbidding them to depart from the strict letter of the -contract.</p> - -<p>They have been refining more than 85,000 barrels of oil a year, was the -complaint.</p> - -<p>They "threaten to distil crude petroleum without regard to -quantity."<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> They are "parties in rebellion," said the lawyers. The -judge said, No. This is a contract in restraint of trade, and released -those who were in its toils.</p> - -<p>The immediate effect of this "equalization" was an advance in the rates -of profit. The year before the independent refiners had made a profit -of only 34 cents a barrel.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p> - -<p>The first year of the "adventure" the profits jumped up to $2.52 -a barrel. The dividends rose from $41,000 to $222,047, while the -production fell from 120,000 to 88,085 barrels. For the four years the -average profit was $2.05 a barrel, or 500 per cent. advance. The lowest -profit was $1.37.</p> - -<p>"Refined oil advanced to an average of $8 per barrel for that year" -(1876), says the counsel of the trust.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p> - -<p>These great winnings were made in the depth of the depression following -the panic of 1873.</p> - -<p>While a world-compelling decline not only of prices but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> of profits, -was in progress, the authors of this arrangement kept up kerosene to a -point at which $630,691 was made in four years out of an investment of -$81,000, half of which went to those who put in $10,000 and their power -over freight agents.</p> - -<p>This "adventure," as was said by the Hon. Stanley Matthews, who -appeared as counsel for the victimized refiners, was better than a -gold-mine. It was a mint. Without giving any personal supervision or -any time, without any expenditure except the insignificant investment -of $10,000, made as a mere stalking-horse, these men took a share of -the profits of "the party of the second part," which is not to be -calculated by ordinary percentage, but by multiplications, over and -over again, every year, of the money they put in it.</p> - -<p>By reducing the volume of business one-half, by increasing the profit -from 34 cents a barrel to $2.05, the reconcilers pocketed $315,345.58 -in four years, on an investment of $10,000, with no work. This was the -fact. The theory with which the fact was hidden from the people is -given to the New York Legislature in 1888. The principle on which the -trust did business, its president said, was:</p> - -<p>"At a limited profit; a very small profit on an extremely large volume -of business."<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> - -<p>When its secretary was before Congress, he was asked about the -operations of himself and his associates in these years, 1876, 1877, of -wonderful profits. He had been participating during that time in not -only this profit of $2.05 a barrel, but in divided profits rising to -$3,000,000 in a year on $3,000,000 of capital, and in undivided profits -which rolled up $3,500,000 of capital into $70,000,000 in five years. -But he said:</p> - -<p>"The business during those years was so very close as to leave scarcely -any margin of profit under the most advantageous circumstances."<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> - -<p>The effect on the consumer appears from the statement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> in this case of -one of the best-known producers and refiners in the oil regions, one -intimately associated with the members of the combination. He showed -that oil which was selling at twenty cents a gallon retail could be -sold at a large profit at twelve cents a gallon.</p> - -<p>As to the effect on the working-man, the demand for labor declined, -wages went down, and the number of unemployed increased.</p> - -<p>When there was competition in Cleveland the great company could not -afford to have its skilled workmen idle, because they would seek -employment with the other refineries; but now, having the refining -business all in its own hands, when it was temporarily to its advantage -to refine oil in Pittsburg, Oil City, or other points, in preference -to Cleveland, it could with impunity let its hands remain idle in -Cleveland, knowing that when it wanted them it could easily secure -them, as there are no other refineries in Cleveland to employ them, and -"that has been a very serious injury to working-men."<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> - -<p>There was no pretence that the design of this contract was not to make -oil scarce—<i>i.e.</i>, dear.</p> - -<p>In the affidavit which was made in support of the injunction the -principal reconciler showed that his company had restricted itself -as much as it restricted these competitors. He urged as the reason -why the contract had been made and why the courts should sustain it, -that "the capacity of all the refineries in the United States is -more than sufficient to supply the markets of the world, and if all -the refineries were run to their full capacity they would refine at -least twice as much oil as the markets of the world require; that -this difference between the capacity of refineries and the demands of -the market has existed for at least seven years past, and during that -period the refineries" of his company "have not been run to ... exceed -one-half of their capacity."</p> - -<p>When these surviving independents of Cleveland were forced into this -adventure, in 1876, the source of the power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> which could compel "free" -citizens in this age of individualism to execute such a bond was not -known. The appalling mortality among the independents showed that -something was seriously wrong. There was something, however, in this -"Agreement for an Adventure" which pointed straight to it. That was -a clause which guaranteed those who became vassals that they should -have the same freight rates and get back the same rebates as the -monopoly.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> "Had the monopoly the power," said the Hon. Stanley -Matthews, "to procure freights on better and more advantageous terms -than the rest of the public engaged in the same business?... And -if they had such power, how did it get it?... If this or any other -corporation is allowed to exalt itself in this way and by these means -above competition, it is also exalted above the law."</p> - -<p>The great lawyer, who soon afterwards became a justice of the Supreme -Court of the United States, could not answer the questions he raised. -The facts were hidden in secret contracts with the railroads. As -regards Cleveland, they did not come out until five years later, in -1885. It then became an adjudicated fact that in 1875, the year before -this "Agreement for an Adventure," the Lake Shore Railroad had made -a contract with the oil combination to drive these very competitors -and all others out of business, just as the same road had done for -the South Improvement Company in 1872. When they escaped from their -"reconciler," they brought this railroad and the contract into court. -The case was fought up to the Supreme Court.</p> - -<p>That tribunal found that the Lake Shore road had contracted with this -company to carry its products ten cents per barrel cheaper than for any -other customers. It showed that this made a difference to the victims -of the "Adventure" equal to more than 21 per cent. a year on their -capital.</p> - -<p>"The understanding," the court said, "was to keep the price <i>down</i> for -the favored customers, but <i>up</i> for all the others, and the inevitable -tendency and effect of this contract was to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> enable the Standard Oil -Company to establish and maintain an overshadowing monopoly, to ruin -all other operators, and drive them out of business." The course of the -railroad the court declared to be one of "active participation in the -unlawful purposes" of the oil company. The Lake Shore was to have all -its business out of Cleveland, but, a competing railroad being built, -the Lake Shore made a contract to give this new line a part of the -plum, to induce it to unite in the policy of keeping freights <i>down</i> -for the favored customer, and <i>up</i> for all others. When the President -of the trust was asked afterwards by the New York Legislature if there -had been no arrangement by which it got its transportation cheaper than -others could, he replied, "No, sir." And later he reiterated that in -their arrangements for freight there was "nothing peculiar."<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p> - -<p>But the Supreme Court of Ohio, in describing this arrangement, -diversify the staid rhetoric of their legal deliverance with the -unaffected exclamation:</p> - -<p>"How peculiar!"</p> - -<p>They declared the contract between the two railroads "void," and "not -only contrary to a sound public policy, but to the lax demands of -the commercial honesty and ordinary methods of business." They also -pronounced the contract between the railroad and the oil company as -"made to build up a monopoly," and as "unlawful."<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p> - -<p>The great lawyer, we have said, could not answer the questions he -asked. The facts, we have said, were hidden in a secret contract. And -yet the answers to the questions, the facts, had been all brought to -the verge of disclosure by the investigation by Congress early in the -same year, 1876.</p> - -<p>Although the investigation, in consequence of the "I object" of the -Hon. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> had been referred to the -Committee of Commerce, and though the railroad and oil clique men -would not answer, and the committee would not press them, there was a -volunteer witness from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Cleveland, who began to upset all the plans to -smother. This willing witness was a Cleveland refiner, a shrewd man, -as would easily be believed by those who knew that he was the brother -of an organizer of the oil combination. He, too, had been a member of -it, but for some reasons was now "out," and was one of the swimmers -who felt themselves being drawn down. He betook himself for relief to -Congress. He dodged no subpœnas, but, going before the Committee of -Commerce, he began to tell more fully than any other witness had ever -done, or had ever been able to do, the story of the relations between -the combination and the railroads, which he knew of his personal -knowledge. When he began talking in this free way to the public -authorities, his former associates saw that they had underestimated -his abilities as a refiner. They began to feel that it might be well -to make some concessions to this particular brother, though not to the -Brotherhood of Man.</p> - -<p>The investigation was summarily suspended,<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> and his testimony -was spirited away. With the only power that could have interfered -thus silenced, the surviving independents were corralled as we have -described. This was done two short months after the first move was -made, May 16th, for the investigation which might have saved the -independents at Cleveland and elsewhere from the duress which drove men -to death or adventures of reconciliation.</p> - -<p>All over the oil regions the combination has followed this policy of -"not to exceed half."<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p> - -<p>Nineteen pages of the testimony of a member in the suit begun by the -Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are taken up with the operations of one -of its constituent companies in the purchase or leasing of competing -refineries, many of which were shut down or pulled down.</p> - -<p>This witness could name only one refinery out of the score of -independent concerns once flourishing in Pittsburg, which was not under -its control.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Dismantled," was the monotonous refrain of many of his answers to the -questions as to what had been done with the refineries thus got under -control. Asked why these works had been thus dismantled or shut down, -he explained it variously as due to unfavorable location or worn-out -machinery or some such disadvantage.</p> - -<p>If these works were so badly situated and so illy fitted for the -business and so old, why did it purchase them? "Can you give good -commercial reasons why it would buy all unprofitable junk?" he was -asked.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> - -<p>"I cannot give any reason why they bought the works," was the helpless -answer.</p> - -<p>From the beginning to the end the language used by the founders of -the combination proves scarcity to have been their object. "There is -a large number of refineries in the country—a great deal larger than -is required for the manufacture of the oil produced in the country, or -for the wants of the consumers in Europe and America," said one of the -principal members in 1872.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p> - -<p>This is almost identical with the language used in 1880 in the effort -to enjoin Cleveland refiners who "threatened to distil."</p> - -<p>In 1887 we will see the same power putting its hand and seal to an -agreement to enforce the doctrine that there was too much oil in the -earth.</p> - -<p>In 1872 there were more refineries than were needed for the oil; in -1887 there was too much oil. The progression is significant. And down -to the present pool with the Scotch refiners we will see the same men -enforcing abroad, year by year, the same gospel of want.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> - -<p>"The producers in America are quite alive to the wisdom of not -producing too much paraffine, and are already adopting measures to -restrict it," said the chairman at the annual meeting of one of the -principal Scotch companies.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></p> - -<p class="center">"YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the obituary column of the Cleveland <i>Herald</i>, of June 6, 1874, was -given the news of the death of one of the pioneer manufacturers of -Cleveland. He began the refining of petroleum in that city in 1860, -several years before any of those who afterwards became the sovereigns -of the business had left their railroad platforms, book-keeping stools, -and lawyers' desks. He was married in the same year, and from that -time until his death, in 1874, gave his whole life to his refinery and -his family, and was successful with both. The <i>Herald</i> said of him -editorially:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"He was well known in Cleveland and elsewhere as a business man of -high character. He was a prominent member of the First Presbyterian -Church, was at one time President of the Young Men's Christian -Association, and was active in all enterprises of a religious and -benevolent character. He was about forty years of age, and leaves a -wife and three children."</p></blockquote> - -<p>His enterprise had been "very profitable," his wife said afterwards -in court, in narrating how she and her children fared after the death -of the husband, father, and bread-winner. "My husband devoted his -entire energies and life to the business from about 1860 to the time -of his death, and had acquired through his name a large patronage. My -husband went into debt just before his death," she continued, "for the -first time in his life. For the interest of my fatherless children, as -well as myself, I thought it my duty to continue the business. I took -$75,000 of the $100,000 of stock, and continued from that time, 1874, -until November, 1878, making handsome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> profits, during perhaps the -hardest business years of the time since my husband had begun."<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> - -<p>The business received from her the most thorough and faithful -attention, and she maintained the prosperity her husband had founded by -making a profit of about $25,000 a year.</p> - -<p>A representative of one of the oil combination came to her, she -continued, "with a proposition that I should sell to them." This -agent was "a brother manufacturer," who, but a short time before in -a conference with her, had agreed that in view of the dangers which -seemed to threaten them, he and she should mutually watch out for each -other, and that no arrangement should be made by either without letting -the other know. The next she saw of her ally he pounced upon her in her -office with the news that he was in the oil combination, that the head -of it had told him he meant to have control of the refining business -if it took him ten years, but he hoped to have it in two. He went on -to warm the woman's heart by the declaration that since he had become -acquainted with the secrets of the organization he wondered that he and -she had been able to hold out so long. After which preliminaries he -proposed that she, too, should sell to it. With sagacity and spirit she -declined point-blank to have any negotiation with him.</p> - -<p>She declined to deal with subordinates, and said she did not want to -sell. The principal then called upon her at her residence. This was -in 1878, and these were dark days for "outside" refiners. One by one -they were sinking out of sight, and slipping under the yoke like the -victims of the "reconciliation" and "equalization" described in the -last chapter.</p> - -<p>For six years word had been passing from one frightened lip to -another that they were all destined for the maw or the morgue, and -the fulfilment of the word had been appalling. He knew the members of -the oil combination, one of the best-known veterans of the oil region -testified in this case, naming them; "I have heard some of them say, in -substance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> 'that they intended to wipe out all the refineries in the -country except their own, and to control the entire refining business -of the United States.'"</p> - -<p>"The big fish are going to eat the little fish," one of the big fish -told a neighbor and competitor. When one of the little fish said he -"would not sell and was not afraid," he was told, "You may not be -afraid to have your head cut off, but your body will suffer!"</p> - -<p>The woman was brave with love and enthusiasm for the memory of her -husband and the future of her children. She had had a great success, -but she knew the sea she was swimming. She saw strong men going down on -every side. She herself afterwards told in court of her great anxiety -as she would hear of one refinery after another surrendering, feeling -sure that that would eventually be the fate of her company.</p> - -<p>All that the witnesses just quoted had reported, all that was said -of the same tenor by the witnesses before Congress in 1876, and much -more, had been filling the hearts of the business men of Cleveland, -Pittsburg, Titusville, New York, with a reign of terror ever since -1872. It was with a full realization of all this that she went down -to her parlor to receive the great man of commerce, who passes the -contribution-box for widows' mites outside the church as well as -within. This gentleman was in her house in pursuance, practically, of -his own motion. She did not want to sell; the suggestion of a sale had -come from the other side. "I told him," the widow said to the judge, -"that I realized that my company was entirely in the power" of his -company. "All I can do," I said to him, "is to appeal to your honor -as a gentleman, and to your sympathy, to do the best with me that you -can. I beg of you to consider your wife in my position, left with this -business and with fatherless children, and with a large indebtedness -that my husband had just contracted for the first time in his life. I -felt that I could not do without the income arising from this business, -and I have taken it up and gone on, and been successful in the hardest -years since my husband commenced." "I am aware," he replied, "of what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -you have done. My wife could never have accomplished so much." She had -become alarmed, the woman of business resumed, because his company was -"getting control of all the refineries in the country."</p> - -<p>He promised, with tears in his eyes, that he would stand by her. It -should never be said, he cried, that he had wronged the widow of his -fellow-refiner. "He agreed that I might retain whatever amount of stock -I desired. He seemed to want only the control. I thought his feelings -were such that I could trust him, and that he would deal honorably -with me." This was the last she saw of him. He promised to come to -see her during the negotiations, but did not do so. He promised to -assist and advise her, but did not do so. He declined to conduct the -negotiations with her in person as she requested, "stating to her," -he said, in giving his version of the affair to the court, "that I -knew nothing about her business or the mechanical appliances used in -the same, and that I could not pursue any negotiations with her with -reference to the same; but that if, after reflection, she desired to -do so, some of our people familiar with the lubricating-oil business -would take up the question with her.... When she responded, expressing -her fears about the future of the business, stating that she could -not get cars to transport sufficient oil, and other similar remarks, -I stated to her that though we were using our cars, and required them -in our own business, yet we would loan her any number she required, or -do anything else in reason to assist her, and I saw no reason why she -could not prosecute her business just as successfully in the future -as in the past." This assurance to his widow-competitor that he would -let her have cars was, of itself, enough to justify all her alarm, and -show that there was no hope for her but in making the best surrender -possible. It was proof positive that he did control the transportation, -that the well-defined report that no one but he and his could get -their business done by the railroad was true. Permission to go upon -the highways by the favor of a competitor is too thin a plank for even -a woman to be got to walk. Withdrawing from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> direct connection, but -managing the affair to the end as he testifies, he sent back to her the -agent she had refused to talk with.</p> - -<p>Negotiations were accordingly resumed perforce with this agent. He -submitted to his principals a statement in her behalf of the value of -the property, but did not waste time over the form of letting her see -it, or consulting with her before submitting it in her name.</p> - -<p>This statement she never authorized, never heard of, and never read -until it was produced in court against her.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p> - -<p>One interesting feature of the contract which was the subject of the -"adventure" described in the chapter "Not to Exceed Half" was repeated -here. The representative who "took up this matter" with the widow -carried on his bargaining in great part with the minor stockholders, -one of whom claimed afterwards that all he had done was under her -directions, and "to her entire satisfaction." But she was entirely -unaware of either her "directions" or her "satisfaction." "He never -had the slightest authority from me to represent me in any way in the -sale."<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p> - -<p>Another of the minor stockholders also busied himself in representing -her without her knowledge. On behalf of the widow agents were making -figures, though she knew nothing of their agency or the figures. -By these combined efforts a sale was finally concluded at figures -which, though she owned seven-tenths of the property, she had never -authorized, and were far below the only figures she had given as those -she was willing to take.</p> - -<p>Compelled to deal with a subordinate against her will, fearing to -remain in so hazardous an occupation, and yet needing for her children -the income it brought her, this woman manufacturer's position was most -harassing. All through, as her cashier and treasurer told the court, -she was dissatisfied, felt that she was compelled to sell though she -wanted to retain her property.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> - -<p>"In my hearing," her confidential clerk said, "she declared she sold -because she was compelled to do so."</p> - -<p>She told her fellow-stockholders that she had been informed by the -agent who was dealing with her, that if they did not sell out it would -only be a question of time before they would be forced to sell out, as -he intended to place oil like that made by her company in the hands of -all their agents, to undersell them and close them out. This decided -them to sell.</p> - -<p>"Inasmuch as the managers of the Standard Oil Company appeared to have -made up their minds to obtain this property, and not to give them the -chance they had before in competition," the stockholders, as one of -them testified, "concluded it better to sell the property at such price -as they could then get, rather than to run the risk of a still greater -loss in the future, not one of the stockholders desiring to part with -the property at all, but rather choosing with fair competition to -retain their interest in the property."<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p> - -<p>She had made 15 per cent. in the last six months, and, aside from -these threats, the business looked prosperous, for the orders were -becoming more numerous every day. But the widow could refuse to sell -only by braving threats which had broken more than two out of three -of all the men about her. She put upon the property a price warranted -by its income, $200,000, which was adopted by the directors of the -company in a formal motion authorizing a sale at that figure. But in -her name a proposition was made by the agent to sell for $71,000. "I -never heard of the figure of $71,000," she says, "and cannot imagine -where it originated. The only proposition that was ever made was that -of $200,000." What the stock was worth in her estimation and that -of her employés who had inside knowledge is seen in the evidence of -her confidential clerk. Though he was her nephew also, he had with -difficulty, he says, bought stock at par.</p> - -<p>She had refused to sell at par to others. Now the only offer she could -get was $60,000 for the works and good-will, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> purchasers paying in -addition the cash value of the material in stock, and at that price she -had to let them go. She asked to be allowed to remain an owner to the -extent of $15,000 in the business into which she and her husband had -built their lives. "No outsider can have any interest in this concern," -was the reply. The combination "has dallied as long as it will over -this matter," its agent continued. "It must be settled up to-day or go."</p> - -<p>The power of this business to produce a profit of $25,000 a year was -worth almost $400,000, according to the valuations maintained for -the stock of the oil trust on the New York Stock Exchange by the men -who bought out the widow. One hundred dollars in oil trust stock -producing $12 a year has sold as high as $185. If $12 a year was -worth $185, $25,000 a year was worth nearly $400,000. It was part of -the agreement that the oil company should go on as before. "It was -particularly enjoined," testified the cashier and treasurer, "that the -sale should be kept a profound secret."<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> It was intended that the -company should go on as before as far as the public was concerned. The -purchasers agreed to continue to employ the hands already at work, but -stipulated that not a word should be said to any one of them to reveal -that the company was not as independent as it had been.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> - -<p>"And you are not to engage in the refining business," is the concluding -phrase of an agreement between the oil combination and a once -competitor whom it had forced to sell out in 1876.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p> - -<p>"You are not to engage in refining," the same power said in 1877 to the -Pennsylvania Railroad, and now to this widow: You must sign this bond -not to go into business again for ten years.</p> - -<p>The bond is given in full in the record of the case. It put the widow -under a forfeit of five thousand dollars for ten years, that—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"I will not directly, or indirectly, in any way, either alone or in -company with any person, or as a share-holder in any corporation, -engage in or in any way concern myself or allow knowingly any capital -or moneys to be employed in the business or trade of refining, -manufacturing, producing, piping, or dealing in petroleum, or any of -its products, within the county of Cuyahoga, and State of Ohio, nor at -any other place whatsoever."<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p>Their secret of success, the president swore in this very case, is "the -very large volume" of purchases, "long continuance in the business," -"experience," "knowledge of all the avenues of trade," "skill of -experienced employés," and so forth. But with all this they did not -dare leave this middle-aged woman free to challenge them again on -the field of competition. The purchase was made in the name of three -members of the great oil company, and it was paid for by the check of -that concern.</p> - -<p>Of these men one was among the "trustees" indicted and tried in 1885 -for complicity in the plot to blow up a rival refinery, but let go by -the judge.</p> - -<p>At the time the sale was concluded the widow refiner declared, "The -obtaining of her stock was no better than stealing." When the papers -were brought to her to sign she "hesitated," and said, "It is like -signing my death-warrant. I believe it will prove my death-warrant." -"The promises made by the president," she testifies, "were none of them -fulfilled."</p> - -<p>Being only a woman, and not understanding "business," for all her -brilliant success in stepping into her husband's place, and doing -the double work of home-maker and bread-winner, the widow could not -restrain herself from giving a most uncommercial piece of her mind -to those who had got possession of her property for a sum which they -would recover out of its profits in two or three years. She sent the -following letter:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -"November 11, 1878, Monday Morning.<br /> -</p> - -<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—When you left me at the time of our interview the -other morning, after promising me so much, you said you had simply -dropped the remarks you had for my thought. I can assure you I have -thought much and long as I have waited and watched daily to see you -fulfil those promises, and it is impossible for me to tell you how -utterly astonished I am at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> course you have pursued with me. Were -it not for the knowledge I have that there is a God in heaven, and -that you will be compelled to give an account for all the deeds done -here, and there, in the presence of my husband, will have to confess -whether you have wronged me and his fatherless children or not—were -it not for this knowledge I could not endure it for a moment, the -fact that a man, possessed of the millions that you are, will permit -to be taken from a widow a business that had been the hard life work -and pride of herself and husband, one that was paying the handsome -profit of nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, and give -me in return what a paltry sum, that will net me less than three -thousand dollars; and it is done in a manner that says, Take this or -we will crush you out. And when, on account of the sacred associations -connected with the business, and also the family name it bears, I -plead that I may be permitted to retain a slight interest (you having -promised the same at our interview), you then, in your cold, heartless -manner, send me word that no outsider can hold a dollar's worth of -stock in that concern. It seems strange to be called an outsider in -a business that has been almost entirely our own and built up at the -<i>cost</i> it has to ourselves. It is impossible for us to find language -to express our perfect indignation at such proceedings. We do not -envy you in the least when this is made known in all its detail to -the public. One of your own number admits that it is a great <i>moral</i> -wrong, but says as long as you can cover the points legally you think -you are all right. I doubt, myself, very much the legality of all -these things. But do not forget, my dear sir, that God will judge us -morally, not legally, and should you offer him your entire monopoly, -it will not make it any easier for you. I should not feel that I had -done my entire duty unless, before I close, I drop a remark for your -thoughts. In my poor way I have tried, by my life and example, with -all those I have come in contact with in a business way, to persuade -them to a higher, purer, and better life. I think there is no place -in the world that one has such opportunities to work for good or evil -as in a business life. I cannot tell you the sorrow it has caused me -to have one of those in whom I have had the greatest hopes tell me, -within the last few days, that it was enough to drive <i>honest</i> men -away from the Church of God, when professing Christians do as you have -done by me."</p></blockquote> - -<p>In reply to this she received a letter in which her charge that her -business had been taken from her was repelled as "a most grievous -wrong," and "a great injustice." She was reminded that two years -before she had consulted with the writer and another member of the -oil combination "as to selling out your interest, at which time you -were desirous of selling at <i>considerably less price</i>, and upon time, -than you have now received in cash, and which sale you would have been -glad to have closed if you could have obtained satisfactory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> security -for the deferred payments. As to the price paid for the property, it -is certainly three times greater than the cost at which we could now -construct equal or better facilities."</p> - -<p>The letter concluded with an offer to return the works upon the return -of the money, or, if she preferred, to sell her one hundred, or two -hundred, or three hundred shares of the stock at the price that had -been paid her. These propositions were left open to her for three days.</p> - -<p>The "cost of the works" is not the standard of value in such -transactions. Six millions of dollars, according to a member of the -committee of Congress which investigated the oil trust in 1888, is the -value of the "works" on which they issued $90,000,000 of stock, which -sold in the stock market at a valuation of $160,000,000.</p> - -<p>The offer to sell back the refinery was like the offer to let her have -cars. To accept it was to pass openly and consciously into slavery. -Two years before, when she was weak with grief, inexperience, and the -fear that she might not succeed in her gallant task of paying her -husband's debts and saving the livelihood of the children, she had -thought of selling out at a sacrifice. They knew this because she had -asked their advice, and now cheapened her down by reference to the -valuation of that moment of despair. All the life energies of herself -and her husband, the various advantages of position, the benefit of -their pioneership since 1860, and of having established a place in so -lucrative a business, all the good-will of customers, all the elements -that contributed to the ability to earn the nearly $25,000 a year she -was making, were brushed out of the bargain by the mere assertion of -a figure at which it was alleged better works could be built. By the -time the offer was made she had, moreover, put the sum she had received -into such investments, she told the court, as she had been able to -find, and the money to accept the offer was no longer in her hands. -Indignant with these thoughts, and the massacred troop of hopes and -ambitions that her brave heart had given birth to, she threw the letter -into the fire, where it curled up into flames like those from which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> -a Dives once begged for a drop of water. She never reappeared in the -world of business, where she had found no chivalry to help a woman save -her home, her husband's life-work, and her children. But when the men -who had divided her property among them invoked the assistance of the -law to complete the "equalization" told of in the previous chapter, -she went into court and told her story to save her friends from ruin. -There, under the gathering dust of years, this incident has remained -buried in the document-room of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga -County, until now brought forth to give the people a glimpse into what -the real things are which our professors of market philosophy cover -with their glittering generalities about the cost of production and the -survival of the fittest.</p> - -<p>This episode and that of the "Agreement for an Adventure" in the -preceding chapter have been written up by the author from the original -papers on file in the Court of Common Pleas at Cleveland, which he -visited for that purpose in 1891. Certified copies of the documents -were procured from the clerk of the court. Lately, the astounding fact -was ascertained that all the documents except two or three formal -pleadings were gone from the records of the court. But for these -certified copies there would now be no authentic record of these cases. -This disappearance bears a strong likeness to the suppression of the -investigation by the Committee of Commerce of Congress in 1872, and the -theft of the testimony taken by the House Committee of Commerce<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> -in 1876, and the mutilation of the transcript submitted to Congress in -1888 of the evidence taken in the Buffalo Explosion Case.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></p> - -<p class="center">"NO!"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> has never been any real break in the plans revealed, "partly -born," "and buried" in 1872. From then till now, in 1893, every fact -that has come to the surface has shown them in full career. If they -were buried, it was as seed is—for a larger crop of the same thing.</p> - -<p>The people had made peace, in 1872, on the pledge of "perfect equality" -on the highways. Hardly had they got back to their work when they -began to feel the pinch of privilege again. The Pennsylvania road -alone is credited with any attempt to keep faith, and that only "for -some months." "Gradually," as a committee of the people wrote to the -managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, "the persons constituting the -South Improvement Company were placed by the roads in as favorable -a position as to rates and facilities as had been stipulated in the -original contract with that company."<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> - -<p>As soon as pipe lines were proved practicable they were built as -rapidly as pipes and men to put them in the ground could be had, but -there was some lubricant by which they kept constantly slipping into -bankruptcy.</p> - -<p>They were "frozen out," as one of their builders said, "summer as well -as winter."</p> - -<p>By 1874, twenty pipe lines had been laid in the oil country. Eighty per -cent. of them died off in that and the following year.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> The mere -pipes did not die, they are there yet; but the ownership of the many -who had built them died.</p> - -<p>There were conservatives in the field to whom competition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> was as -distasteful as to the socialists. To "overcome such competition," and -to insure them "a full and regular" and "remunerative business" in -pipe lines, in the language of the South Improvement Company contract, -all that was needed was to put into operation the machinery of that -contract which no longer existed—in name. The decease of the name was -not an insuperable obstacle.</p> - -<p>In exact reproduction of the plan of 1872, the railroads, in October, -1874, advanced rates to the general ruin, but to the pool of lines -owned by their old friends of the South Improvement Company they paid -back a large rebate. That those who had such a railroad Lord Bountiful -to fill their pockets should grow rich fast was a matter of course.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p> - -<p>Getting this refund they got all the business. Oil, like other things, -follows the line of least resistance, and will not flow through pipes -where it has to pay when it can run free and get something to boot. -Nobody could afford to buy oil except those who were in this deal. They -could go into the market, and out of these bonuses could bid higher -than any one else. They "could overbid in the producing regions, and -undersell in the markets of the world."<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p> - -<p>This was not all. In the circular which announced the bounty to the -pet pipes there was another surprise. It showed that the roads had -agreed to carry crude oil to their friends' refineries at Pittsburg and -Cleveland without charge from the wells, and to charge them no more for -carrying back refined oil to the seaboard for export than was charged -to refineries next door to the wells and hundreds of miles nearer the -market. "Outside" refiners who had put themselves near the wells and -the seaboard were to be denied the benefit of their business sagacity. -The Cleveland refiners, whose location was superior only for the -Western trade, were to be forced into a position of unnatural equality -in the foreign trade. In short, the railroads undertook to pay, instead -of being paid, for what they carried for these friends, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> force them -into an equality with manufacturers who had builded better than they.</p> - -<p>Evidently they who had contrived all this had their despondent moments, -when they feared that its full beneficence would not be understood by a -public unfamiliar with the "science of transportation."</p> - -<p>To the new rules was attached an explanation which asserted the right -of the railroads to prevent persons and localities from enjoying the -advantage of any facility they may possess, no matter how "real."</p> - -<p>"You will observe that under this system the rate is even and fair to -all parties, preventing one locality taking advantage of its neighbor -by reason of some alleged or real facility it may possess."<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> - -<p>Meanwhile good society was shuddering at its reformers, and declaring -that they meant to stop competition and "divide up property."</p> - -<p>"Do you do that in any business except oil?" the most distinguished -railroad man of that day was asked. "Do you carry a raw product to -a place 150 miles distant and back again to another point like that -without charge, so as to put them on an equality?"</p> - -<p>To which he replied—it was he who could not remember that he had ever -seen the South Improvement Company contract he signed in 1872—"I don't -know."<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> - -<p>"Could any more flagrant violation of every principle of railroad -economy and natural justice be imagined than this?" the report of the -New York Legislature asks.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></p> - -<p>An expert introduced by the railroads defended this arrangement. He -insisted that all pipe lines had a chance to enter the pool and get the -same refund.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> But a witness from the pipe-line country, who was -brought to New York to testify to the relations of the railroads and -the oil combination, let out the truth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Why didn't they go into the pool?" he was asked, in reference to one -of the most important pipe lines.</p> - -<p>"Because they were not allowed to. They wanted to freeze them out. They -were shut out from the market practically."<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p> - -<p>For these enterprises, as they failed one after the other, there was -but one buyer—the group of gentlemen who called themselves the South -Improvement Company in 1872, but now in the field of pipe-line activity -had taken the name of United Pipe Line, since known as the National -Transit Company, and then and now a part of the oil trust.</p> - -<p>"The United Pipe Line bought up the pipes as they became bankrupt one -after another," testified the same friendly witness.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p> - -<p>Then came a great railroad war in 1877. A fierce onslaught was made on -the Pennsylvania Railroad by all the other trunk lines.</p> - -<p>In this affair, as in all dynastic wars, the public knew really nothing -about what was being done or why. The newspapers were filled with the -smoke of the battles of the railroad kings; but the newspapers did not -tell, for they did not then know, that the railroads were but tools of -conquest in the hands of greater men.</p> - -<p>The cause of the trouble was that the managers of the Pennsylvania -Railroad had begun to reach out for the control of the oil trade. -They had joined in the agreement in 1872 to give it to the oil -combination, but now they wanted it for themselves. Through a mistletoe -corporation—the Empire Transportation Company—they set to work -building up a great business in oil cars, pipe lines, refineries.</p> - -<p>"We like competition; we like our competitors; we are neighbors and -friends, and have been all these years," the president of the oil -trust testified to the New York Legislature,<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> but he served notice -upon this competitor to abandon the field.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> He and his associates -determined to do more than compel the great railroad to cease its -competition. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> determined to possess themselves of its entire oil -outfit, though it was the greatest corporation then in America. This, -the boldest stroke yet attempted, could be done only with the help of -the other trunk lines, and that was got.</p> - -<p>The ruling officials of the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore -and Ohio, the Lehigh Valley, the Reading, the Atlantic and Great -Western, the Lake Shore railroads, and their connections, were made to -believe, or pretended to believe, that it was their duty to make an -attack upon the Pennsylvania Railroad to force it to surrender.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> -"A demand," says the New York Legislative Committee of 1879, "which -they"—the railroads—"joined hands with the Standard Oil Company and -proceeded to enforce by a war of rates, which terminated successfully -in October of that year" (1877).<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> - -<p>The war was very bitter. Oil was carried at eight cents a barrel less -than nothing by the Pennsylvania.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> How low the rates were made by -the railroads on the other side is not known. The Pennsylvania was the -first to sue for peace. Twice its vice-president "went to Canossa," -which was Cleveland. It got peace and absolution only by selling its -refineries and pipe lines and mortgaging its oil cars to the oil -combination. It "was left without the control of a foot of pipe line to -gather, a tank to receive, or a still to refine a barrel of petroleum, -and without the ability to secure the transportation of one, except -at the will of men who live and whose interests lie in Ohio and New -York."<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p> - -<p>It was only seven years since the buyers had organized with a -capital of $1,000,000. Now they were able to give their check for -over $3,000,000 for this one purchase. "I was surprised," said Mr. -Vanderbilt to the New York Legislative Committee of 1878, speaking -of this transaction, "at the amount of ready cash they were able to -provide." They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> secured, in addition to the valuable pipe lines, oil -cars, and refineries in New York and Pennsylvania, the more valuable -pledge given by the Pennsylvania Railroad that it would never again -enter the field of competition in refining, and also a contract -giving the oil combination one-tenth of all the oil freights received -by the Pennsylvania Railroad, whether from the combination or its -competitors—an arrangement it succeeded in making as well with the New -York Central, Lake Shore, and other railroads.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p> - -<p>One of the earliest members of the oil combination was present at the -meeting to consummate this purchase. Something over $3,000,000 of his -and his associates' cash changed hands. The meeting was important -enough to command the presence of a brigade of lawyers for the great -corporations, and of the president, vice-president, and several -directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, representing the Poor -Man's Light, the vice-president, the secretary, and five of the leading -members of the combination, besides himself.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> - -<p>But when asked in court about it he could not remember any such -meeting. Finally, he recalled "being at a meeting," but he could not -remember when it was, or who was there, or what it was for, or whether -any money was paid.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> - -<p>Three years later this transaction having been quoted against the -combination in a way likely to affect the decision of a case in -court,<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> the treasurer denied it likewise. "It is not true as stated -... directly or indirectly...."<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p> - -<p>Eight years later, when the exigencies of this suit of 1880, in -Cleveland, had passed away, and a new exigency demanded a "revised -version," the secretary of the combination told Congress that it was -true.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p> - -<p>"The pleasures of memory" are evidently for poets, not for such -millionaires. That appears to be the only indulgence they cannot -afford.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> - -<p>The managers of the Pennsylvania road went back with the zeal of -backsliders reconverted to their yoke in the service of the men who had -given them this terrific whipping. They sent word to the independent -refiners, whom they had secured as shippers by the pledge of 1872 of -equal treatment, that equal rates and facilities could be given no -longer. The producers and refiners did not sit down dumb under the -death sentence. They begged for audience of their masters, masters of -them because masters of the highway.</p> - -<p>The third vice-president, the official in charge of the freight -business, was sent to meet them.</p> - -<p>"As you know," they began by reminding him, "we have been for the past -year the largest shippers of petroleum the Pennsylvania Railroad has -had."</p> - -<p>He acknowledged it.</p> - -<p>"Shall we, after the 1st of May, have as low a rate of freight as -anybody else?" they then asked.</p> - -<p>"No," he said; "after the 1st of May we shall give the Standard Oil -Company lower rates than to you."</p> - -<p>"How much discrimination will we have to submit to?" the poor -"outsiders" asked.</p> - -<p>"I decline to tell you," was the reply.</p> - -<p>"How much business must we bring your road to get as good rates as the -combination?" they then asked, and again—</p> - -<p>"I decline to tell you," was the only answer they got.</p> - -<p>"If we will ship as much, will you give us as low freight rates?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"We have been shipping over the Pennsylvania Railroad a year," they -persisted, "why can we not continue?"</p> - -<p>"It would make them mad; they are the only people who can make peace -between the railroads."</p> - -<p>"I think," said he, "you ought to fix it up with them. I am going over -there this afternoon to talk with those people about this matter, and," -he continued, "you will all be happy, and everything will work along -very smoothly."</p> - -<p>"We gave him very distinctly to understand that we did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> not propose to -enter into any 'fix up' where we would lose our identity, or sell out, -or be under anybody else's thumb; we are willing to pay as high a rate -of freight as anybody, and we want it as low as anybody has it," they -told him.</p> - -<p>But the reply to all of it was, "You cannot have the same rate of -freight."</p> - -<p>As the magnate of the railroad seemed to be determined not to permit -them to move to market along his rails, one of the independents -referred to a plan for a new pipe line then under consideration by -them, the Equitable, as perhaps promising them the relief he refused.</p> - -<p>"Lay all the pipe lines you like," the vice-president retorted, with -feeling, "and we will buy them up for old iron."</p> - -<p>The independents appealed from the third vice-president to the -president; they had to beg repeatedly for a hearing before they got -it. They came together in the June following, the independents coming -on from New York for the purpose. Since their interview with the third -vice-president rates had been advanced upon them, and not only that, -but when they had oil ready to ship at those high freight rates, the -railroad on one pretext or another refused them cars. One of them had -contracts to deliver oil from his refinery in New York to go abroad. -When he ordered the cars that were needed to take the crude oil to New -York to be refined they were refused him. The ships lay idle at the -docks, charging him heavy damages for every day of delay; at the wells -his oil was running on the ground.</p> - -<p>"You had better go and arrange with the Standard Oil Company; I don't -want to get into any trouble with them," the president said. "If you -are business men, you will make an arrangement with them. I will do all -in my power to bring it about."</p> - -<p>"We will never take our freight rates from them," they replied; "we are -not willing to enter into any such arrangement."</p> - -<p>"Why don't you go to the other roads?" the president asked his -suppliants.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> - -<p>"We have done so. It's of no use. On the New York Central the cars are -owned by the combination, and the Erie is in a like position. We have -been shippers on the Pennsylvania Railroad a long, long while, and -you ought to take care of us and give us all the cars we need. We are -suffering very greatly for the want of them. Can we have the same rate -that other shippers get?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"If we ship the same amount of oil?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"If you have not cars enough, will you, if we build cars, haul them?"</p> - -<p>"No. You will not have any peace or prosperity," continued the -president, "until you make terms with the combination."</p> - -<p>Like the third vice-president he offered to intercede with them to get -transportation over his own road for his own customers. Like men they -refused the offer.</p> - -<p>"We were, of course, very indignant," one of them said, in relating -this experience in court.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> - -<p>A little later a rich and expert refiner, who had sold out in 1876, -made up his mind to try again. The Pennsylvania road had a new -president by this time, but the old "no" was still in force.</p> - -<p>"When I was compelled to succumb I thought it was only temporarily, -that the time would come when I could go into the business I was -devoted to. I was in love with the business. I took a run across the -water; I was tired and discouraged and used up in 1878, and was gone -three or four months. I came back ready for work, and had the plan, -specifications and estimates made for a refinery that would handle -ten thousand barrels of oil in a day. I selected a site near three -railroads and a river; I would have spent about five hundred thousand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> -dollars, and probably a couple of hundred thousand more. I believed the -time had arrived when the Pennsylvania Railroad would see their true -interest as common carriers, and the interest of their stockholders, -and the business interest of the City of Philadelphia. I called on the -President of the Pennsylvania Railroad; I laid the plans before him, -and told him I wanted to build a refinery of ten thousand barrels' -capacity a day. I was almost on my knees begging him to allow me to do -that.</p> - -<p>"'What is it you want?' he said.</p> - -<p>"'Simply to be put upon an equality with everybody else—especially the -Standard Oil Company. I want you to agree with me that you will give me -transportation of crude oil as low as you give it to anybody else for -ten years, and then I will give you a written assurance that I will do -this refining of ten thousand barrels of oil a day for ten years. Is -not that an honest position for us to be in? I as a manufacturer, you -the president of a railroad.'</p> - -<p>"'I cannot go into any such agreement.'</p> - -<p>"I saw the third vice-president. He said, in his frank way, 'That is -not practicable, and you know the reason why.'"<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> - -<p>After their interviews with the President and Vice-President of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, these outsiders went to the officials of the -other roads, only to hear the same "No!" from all.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p> - -<p>At one time, to get oil to carry out their contracts and fill the -vessels which were waiting at the docks and charging them damages for -the delay, these refiners telegraphed to the oil regions offering the -producers there ten cents above the market price if they could get oil -to them over any of the roads to New York. They answered they could not -get the cars, and none of them accepted the offer.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> - -<p>All the roads—as in 1872—were in league to "overcome" them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> - -<p>Thus, at a time when the entire movement of oil was at the rate of -only 25,000 or 30,000 barrels a day, and the roads had cars enough to -move 60,000 barrels a day, these independent refiners found themselves -shut completely off from the highway.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> The Pennsylvania Railroad, -the New York Central, the Erie, and their branches and connections in -and out of the oil regions, east and west, were as entirely closed to -them as if a foreign enemy had seized the country and laid an embargo -on their business—which was, indeed, just what had happened. The only -difference between that kind of invasion and what had really come -was, that "the dear people," as the president of the trust called -them,<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> would have known they were in the hands of an enemy if he -had come beating his drums loud enough, and firing off his two-thousand -pounders often enough, and pricking them deep enough with his bayonets; -but their wits are not yet up to knowing him when he comes among them -disguised as an American citizen, although they see property destroyed -and life lost and liberty thrown wherever he moves.</p> - -<p>There was enough virtue in Pennsylvania to begin a suit in the name -of the State against the men who were using its franchises for such -purposes, though there was not enough to push it to a decision. The -Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, when examined as a -witness in this suit, confirmed these statements about the interviews -with himself and the president of the road in every particular about -which he was questioned.</p> - -<p>"We stated to the outside refiners that we would make lower rates to -the Standard Oil Company than they got; we declined to allow them to -put cars of their own on the road."<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p> - -<p>His evidence fills seventy-six pages, closely printed, in the report of -testimony. It was clear, full, and candid; remark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>ably so, considering -that it supplied officially from the company's own records the facts, -item by item, which proved that the management of the Pennsylvania -Railroad had violated the Constitution of Pennsylvania and the common -law, and had taken many millions of dollars from the people and -from the corporation which employed them, and secretly, and for no -consideration, had given them to strangers.</p> - -<p>This testimony is so important that it was reprinted substantially -in full both by the "Hepburn" committee of the New York Legislature -in 1879<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> and the Trust Investigating Committee of Congress in -1888.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> As instances, it showed that in one case where the rate to -the public was $1.15, this favored shipper was charged only 38 cents. -In another case the trade generally had to pay $1.40 a barrel on crude -petroleum, but the oil combination paid 88½ cents.</p> - -<p>"And then the refined rate was 80 cents?"</p> - -<p>"80 cents net to the Standard."</p> - -<p>"And to all others?"</p> - -<p>"$1.44½."</p> - -<p>"But there were no other outside shippers," he pleaded—how could there -be?</p> - -<p>There was only one important member in Pennsylvania of the oil -combination who could be caught with a subpœna. At his first -appearance in court, on the witness stand, he took lofty ground.</p> - -<p>"I decline to answer."<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p> - -<p>Put on the stand again, he was asked:</p> - -<p>"Were you allowed a rebate amounting to 64½ cents per barrel?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir; not to my knowledge."<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p> - -<p>Put on the third time and compelled to produce his books, he had to -read aloud in court the entries showing the payment he had thus denied -under oath.</p> - -<p>"There was a total allowance of 64½ cents per barrel."<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> - -<p>And then he shut up again—but too late; and to all other questions -about his rebates said, gloomily, "I decline to answer."</p> - -<p>When the president of the oil trust was asked afterwards by the New -York Legislature if some company or companies embraced within it had -not enjoyed from railroads more favorable freight rates than outside -refineries, he replied:</p> - -<p>"I do not recall anything of that kind."</p> - -<p>"You have heard of such things?"</p> - -<p>"I have heard much in the papers about it."<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p> - -<p>But at the time these rates were being made, one of his principal -associates admitted that the president was the person who attended to -the freight rates.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> This was also put beyond a doubt in the Ohio -investigation by the evidence of his first partner in the little oil -refinery at Cleveland which had grown so great, he who had furnished -the only mechanical and refining knowledge it had started with, and who -had, until within a year, been a fellow-stockholder and director.</p> - -<p>"Do these contracts contain anything of the nature that would -discriminate against the small refiners of the State?"</p> - -<p>"I think they did.... Up to the time I left the company the open rate -was $1.40 to the seaboard. They"—the oil combination—"ship for 80 -cents.... The president told me it was the rate at that time."<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> - -<p>With every known avenue to the sea thus closed to them it certainly -looked as if all was up with the "outsiders." But the men, who had -too much American spunk to buy peace with dishonor by consenting to -a "fix-up" under compulsion, had the wit to find out a loop-hole -of temporary escape. They built tank boats for the canal, and thus -succeeded in getting 200,000 barrels of oil to New York that summer -before the canal closed.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> - -<p>Since then all chance of escape by the canal has been cut off. The -railroads made a war of freight rates against it, and the only canal -that connected the oil regions with the Erie canal route to the sea was -dried up, and turned into a way for a railroad by a special act of the -New York Legislature. The railroad so built has ever since been managed -as one of the most diligent promoters of the policy of excluding the -common people from the oil business.</p> - -<p>According to the funeral notices given out by the railroad officials -and the members of the South Improvement Company this concern was dead, -but in the quaint phrase of the producers it was really alive and hard -at work, but "with a new suit of clothes and no name." These interviews -between the independent refiners and the railroad officials of the -three trunk lines form one of the most extraordinary scenes which have -taken place between a government and its subjects since the era of -modern democratic liberty.</p> - -<p>The railway officials are, in the world of the highway, the government. -They hold their supreme power to tax commerce, and to open and close -the highways, solely and altogether by grant of the State, and under -the law of the common carrier. It is only by the exercise of the -sovereign power of eminent domain to take the property of a private -individual by force, without his consent, for public use—never for -any other than public use—and only by the grant of the right to cross -city streets and country roads that the railroads come into existence -at all. This says nothing of the actual cash given to the railroad -projectors by the government, which, in New York State alone, amounts -to upwards of $40,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> - -<p>The independent refiners represent the people, claiming of the highway -department of their government those equal rights which all citizens -have as a birthright, and the government informs these citizens that -their rights on the highways have been given as a private estate to -certain friends of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> ruling administration, much as William the -Conqueror would give this rich abbey or that fertile manor to one of -his pets.</p> - -<p>"We have no franchise that is not open to all," say the "trustees." "It -is a free open market." "There is nothing peculiar to our companies." -"It is as free as air."</p> - -<p>In truth they have had no less a franchise than, as in 1872, the -excluding possession of all the great trunk-lines out of the oil -country, and all their connections east and west, and this franchise -has since widened until, in 1893, it reaches from ocean to ocean, and -from gulf to gulf.</p> - -<p>Their franchise was meant to be as exclusive as if they had had from -the government letters-patent in the old royal fashion of close -monopolies in East Indian trade, or salt, or tobacco at home, giving -them by name the sole right to use the roads, and forbidding all -others, under pain of business death, from setting their foot on the -highway. But with this difference: the exclusive franchise in the -latter case would exist by law; but in this case it was created in -defiance of law, exists in contempt of the law, and in its living the -law dies daily.</p> - -<p>The refiners and producers who were pleading in this way with the -railroads for a chance to live after May 1, never doubted but that, -as they were told, and as their arrangements with the Pennsylvania -road guaranteed, they were having and were to have at worst until that -date, equal and impartial rates and facilities. Under this safe-conduct -they parleyed for the future. But the Pennsylvania Railroad was at -that moment negotiating with the oil combination to collect from the -independents, under the guise of freight, 20 to 22½ cents a barrel -on all they sent to market, and pay it over to the combination. The -payments were made to one of the rings within the oil ring, called the -American Transfer Company. "It is the same instrumentality under a -different name," said the counsel of the New York Chamber of Commerce -before the New York Legislature. The official of the Pennsylvania road -who issued the order to take this money out of the treasury pleaded -in excuse that proof had been given him that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> other roads were doing -the same thing.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> Receipted bills were brought to him, showing that -the New York Central and the Erie had been "for many months" paying -these men who called themselves American Transfer Company for having -"protected" their oil business, sums ranging from 20 cents to 35 cents -a barrel on all the oil those roads transported.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> So deeply was -the watch-dog of the Pennsylvania road's treasury affected by the -proof that his company was doing less than the other roads, that he -instructed the comptroller to give these men three months' back pay, -which was done. Twenty cents a barrel was sent them out of all the oil -freights collected by the Pennsylvania for the three months preceding, -and thereafter the tribute was paid them monthly. Then it was increased -to 22½ cents a barrel. The same amount per barrel was refunded to -them out of their own freight. They received this on all oil shipped -by them, and also on all shipped by their competitors.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> They who -received this tribute pretended to the railroad officials that they -"protected" the roads from losing business. The railroad men pretended -to believe it.</p> - -<p>The way in which this revenue was given and got shows what a simple -and easy thing modern business really is—not in any way the -brain-racker political economists have persuaded themselves and us. -The representative of the oil combination writes a bright, cheery -letter; the representative of the Pennsylvania answers it, and there -you are; 22½ cents a barrel on millions of barrels flows out of -the cash-box of the railroad into the cash-box of the combination. -In one year, 1878, this tribute, at the rate of 22½ cents on the -13,750,000 barrels of oil shipped by the three trunk-lines, must have -amounted to $3,093,750. The American Transfer Company<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> had a little -capital of $100,000, and its receipts from this rebate in this one year -would amount to dividends of 3093 per cent. annually; the capital of -the oil combination which owned this Transfer Company was at this time -$3,500,000.</p> - -<p>There are reasons to believe that some of the very railroad men who -turned the money of the railroads over to the American Transfer Company -were among its members. But if all the profit went to the combination, -and none of it was for the railway officials through whom they got -it, their revenue from that source alone would have paid in 1878 a -dividend nearly equal to this capital of $3,500,000. In this device of -the American Transfer Company we again see reappear in 1878, in high -working vitality, the supposed corpse of the South Improvement Company -of 1872. The American Transfer Company was ostensibly a pipe line, and -the railroad officials met the exposure of their "nothing peculiar" -dealings with it by asserting that the payment to it of 22½ cents a -barrel and more was for its service in collecting oil and delivering -it to them; but the Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad -admits that his road paid the money on oil which the American Transfer -Company never handled.</p> - -<p>"This 22½ cents (a barrel) paid the American Transfer Company is not -restricted to oil that passed through their lines?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir; it is paid on all oil received and transported by us."<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p> - -<p>The American Transfer Company was not even a pipe line. By the -Pennsylvania laws all incorporated pipe lines must report their -operations and condition monthly to the State. But the publisher of the -petroleum trade reports, and organizer of a bureau of information about -petroleum, with offices in Oil City, London, and New York, issuing -daily reports, testified that the American Transfer Company was not -known in the oil regions at all as a pipe line. It published none of -the statements required by law. "They do not," he said, "make any runs -from the oil-wells." It had once been a pipe line,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> but "years ago it -was merged in with other lines," and consolidated into the United Pipe -Line, owned and operated by the combination.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a></p> - -<p>When this arrangement was exposed to public view by the New York -legislative investigation, the "expert" who appeared to explain it away -in behalf of the railroads and their beneficiaries, paraded a false map -of the pipe-line system, drawn and colored to make it seem that the -American Transfer Company was a very important pipe-line.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> This was -the same "expert" who, as we saw, defended the pipe-line holocaust of -1874 by asserting that "all were to be taken in alike."</p> - -<p>There are three kinds of liars, an eminent judge of New York is fond of -saying—liars, damned liars, and experts.</p> - -<p>When the assistant secretary of the oil combination was asked about -this "transfer" company, he replied, "I don't know anything about -the organization."<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> He had described himself to the committee as -"a clamorer for dividends"; but he declared he knew nothing about an -organization which was "transferring" him dividends at the rate of -$3,093,750 a year on $100,000 of capital. Almost at the very moment -of this denial, receipts were being produced in court in Pennsylvania -which had been given by the cashier of himself and his associates to -the railroads for this money.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p> - -<p>Even if the independents succeeded in saving their oil from wasting on -the ground, and got it into pipe lines, and had it refined, and were -lucky enough to be given cars to carry it to the seaboard, they found -that in leaving the oil regions they had not left behind the "no." Up -to the very edge of the sea were the nets spread for them.</p> - -<p>Part of the bargain of 1872 had been that the brothers of the South -Improvement Company should provide the terminal facilities at the -seaboard.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> Railroad companies are usu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>ally supposed to have their -own yards, storehouses, wharves, and the like, and, as a matter of -fact, the railroads had these. The agreement of 1872 that the South -Improvement Company should furnish the terminal facilities meant—it -was discovered by the New York Legislature in 1879—that such terminals -as the road already had should be turned over to that concern, and that -thereafter nobody should be allowed to build or use terminals except as -it permitted.</p> - -<p>The New York Legislature found, in 1879, that the oil combination -thus owned and controlled the oil terminal facilities of the four -trunk-lines at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.</p> - -<p>"They can use the power here given, and have used it to crush out -opposition."<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p> - -<p>"Of course, there is in the Erie contract a statement that every -shipper of oil over the road shall be treated with 'fairness' by the -Standard Oil Company, and our attention was drawn to that," the counsel -of the Chamber of Commerce said.... "In the first place, they have the -exclusive shipment of oil, and therefore nobody could ship oil, and -there was no oil handled for anybody else; but if the Erie Company -should send some for somebody else, why, the sloop could not get to the -dock, and the machinery at the dock would not and could not work by -any possibility so as to get that oil out of that dock and into a ship -(except at the end of a lawsuit)."<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> - -<p>Evidently the "cancellation" of 1872 had not cancelled anything of -substance. Indeed, the "no" of 1878 was wider than the embargo of 1872, -for the fourth great trunk-line, the Baltimore and Ohio, was not one of -the signatories then; but by 1878 it had, like all the others, closed -its port to the people—farming it out as the old régime farmed out the -right to tax provinces.</p> - -<p>He used to meet the president of the oil combination "frequently in the -Erie office," a friend and subordinate has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> recalled.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Railroad -offices are pleasant places to visit when such plums are to be gathered -there as this of the sole right to the freedom of all ports and control -of the commerce of three continents.</p> - -<p>Down to this writing, when the little group of independents who remain -masters of their own refineries along Oil Creek seek to send their oil -in bulk abroad, or to transship it at any one of the principal ports -for other points on the coast, the same power still says the same "no" -as twenty years ago.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></p> - -<p class="center">WHO PIPED AND WHO DANCED</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Thus</span>, by 1878, the independent producers and refiners found themselves -caught in a battue like rabbits driven in for the sport of a Prince of -Wales.</p> - -<p>If the richest person then in America—that artificial but very real -person the Pennsylvania Railroad—could not keep its pipe lines, nobody -could. The war for the union, which ended with its surrender in 1877, -closed the pipe-line industry to the people. The unanimous "no" of all -the railroads which followed completed the corral.</p> - -<p>Oil, when it got to market, found that those who had become the owners -of the pipe lines were also the owners of most of the refineries, and -so the only large buyers.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> "Practically to-day there is but one -buyer of crude oil for us.... We take our commodity to one buyer; we -take the price he chooses to give us without redress, with no right of -appeal."<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> - -<p>Then the sole carrier—the pipe-line company—refused to take the oil -into its pipes—the oil as it came out of the wells—unless first sold -to its other self, the oil combination. This was called "immediate -shipment." Forced to waste or sell his oil, the producer, under this -compulsion, had to take what he could get.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> The Hon. Lewis Emery, -Jr., a member of the State Senate of Pennsylvania, gave the authorities -of the State an account of the "immediate shipment" evolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> of -American market liberty. "We go down," he said, "to the office and -stand in a line, sometimes half a day—people in a line reaching out -into the street—sixty and seventy of us. When our turn comes we go in -and ask them to buy, and they graciously will take it. I am an owner in -six different companies, and we all suffer the same."</p> - -<p>To educate the producer to sell "always below the market," the Pipe -Line let his oil spill itself on the ground for a few days. "We lost a -considerable amount of oil, probably several thousand barrels," another -producer said.</p> - -<p>"Will you state at what price as compared with the market price, -whether above or below, you sold that oil?"</p> - -<p>"It was always below."</p> - -<p>Asked why he sold it below the market, he said:</p> - -<p>"Because the line would not run it until it was sold."<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></p> - -<p>The hills of Pennsylvania began to growl and redden as in 1872.</p> - -<p>The Secretary of Internal Affairs was hung in effigy. Mass meetings -were held—some tumultuous, others quiet; processions of masked men -marched the streets, and groaned and hooted in front of the newspaper -offices and the business places of the combination. In the morning the -streets and sidewalks were frequently found placarded with cabalistic -signs and letters, and occasionally printed proclamations and warnings. -Most of the lending newspapers of the region had been either absolutely -purchased by the oil combination or paid to keep silence. Others -occasionally broke forth in violent articles advising the use of -force.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p> - -<p>In the McKean County field the people rose in rebellion. They got up a -Phantom Party, in its provocation and spirit much like a phantom party -which, contrary to law and order, boarded some ships in Boston harbor a -century before. One thousand men, wrapped in white sheets, marched by -night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> from Tarport to Bradford, the headquarters in that province of -the sole buyer. Not a word was spoken.</p> - -<p>It was not enough to make the people sell under compulsion. A day -came when the only buyer would not buy and the only piper would not -pipe. This brought the Parker district to the verge of civil war. The -citizens were in a state of terrible excitement; the pipe lines would -not run oil unless it was sold; the only buyers—viz., the agents of -the oil combination—would not buy oil, stating that they could not get -cars; hundreds of wells were stopped to their great injury. Thousands -more, whose owners were afraid to stop them for fear of damage by salt -water, were pumping the oil on the ground. The leaders used all the -influence they had to prevent an outbreak and destruction of railroad -and pipe lines. The most important of them went over to the Allegheny -Valley Railroad office and telegraphed to the president: "The refusal -to run oil unless sold upon immediate shipment and of the railroad to -furnish cars has created such a degree of excitement here that the -most conservative part of the citizens will not be able to control the -peace, and I fear that the scenes of last July will be repeated on an -aggravated scale."<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p> - -<p>Three of the highest officials of the road sought an immediate -interview with this leader of the producers. He warned them, and the -Pennsylvania road which controlled their oil business, that unless -immediate relief were furnished there would be an outbreak in the -oil regions, because, as he told them, "The idea of a scarcity of -cars on daily shipments of less than 30,000 barrels a day was such an -absurd, barefaced pretence, that he could not expect men of ordinary -intelligence to accept any excuses for the absence of cars, as the -preceding fall, when business required, the railroads could carry day -after day from 50,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil."<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> The warning was -heeded. Thousands of empty cars, which the combination and its railroad -allies had said couldn't be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> had anywhere, suddenly appeared hastening -to Parker, blocking up the tracks in all directions, deranging the -passenger business of the road. "They looked like mosquitoes coming -out of a swamp." The sole buyer began buying again, and for the whole -week, after having declared themselves unable to buy or move any, the -railroads moved 50,000 barrels a day.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> Producers under such rule -saw their prices decrease and their land pass out of their possession, -as was inevitable.</p> - -<p>Ten years later in the Ohio oil-field all the substantial features -of the plan we saw culminate at Parker are to be found in full play. -There, also, the oil combination, Congress was told, is the only -purchaser, and it fixes the price to suit itself. The production of -the Ohio fields was between 18,000 and 20,000 barrels a day, but it -could easily produce between 30,000 and 32,000. Because the only buyer -refused to take care of the oil, wells have been shut back. Wells, -which if opened up would run 1000 or 2000 or even more, were shut in -four days out of the week.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p> - -<p>This culmination of 1878 made the people act. The producers were being -ground to powder by the fact that an enemy had possession of their -local pipes, their tankage, and their railways. "I am the unfortunate -owner," said one of them, "of interests in nearly one hundred pumping -wells. I have produced over half a million barrels of oil."<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> Oil -was running out of the ground at the rate of 15,000,000 barrels a year, -but the New York refiners who were in command of plenty of capital, -said:</p> - -<p>"We don't dare build large refineries, for we don't know where we could -get the oil."<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p> - -<p>At last the people organized the Tidewater Pipe Line. This was the -first successful attempt to realize the idea often broached of a pipe -line to the seaboard. It was the last hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> of the "outsiders"—the -"independents." "Nothing short of the ingenuity that is born of -necessity and desperation" produced that pipe line. It was well -contrived and well manned, and had plenty of money. It was organized in -1878, with a capital of $1,000,000, which increased in a few years to -$5,000,000. It built a pipe from the oil regions to Williamsport—105 -miles—on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, whence the oil -was carried in cars by that company and over the Jersey Central to -Philadelphia and New York.</p> - -<p>Unlimited capital and strategy did all that could be done against the -Tidewater. At one place, to head it off, a strip of land barring its -progress was bought entirely across a valley. It escaped by climbing -the hills. At another point it had to cross under a railroad. The -railroad officers forbade. Riding around, almost in despair, its -engineer saw a culvert where there was no watercourse. It was for a -right of passage which a farmer, whose land was cut in two by the -railroad, had reserved in perpetuity for driving his cattle in safety -to pasture. It did not take long to make a bargain with the farmer for -permission to lay the pipe there.</p> - -<p>The pipe line was finished and ready to move oil about the 1st of June, -1879. On June 5th a meeting was held at Saratoga of representatives -of the four trunk-line railroads and of members of the oil trust. The -meeting decided that the new competitor should be fought to the death. -The rate on oil, which had been $1.15 a barrel, was reduced to 80, -then to 30, to 20, to 15 cents by the railroads, to make the business -unprofitable enough to ruin this first attempt to pipe oil to the -seaboard. Finally the roads carried a barrel, weighing 390 pounds, 400 -miles for the combination for 10 cents or less.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> The representative -of the Tidewater offered to prove to Congress, in 1880, if it would -order an investigation—which it would not—that "the announced and -ostensible object of the conference at Saratoga was to destroy the -credit of the Tidewater, and to enable the oil combination to buy up -the new pipe line, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> that a time was fixed by the combination within -which it promised to secure the control of the pipe line—provided -the trunk-lines would make the rates for carrying oil so low that all -concerned in transportation would lose money.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> There can be no -doubt," he continued, "that, taking the avowed and ostensible object of -the Saratoga meeting as the true one, it constituted, on the part of -the willing participants, a criminal conspiracy of the most dangerous -character."</p> - -<p>One of the chief officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad testified to -the competition which his road had carried on with the Tidewater. -"It certainly was fought," he said; "the rates were considerably -reduced."<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> Rates were put down to points so low that the railroad -men would never tell what they were. I have no knowledge—I have no -recollection—was all the president and general freight agent of the -Pennsylvania Railroad could be got to say, when before the Interstate -Commerce Commission.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> "Not enough to pay for the wheel grease," -said the general freight agent.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> The oil trust also cut the prices -of pipeage by its local lines from 20 cents to 5 cents a barrel, -turning cheapness into the enemy of cheapness.</p> - -<p>But the Tidewater was strong enough to withstand even so formidable -an assault as this. As its business was small, its losses were small; -but the railroads, making this war on it for the benefit of others, -suffered heavily. The trunk-lines, it has been calculated, wilfully -threw away profits equal to $10,000,000 a year for the sake of -inflicting a loss of $100,000 on the pipe lines.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> Enough revenue -was lost to pay dividends of 2½ to 5 per cent. on the total capital -of the roads.</p> - -<p>One effect that followed this reduction in rates was a corresponding -decline in the price of oil at New York, in which the cost of freight -is a constant element. The Committee of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> the New York Legislature found -in the testimony it heard reason to believe that the members of the oil -trust took advantage of their advance knowledge to sell at high prices, -to those who did not know, all they would buy for future delivery.</p> - -<p>The "Hepburn" report of the New York Legislature of 1879 gives special -prominence to the computations that $1,500,000 were the profits of this -speculative deal.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p> - -<p>The customers of the Tidewater, the independent refiners in -Philadelphia, were charged by the Pennsylvania Railroad on oil -that came through the Tidewater 15 cents a barrel for one mile of -hauling. The utmost the law allowed them was half a cent a mile, and -they were carrying oil 500 miles to New York for the same charge of -15 cents a barrel, and less. Under such pressure these independent -refineries, which the Tidewater had been built to supply, sold out -one after another. The Tidewater was then in the position of a great -transporting company, that had spent a large amount of money to -bring a great product to its Philadelphia terminus, and found that -refining establishments which had been begging it to give them oil had -become the cohorts of its opponent. To meet this the Tidewater built -refineries of its own at Chester, and at Bayonne, New Jersey, on New -York waters.</p> - -<p>When asked for a rate to another point, the Pennsylvania gave one that -was three and four times as much as they would charge the oil trust, -but added, "we cannot make a rate on the empty cars returning." That -is, as it was interpreted, "we will carry the oil, but we will not -permit the empty cars to come over the roads to get the oil. They must -be taken on a wheelbarrow, or by canal, or by balloon."<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> The war -went on. Attempts were made to seduce the officials of the Tidewater. -A stockholder, who had been too poor to pay for his stock, received a -large sum from the oil combination and began a vexatious suit for a -receivership.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> A minority<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> forced their way into the offices of the -company, and took violent possession of it by a "farcical, fraudulent, -and void" election, as the court decided in annulling it. Its financial -credit was attacked in the money market and by injunctions against its -bonds.</p> - -<p>Affidavits were offered from members of the oil combination denying -that they had had anything to do with these proceedings. In reference -to these affidavits, the representative of the Tidewater reminded the -court that that combination was a multifarious body. "One-half of -them," he said, "do a thing, and the other half swear they know nothing -about it. In pursuance of this Machiavelian policy, they have eight or -ten gentlemen to conduct negotiations, and eight or ten to say they do -not know anything about them."</p> - -<p>Then, with no visible cause, the capacity of the pipe fell below the -demands upon it. This insufficient capacity was pleaded in court as -one of the reasons why the pipe should be taken out of the hands of -its owners. One day the cause was discovered—a plug of wood. Some -mysterious hand had been set to drive a square block of wood into the -pipe so as to cut down its capacity to one-third. The representative -of the Tidewater declared in court his belief that this plug had been -placed by "people on the other side who have made affidavits in this -case." A similar deed, but much worse, as it might have cost many -lives, was done during the contest with Toledo, nine years later.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p> - -<p>The Tidewater was successful, but not successful enough. It owned 400 -miles of pipe, including the 105 miles of the trunk-line, and had -control of nearly 3,000,000 barrels of tankage. It did a great work -for the people. "It was," the Philadelphia <i>Press</i> said, in 1883, -"the child of war. It has been a barrier between the producers and -the monopoly which would crush them if it dared." While these words -of exultation were being penned, a surrender was under negotiation. -The Tidewater's managers were nearly worn out. These tac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>tics of -corrupting their officers, slandering their credit, buying up their -customers, stealing their elections, garroting them with lawsuits -founded on falsehoods, shutting them off the railroads, and plugging -up their pipe in the dark, were too much. They entered into a pool. -The two companies in the summer of 1883 "recognized" each other, as -the trunk lines do, and agreed to divide the business in proportions, -which would net the Tidewater $500,000 a year. The announcement that -this pool had been forced on the Tidewater fell like a death-blow -on the people of the oil regions. "The Tidewater," the Philadelphia -<i>Press</i> said, editorially, "will probably retain a nominal identity -as a corporation, but its usefulness to the public and its claim to -popular confidence and encouragement were extinguished the instant it -consented to enter into alliance with the unscrupulous monopoly which -resorts to that means of conciliating and bribing what it had failed -to destroy." As was anticipated by the <i>Press</i>, the Tidewater retained -its nominal identity, but that was all. Its surrender was admitted by -its principal organizer, Mr. Franklin B. Gowen. The officials of the -Pennsylvania Railroad have testified to it. "They made an arrangement -of some kind, the conditions of which I never knew; one swallowed the -other or both swallowed the other, or something, and settled up their -difficulties,"<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> said the general freight agent. The president said: -"The competition between these pipe lines ceased."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> - -<p>The attorney of the Tidewater was asked if there were any negotiations -which resulted in a compromise of the differences with the oil -combination.</p> - -<p>"If by differences," he replied, "you mean competition in trade, I -answer the question, yes. That resulted in a written contract.... The -purpose of the contract was to settle the rivalry in business between -the two companies, each company to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> a percentage of transportation -and gathering, and each to do with the oil as it saw fit."<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p> - -<p>The treasurer of the Tidewater, who had been in its service since 1880, -corroborated its attorney. A contract had been made between the two; -the date of it was October 9, 1883. Copies of the contracts are in the -author's possession.</p> - -<p>The Interstate Commerce Commission in 1892 judicially found the same -fact. It says: "About December, 1883, the pipe lines, with the view of -getting better rates, adjusted their differences, and the competition -between them ceased. The pipe-line business appears then to have passed -into the control of the National Transit Company."<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> All but 6 -per cent. of the National Transit Company is owned by the oil trust. -It formed practically one-third the imposing bulk of the $70,000,000 -of the trust of 1882.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> If anything can be made certain by human -testimony this evidence proves that these pipe lines stopped competing -in 1883. The witnesses are the men who negotiated the contract, -and upon whose approval it depended. But when the president of the -trust was asked under oath, in 1888, if there were any pipe lines to -tide-water competing with it, he named, as "a competing company," "the -Tidewater Pipe Line."</p> - -<p>"The Tidewater Company? Does that compete with your company?"</p> - -<p>"It does."</p> - -<p>"It is in opposition to it?"</p> - -<p>"It is in opposition to it."<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p> - -<p>In the same spirit he denied, in 1883, that he had anything to do with -the company which had represented the oil trust in this "swallowing or -something" of the Tidewater. This, the National Transit Company, was -the most important mem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>ber of the trust. Under its cover, by means like -those described, from New York to West Virginia and Ohio, almost all -the pipes for gathering and distributing oil have been brought into one -ownership. Millions yearly of the earnings of this company were pooled -with all the others in the trust, and the president was receiving -his share of them four times a year. He was the sole attorney<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> -authorized to sign contracts for the trustees, who thus held all the -combined companies in a common control. These trustees, of whom he was -the chief, not only controlled but owned as their personal property -more than half the stock of every company represented. But these facts -were not then known to the public. It was not intended that they should -be known, as the struggle to conceal them from the New York Legislature -five years later—in 1888—showed.</p> - -<p>"Have you any connection with the National Transit Company?" he was -asked, after taking the oath.</p> - -<p>"I have not."<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p> - -<p>When the Tidewater passed under this alien control, Mr. Franklin B. -Gowen severed all his connection with it. He did not hold himself -for sale to any man who had money to pay fees. He stood at a height -where the profession of law was immeasurably above prostitution in the -temples of justice—the odious aspect in which the sacrifice of purity -in the ancient temples of Aphrodite is reproduced in our courts. It -would have been impossible for him to combine the functions of a great -law reformer and procurer of judicial virtue for railroad corporation -wreckers. He never forgot what some successful lawyers seem never to -remember—that the lawyer is, as much as the judge, an officer of the -court and of justice. While he lived he was proud to be recognized -as the chief defender in the courts of the rights of those whom it -was sought to crush in this industry, although he thus allied himself -with the poor and heavy laden. He could have used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> his anti-monopoly -eloquence as an advertisement of his value to monopoly; but he would -not sell his soul to fill his stomach. His heart revolted against the -wicked cruelty with which he saw the strong misuse the weak, and his -penetrating vision saw clearly the ruin to which overgrown power and -conscienceless greed were hurrying the liberties of his country. In his -speech before the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1883, advocating a law to -prevent the use of railway power by railway officials to redistribute -the property of the people among their favorites, he said, speaking of -what had been done in the oil regions of Pennsylvania: "If such a state -of facts as I now call your attention to had been permitted by any -government in Europe or Asia for a six months, instead of the sixteen -years it has existed in this Commonwealth, the crown and sceptre of -its ruler would have been ground into the dust, and yet the good, -honest, patient, long-suffering people have submitted to it in this -Commonwealth until the time has come that if we hold our peace the very -stones will cry out.</p> - -<p>"I for one intend to submit to it no longer. You may say it is unwise -for me to attack this wrong, but I have attacked it before and I will -attack it again. If I could only throw off the other burdens that rest -upon my shoulders, I would feel it to be my duty to preach resistance -to this great wrong, as Peter the Hermit preached the crusade. I would -go through this State from Lake Erie to the Delaware; I would go into -every part of this Commonwealth and endeavor, by the plain recital -of the facts, to raise up such a feeling and such a power as would -make itself heard and felt, and by the fair, open, honest, and proper -enforcement of the law, right the wrong, and teach the guilty authors -of this infamous tyranny</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 35%;"> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"'That truth remembered long:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When once their slumbering passions waked,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The peaceful are the strong.'"</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>Mr. Gowen bravely fulfilled his pledge not to submit. His principal -occupation became the championship in the courts and the Interstate -Commerce Commission of those who were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> oppressed by this crushing -power. His incorruptible lance was always in place, until the morning -he was found dead in his room in Washington.</p> - -<p>The oil combination had, up to this time, sent all its oil east by -rail as it had no pipe line, and its faithful fools, the railroads, -therefore burned their fingers with joy to roast the Tidewater for so -good a customer. But while the railroad officials were wasting their -employers' property to destroy the combination's new competitor, its -astute managers, seeing how good a thing pipe lines were, quietly -built a system of their own to the seaboard. The railroads had helped -them get hold of the pipe lines—had in repeated cases, as the Erie, -the Atlantic and Great Western, the Pennsylvania, the Cleveland and -Marietta did, allowed them to lay their pipes on the lands of the -railroads—and were now to see the pipe lines used to replace the -railroads in the transportation of oil. These oil men saw what the -railroad men had not the wit to see—or else lacked the virtue to live -up to—that the pipe line is an oil railway. It requires no cars and -no locomotives; it moves oil without risk of fire or loss; it is very -much cheaper than the ordinary railway, for this freight moves itself -after being lifted up by pumps. The pipe line was the sure competitor -of the railway, fated to be either its servant or master, as the -railroad chose to use it or lose it. The railways sentimentally helped -the trust to gather these rival transportation lines into its hands; -then the trust, with the real genius of conquest, threw the railroads -to one side. A system of trunk-line pipes was at once pushed vigorously -to completion in all directions. While the members of the oil trust -were building these pipe lines to take away the oil business of the -railroads, the officials of the latter were giving them by rebates the -money to do it with. At the expense of their own employers, the owners -of the railroads, these freight agents and general managers presented -to the monopoly, out of the freight earnings of the oil business, the -money with which to build the pipe lines that would destroy that branch -of the business of the roads.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - -<p>It was the Tidewater that proved the feasibility of trunk pipe lines. -The trunk pipe lines the combination has built were in imitation. -Extraordinary pains have been taken to sophisticate public opinion -with regard to all these matters—for the ignorance of the public is -the real capital of monopoly—and with great success. The history we -have transcribed from the public records is refined by one of the -combination into the following illuminant:</p> - -<p>"About 1879 or 1880 it was discovered that railways were inadequate to -the task of getting oil to the seaboard as rapidly as needed. Combined -capital and energy were equal to the emergency. No need to detail how -it was done. To-day there reaches,"<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> etc., etc. It must have been -on some such authority that this, from one of our leading religious -journals, was founded: "Only by such union"—of the refiners—"could -pipe lines have been laid from the oil wells to the tide-water, -reducing to the smallest amount the cost of transportation."<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> An -account of the pipe-line system in the New York <i>Sun</i>, of December 14, -1887, describing the operations of the great pumps that force the oil -through the pipes, says: "Every time the piston of the engine passes -forward and back a barrel of oil is sent seaward. A barrel of oil is -forced on its way every seven seconds of every hour of the twenty-four. -Every pulsation of the gigantic pumps that are throbbing ceaselessly -day and night is known and numbered at headquarters in New York at the -close of each day's business." This heart of a machine, beating at the -headquarters in New York, and numbering its beats day and night, stands -for thousands of hearts whose throbs of hope have been transmuted into -this metallic substitute. This heart counts out a gold dollar for every -drop of blood that used to run through the living breasts of the men -who divined, projected, accomplished, and lost.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></p> - -<p class="center">CHEAPENING TRANSPORTATION</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Through</span> all the tangle of this piping and dancing one thread runs -clear. The oil combination had up to this time been dependent on the -railroads for transportation, but it emerged out of the fracas the -principal transporter of oil, made so by the railroads. It now had two -trunk pipe lines to the sea-coast—the one it had conquered and the one -it had built—and the railroads had made it a present of both of them.</p> - -<p>The Tidewater—the first seaboard pipe line—had been built only -because the Pennsylvania and other trunk lines had said "no" to every -entreaty and demand of the oil regions for a road to the sea. That line -the railroads had conquered for the combination, as they conquered for -it the pipe lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1877. The second -seaboard pipe line was built by the combination with the railroads' -money to take away the railroads' business, and best—or worst—of all, -while the railroads were hard at work driving the Tidewater into its -net. Such is the business genius of our "railroad kings."</p> - -<p>This campaign closed, the duty of the hour for the oil ring was to get -rates advanced by rail as well as pipe.</p> - -<p>"Then they"—the pipe lines—"were anxious to get good paying -rates,"<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> so that they could make a good thing out of the business -of their own pipe and of the Tidewater which they had guaranteed -$500,000 a year. The advent of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> independent Tidewater had brought -rates down. The restoration of exclusive control by its capture put -rates up. But it was not enough for the oil combination to advance -their own rates. It must induce the railroads to do the same. The -railroads had furnished the means for the acquisition of both pipes, -and they must now be got to drive business away from themselves to -these competing oil railways. This would seem to be a delicate matter -to achieve, but there was no trouble about it.</p> - -<p>"It is our pleasure to try to make oil cheap,"<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> the president of -the oil trust told Congress, but it did not use its new facilities -to take in hand at reduced cost the carriage of all oil, and give -the industry the economic advantage of the pipe-line idea. Quite the -contrary. It united with the railroads to increase the cost. Under this -new blow the independent refiners and producers whom the Tidewater -had been built to keep afloat grounded again. Then the railroads—the -Pennsylvania especially—repented of what they had done to these their -oldest customers, and sent ambassadors to them to renew the broken -promises of 1872, that if they would rebuild they should forever -have equal rates and fair treatment. One of the highest officials of -the Pennsylvania was sent to them to say: We recognize our error in -permitting your refineries to be abandoned and the traffic destroyed. -We wish to build up and maintain independent refining in the oil -regions. We will give you every encouragement. We will insure you equal -rates, on which you can ship and live.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p> - -<p>These invitations and guarantees were repeated and pressed. They were -renewed by the officials of the Erie also: "You need have no hesitation -in building up your business," said the officials of the Erie; "You -shall have living rates."<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> - -<p>The independents listened and believed. They rebuilt their works and -prospered.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> This meant the return of cheapness—cheapness of -transportation over the railroads, to en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>able the refiners they had -invited back to life to compete in the market—cheapness of light. -Thereupon, incredible as it seems, the Pennsylvania and the other -railroads were influenced to declare war again upon the men who had -reinvested their money and their life energy in response to these -solicitations. This new war began with a secret contract, in 1885, for -an advance in rates against the independent refiners, who, in trustful -reliance on the pledged faith of the railroads, had developed their -capacity to 2,000,000 barrels a year.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> - -<p>This campaign has lasted from 1885 until the present writing, 1894. In -it the pipe lines, the oil combination, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and -all the other great carriers between the independents and their markets -in New England, Europe, and Asia, have been mobilized into a fighting -corps for the annihilation of the independents. This case illustrates -nearly every phase of the story of our great monopoly: dearness instead -of cheapness; willingness of the managers of transportation to deny -transportation to whole trades and sections; administration of great -properties like the Pennsylvania Railroad in direct opposition to -the interests of the owners—to their great loss—for the benefit -of favorites of the officials; great wealth thereby procured by -destruction, as if by physical force, of wealth of others, not at -all by creation of new wealth to be added to the general store; -impossibility of survival in modern business of men who are merely -honest, hard-working, competent, even though they have skill, capital, -and customers; subjection of the majority of citizens and dollars to -a small minority in numbers and riches; subservience of rulers of the -people to a faction; last and most disheartening, the impotence of the -special tribunal created to enforce the rights of the people on their -highways.</p> - -<p>This secret contract of 1885 was thus described by the counsel of the -refiners before the Interstate Commerce Commission: "It is a contract," -he said, "so vicious and illegal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> that the Pennsylvania Railroad -refuses to bring it into court for fear a disclosure of its terms might -subject it to a criminal prosecution."</p> - -<p>The courts have never been allowed to see it, but its provisions are -known. Some of them were admitted before the Interstate Commerce -Commission to be what was charged, and others were described on the -trial by the counsel of the independents from personal knowledge. By -this contract the railroad and the oil combination bound themselves to -advance rates, and to keep them the same by pipe and rail. In return -for this pledge by the railroad not to compete it was guaranteed -one-quarter—26 per cent.—of the oil business to the seaboard. The -Pennsylvania Railroad made no attempt to deny that it had made this -contract. It admitted that it had an arrangement "substantially the -same as stated."<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a></p> - -<p>The combination was the largest shipper of oil, and yet it wanted -freight rates advanced. It had pipe lines which could easily take to -the seaboard all the oil that went thither, and yet it gave up a large -part of the business to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania -Railroad knew that the pipe line was a competitor for the carriage of -oil, and yet allowed it to dictate an arrangement by which the railroad -got only one-quarter of the business, and signed away its rights to win -a larger share if it could.</p> - -<p>The railroad had persuaded the independent refiners to settle along its -line by solemnly promising them fair and living rates, and yet now put -its corporate seal to an agreement to make those rates whatever their -enemy wanted them to be. Such was its honor. As for its shrewdness, -that had at last brought it to this humiliation in a business where -it had once been chief, of confining itself to this insignificant -quarter of a restricted traffic instead of a competitive share of a -traffic enlarged by freedom to the widest correspondence to the wants -of the people. The mastery of the railroad men by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> the oil people was -thorough. The latter did not agree to give the railroad one-quarter -of their business. Not at all. All the traffic that came of itself to -the railroad, or which its freight solicitors drummed up, must be put -to the credit of the guarantee. All that was promised the railroad was -that its total should amount to one-quarter of the whole traffic. All -the rest the oil combination kept for itself.</p> - -<p>The contract went at once into vigorous operation. Freight rates to -the seaboard, which had been 34 cents, and, as was proved before the -Interstate Commerce Commission, were profitable, were advanced to 52 -cents a barrel—an increase of one-half. The railroad and the pipe line -made the raise in concert, as had been agreed, and when the rates were -changed again it was to still higher figures. Why should the clique, -which had its principal refineries at the seaboard—to which it had -to transport large quantities of oil—scheme in this way to raise the -rates of transportation? Because it paid this excessive rate on only a -small part of its own shipments, and compelled its rivals to pay it on -all of theirs. The independents had no pipe line of their own, but the -combination sent its own oil east by its own pipe line, excepting only -the quantity it needed to add to the shipments over the Pennsylvania to -make good its guarantee to that railroad of one-quarter of the traffic.</p> - -<p>The cost of the pipe-line service to its owners is very small. When the -manager of the pipe lines was before the Interstate Commerce Commission -the lawyers of the railroads, as zealous for the oil combination, -though it was not a party in the case, as for their own clients, fought -through eleven pages of argument against having him compelled to tell -the cost of pumping oil through the pipe to the seaboard; and when -the Commission finally said, "Go on," all the general manager of the -pipe lines had to say was, "I do not believe that it is possible to -know."<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p> - -<p>Finally, he was cornered into an estimate that the cost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> of pumping was -6 or 7 cents a barrel. His questioner, who had been the organizer and -manager of a great pipe line—the Tidewater—knew that oil had been -pumped through for 4 cents a barrel, but he could not get his witness, -who, no doubt, had done it still cheaper, to admit anything of the kind.</p> - -<p>The net effect of this pool with the railroad was that the oil -combination succeeded in making its rivals pay 64 cents a barrel to -reach the East and the seaboard, while it paid only 16<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>—except on -the traffic guaranteed the Pennsylvania Railroad—a difference against -competition of 48 cents a barrel, a difference not for cheapness. "It -only costs the pipe line 7 cents," the independents explained to the -Interstate Commerce Commission, "and the published rate is 52. They are -willing to pay 52 or even 70 cents on some of their product if they can -make the other people pay 52 upon the whole of theirs."</p> - -<p>So much of the contract as we have referred to was admitted. Why was -it, then, the counsel for the railroad fought against showing it, even -to the point of pleading that it might incriminate his client?<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> -It was asserted, as of his personal knowledge, by the counsel of the -independents that this was because another part of the bargain gave the -proof that the rates which had been made under the agreement to put -them up and keep them up were extortionate; that by a bargain within -the bargain the oil combination carried oil for the railroad for the -280 miles for which they ran practically side by side, and for this -charged it only 8 cents a barrel. The public, shipping either by the -railroad or by the pipe line, had to pay 52 cents a barrel for 500 -miles; but by this arrangement between themselves the two carriers -would do business at 8 cents a barrel for 280 miles, at which rate the -charge to the public to the seaboard should have been not quite 15 -cents instead of 52 cents.</p> - -<p>The statement was also made that the oil combination, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>stead of -giving the railroads the business it has guaranteed them, makes its -obligation good by turning over to them periodically a check for the -profits they would have had on hauling that amount of traffic. As the -guarantee was made as a consideration for the maintenance of high -freight rates, such a payment by it would amount, in cold fact, to -paying those in charge of the highways a large bribe to deny the use of -them to the people.</p> - -<p>This declaration of the provisions of the bargain was made by the -counsel for the refiners seeking relief from the Interstate Commerce -Commission. In his argument demanding the production of the document -he said: "I have had it in my hand and read every word of it, and know -exactly what it contains."<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p> - -<p>The sharpest legal struggle of the case was made on the demand that -this paper be produced. The Commission decided that it was "wholly -immaterial," although the chairman had previously said: "It seems to us -that we cannot exclude this evidence." It was a document establishing -interstate rates, and these are required by law to be published, and -the Commission had always before this been liberal in compelling the -production of papers which related to the making of rates.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> The -Commission had shortly before been threatened in this case by the -counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad with extinction if it insisted -upon evidence of the cost of piping oil which the oil combination -refused to give.</p> - -<p>"It is possible that the powers of this Commission may be tested,"<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> -bullied the counsel of the railroad. The members of the Commission -laughed ostentatiously, but, for whatever reason, they gave the -powerful corporations on trial no cause thereafter to "test their -powers," which have slept while justice tarried, and the victims of -this "contract" were kept under its harrow for three long years more, -where they still lie.</p> - -<p>The tax levied upon the consumers of oil by this agree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>ment for high -freights amounts to millions a year. This agreement is at this writing -still in force. There is reason to believe that similar arrangements -exist with the other trunk-lines. The result is the surprising fact -that "oil rates are very much higher than they were twelve years ago, -and when there was no pipe-line competition!"<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> This is true also -in the field of local pipeage—the transportation of the oil from the -wells to refineries and railroads. Under the caption of "cheapening -transportation" the counsel of the oil trust said, before the New York -Legislature in 1888: "In 1872 the pipe-line system was in its infancy. -A number of local lines existed. Their service was inefficient and -expensive. There was no uniform rate. The united refiners undertook to -unite and systemize this business. They purchased and consolidated the -various little companies into what was long known as the United Pipe -Line System. The first effect of this combination was a reduction of -price of all local transportation to a uniform rate of at first 30, and -soon after 20 cents per barrel."<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p> - -<p>"The united refiners" and "to unite and systemize" are smooth phrases, -full of the unction of good-fellowship and political economy. When -the "united refiners" took possession of the pipe lines which had -been forced into bankruptcy or "co-operation," they did not reduce -rates—they advanced them. "The uniform rate of 20 cents," for -instance, is an advance of 300 per cent. on the rate of 5 cents made -by the trust's pipe-line system during the war with the Tidewater, -and over the similar rates made during the earlier pipe-line -competition.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> The nominal rate, Congress learned from one of the -oil-country men, was 30 cents for that service, but by competition the -actual rate was down to 5 or 10 cents. "They consolidated and placed it -at 20 cents, and it has remained at 20 cents, I think, since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> the year -1876.... The whole process of transportation has been cheapened. Pipe -that cost 45 cents a foot has in that time been got for 10 cents. The -quality of the pipe was improved, so that there is not the leakage or -the wastage. There are all those improvements and inventions that have -cheapened it. We pay the same now as we did fifteen years ago. We have -reduced the cost of our wells at least 50 per cent. They have reduced -nothing."<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> From other sources, once in a while, facts have come to -light showing how much less than cheap the local charge of 20 cents -a barrel is. For instance, it was shown before Congress that a line -which, with its feeders, had fifty miles of pipe, and cost $70,000, -made a clear profit in its first six months of $40,000, charging -sometimes less than this rate of 20 cents a barrel.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p> - -<p>It is impossible to compute how much the defeat of legislation to -regulate charges, or to allow the construction of competing lines, has -cost the people. The Burdick Bill alone, to regulate prices of pipeage -and storage in Pennsylvania, it was calculated by conservative men, -would have saved at least $4,000,000 a year. The killing of it was in -the interest of keeping up the high prices of the pipe lines, which -finally rest in the price of oil.</p> - -<p>When the combination got possession of the pipe line to Buffalo, which -others had built in spite of every obstacle it could interpose, it -raised the rates of pipeage to 25 cents a barrel from 10 cents,<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> -and as happened in Pennsylvania in 1885, the railroads to Buffalo in -1882 raised their rates simultaneously with the pipe line. Pittsburg -had the same experience. When its independent pipe line was "united -and systemized" by being torn up and converted into "old iron," as the -Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad had told its projectors -it would be, the rates of transportation for oil went up.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> The -same thing happened at Cleveland. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> the rate at which the Lake Shore -road carries oil from Cleveland to Chicago—357 miles for 38 cents a -barrel—it should charge less than 15 cents for the 140 miles between -Oil City and Cleveland; but as late as 1888 it charged 25 cents. -Why? The effect of the railroad charge is that little oil comes by -rail to Cleveland from the oil regions; it goes by the pipe line of -those whom the Lake Shore has been "protecting" ever since the South -Improvement contract of 1872. There have been 3,000,000 barrels of -this business yearly. The railroad officials exercise their powers to -drive traffic from the railroad to a competing line. Why? We can see -why the combination, which, by the possession of this pipe line, is a -competitor of the Lake Shore, should desire such an arrangement; but -it exists by the act of the Lake Shore Railroad. Why? The theories of -self-interest would lead one to expect that the stockholders of the -road would find out why.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p> - -<p>The pipe lines are the largest single item in the property of the oil -combination. Here its control has been the most complete; and here the -reduction of price has been least. This is a telltale fact, soon told -and soon understood.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></p> - -<p class="center">SONG OF THE BARREL</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Genius</span> could take so unspeakable a thing as a shirt and sing it -into an immortal song, but a barrel—and an oil-barrel, greasy and -ill-smelling—even genius could do nothing with that. But the barrel -plays a leading rôle in the drama of the great monopoly. Out of it -have flown shapes of evil that have infected private fortunes, the -prosperity of more than one industry, the fiduciary honor of great -men, the faithfulness of the Government to its citizens. Perhaps -a part of what genius could do for the shirt—force a hearing for -the wronged—may be done for this homely vessel of the struggling -independent by the kindly solicitude of the people to learn every -secret spring of the ruin of their brothers.</p> - -<p>The market—the barrel that went to market—the freight rate that -stopped the barrel that went to market—the railway king who made the -rate that stopped the barrel that went to market—the greater king who -whispered behind to the railway king to make the rate that stopped the -barrel that went to market—this is the house that Jack unbuilt.</p> - -<p>Such is the superiority of a simple business organization, where -"evolution" has not carried the details of the industry out of sight -of the owner, and where the master and man, buyer and seller, are in -touch, that the independent refiners could overcome the tax imposed -on them by this pooling of the pipe line and the railroads, and not -only survive but prosper moderately. During the three years—from -1885 to 1888—following the first attack upon them under the contract -just described, they state, in their appeal to the Interstate -Commerce Commission in 1888, they were "enabled by their ad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>vantages -in the local markets to keep up, maintain, and even increase their -business."<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> These "outsiders" shipped their oil largely in barrels -because the trunk-lines had made it as nearly impossible as they -could for them to ship in tank-cars. They, like all in the trade, -could not live without access to the European market. Out of every -hundred barrels of various kinds of products from the distillation -of petroleum, forty are of an illuminating oil not good enough to be -burned in this country. It must be sold in Europe or not sold at all; -and a manufacturer who cannot get rid of 40 per cent. of his product -must give up manufacturing. To destroy the barrel method of shipment -would destroy those who could use no other; and to close their outlet -to Europe would make it impossible for them to continue to manufacture -for the home supply. The barrel was the only life-raft left to the -sinking independent.</p> - -<p>They who had planned the secret pool of 1885 between the pipe line -and the railroads, and the further advance of rates by both in 1888, -now called upon the railroads to deliver a final stroke against the -independents.<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> The railroads, when directed in previous years to -say "no" to applications for transportation, and "no" to those who -wanted the right to put their own tank-cars on the road, had obeyed; -they obeyed again.</p> - -<p>A pretext for the suppression of the barrel was easily found. It was -a poor one, but poor pretexts are better than none. When the future -"trustees" of the "light of the world" were doing a small fraction -of the business, they got the contract of 1872 from the railroads to -"overcome" all their competitors, on the pretext of "increasing the -trade."<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> When by this contract and those that followed it they had -secured nine-tenths of the trade, they got the railroads to say "no" -to the remaining one-tenth, on the pretext that they could not ship as -much.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> When the Interstate Commerce law declared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> it to be a crime -for railroads to forbid persons the road because they could not ship as -much as others, the combination had the railroads shut out its rivals, -on the pretext that they did not use tank-cars,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> although tank-cars -"are worse than powder." When regular tank-cars were offered by its -competitors for shipment—as to the Pacific coast—the combination -introduced an inferior tank-car, of which it claimed, without warrant, -as the courts afterwards held, that it owned the patent, and so -obtained the sole right of way across the continent, on the pretext -that other shippers did not use this poor car.<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a></p> - -<p>The pretext now used against the refiners of Pennsylvania was the -passing phrase, "He must pay freight on barrels," in a decision of -the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning Southern traffic. This -decision had no relevancy to the oil business of the North. Six months -went by after it was given with no intimation from any one that it -related in any way to the situation in Pennsylvania, and to be so -applied it had to be turned inside out and upside down. In the Rice -case the Commission had decided that freight rates must be reduced on -barrel shipments. This was, in the sharp language of the decision, to -put an end to "the most unjust and injurious discrimination against -barrel shippers in favor of tank shippers," a discrimination which the -Commission has elsewhere said "inured mostly to the benefit of one -powerful combination."</p> - -<p>In ordering this reduction it said: "Even then the shipper in barrels -is at some disadvantage, for he must pay freight on barrels as well as -on oil."</p> - -<p>By "must pay" the Commission meant "was paying." It was, as it -afterwards protested, "rather a statement of a prevailing practice -than a ruling."<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> And the remark furthermore concerned the trade in -the South and Southwest alone, where special circumstances existed not -found at the North.</p> - -<p>Six months after this decision the Pennsylvania and other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Northern -roads made these words, "He must pay freight on the barrels," the -occasion of an increase of rates, which stopped the refineries of -the independents. They were carrying free the heavy tanks—"the -most undesirable business we do," in the language of their freight -agent. They had been carrying the barrels of the independents free -for twenty years. Now, continuing to carry the tank-cars free, they -levied a prohibitory transportation tax on the barrels. To cap it all, -they declared, in announcing the new rule, that it had been forced -upon them by the Interstate Commerce Commission. But the President -of the Pennsylvania Railroad is found admitting that it was the oil -combination that dictated the move—"the seaboard refiners insisted." -"Upon your decision" (in the Rice case) "being promulgated," he wrote -the Interstate Commerce Commission, "the seaboard refiners insisted -that we were bound to charge for packages," barrels, not tanks, "as -well as for the oil."<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p> - -<p>The seaboard refiners were the members of the oil trust; the others -at the seaboard had been wiped out years before by the help of the -railroads. Though the Pennsylvania Railroad was not a party to the case -before the Commission, though it had not been called upon to change -its practice, which was what it ought to be, it did now change it from -right to wrong. The Commission had ordered that discrimination between -the barrel and the tank should cease. The Pennsylvania, which had not, -strange to say, been practising that forbidden kind of discrimination, -immediately resorted to it, and, stranger still, gave as its reason the -order of the Commission against it. It must have been a keen eye that -could find in a "qualified and incidental remark," as the Interstate -Commerce Commission styles it, in such a decision, a command to charge -for the weight of the barrels and increase freight rates; but such -an eye there was—an eye that will never sleep as long as Naboth's -vineyard belongs to Naboth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> - -<p>All the trunk-line railroads to the East took part in the new -regulation—September 3, 1888—that freight must be paid thereafter -on the weight of the barrels as well as on the oil itself, and at the -same rate. This increased the cost of transportation to New York to -66 cents from 52 cents, and to other points proportionately. Freight -rates on the oil of "the seaboard refiners" who shipped in tanks were -left untouched. In the circulars announcing the change it was said to -be done "in accordance with the directions of the Interstate Commerce -Commission."<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> When the refiners whom this advance threatened -with ruin wrote to expostulate, they got the same reply from all the -railroad officials as from President Roberts of the Pennsylvania -Railroad: "The advance in rates ... has been forced upon us by the -Interstate Commerce Commission."<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p> - -<p>The Commission immediately called the responsible official of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, which was the leader in this move, "to a -personal interview," "expressed their surprise," and suggested the -withdrawal of the circular and of the increased rates. This was in -August.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> No attention was paid to this by the road. The Commission -waited until October 10th, and then sent a formal communication to -the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was followed by -correspondence and personal conferences with him. The Commission -pointed out that the statement of the circular was "misleading," "not -true," "decidedly objectionable"; that the Commission had made no -decision with reference to the rates of the Pennsylvania Railroad or -the other Eastern lines; that its decision, applicable solely to the -roads of the South or Southwest, had been that rates on barrels must -be reduced, and that it was not right to use this as an excuse for -increasing the rates on barrels. Finally, the Commission said that -if it had made any ruling applicable to the Pennsylvania Railroad it -would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> been compelled to hold that its practice, of twenty years' -standing, of carrying the barrels free, since it carried tanks free, -was "just and proper," and that there was nothing to show that an -advance in its rates was called for.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a></p> - -<p>The Interstate Commerce Commission was the body specially created by -Congress to interpret the Interstate Commerce Law. The Pennsylvania -Railroad was one of the common carriers under the orders of the -Commission, and its managers were subjects of jurisdiction, not judges. -But its method of running the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as if it -were one of its limited trains, was now applied with equal confidence -to the Interstate Commerce Commission. It insisted that it was itself, -not the Commission, which was the judge of what the latter meant by -its own decisions. The road continued the rates against which the -Commission protested. The Commission demanded that the assertions that -the new rule of charging for the barrels and the advance of rates was -made "in accordance with the directions" of the Interstate Commerce -Commission be withdrawn. The Pennsylvania road responded with another -circular, in which it changed the form but repeated the substance. "The -action referred to was taken for the purpose of conforming the practice -of this company to the principles decided by the Interstate Commerce -Commission." The Commission protested that it was not laying down any -such "principles" but the corporation declared that that was what it -"understood," and held to the advance made on that understanding.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a></p> - -<p>To the almost weeping expostulations of the Commission in interviews -and letters, to show that it had said nothing which could justify the -action of the roads, the officials made not the slightest concession. -"I did not consider it in that way," said one of them.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> "That -was their (the Commission's) view of the case, but it was not shared -by us," said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. "It was -considered best to continue the practice," he said.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a></p> - -<p>"Why did you not rescind the order?" he was asked before the Interstate -Commerce Commission.</p> - -<p>"We understood their ruling to be a ruling for the whole country," he -incorrigibly replied.</p> - -<p>The railway president studiously withheld any assurance that he would -obey if the Commission issued a direct command, which it had not done, -though it had the authority.</p> - -<p>"We would then take the subject up," he said.</p> - -<p>Change the order to comply with the ruling of the Interstate Commerce -Commission the roads would not and did not.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p> - -<p>All the roads to the seaboard and New England had made the order in -concert, and together they maintained it. It was one hand, evidently, -that moved them all, and though that hand moved them, for the benefit -of a carrier rival of theirs—the pipe line of the trust—against their -own customers, against their own employers, against the authority of -the United States Government, all these railroad presidents and freight -agents obeyed it with the docility of domestic animals.</p> - -<p>These officials were the loyal subjects of a higher power than that of -the United States, higher even than that of their railway corporations. -They serve the greatest sovereign of the modern world—the concentrated -wealth, in whose court the presidents of railways and republics, kings, -parliaments, and congresses are but lords in waiting.</p> - -<p>Thanks to the superior enterprise of their greater need, the -independents of Oil City and Titusville had been able to survive the -blows that had preceded, but this was too much. They had weathered -the surrender in 1883 of the Tidewater Pipe Line, which had promised -them freedom forever. Even the "contract" which made the allied pipe -lines and the railroads in 1885 one, to tax them half as much again -for transportation, had not broken them down. In spite of it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> they had -been able "to maintain and increase their business."<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> But now they -closed their works. The new attack had been shrewdly timed to spoil -for them in that year—1888—the season of greatest activity in the -export to Europe and Asia. They appealed to the Interstate Commerce -Commission. "The greater proportion of our refineries are idle."<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> -"I have not a customer in the entire New England States. I have not had -since the advance of last September."</p> - -<p>"How was it before the advance?"</p> - -<p>"I had a number of customers."<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a></p> - -<p>Labor, though, as always, the most silent, suffered the most. Three -hundred coopers were thrown out of work in Titusville alone within a -short time, and the loss of employment to the workmen in the refineries -was still more serious. This was not because trade was bad. Exports -were never greater than in 1889. Government statistics reveal as in a -mirror what was being done.</p> - -<p>The exports of refined petroleum increased 21 per cent. in 1889 over -1888. But Perth Amboy, from which the independents shipped for the -most part, showed a decrease of over 18½ per cent. By the stroke of -a freight agent's pen the business of these men was being taken from -them, to be given to others. The general tide was rising, but their -feet were sinking in a quicksand.</p> - -<p>The export business of Boston in oil was given to the "seaboard -refiners" by the same stroke. Freights that had been $100 were now $174 -to Boston, and $188 to New York. These rates were so high as to stop -oil from going through. "The Nova Scotia trade," it was testified, -"goes to New York, and from there by water, whereas they used to buy -in Boston. Boston brokers will ship oil from New York and get it to -Nova Scotia cheaper than if it went from Boston, whereas when we had -the export rate we could compete in that market."<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> Two months -later most of what remained of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the business of the independents in -New England was added to the gift of their foreign trade, which had -already been made to the "seaboard refiners." By an order of October -25, 1888, the railroads made it known to these "pestilences," as the -lawyers of the railroads called the independent refiners in court,<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> -that they would not be allowed to send any more through shipments into -New England. This was done, as in Ohio in 1879,<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> without the notice -required by law, though in the meantime a Federal law had been passed -requiring notice.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p> - -<p>This order was the finishing touch in the task of using the freight -tariff to prevent freight shipment. It shut the independents—the -hunted shippers—out of over 150 towns in New Hampshire, Vermont, -Maine, Massachusetts, including Manchester, Burlington, Portland, -Salem, in which they had built up a good business, and it made -it impossible to reach these places except by paying high local -rates—from station to station—which were not required of their -competitor, who shipped on through rates. The railroads would take the -oil of the independents for shipment, but would not tell them what the -rates would be. In this, as in all the moves of this game, we see the -railroad managers of a score of different roads, at points thousands -of miles apart, taking the same step at the same time, like a hundred -electric clocks ticking all over a great city to the tune of the clock -at headquarters that makes and breaks their circuit.</p> - -<p>The independents were saved by a Canadian railroad from the destruction -which American railroads had planned for them. The Grand Trunk gave -them a rate by which they could still do some business in the upper -part of New England, though to do this they had to ship the oil into -Canada and back into the United States. The effect of this abolition of -through rates in "cheapening" oil was that the people of Vermont, for -instance, had to pay 2 cents a gallon more than any other place in New -England.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> - -<p>While all access for others to New England was cut off, the "seaboard -refiners," sending the oil in free tanks to the seaboard, transshipping -it there into vessels by the facilities of "which they have a -monopoly,"<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> easily made their own the business of their rivals in -the 150 towns from which the latter were thus cut off. No one has been -able to move all the railroads in this way, as one interlocking switch, -to obey a law or accommodate the public. But it was done easily enough -for this kind of work. Possession was got of the railway managers at -the initial points, as was done so successfully in another case,<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> -and all the other railway managers, as far as Boston, followed in their -trail. Reproducing the tactics in Ohio in 1879, it was only against oil -that this attack of the tariff was made. Other freight for export, of -which there was a vast variety, continued to be carried to Boston at -the same rate as before.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></p> - -<p>All the freight agent of the initial road had to do with the oil on its -way to Europe was to pass it along to the next line. Whether, after -leaving his road, it went by the way of Boston or that of New York made -no difference to his road, and was in no way his affair. But it made a -great deal of difference to those who wanted all the business of Europe -and America for themselves, and we consequently find him serving them, -and dis-serving his employer (the railroad), by charging 21 cents a -barrel if the oil was going to Boston after leaving his line, but only -15-56/100 cents if it was going to New York. When asked if he thought -he was justified as a railroad man under the law in making the charges -for what he did vary according to what was done by the business after -it left his hands, he refused to answer.</p> - -<p>"You will not answer?"</p> - -<p>"Not at present."<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a></p> - -<p>All the connecting and following roads are on record as having -protested against the measures in which they followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the lead of -the initial lines.<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> The freight agent of the West Shore Railroad -declared that the prohibition of through shipments to the towns of -Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine "occurred simply -through mistake;" but the mistake, he acknowledged, had never been -corrected.<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> This "mistake" and that of September, which preceded -it, put an end to a large business, amounting in 1888 to 900,000 -barrels. The men, whom the railroads began to massacre after having -pledged them full protection, saved a fraction of their trade in -New England, as we have seen, only by taking refuge with a foreign -railroad. The railroads against their will, as they swore, lost -business as well as honor, but the mistake was not corrected.</p> - -<p>It would tax the imagination of a Cervantes to dream out a more -fantastic tangle of sense and nonsense in quixotic combat than that -which these highwaymen spun out of the principles of "scientific -railroading." All that highway control could do to destroy the barrel -shippers for the benefit of the tank shippers was done; and yet the -barrel method is the safer and more profitable for the railroads.<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> -The cars that carry oil in barrels can return loaded; the railroads -have to haul the tank-cars back empty and pay mileage on them.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> For -a series of years on the Pennsylvania Railroad the damage from carrying -oil in barrels was less than half the damage from the carrying of oil -in tanks.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> The general freight agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad -Company tells the Interstate Commerce Commission that the carriage of -oil in tank-cars "is the most undesirable business we do." He described -a smash-up at New Brunswick where there was a collision with a line of -tank-cars. The oil got on fire; it ran two squares, got into a sewer, -overflowed the canal, which was then frozen over, and followed the ice -a square or two beyond. Besides having to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> pay nearly five hundred -thousand dollars damages for the destruction done, the railroad lost -its bridge, which cost two or three hundred thousand dollars. It lost -more money than it could make carrying oil for ten years. "I regard -it," he said, "as worse than powder to carry; I would rather carry -anything else than oil in tanks."<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> Barrel shipments being the best -for the railroads, these princes of topsy-turvydom move heaven and -earth to destroy them.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p> - -<p>There was no end to the "mistakes" made by the railroads for the -"self-renunciation" of their business, though this was in favor of -those whose pipe line made them rivals. They charged more for kerosene -in barrels than for other articles of more value, contradicting -their own rule of charging what the traffic will bear. They let the -combination carry sixty-two gallons in every tank free on the theory -of leakage in transportation. "The practice," said the Commission, "is -so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no discussion of it is -necessary;" and they ordered it discontinued.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a></p> - -<p>Though the railroads brought back the tanks free, for the return of -the empty barrels they never forgot to charge. This charge was made so -high that at one time it prohibited the return from all points.<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> -"The monopoly uses a large number of barrels in New York City," the -independents said to the Commission; "it is to its interest that empty -second-hand barrels should not be returned to the inland refiner." When -this was brought out the Pennsylvania and other railroads promised to -make reparation, but had not done so years later when the case was -still "hung up" in the Interstate Commerce Commission.</p> - -<p>It was not lack of capital or of diligence that made the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>dependents -use barrels instead of tanks; tanks were useless to them. All the -oil terminal facilities of the railroads at the seaboard had been -surrendered to the combination for its exclusive use.<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> These were -the only places where tank-cars could be unloaded into steamers. "There -are no facilities to which we, as outside refiners, have access to load -bulk oil into vessels," and none where these refiners could send oil in -tank-cars to be barrelled for shipment abroad.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> No matter how many -tank-cars and tank-vessels the independents might have provided, they -could not have got them together. Between the two were the docks in the -unrelenting grip which held solely for its private use the shipping -facilities of these public carriers. Not even oil in barrels could the -independents get through these oil docks.</p> - -<p>The Weehawken oil docks of the Erie road on New York harbor are the -best in the world. The Erie Railroad has $920,760 invested in them, but -only one shipper can use them either for tanks or barrels.</p> - -<p>The Western traffic manager of the Erie was asked:</p> - -<p>"Would you take a shipment there over the Erie road of independent oil -consigned to the New York docks?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p> - -<p>The Pennsylvania Railroad refuses to haul tank-cars for the -independents to any other point at New York than the terminals so -controlled by the combination. It will not haul them to other docks of -its own. It will not let oil be shipped over its line to the points -at which it connects with other roads for other harbors, though it -will take shipments of anything else than oil.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> This amounts to a -refusal to allow the independents to use tank-cars or tank-steamers. -Practically the same policy is pursued by all the main trunk-lines. -These independents could get rid of their export oil only by selling -to the combination. Through its other self—the company which controls -the terminals—it has kept an agent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> in the oil regions for years to -buy for export this refined oil which its owners and makers could not -export themselves. This is the "immediate shipment" of 1878 in another -phase.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p> - -<p>"You have to sell to the Standard Oil Company in order to get your oil -shipped in bulk from Communipaw?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"The independent cannot get his oil into a bulk vessel at Communipaw?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a></p> - -<p>To meet these disclosures the Pennsylvania presented two affidavits. -One was from its general freight agent that its tank-cars were offered -freely to all; but it did not deny, for it could not deny, any of -these facts about terminals, which explained why the flies did not -walk into its parlor. The other affidavit was from the secretary of -the corporation controlling the terminals for the oil combination, and -it similarly declared that its accommodations were furnished "upon -exactly the same terms to all." How long it had been doing so, or how -long it would continue to do so, it did not state, as the independents -pointed out to the Commission. If this were the truth instead of -being, as the independents hinted, "evidently a situation that has -been recently arranged for the purposes of this application"—to the -Interstate Commerce Commission for further delay—why had none of the -independents, dying for want of export facilities, resorted to it? This -was not explained, for it could not be. The independents explained the -situation to the Interstate Commerce Commission: "The inland refiner -who intrusts his oil to a storage company at the seaboard with a view -to exporting, puts himself completely into the power of such concern. -The exactions that may be unfairly imposed in individual cases for -'loss by leakage,' 'dumping and mixing for off-color or off-test,' -'cost of water white oil for mixing,' 'tares,' 'tares guarantee,' -'commissions on sales,' 'interest on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> goods until loaded and paid for,' -'incidental expenses,' and many other known matters of charge, may -amount to a partial confiscation of the cargo."</p> - -<p>The corporation which manages this monopoly of the terminals at -Communipaw is a mysterious concern. Who own its stock, and what its -relations with the railroad are, the Interstate Commerce Commission -could not find out. Its president and treasurer were summoned to -testify, but refused to attend. The manager of the oil combination's -pipe lines stated that he knew of stock in the company that was owned -by a member of the trust, though he afterwards qualified that he -did not know it "positively."<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> The charge that this company was -controlled by the monopoly was specifically made before the Interstate -Commerce Commission and was not denied, and the Commission found -that the oil combination "have a monopoly of those facilities to the -exclusion of complainants."<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> It thus reported the same state of -facts in 1892 as the New York Legislature in 1879.</p> - -<p>The barrel was therefore the fountain of life for the independent. -Without barrels he could not get his oil on board ship for export, and -without exporting he could not live and refine for the home market. -The oil combination ships in barrels also. According to the figures -given in this case by one of its "assistant managers" its shipments by -barrel are very large. This testimony was introduced to make it appear -cruel to insinuate that the difference between barrels and tanks was -made by the railroads to favor it, since it as well as the independents -used barrels. The Commission openly expressed its dissatisfaction with -this evidence, and dismissed the subject by the conclusive observation -that the combination gains more by the low tank-car rates than it -loses by the high barrel rates.<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> For the independent, however, the -difference in rates was almost all loss, for he at that time shipped -mostly in barrels. The high prices it made for oil and for freights at -Titusville and Oil City did not hurt the combina<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>tion. It had only to -close its refineries there and transfer their business for the time to -its establishments elsewhere. This it did, keeping some of them idle -for years.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p> - -<p>Such was the story told to the Interstate Commerce Commission, in many -hundred pages of testimony, by the refiners of Oil City and Titusville, -who appealed to it for the justice "without expense, without delay, and -without litigation" promised the people when the Interstate Commerce -Commission was created.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> The game, of which you have perhaps -been able to get a dim idea from the printed page, the Commissioners -saw played before them like chess with living figures. For years -the principal subject of their official investigations had been the -manœuvres of the oil ring. They had been compelled by the law and -the facts to condemn its relation with the railroads in language of -stinging severity, as every court has done before which it has been -brought. Better than any other men in the country, except the men in -the ring, the Commissioners knew what was being done. They comprehended -perfectly who the "seaboard refiners" were whose demand that their -competitors should be shut out of Europe and New England was better law -with the Pennsylvania Railroad than the decisions of the Commission. -They needed no enlightenment as to the purpose of the secret contract -between the members of the oil trust and the Pennsylvania, nor any -instruction that the "pool" between the pipe line and the railroad was -as hostile to the public interest as any pool between common carriers.</p> - -<p>The chairman of the Commission had openly hinted that the relations of -the oil trust and the railroads were collusive, and that the spring -from which they flowed was a secret contract.<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> It was shown to the -Commission that at the same time the railroads advanced their rates the -oil combination bid up the price of the raw material of the Titusville -and Oil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> City refineries. This is called "advancing the premium."<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> -The raise of the freight rate added 14 cents a barrel to the cost of -production, and the increased price of oil put on 12 cents more, either -item large enough to embarrass competition. The Interstate Commerce -Commission in its decision recognized the practical simultaneity of -the three movements to the disadvantage of the independent refiners: -(1) the bidding up of the price of crude oil against them; (2) the new -rule of charging for the weight of the barrel; and (3) the abrogation -of the through rates to New England. These three things occurred in a -period of about two months. This, the Commission says, lends color to -the charge that there was concert of action between the combination and -the railroad.</p> - -<p>The Commissioners in their sittings had seen that the counsel for the -railroads did not pretend to bring forward any evidence to prove that -their attack on the barrel shippers was just or proper. Although "the -seaboard refiners," for whose pecuniary profit these things had been -done, were not on trial, their witnesses, agents, and attorneys were -in constant attendance, and kept close watch of the testimony and -arguments. The Commission had its attention called specifically to the -fact that the defence of the railroads on trial was being directed by -the same "seaboard refiners" who had "insisted" that the railroads -should violate the law. The counsel for the Erie road was frank -enough to admit that it was they who had prompted that carrier in its -litigation before the Commission. When the Erie appeared before the -Commission to give "further testimony," its representative could not -tell at whose request its application therefor had been made, and said -he had known nothing about the matter until the day before. Three of -the six witnesses then examined were from the offices of the oil trust, -whose members had refused to come when summoned. The only subpœnas -they obey are those issued from their own headquarters.</p> - -<p>The president of the oil combination's pipe lines—who is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> also -the president of the steamship line in which its members are -interested—and the vice-president of the pipe lines, and the president -and the treasurer of the company which holds for the trust the monopoly -of the terminal facilities, and the President of the New York, Lake -Erie, and Western Railroad, and its vice-president, were all served -with official notice to come and testify. But these gentlemen refused -to appear. "It is for your honors," said the counsel for the refiners, -suggestively, "to determine what obedience shall be paid to your -subpœnas."<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> But the Commission did nothing.</p> - -<p>The defendant corporations, and their lawyers, officers, and witnesses, -made no pretence of treating the Interstate Commerce Commission with -anything more than a physical respect. The representatives of the -railroad companies practically told the Commission that its decisions -were subordinate to theirs, and that they knew better than it what -its rulings meant. Witnesses refused to answer questions they found -awkward, and the lawyers gave the court to understand that if it did -what they did not like they would snuff it out. The Commission heard -one of the refiners who was a petitioner before it assailed with -coarse vituperation, described in open court as a "pestilence,"<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> -because he had dared to write more than once to the railroads for the -reduction of rates which would save him from destruction, and which the -Commission had, not once, but half a dozen times, said the railroads -ought to give to all.</p> - -<p>The Commission had itself, outrunning the complainants, been the first -to "pointedly disapprove" the attempt to destroy the barrel shippers, -and to call upon the railroads to rescind their action. This protest -it had made repeatedly—first with the subalterns, then with the chief -of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in personal interviews, letters, and -finally in an official pamphlet, which was an appeal to the public to -judge between it and the corporation. It had reiterated its protest -in a formal decision rendered September 5, 1890, after delib<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>erating -seven months on the evidence and arguments. In this "they recalled -the fact, now almost ancient history, that" the change was "pointedly -disapproved by the Commission" when first made, and with lamentations -noted that, though almost two years had passed, "the carriers have -failed to comply with the suggestions there made. In charging for -the weight of the barrels as well as the oil, the carriers that make -use of both modes of transportation have disregarded the principles -plainly and emphatically laid down by the Commission in the cases -cited, and have paid no attention to the subsequent official memorandum -explanatory of the decisions in those cases, but have persisted -in maintaining a discrimination against barrel shippers. An order -requiring the discontinuance of the discrimination has therefore become -necessary."<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a></p> - -<p>An order has therefore become necessary. The Commission then ordered -one road concerned in this separate case to "cease and desist" within -thirty days. Although several cases affecting a number of refiners and -a number of roads had been heard and submitted together, as practically -one in traffic, territory, circumstances, and the main question, it -confined its decision to the case which involved only one road, and -that a subordinate. There the Commission stopped; and there it stuck -for more than two years, from September 5, 1890, to November 14, 1892, -refraining from a decision in the case of the principal offender, the -Pennsylvania Railroad.</p> - -<p>The Pennsylvania Railroad is the representative carrier in the oil -traffic. It controls all the oil business that passes over its lines, -no matter how far away it originates. The initial road which led -the attack on the barrel shippers is subsidiary to the Pennsylvania -in the oil business, and the Pennsylvania controls its rates and -regulations.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> The Pennsylvania has been the head and front of the -railroad attack on these men, and has been the open nullifier of the -law and the Commission in this matter. It was the principal defendant -on trial, and its case<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> was identical with that of the others, except -that it was the most flagrant; but no order would the Commission issue -against it for two years. Wendell Phillips says: "There is no power -in one State to resist such a giant as the Pennsylvania road. We have -thirty-eight one-horse legislatures in this country; and we have a man -like Tom Scott with three hundred and fifty millions in his hands, and -if he walks through the States they have no power. Why, he need not -move at all; if he smokes, as Grant does, a puff of the waste smoke -out of his mouth upsets the legislatures." When the Commission had -ordered a change of rates on barrels in the South, the Pennsylvania did -the Commission the double disrespect of declaring that that order was -binding upon itself against the protest of the Commission, and of using -an order to reduce rates as an excuse for raising them. But now when -the Commission, September 5, 1890, made a decision on the same point in -a case arising in the territory and traffic in which the Pennsylvania -was the chief carrier—a case, too, of a bunch of cases in which the -Pennsylvania was a defendant—that road ignored it. The Commission, -in the Rice, Robinson and Witherop case, in 1890, promulgated the -very rule which the Pennsylvania Railroad established, which it had -been following for twenty years, and which its officers before the -Commission swore was the correct one, but the Pennsylvania refused -now to accept and follow it. The road which was now ordered to go -back to the correct practice, and which had perforce done so, was the -initial road. The Pennsylvania had followed its initiative in adopting -a "false" and "misleading" and "unwarranted" practice, but would not -follow it in changing to the good.</p> - -<p>The attitude in which the Pennsylvania road and the Commission were -thus placed towards each other was this: Shall the Pennsylvania -Railroad be allowed to make a charge which the Commission volunteered -to rebuke it for making, and which it had decided, in the parallel -case of another road in the same situation, was altogether unwarranted -and must cease? They stood thus facing each other more than two years. -There was apparently no excuse for delay the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> Commission would not -accept. At one time it granted postponement on the plea of a lawyer -that his father was sick. More than the lawyer's father were sick; a -whole community of business men were sick; the entire country was sick, -its industry, law, politics, morals—all. The administration of justice -was sick. If the facts had been uncertain, or the law undetermined, -the course of justice would still have seemed cruelly sluggish; but -here was a matter in which the facts and the law in question had been -settled, and by the Commission itself, over and over again. The only -thing remaining was that the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well as the road -which was its next neighbor, must obey the law. The railroad against -which the Interstate Commerce Commission decided in 1890 on this point -joined the Pennsylvania at Irvineton and Corry. The Commission put the -law into force on one side of those points, but for two years gave -the Pennsylvania Railroad and others "rehearings" and other means of -delay, and did not open its lips to say that the same law must reign on -the other. The conduct of this corporation meant that it intended to -respect neither the Interstate Commerce Commission nor the Interstate -Commerce law; that it recognized the will of cliqued wealth as the -supreme law; that the protestations of loyalty to the law and the -Commission with which it accompanied its defiance of both were not -offered as a disguise of respect, but were chosen as a method which -would most embarrass the people's tribunal in upholding itself and the -rights of the citizens. All that was needed by those who had contrived -and were continuing the wrong was time—they had everything else. Time -they got, and plenty of it.</p> - -<p>July 15, 1891, the refiners said to the Commission: "Two and one-half -years have elapsed since these complaints were filed, and the end -is not yet. We earnestly hoped that we had succeeded in convincing -this Commission that this respondent was inflicting on complainants a -great and unnecessary wrong, which merited the most speedy remedy and -redress possible. If we have failed in this we are unable to ascribe -the failure to a lack of evidence or promptness in pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>senting it. -It was not thought possible that all this great length of time would -be required to reach a conclusion in these matters, under all these -circumstances, especially after the decision in the Rice, Robinson, -and Witherop case (September 5, 1890). The enemies of the complainants -could scarcely have found or wished for any more effectual way of -injuring complainants than by a long delay of their cause. Further -delay simply means further injury to complainants." The two years -and a half have gone on to more than five years. A decision has been -made, but the end is not yet. The delay prevented the injured men from -going to any other tribunal with their complaint. They have succeeded -in keeping alive, though barely alive, because the price of their raw -material has declined a little, and given them a margin to cling to. -This delay has denied them justice in the special tribunal they were -invited to attend, and has also denied them the relief they could have -got from other courts.</p> - -<p>The Commission heard all this urged by eloquent counsel. It heard the -men who were being crushed tell how their refineries were being closed, -their customers lost, their business wrecked, their labor idle, while -the trade itself was growing larger than ever. It saw the statistics -which proved it. But no practical relief have the independents of -Oil City and Titusville been able to get from it. They have lost the -business, lost the hopes of five years, lost the growth they would have -made, lost five years of life.</p> - -<p>This delay of justice is awful, but it is not the end, for the -decision, though it came at last in November, 1892, has brought no -help. It required the roads to either carry the barrels free or -furnish tank-cars to all shippers, and for the past ordered a refund -of the freight charged on barrels to shippers who had been denied -the use of tank-cars. More than five months after it was rendered -the independents, in an appeal (April 20, 1893) to the Interstate -Commerce Commission, called its attention to the fact that "none of -the railroads in any one of the cases has as yet seen fit to obey -any of its orders save such and to such extent as they found them -ad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>vantageous to themselves, although the time for doing so has -expired." More appalling still, it appeared, in an application made -in March, 1893, by the Pennsylvania Railroad for a reopening of the -case, that these years of litigation were but preliminary to further -litigation. The counsel of the railroad, in the spirit in which it -had previously warned the Commission that its powers "may be tested," -now informed it that the road, if the application for further delay -were not granted, would "await proceedings in the Circuit Court for -enforcement of what it believed to be an erroneous order." And in -another passage it referred to the proceedings before the Commission as -being simply proceedings "in advance of any final determination of the -case on its merits." Four years and a half had been consumed when, as -the independents pleaded to the Commission, "it might reasonably have -been expected that as many months would have sufficed," and yet these -are only preliminary to "the final determination of the case on its -merits."</p> - -<p>"The delay suffered has been despairing—killing," was the agonized cry -of the independents in their plea to the Interstate Commerce Commission -not to grant this new delay. "We pray that no more be permitted." -But in November, 1893, more delay was permitted by granting another -application of the Pennsylvania Railroad for "rehearing." This was -limited to thirty days, but these have run into months, and "the end is -not yet." Five years have now passed in this will-o'-the-wisp pursuit -of justice "without delay."</p> - -<p>And another "outsider," who has been a suppliant since March, -1889,<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> before the Interstate Commerce Commission for the same -relief—the free carriage of barrels where tanks are carried free—is -still a suppliant in vain. The Commission consumed three years in -hearings and rehearings, only to report itself unable to decide this -and other important points raised by him. It was "a most perplexing -inquiry," "we are not prepared to hold," "we desire to be made -acquainted with the present situation," and "the results ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>hibited -by recent experience." "No such intimation is intended," said the -Commission, as that it is right for the roads to charge for barrels -when they carried tanks free—not at all. "We simply refrain" from -stopping the wrong, and "reserve further opinion for fuller information -and more satisfactory inquiry." Perhaps, however, by "voluntary -action"<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> the railroads which had contrived this wrong would be -good enough to stop it, though the Commission was not good enough to -order them to do so! The Commission held that the rates were "unlawful; -but, for want of sufficient data, we do not undertake to point out -the particular modifications and reductions which would satisfy the -demands of justice."<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> "We are not now prepared to determine," "we -feel unable to prescribe," "is not now decided," "reopened for further -evidence and argument," are the phrases with which the Commission -glided away from the settlement of other vital points as to which its -intervention had been invoked for more than three years. Even when it -directed the railroads to reduce their charge it added "to what extent -the Commission does not now determine, and the cases will be held open -for such further," etc. And there his case hangs even unto this day, -for since this "not-now-decided" decision the "outsider" has never -renewed his appeals to the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning -these cases or others,<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> but, hopeless of redress, has let them go -by default.</p> - -<p>The secret contract stands, but the barrel men survive, barely, despite -monopoly, by changing to tank-cars, and getting a pipe-line and some -terminals. They create seaboard facilities and persuade the Jersey -Central to haul their tanks. To meet this road they lay the pipe now to -be described, and, to escape railroads altogether, will build to New -York, if not ruined meanwhile.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></p> - -<p class="center">UNFINISHED MARCH TO THE SEA</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Between</span> May and December, Sherman made his march from Lookout Mountain -to the sea, cutting the Confederacy in two. For thirty years the people -of Pennsylvania have been trying to break a free way to the ocean -through the Alleghanies and the oil combination, and in vain. For ten -years the hope of independent outlet to the sea from the oil-fields -of Pennsylvania lay prostrate under the blow of the surrender of the -Tidewater. Twice the people have tried again, only each time to be -headed off. The first of these two rallies collapsed in the shut-down -of 1887; the second was stopped at the cannon's mouth by an armed force -at Hancock, New York, in the year of peace, 1892.</p> - -<p>By 1887 the people of the oil regions had recovered from the shock of -losing the independent Tidewater Pipe Line,<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> and began to make new -plans for getting to the sea. By some means the committee to whom they -had intrusted the management of the new enterprise was persuaded to go -to New York to confer with the officers of the oil combination, who had -measures of conciliation to propose that would make it unnecessary to -build the new pipe lines. This committee, and finally the constituency -it represented, were made to believe that the cause of the woes of the -oil country was simply and only that there was too much oil—not that -there were too many empty or half-filled lamps. They agreed to cut -down their business one-half, and were lured away from the project of -getting full prices on a full product. The outcome was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the "shut-down" -of 1887. The producers were persuaded it would bring back oil to a -dollar a barrel—to stay there; but after a brief and unremunerative -spurt in values, a reaction, lasting to the present, carried prices to -a lower level than ever, and the producers found that the last state of -those who let such spirits enter them is always worse than the first.</p> - -<p>Several times before this the oil producers had tried to imitate the -policy of scarcity, which the most brilliant business successes are -teaching to be the royal road to wealth. It is stated by the report of -the General Council of the Petroleum Producers' Union<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> that the -producers had twice entered into arrangements with the oil combination -to lessen the product and regulate the price of crude petroleum, and -that in each case the arrangement had been violated by the latter -when it seemed about to become profitable to the producer. Hence, -when invited to confer for a third venture of this sort, the Council -declined to do so. But in 1887 the invitation, extended for the fourth -time, was a third time accepted. The producers succeeded in the -restriction, but they did not better their condition. These men gave -the world the spectacle of the producers flirting with the solitary and -supreme buyer of their product, in the belief that he would help them -to raise their price against himself.</p> - -<p>The agreement which was made with the producers was shown before -Congress.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> The producers were bound for a year from November 1, -1887, "to produce at least 17,500 barrels of crude petroleum less per -day," and to make it, if possible, "30,000 barrels less per day." In -return for this the oil combination agreed to give the speculative -profits on 6,000,000 barrels of oil—the profits on 5,000,000 for -them, and on 1,000,000 for their laborers. This move of those who want -petroleum cheap to make it dear is one of the equivocations of policy -in which princes have always distinguished themselves. The need of -the hour was to stop the building of the competing pipe line. That -was accomplished by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> scheme of the shut-down, which amused the -producers, and, as subsequent prices proved, did not hurt the buyer of -their oil; quite the contrary.</p> - -<p>Drills and pumps at once ceased their operations throughout the oil -regions. Working-men were thrown out of employment, stores were closed, -hundreds of families had to subsist on charity. One of the Broadway -producers who made this bargain for the shut-down admitted to the -committee of the New York Legislature that "the oil-producing interest -was abnormally depressed," and "that there was great distress."<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> -The agreement itself recites that the price of petroleum had been -during the preceding year "largely below the cost at which it was -produced." The people of the oil country went to work with desperation -to enforce the policy of oil famine. Committees were formed among the -well-drillers in each district, "whose duty," the formal papers of -organization stated, "shall be to keep a lookout for and endeavor to -prevent the drilling of wells." "We have no way of stopping those who -want to drill wells," one of the officers of the organization said, -"only by good, reasonable talk." The Well-drillers' Union appointed -and paid one of their members to reason with people who insisted upon -digging wells. It is not necessary to question the good faith of the -assurance their officials gave Congress that his duties did not require -the use of nitro-glycerine. But, "unofficially," nitro-glycerine was -freely used to enforce the shut-down. Men who failed to feel the -influence of the "good talk," and went on putting up machinery, and -drilling wells, would find their derricks blown into kindling-wood. -Referring to one of these occurrences, a member of the Well-drillers' -Union told Congress it was a case where no permission had been granted -by the union to drill.</p> - -<p>"Was the rig destroyed?" he was asked.</p> - -<p>"The derrick was blowed up by some kind of compound."</p> - -<p>The quantity of the "compound" was enough to shake windows six miles -distant. The derrick and the machinery were "cheapened" into junk.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Did you ever know of a case of any man's derrick and apparatus being -blown up in the oil region before the formation of this association?" -one of the shut-downers was asked.</p> - -<p>"I could not say that I do."<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a></p> - -<p>The owner of the apparatus destroyed, it was stated by the press, had -been repeatedly requested to join the shut-down, but had refused. There -were several such occurrences, recalling the affairs at the Buffalo -refinery in 1885.<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> When the people in Pennsylvania saw apostles of -the gospel of making oil cheap enter into a bargain with them to make -it scarce, it is not surprising that they should have become bewildered -to the point of thinking that the noise of nitro-glycerine was "good -talk," and should have sunk into the depression, monetary and moral, -that alone could make such haggard faces rise among an honest laborious -people.</p> - -<p>We have seen how the refiners who pass under the control of the -trust are compelled to make monthly reports. The same perfectness of -discipline appears at once among the producers in this shut-down. -Every one of them had to make monthly reports of how much oil he had -taken out of the earth. If the mobilization of industry goes on at -the rate of recent years, it will not be long—not later, perhaps, -than the end of the nineteenth century—before all producers, and all -makers, will be sending monthly reports to New York of grain, cattle, -iron, wool, lumber, leather, and the manufactures of them to trustees, -whose "pleasure it is to try to make them"—the men as well as the -commodities—"cheap." The supervision by means of these monthly reports -was so close that over-production, however minute, was immediately -known. If the owner of a well over-produced only the one-hundredth of a -barrel, he got a notice to go slower.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></p> - -<p>To the producers engaged in it the result of the shut-down was -that when their representatives at the end of it called on the oil -combination in New York for the profits on the 5,000,000 barrels of -oil set apart for them, as agreed, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> were given a check for a sum -between $200,000 and $250,000.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> This was divided among those who -had co-operated—nearly one thousand—in proportion to their share -in the good work of making the supply of the light of the people so -much "less per day." The drama of industry has not many scenes more -striking than this of these men—the principal producers of the oil -country, which had yielded in the thirty years up to this time more -than 300,000,000 barrels of oil—going to the great syndicate in New -York to buy the privilege of restricting the production of their own -wells, thankfully accepting the scanty profits on a speculative deal -in the oil exchange of 5,000,000 barrels, receiving with emotions of -enthusiasm a check for a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a -year's "co-operation" from the men who had made out of their product -hundreds of millions.</p> - -<p>The shut-down was a great disappointment in prices. The average price -of petroleum at the wells for October, the month before the shut-down, -was 70-7/8 cents a barrel. The highest monthly price reached during -the restriction was 93-5/8, in March, 1888. The average for October, -1888, the last month of the year originally agreed upon, was 90-5/8. -By a subsequent understanding the restriction was continued until -July, 1889. The price then was 95-1/8. At no time during the shut-down -was the coveted dollar mark maintained, and it was barely touched -in March, 1888, after which there was a sharp decline to 71-3/8 in -June, with savage losses to "the lambs." High prices did not come -until the accumulation of 6,000,000 barrels set aside "for the use" -of the producers had been sold out. After that there were in the -winter following—1889-90—a few months in which the price rose, as to -$1.12½ in November, 1889, but it sank the year following to 60¾ -in December, 1890, and it continued to go down until crude oil reached -50 cents in October, 1892, the lowest point known since there was an -oil market.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> - -<p>The men with whom the producers made their bargain, shrewder than they, -and versed in the dynamics of the markets, knew that the effect of -setting apart 6,000,000 barrels of oil would be ultimately depressive -to prices, not stimulating. Not knowing when or at what price this vast -amount would be unloaded, buyers, both for use and for speculation, -would be made timid, and prices would be held in check. The shut-down -produced a great gambling mania. Untold millions were lost by men in -the oil country, who gambled on the exchanges to make the profits -of the expected advance. Local panics, bank failures, ruin in all -its shapes, were the escort of shame and loss which marched with the -shut-down. Curiously enough, it was those who speculated for the rise -who were the losers. There was against them an element which knew -better than they what prices were going to be, for it made them. It -is this ability of insiders to bet on a certainty which has been the -destruction of the oil exchanges. From Pittsburg to New York they are -now practically all dead.</p> - -<p>The amount of the reduction effected by the shut-down, independent of a -natural decline which had set in some months before, has been estimated -at 11,000,000 to 15,000,000 barrels. The production ran down from -25,798,000 barrels in 1886 to 21,478,883 in 1887, and 16,488,688 in -1888. In 1889 it was up to 21,487,435 again, and in 1890, 29,130,910.</p> - -<p>The price of light advanced. When the negotiations were in progress the -producers were told that if the flow of oil glutting the market could -be stopped the price of refined could be advanced, and that for every -eighth of a cent a gallon advance in it the producers could expect an -advance of 4 cents a barrel on their crude oil. Refined advanced during -the shut-down to a price to correspond to which the crude should have -risen to 96 cents a barrel. Instead, its price fell to 78 cents. The -committee went to New York "to protest." Their New York ally said there -was no change in the markets of the world. That they could get the -price for the refined, but they did not propose to hold up the price of -the crude. "If we could not do that, they could not help it."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> - -<p>"He had refined to sell, and crude to buy?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a></p> - -<p>This shut-down, the New York <i>Tribune</i> said, was "one of the most -interesting economical experiments made in recent years." It was, as -the New York <i>World</i> said, "one of the largest restrictive movements -ever attempted in commerce." The president of the trust, when examined -on February 27, 1888, by the New York Legislature, as to the agreement -for the shut-down, declared positively that nothing of the kind had -been done.</p> - -<p>"There has been no such agreement?" he was asked.</p> - -<p>"Oh no, sir!... Oil has run freely all the time."</p> - -<p>"And no attempt to do that?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a></p> - -<p>He afterwards recalled these denials, and excused himself on the ground -that as he had been in Europe when the arrangement was made he had -known of it only "incidentally."<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> A "shut-down" on facts is as -necessary to the success of the schemes for scarcity as a shut-down in -oil. There are too many facts, as well as too much oil.</p> - -<p>"By advancing the price of the crude material you necessarily advance -the price of the refined?" another of the combination was asked.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a></p> - -<p>The average price of refined at New York for export was 6.75 -cents a gallon in 1887. This rose to 7.50 in 1888, the highest -average price for any year between 1885 and 1893.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> The effect -of the restriction—"one of the most extensive ever attempted in -commerce"—was thus to make oil and light and all its other products -scarcer and dearer. The producers really got no good. After the -shut-down had been in progress five months, their committee issued -an address congratulating them on the "glorious results" achieved in -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> fidelity with which the pledge of restriction had been kept, but -continued, "But prices are not yet remunerative."<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></p> - -<p>"We do not seem to have gotten it," one of the producers said to -Congress, referring to the assistance they expected in an advance of -the price to profitable figures.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> No lasting gain came to any one -unless to the monopoly, and it is possibly too soon to tell whether its -gain will be "lasting."</p> - -<p>Part of the speculation was that the profits of 2,000,000 barrels, -contributed equally by the combination and the producers, were to be -distributed among the working-men affected by the loss of employment. -Men who had been earning $12 a day received a dollar a day from this -fund, and lay idle.<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> A blistering picture of the condition of the -region is to be seen in the testimony of one of the producers.</p> - -<p>"The payments that you have made, or that your assembly has made, have -been to individuals?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"State what the character of the occupation of the individuals thus -relieved was in relation to the shut-in."</p> - -<p>"Pumpers and roustabout men who had families sick and impoverished. -That was a source of relief to them, and we did not withhold it. It was -in our community, and we thought we could well afford to allow them -that."</p> - -<p>"For what did you pay them?"</p> - -<p>"For charity's sake."</p> - -<p>"Did you give them any occupation?"</p> - -<p>"We had it not to give; we gave them money instead."<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a></p> - -<p>This was the melancholy end of the great shut-down. But the people -were not broken by their new failure. They did not lie long in the -cul-de-sac into which they had been trapped. There is a magnificent -reserve force of public spirit and love of liberty in the province -of William Penn and the chosen State of Benjamin Franklin. The oil -business has been a thirty years' war. The people have been whipped -until one would suppose defeat had become part of their daily routine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> -but there have always been enough good men who did not know they were -beaten to begin fighting again early the next morning. It was so when -the independents of Pennsylvania took the pool of the oil trust's pipe -lines and the railroads before the Interstate Commerce Commission, -only to reap the unexpected demonstration that the tribunal created by -Congress to prevent and punish discrimination was but one more theatre -for litigation and delay.<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> Leaving their cause on the floor of the -Interstate Commerce Commission, these men went forth for the seventy -and seventh time to build a pipe line of their own, on which they are -now busy. Their numbers, resources, and hopes are less, but their will -and courage are undiminished. To-day, in northwestern and western -Pennsylvania this small, determined body of men are going forward with -a new campaign in their gallant struggle for the control of their own -business. Their efforts have been, a friendly observer says, not too -warmly, as heroic and noble and self-sacrificing as the uprising of a -nation for independence.</p> - -<p>Of all this very little has been known outside the oil regions, for -the reason that the newspapers there are mostly owned or controlled -by the oil combination,<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> or fear its power. The last independent -daily in northwestern Pennsylvania became neutral when the threat -was made to place a rival in the field. With sympathy from but few -of the home press, ridiculed by the "reptile" papers, and met at -every turn by crushing opposition, and annoyances great and little -from spies and condottieri, these men are, in 1894, working quietly -and manfully to cut their way through to a free market and a right -to live. Their new pipe line has been met with the same unrelenting, -open, and covert warfare that made every previous march to the sea so -weary. The railroads, the members of the oil combination, and every -private interest these could influence have been united against them. -As all through the history of the independent pipe lines, the officials -of the railways have exhausted the possibilities of opposition. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> -Wilkes-barre, where a great net-work of tracks had to be got under, -all the roads united to send seven lawyers into court to fight for -injunctions against the single-handed counsel for the producers. They -pleaded again the technicalities which had been invoked afresh at -every crossing, although always brushed away by the judges, as they -were here again. Though they have allowed their right of way to be -used without charge for pipe lines which were to compete with them, -the railroads refused to allow the independents to make a crossing, -even though they had the legal right to cross. Not content with the -champerty of collusive injunctions, they have resorted to physical -force, and the pipe-layers of the independents have been confronted -by hundreds of armed railroad employés. When they have dug trenches, -the railroad men have filled them up as fast. Appeal to the courts has -always given the right of way to the independents, but the tactics -against them are renewed at every crossing because they cost them heart -and money, and they have not the same unlimited supply of the latter as -of the former. Their telegraph-poles have been cut down, lawyers and -land-agents have been sent in advance of them to make leases of the -farmers for a year or two of the land it was known they would want. For -a few dollars earnest-money to bind the bargain, a great deal of land -can be tied up in such ways. In some cases conditional offers would -be made guaranteeing the owner five times as much as the independents -would give, whatever that might be. Further to cripple them, a bill -was introduced into the Pennsylvania Legislature and strongly pushed, -repealing the law giving pipe-line companies the right of eminent -domain.</p> - -<p>The Erie, which has let the combination lay its pipe lines upon its -right of way, and bore there for oil,<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> has been conspicuous in its -efforts to prevent the new pipe line from getting through. The line at -last reached Hancock, New York; there it had to pass under the Erie -Railroad bridge in the bed of the river. The last Saturday night in -November, 1892,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the quiet of Hancock was disturbed by the arrival -of one hundred armed men, railroad employés, by special train. They -unlimbered a cannon, established a day and night patrol, built a beacon -to be fired as an appeal for reinforcements, put up barracks, and left -twenty men to go into winter quarters. Dynamite was part of their -armament, and they were equipped with grappling-irons, cant-hooks, -and other tools to pull the pipe up if laid. Cannon are a part of the -regular equipment of the combination, as they are used to perforate -tanks in which the oil takes fire. To let the "independents" know what -they were to expect the cannon was fired at ten o'clock at night, -with a report that shook the people and the windows for miles about. -These opponents of competition were willing and ready to kill though -their rights were dubious, and there could be no pretence that full -satisfaction could not be got through the courts if any wrong was done.</p> - -<p>For weeks Hancock remained in a state of armed occupation by a private -military force. Referring to this demonstration with a private -army at a moment of profound peace, the Buffalo <i>Express</i> said of -those responsible for it: "They continue to fight with their old -weapons—incendiarism and riot." No case has been come across in which -the railroads made any opposition in the courts to the oil trust -crossing under their tracks with its pipe line. More than once the -railroads have allowed this rival carrier to lay its pipes side by side -with their rails.</p> - -<p>"Now, is your pipe line to New York laid upon the right of way of any -railroad?"</p> - -<p>"It touches at times the Erie road, and crosses the Erie road."</p> - -<p>"Did you pay anything for that to them?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."</p> - -<p>"Nothing?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing."<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a></p> - -<p>But never have the railroads failed to compel an indepen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>dent pipe -line to fight through the courts for every crossing it needed. It has -made no difference how often or emphatically the law has sustained the -right of the people to make such crossings. The next attempt would be -resisted on the same ground, and with the same desperate determination -"to overcome competition" for the favorite. The local line laid by the -independents in 1892 between Coraopolis and Titusville had to pass -under the Erie, the Lake Shore, the Pan Handle, the Western New York, -and the Pennsylvania railroads, and in every case had to encounter -needless litigation to do so. It was victorious, for the roads did -not dare go to trial, though the managers, one after the other, to -help cripple competition, spent the money of the stockholders in what -was perfectly well known to be a hopeless opposition. A correspondent -of the Bradford <i>Record</i> wrote: "When the news reached Bradford that -the Erie Railroad had sold her independence to the combination, that -the latter might defeat honorable competition and continue to rob the -people, that one hundred men and a cannon confronted the United States -Pipe Line at Hancock, who could have censured the outraged producers -of Bradford for blowing the great Kinzua viaduct out of the Kinzua -valley? Who could blame the bankrupt producers of the oil country for -destroying every dollar's worth of the combination's property wherever -found? The people are getting desperate; they are ready, like the -blind Samson, to pull down the pillars of the temple, even though they -themselves fall crushed to death amid the ruins." These are wild, even -wicked words, but is it not a portent that such words rise out of the -heart of an honest community?</p> - -<p>This opposition, with show of force and threats of violence, was -successful. In February, 1893, after months of facing the cannon and -the private army which the railroad maintained for the oil combination, -it was publicly announced by the president of the new pipe line that -the route by Hancock must be abandoned. Many thousands of dollars -and time worth even more were lost. "Suppose," said a daily paper of -Binghamton, "that a body of laboring men had unlimbered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> a cannon and -stationed armed men to suppress competition, what denunciation of the -outrage there would have been!"</p> - -<p>A new way through Wilkes-barre was chosen after the retreat from -Hancock, and by that route the independent producers and refiners, with -hope long deferred, are now seeking to finish their march to the sea.</p> - -<p>The producers are poor men, and their resources for this unequal -contest come from the sale of oil, and day by day the price of oil was -depressed until it sank to the neighborhood of half a dollar a barrel. -There has been some recovery since, but still the lowest prices of -many years are being made, and the producers are finding the burden -of their escape very heavy. "It is the honest belief of all oil men," -says one of them, "that the low price of oil for the year is due to -efforts to make the producer so poor that he cannot carry through his -pipe line." This is the enterprise of the independent refiners as well -as producers. Against these refiners, therefore, the market for refined -oil also is manipulated. Very fantastic have been the operations of the -"unchanging" laws of supply and demand under this manipulation. The -independents found that in the export market of New York, in the spring -of 1894, petroleum, just as it came from the pipe line crude from the -nether earth, was quoted at a higher price a barrel than the same oil -after it had gone through all the processes of refining and was aboard -ship ready for the lamps of Europe or Asia.<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a></p> - -<p>To throw another obstacle in the way of the new line, the oil trust in -1893 began again the game of 1878, of refusing to relieve producers of -their oil with its pipe lines. As in 1878, the oil was left to run to -waste. Then, the object was to compel the producers to sell it "always -below the market";<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> now, it was to force them to sign a contract -not to patronize any other pipe lines. Producers who refused to sign -this contract, in order to be free to join the new line when it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> was -finished, were refused an outlet, and they had to pump their oil on -the ground while appealing to the courts to compel this common carrier -to do its duty.<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> When they applied for a mandamus the combination -receded from its position without waiting for a trial.</p> - -<p>This has been a warfare on more than a new competitor; it is an -attempt to suppress improvement and invention. A new idea in oil -transportation, which promises a revolution in the industry, was hit -upon by these independents. This was that pipe lines could be used -to send refined oil long distances to market as well as crude. The -announcement of their plans to do this was met with the ridicule of -those who control the existing pipe lines to the seaboard and do not -wish to see their old-fashioned methods of piping crude oil alone -disturbed. But the independents went on with their idea. They have -proved it practicable. Now, for the first time in the history of the -oil industry, a pipe line transports oil ready for the lamp. Refined -oil is piped from Titusville to Wilkes-barre with no loss of quality. -Many hundred thousand barrels of it have been piped for nearly three -hundred miles, and not a barrel has been rejected by the inspection, -either at New York or its destination abroad. The success of the -experiment proves that it can be piped to New York.</p> - -<p>The independents press on. Occasionally one of them, says a local -journal, unhinged by the loss of property, commits suicide or is taken -to an insane asylum, and another goes down out of sight in bankruptcy, -but the others close the ranks and go on, and now about 4000 men, in a -strongly organized association, are marching side by side towards the -sea—the blue and free.<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></p> - -<p class="center">PURCHASE OF PEACE</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Hunting</span> about for tax-dodgers, it was discovered by the authorities -of Pennsylvania some years ago that many foreign corporations were -doing business within the limits of the Commonwealth and enjoying -the protection of her laws, and at the same time not paying for it. -Foremost among these delinquents stood the principal company in the -oil combination with its mammoth capital, practically buying, refining -and controlling nearly the entire oil production of the State, "and -yet failing to pay one cent into the public treasury." So wrote the -Auditor-General to his successor in 1882. The combination, beginning, -like creation, with nothing, had grown, until in 1883 it was so rich -that, according to the testimony of one of its members, it owned -"between $40,000,000 and $50,000,000" in Pennsylvania alone.<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> But -though doing business in Pennsylvania, and legally within the grasp -of the taxing power, as decided by the courts, this company paid no -taxes, and would not give the State the information called for by law -as to its taxable property. It practised "voluntary taxation." "For -eight years," Auditor-General Schell says, "it had been doing business -in this Commonwealth, and had failed in all that time to file a single -report." "It was not necessary for the department to call upon it to -make reports." The law required these reports specifically and in -details that could not be misunderstood, and that was notification -enough. But year after year the Auditor-Generals, whose duty it was to -collect due contribution from each taxpayer, made special<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> demands upon -this one for reports in compliance with the law, but with no effect.</p> - -<p>In 1878 William P. Schell became Auditor-General, and began, shortly -after taking his oath, to see if he could find out what taxes were due -from this concern, and how they could be collected. He sent official -circulars to the company in 1878, 1879, 1880, but "there was no reply -made at any time."<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> His predecessor had had the same experience. -He then sent one of his force to Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York -to investigate. Whenever he could get the names of persons familiar -with the workings of the company he would visit them, to find himself -usually "not much further ahead than when he started."<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> "It was -impossible to get any information. Even the men we talked to deceived -us. Men came to Harrisburg to give us information, and afterwards we -found they were in the interests of the company."<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> The department -found itself, the Auditor-General wrote to his successor, "foiled at -all points, not only by the refusal of the company to respond to the -notices sent to its officers, but also by the great reticence of all -persons in any manner connected with or employed by the company."</p> - -<p>These efforts to find out the nature and character of the business of -the company extended through two or three years. The first workable -indication that the company was taxable in Pennsylvania came when the -Governor of Ohio, in answer to inquiries, sent the Attorney-General a -copy of the charter of the company. The Auditor-General wrote to the -Governor and Auditor-General of New York and the Governor of Ohio for -information. Letters were sent to the president and principal members -of the company at Cleveland, Oil City, New York, and elsewhere. An -answer was finally received from the company's attorney. He said that -the company was not subject to taxation. The department<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> replied the -same day refusing to accept this view, and insisting on reports. Then -the lawyer replied that the books and papers "were at Cleveland, and it -would take some time to prepare reports." The Auditor-General offered -to send his clerk to Cleveland "by first train," to prepare the reports -for the company if assurance was given that he would be permitted to -examine the books of the company when he got there.</p> - -<p>No reply to this request was ever received. Then telegrams were sent, -several days in succession, asking for reports, offering more time -if the company would agree to report within any reasonable time, and -finally warning the company that if it did not comply with the law and -file its reports the Auditor-General would act under the authority -given him by the law, and charge it with taxes estimated on such -"reasonable data" as he could procure. All the department could get -were evasive letters or telegrams from the counsel in New York, such -as "letter explaining on the way." The letter came with the valuable -information that "the officers are out of the city, and the company -will answer on their return." Another "reply" was: "I have failed to -get replies from the absent officers."<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> No reports forthcoming, -the Auditor-General at last, on the best information he could get, -backed by affidavits which were placed on file in the archives of his -office, calculated the taxes due from 1872 to 1881, with penalties, -at $3,145,541.64. This was totalled on an estimate, supported by -affidavit, that the profits of the company had been two to three -millions a year from 1872 to 1876, and ten to twelve millions a year -from 1876 to 1880, figures which what is now known show to have been -near the truth. After fixing upon this amount, and before charging it -against the company, the latter was given still another chance, and -another. Two telegrams were sent notifying that the estimated tax would -be entered up if "the refusal to report" was persisted in. The last -telegram said: "Still hoping that reports<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> will come from the company, -so that we will have some data to act upon."</p> - -<p>No word of reply came.</p> - -<p>Then the Auditor-General formally entered the amount he had estimated -on his books, as the law authorized him to do.<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> His investigations -had consumed his entire term, and the filing of this estimate was -almost his last official act. It is a fact of record that after all -this, officers of the company, in seeking to have this estimate of -taxes due set aside, stated in writing that "there was no neglect -or refusal on the part of said company to furnish any report or -information which could lawfully be required of it by any officer or -under any law of the State of Pennsylvania."<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a></p> - -<p>Suit was now brought by the Attorney-General of the State to recover -this tax, as was his duty, and then the company began to stir -itself. To assist him in procuring and interpreting evidence the -Attorney-General, who knew nothing of the oil business, obtained -the services of a man who knew more about it than any one else in -Pennsylvania. This person was a practical oil man. He was one of the -leaders of the producers and refiners' association, which in the -exciting times of 1872, when law and order in Pennsylvania stood on -the edge of a crater, compelled the railroads to abandon the South -Improvement scheme, "in name," and to give in writing the pledge that -"all arrangements for the transportation of oil after this date shall -be upon the basis of perfect equality to all," though he could not -find a way to make them keep the pledge. He was prominent six years -later in the uprising of the people when they found that all these -promises were being broken, and all their rights on the highways being -violated. It was largely through his influence that the producers -determined to proceed against the oil combination as a criminal -conspiracy, and procured the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>dictment of its principals in Clarion -County, Pennsylvania, on charges of crime.<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> "When," as was said -before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee of 1883, "the doors of -the penitentiary were gaping wide to receive them; when a true bill had -been found before the Grand Jury; when, if they ever were in jeopardy -before to-day, they were in jeopardy."</p> - -<p>He was chairman of the Committee on Transportation of the Oil -Producers' Association, and was one of the "legal committee" of five -who represented the producers in having the "anti-discrimination suits" -brought and pushed against the Pennsylvania Railroad by the State -in 1879. By these suits the discriminations and favoritisms, which, -though known, it had till then been impossible to prove, were forced -into the light as facts, and the evidence was furnished without which -the indictments just referred to could not have been found. When the -accused, frightened at last, succeeded in getting the aroused producers -to agree not to push the criminal trial, in consideration of a solemn -pledge that all secrecy and favoritism in transportation should be -given up, he withdrew from the negotiations and would not sign the -compromise. He had assisted the Congressional Committees of Commerce at -Washington in 1872 and 1876 in their ill-starred investigations, and -had been active in the effort to get another investigation begun in -1880. He had also been one of the principal witnesses before the New -York Legislative investigation of 1879. For eighteen years he had been -on this quest. With him the Attorney-General now arranged to get the -evidence on which the State could support its claim for taxes.</p> - -<p>The members of the great corporation saw that they must act. In -out-going Auditor-General Schell they had met the first officer of -the people who was as determined to make them pay as they were not to -pay. The policy of silence and nullification was abandoned. One of -the members of the trust came in person to the State capital to see -the Attorney-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>General. He made an unexpected overture. He volunteered -to furnish the State with a full disclosure of the facts it needed to -prove its claim.</p> - -<p>"I confess," said the Deputy Attorney-General, "that I little knew in -what direction to cross-examine him."<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> He therefore sent for the -expert who had been employed by the Attorney-General. The "trustee" -protested against his presence; but the Deputy Attorney-General said -that he had been employed by the State, and it would be necessary that -he should take part. The representative of the trust, moved, as he -afterwards testified, by the patriotic consideration that "the regular -cumbersome way of taking oral testimony ... would result in great labor -and expense to the State, and would be an obstruction and labor to us -that could be avoided," made a suggestion that the State go to the -trial of the case upon a statement of facts of their business which he -and his associates would make. This offer to become a volunteer witness -was agreed to, and the delinquent corporation and the State went into -court with an "agreement as to facts." The Attorney-General reserved -for the State the right to add to these facts, but did not at any time -during the proceedings do so.</p> - -<p>His expert shrewdly foresaw that another defeat for the people was to -be the result of this policy. "I objected very strenuously," he says. -"It was my pet scheme to examine them orally in court or by commission, -and I gave it up very reluctantly. I told the Attorney-General I could -not believe those gentlemen were in earnest, that I knew I could ask -a string of questions of any one of them which if answered would have -given the case away to the State."<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> But the Attorney-General, -the same who as counsel for the people, in 1879, against the members -of the same corporation, led his clients to defeat, overruled him. -The old campaigner saw the mistake of 1880 about to be repeated, and -an agreement with the offenders substituted for trial and for the -defeat of them he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> believed would follow. He determined to prevent -the consummation of this second catastrophe. He sent his counsel to -New York to the headquarters of the oil combination with a notice -that he would not adhere to the bargain made by the Attorney-General -at Harrisburg with reference to "the agreement of facts." "I propose -to attack," was the message he sent.<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> He was to have received -compensation from the State. He believed that this gave him an interest -in the matter sufficient to gain a footing in the courts for action by -himself independently of the Attorney-General. In pursuance of this -idea, when the case came up for trial, he appeared with his private -counsel ready to take part in the proceedings if permitted.</p> - -<p>The notice of attack was received "with surprise," but was met with a -characteristic move. "I raised the question with him"—the counsel—"as -to what possible motive" his client "had in the matter," the "trustee" -testifies, "and as to whether it would not be better for him to desist -from it; whether it would not be possible for us, if he was needing -business, to find some position in which he could legitimately earn -a living."<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> The lawyer replied that he had no right to treat on -any such basis, and withdrew from all connection with the case. But -this was the opening of a negotiation which through another lawyer -"resulted," as the expert of the State afterwards confessed, "in peace -between us." He had given notice that he meant to attack, and the -"negotiation" which followed "was whether anybody would give me as much -as there was in my contract with the State if I would not attack."<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a></p> - -<p>Meanwhile the Attorney-General marched gayly to another defeat of his -client—the people—going into court with no other ammunition than the -facts furnished by the men he was suing. He did not put his expert, -nor the Auditor-General, nor his assistant, nor the men on whose -information and affidavits the estimate had been made of taxes due, -nor any one else on the stand. He was "perfectly satisfied," he says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> -"that these facts were true," and that the company were "in good faith -doing exactly what they undertook to do—namely, to furnish me with -all the information that was necessary to establish the Commonwealth -case."<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a></p> - -<p>His method was as singular with the argument as with the testimony. -He insisted, in opposition to the opinion of Auditor-General Schell, -that such a corporation must pay taxes on all its capital stock, -whether it represented property in the State or out of it. The court -decided against him. It held that it was taxable "only on so much of -its capital stock as was represented by the business and property of -the company within the State." As to what the amount of this property -and business within the State was the court took the facts furnished -by the delinquent itself, as they were the only ones presented to it -by the Attorney-General. The amount originally charged for taxes by -Auditor-General Schell, who had forced the fighting, was $3,145,541.64. -The Attorney-General, on his mistaken theory of the law and on the -facts volunteered by those he was suing, had "split the difference" and -sued for only $796,642.20. The court cut this down to $33,270.59, and -on appeal this was still further reduced to $22,660.10.<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a></p> - -<p>This decision was not final or conclusive as to either the State or the -company, both of whom afterwards sued out writs of error. The expert, -who had been pushed to one side, at once determined to take what steps -he could to reopen the case and mend the fortunes of the State. The -moment the decision was announced he telegraphed the Attorney-General -again for another conference, and was told to come to Philadelphia. He -told the Attorney-General that he thought "the hope of the State to get -the largest amount of money was to get a rehearing and let us have an -oral examination." But the "satisfied" Attorney-General refused to do -anything but carry the same argument and the same agreement of facts up -to the Supreme Court. He refused to move for a new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> trial, and not only -told his expert so, but told the "trustee" so. The trustee, by one of -those coincidences which prove how much better it is to be born lucky -than rich, happened to have come at the same time to stay in the same -hotel with the Attorney-General.</p> - -<p>It was in vain that the expert pointed out omissions of property and -facts which he thought "had not been clearly shown in the agreement -as to facts," and afterwards other matters he had discovered. After -the defeat of the State he prepared an affidavit containing additional -facts. He employed an attorney in the preparation of this affidavit and -a petition to the court to have the case reopened. His purpose was "to -get another chance at this trial."</p> - -<p>"To get another trial?"</p> - -<p>"Anything."</p> - -<p>"Another hearing?"</p> - -<p>"Anything." Anything to prevent the miscarriage of this last attempt to -"round up" the men he had been trying for nearly twenty years to bring -to justice. The Attorney-General would not present this petition. After -this, still before the final decision, he saw the Attorney-General -again to renew his pressure for a change of policy. Three times he saw -the Attorney-General to lay his additional facts before him, and urge -that a different method of conducting the case be tried.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> Some of -the new points he raised the Attorney-General referred and deferred to -the company he was pursuing, and "we showed him how they were fully -included in the statement rendered by us to the State, and he (the -Attorney-General) expressed his entire satisfaction with every point -raised." Others of the new points the Attorney-General declared to be -"immaterial."<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> The Attorney-General showed no wish to bring proof -into the case of any facts except those furnished by the people being -sued. Although the decision of the lower court had been a warning that -the theory on which the State had gone into court was bad, and that -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> amount of taxes to be recovered depended on the amount of tangible -property in the State, he refused to use the right he acknowledged he -had—to call other witnesses, to put the men who had made the agreed -statement of facts upon the stand, and cross-examine them.</p> - -<p>From the Attorney-General, who knew little of either the facts, as he -confessed, or the law as the court declared it, who accepted their -statements as gospel, and who asked them whether new facts offered -him should be admitted into his side of the case against them, the -company had nothing to fear. But this old opponent of theirs, whom -the Attorney-General had employed, was at large, and was a dangerous -man. He knew the facts; he had the right theory of the law; he was -tremendously in earnest. The case had only got as far as the first -decision of the lower court. There were still opportunities for all -kinds of legal proceedings. By virtue of this contract he claimed such -an interest in the proceedings as to give him a right to ask the courts -to interfere. He might get a new trial and carry out his "pet scheme -of oral examination." He might rouse the people as he had roused them -before. He might interfere through the Legislature. He might raise a -storm which could not be quieted until in this suit, or some other, his -pet plan might be carried out, of getting these silent gentlemen into a -witness-box. He considered himself to be in the service of the State. -"I was under a contract with the State,"<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> he says. And we find the -Attorney-General in close consultation with him in Philadelphia down to -the very last day.</p> - -<p>The company sees that something must be done, and does it. Its -"trustee" calls upon the expert at his hotel.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> He renews the -suggestion he had made in New York when word had been sent by -the expert that he would not be bound by the agreement of facts, -and "proposed to attack." He finds his man cast down, utterly -discouraged by the decision of the lower court and the attitude of -the Attorney-General. Time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> and again he had seen the people denied -justice, and their enemies escape even so much as the necessity of -appearing in court. He had seen, in every one of the proceedings -against them, from 1872 to 1880, committees of Congress, State -governors, judges of the Supreme courts, State legislatures, -attorney-generals, railroad officials, every trustee of the people, -wilt, like green leaves in a fire, before this flashing wealth. His -resolution gave way. He was to have received, under his agreement -with the Attorney-General, in salary and commissions, $23,000, or -less, according to the amount recovered. That he saw fading out of -sight in consequence of the, to him, inexplicable course of the -Attorney-General. Every one else who had tried to stand up for the -people against this power had gone down; why should he be quixotic and -poor?</p> - -<p>"We want peace," the "trustee" said, and the, till then, faithful -friend of the people sold him all he had of that commodity for $15,400, -to be paid in instalments, and a salary of $5000 for a year.</p> - -<p>"I proposed to reopen it"—the case—"and I did not."</p> - -<p>"Why did you not?"</p> - -<p>"Simply because I was assured I should have just as much money out of -the transaction as my original contract would have paid me."</p> - -<p>This confession made on the stand, under the strain of -cross-examination in a civil suit in which he was a witness, startled -the country with its first hint of the real cause of the failure of -the great tax case, and led to an investigation by the Legislature of -Pennsylvania.<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a></p> - -<p>The first payment was $7500. This was paid, not in a check, as is the -usual method between business men in legitimate transactions, but in -bank-notes—$500's or $1000's.<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> That this method of payment was -inconvenient and unusual was shown by the statement of the recipient, -that he went to the Chemical Bank and got a bank certificate for his -$7500 of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> bank-notes. "Of course I did not carry that amount of money -around with me.<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> Bank-notes and bank drafts, not the company's -checks, were used in the succeeding payments also.</p> - -<p>"In sending him money to Titusville, where you had a bank account, why -did you not send him a check on your own bank or draft?"</p> - -<p>"Well, there was nobody at Titusville who had any knowledge of the -matter. It was not necessary to acquaint them with it," said the -"trustee."<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a></p> - -<p>This representative of the company was diligent in business, as he -understood business, and was always forehanded. He made the first -moves and kept the lead. He went all the way to Harrisburg to meet the -Attorney-General. He got control of the case by making the overture -to volunteer testimony. He called first on the lawyer sent to New -York with notice of "attack," called first on the State's expert in -Philadelphia and New York, made the first suggestion for "peace," and -got it "cheap."<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> But after he had bought "peace" the next interview -is at the company's office. The other man must walk now. When put on -the stand, the purchaser, of course, denied that this "purchase of -peace" had anything to do with the case against his company, or with -the suppression of the only expert in the employ of the State in that -suit.</p> - -<p>"With reference to the tax case," he said, "the payment of this money -had no bearing whatever."</p> - -<p>"Then why did you pay him the money?"</p> - -<p>"Well, I have already said, two or three times, that I paid him the -money for the purpose of having him desist from further malicious -attacks upon our company."</p> - -<p>The man of whom he had bought "peace" was not then engaged in any -proceedings against "our company," except the tax case. He had been -engaged in nothing for two years, since the proceedings of the -Producers' Association in 1880. There were no other movements in -prospect. The only war,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> actual or contemplated, was this tax war. -Pressed through several pages of cross-examination, and challenged to -name a single instance of war by this man upon them, at the time of -the purchase of "peace," or since 1880, which would account for their -willingness to pay him so large a sum, he was finally forced to say: "I -cannot do it."<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a></p> - -<p>The Attorney-General, who had thought it unnecessary to collect more -testimony by putting the defendants on the stand under oath, testified, -of course, that there had been no suppression of testimony. The seller -of peace himself, when he was afterwards brought to book before the -Legislature, attempted to stand to a similar denial that he had in -any way been unfaithful to his trust as the expert of the State and -representative of the people. But he broke down. He was asked if his -agreement with the company had any relation to this case.</p> - -<p>"Unquestionably. To all cases—this case and all others."</p> - -<p>"You were to do nothing further for the Commonwealth in this or any -other case?"</p> - -<p>"Precisely."</p> - -<p>"If the Supreme Court had subsequently reversed the case, and it had -gone back for a new trial, and had been tried before a jury, so that -the company's officers could have been subpœnaed and compelled -to testify, would you then, after receiving this money, have been -at liberty to assist in getting that testimony together for the -Commonwealth, and aiding the Commonwealth?"</p> - -<p>"I should say not."</p> - -<p>"You were free to do it prior to your arrangement?"</p> - -<p>"Certainly."</p> - -<p>"By whom was it"—the negotiation—"begun?" he was asked.</p> - -<p>"By the representative of the company," he replied, naming him.<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a></p> - -<p>When this bargain was arranged and the first payment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> made only an -opinion had been filed. No judgment had been entered. There was still -time to make any one of many moves. Reargument and new trial both were -possible.</p> - -<p>These men seduced this representative of the people only to cast him -aside, as seducers always do. They did not pay him "cash down" when -they bought his "peace," but in instalments, and part of his pay was in -the shape of $5000 for a year's service for which he was to do no work. -This kept the whip-hand of him until the tax matter was finally settled -and irrevocably past reopening. When that had been done they cast him -off with scorching contumely. The secretary of the trust waved him into -obloquy as a black-mailer.</p> - -<p>When the trustee who negotiated the "peace" was before the committee -of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1883 which investigated this -miscarriage of justice in the tax cases, he was asked if the man of -whom he had bought "peace" had used the positions he had held in the -producers' and other associations to further his own ends. He answered: -"I think he would prostitute anything to further his own mercenary -ends."<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a></p> - -<p>The committee of the Legislature appointed to investigate this -"purchase of peace" furnishes in its report the facts we have recited, -which were uncontradicted, but declares that the transactions they -disclose "did not prejudice the rights of the Commonwealth," and that -nobody had done anything wrong. An effort was made after the failure -of the tax case to get the Attorney-General of the State to issue a -warrant against the purchaser of peace, upon which he could have been -held to trial in a criminal court for bribery and corrupt solicitation -of a public officer. An affidavit charging the crime in the usual -form was presented to the Attorney-General. There was by this time a -new Attorney-General, but he ditched this move with the same skill -for the management of his adversaries' case that his predecessor had -exhibited in the tax suit. He de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>manded that affidavit be made by -some one who could testify to the bribery of his personal knowledge -before the committing magistrate. As the facts were known only to -the two principals, and neither of them could be expected to come -forward to make affidavit and application for his own commitment, the -Attorney-General demanded the impossible.<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> The fact of bribery was -publicly known by the confession under oath of one of these principals, -and the Attorney-General had been presented with the affidavit of a -citizen, prepared in due and regular form, upon which he could have -proceeded to issue a warrant, as is done in the case of less powerful -offenders. Failing with the Attorney-General to have this transaction -taken into the courts, the effort was renewed with the committee -the Legislature had appointed to investigate. It was asked to do as -committees had done before—to send the case to a criminal court and -let it be tried. The distinguished lawyer acting for the people before -the committee offered to appear as a volunteer Attorney-General in the -prosecution of the trustee. "There is not an honest jury," he said, -"in the State of Pennsylvania which upon the testimony would not send -him to the penitentiary for the crime of bribery."<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> The committee -refused to send the matter to the courts.</p> - -<p>Upon the only occasion when the "Trustees" seemed in real danger of -being brought in person and on specific charges to trial, criminally, -the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania saved them. In the Clarion County -cases it took the unprecedented step of interfering with the criminal -jurisdiction of the lower courts. It was in reference to this that Mr. -Gowen said before the Committee of Commerce of Congress in 1880: "I -was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, and I -know that if that convention did anything effectively it was when it -declared that the Supreme Court should not have original jurisdiction -in criminal cases, and yet I have seen three judges of the Supreme -Court lay their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> hands upon an indictment in a county court and hang it -up." The effect of this interposition of the Supreme Court is summed up -as follows in the history of the contest between the Producers' Union -and their powerful antagonists: "This practically terminated the last -legal proceeding conducted by the general council of the producers of -petroleum." "It was the greatest violation of law," said Mr. Gowen -before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee, "ever committed in the -Commonwealth."<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a></p> - -<p>That some such action might have been expected could be inferred from -the remark in <i>Leading Cases Simplified</i>, by John D. Lawson, warning -the student of the law of carriers "not to pay much heed to the -decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania—at least, during the -past ten or fifteen years. The Pennsylvania Railroad appears to run -that tribunal with the same success that it does its own trains."<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a></p> - -<p>Some time after these events the purchaser of this peace gave -some money to a hospital for cancers, and, in recognition of his -philanthropy, was made its president. This hospital was for cancers of -the body—not for moral cancers of the kind propagated for money by -men who corrupt the Commonwealth. It would have been full expiation -in the good old times of the priest and the baron Ruskin describes to -donate to the cure of an evil a fraction of the profits of the culture -of it. The newspapers in May, 1891, chronicled the opening of another -pavilion of this hospital, and the delivery of "an interesting address" -by the new president. One of the journals remarks that "this interest, -combined with his well-known liberality in Church and humane matters -generally, suggests a thought concerning the peculiar development on -this line of many of our very rich men." But what the "thought" was the -journalist did not go on to state.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></p> - -<p class="center">"I WANT TO MAKE OIL"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">At</span> this writing there is an old man named Samuel Van Syckel, over -eighty years of age, partly paralyzed, but still vigorous, living in -an obscure back street of Buffalo, very poor, though his fertile brain -has helped to make millionaires of many others. Van Syckel's life has -been one of ups and downs, possible only in the case of an adventurous -mind seeking the golden-fleece in a new industry and in a new country. -Of all the brave and ingenious men who have experimented, invented, -and pioneered to realize for mankind all the surpassing possibilities -of the coming oil age, he is one of the most notable. He had already -made and lost one or two fortunes when we find him, about 1860, with a -little still in Jersey City, making roof-tar.</p> - -<p>He was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the son of a farmer, and -worked on the farm until he was of age, when he went into business. -The panic of 1857 caught him with sails wing-a-wing, conducting all -at once, and prosperously, grist-mills, linseed-oil mills, grain -distilleries—these he had to take for a debt—several stores, -cooper-shops, and two or three farms.</p> - -<p>He failed because he had gone security for others, but he paid 100 -cents on the dollar, and went to New York City. There he became a -member of the Corn Exchange, and opened a commission-house for the sale -of produce. His country friends had such confidence in his honesty and -judgment that within six months he had done a business of $400,000. -But he discovered that of the 1500 members of the Exchange all but -one had failed, and many of them several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> times. He saw that he was -in a position where, through the inability of some other dealer to -fulfil his contract, he might be swamped any day, and lose all he had -himself and all the thousands intrusted to him by his friends. He had -old-fashioned notions about losing friends' money, to himself or to any -one else. He left the produce business. He went to making roof-tar in -Jersey City, and in 1860 built one of the first refineries for making -kerosene out of petroleum. When "Colonel" Drake, in 1859, found out -that oil could be got by drilling, Van Syckel was one of those the new -source of supply found waiting for it. He began refining in a small -way, and, with an ardor which he has carried into everything he has -done, he plunged into the study of new ways of refining the oil which -then started to flow with embarrassing riches out of thousands of -wells. The study of oil-refining became his passion, as, fortunately -for us less gifted folk, the study of the effects of heat on clay, -of sulphur on the gum of the caoutchouc-tree, of steam on the lid of -the teakettle, were in their time passions with Palissy, Goodyear, -and Watts. In the work of his life, forcing its secrets out of this -difficult liquid, he has been very successful. Earthly reward the -old inventor has none, but, sitting in his story-and-a-half cottage, -what he mourns most is that he has been and is denied the opportunity -of work. Tortured by restless and inventive energy, which age and -disappointment and betrayal have not sufficed to snuff out, his -continuous word is: "I want to make oil."</p> - -<p>When petroleum from the new wells began to come to New York, dozens -of little stills were built all over the Jersey flats, many of them -by Jews and Greeks. "Stills kept burning up all around," he says to -his visitor. "Almost every day there was an explosion somewhere from -the gases. I told my wife to give me my oldest clothes and send me -my meals. I was going to find out all about this business. There was -a pile of roofing-gravel under a shed by my stills. I went there and -slept and ate, day and night, and watched the stills and the pipes, -the gases, the oils, and all. All the sleep and rest I had for months -was there. It was while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> watching these work that my greatest idea -came to me, of making oil by a continuous process, so that I could -feed in petroleum at one end and have kerosene running out at the -other in an unceasing stream, day after day, without stopping the -whole establishment, as the oil-refineries still do, every day or two, -to cool off and clean up. By the old process, still in use, when the -charge in the still of perhaps 1000 barrels had been refined, we had to -draw the fires and wait perhaps ten hours—the best part of a day—for -the still to cool off, so that the men could go in with iron chisels to -chop it all loose and clean it out. This would take four or five men -from four to six hours. The still would be idle for a day and a half, -and then the same process would have to be gone through with again with -every charge. All over the flats the Jews and Greeks kept burning up. -The Common Council of Jersey City said we must stop refining. The rest -joined a great combination to fight the Common Council, but I made up -my mind to go where the oil was produced. I went to Titusville in 1865. -I had all the money I could want. Some rich men told me to draw on them -up to $100,000 for anything there was 'snacks in' for them."</p> - -<p>This was about the time the founders of the oil combination began in -Cleveland, with "no money."</p> - -<p>"What makes I found in Titusville!" continued Van Syckel. "I went all -up and down the creek. They were glad to get 65 gallons of kerosene -out of 100 gallons of petroleum, while I could get 80. I think the -head of the oil combination had a little still cocked up in the woods -there—a one-horse, pig-pen kind of a place at the bend of the creek, -a cobbled-up sort of a mud-hole, with a water-trough to bring the -oil to the still. He was not there himself; he stayed in Cleveland. -I didn't ever think anything about him then. I was 'way above him. I -first saw him some years after, about 1872, in a refiner's office. He -was talking up some scheme he had for a combination of refineries. -He said he didn't want to have the market overstocked. He was just a -common-looking kind of a man among the rest of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> us there. I saw, when I -reached Titusville, that the most money was to be made in shipping oil. -I made a dollar a barrel, and in six months I was $100,000 in pocket. -The land speculation I wouldn't touch. It was wild. It scared me to see -men sitting around on logs, and trading off little pieces of land for -hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was the first man to lay a pipe -line to carry oil up and down the hills of Pennsylvania."</p> - -<p>"The first successful pipe line," says the United States Census -Report of 1885, "was put down by Samuel Van Syckel, of Titusville, in -1865, and extended from Pithole to Miller's Farm, a distance of four -miles."<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a></p> - -<p>"When I first came to the oil country all the oil had to be teamed from -the wells to the railways, over roads with no bottom in wet weather. -Sometimes a line of teams a mile long would be stuck in the mud. Often -the teamsters would dump their load, worth $5 a barrel, and abandon -it. Mules would get so discouraged that they would lie down and die -in the roadway before they could be helped. The teamsters knew their -power. They charged accordingly. They charged for looking at the oil -to see how many barrels their teams could draw. They charged extra for -every mud-hole they struck, and if the wagon-wheels went to the hubs -they doubled their bills. I paid $2 to $4 a barrel for teaming, and -was shipping 4000 barrels a week. The teamsters were making more money -than the well-owners, and didn't care whether they hauled oil or not. -All this set me to thinking. I hit on the pipe line idea, and announced -that I would carry the oil by pipe from the wells to the railroad. That -was too much for the people of the oil regions. Everybody laughed me -down. Even my particular friends, with whom I used to take my meals -at the hotel, jeered and gibed me so that I took to coming and going -through the back door and through the kitchen, and ate by myself. 'Do -you expect to put a girdle around the earth?' was the favorite sarcasm. -I knew it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> would cost a great deal—$100,000 perhaps; but I had the -money. I built it—two two-inch lines, side by side—between June and -November in 1865, and turned the oil in. The pipe was a perfect success -from the first barrel of oil that was pumped in. It flowed, just as I -expected, up hill and down dale. The line was four miles long—from the -Miller Farm to Pithole—with two or three branches.</p> - -<p>"Then the teamsters threatened to kill any one who worked on the pipe -line or who used it. They would drive astraddle of it, dig down to it, -put logging chains around it and pull it out of the ground, and leave -the oil, worth $4 to $5 a barrel, running to waste out of the holes. I -sent to New York for some carbines, hired 25 men to patrol the line, -and put a stop to that. I put up the line as security for some debts -owed by my partner, under an agreement that when its profits had paid -the debt it was to be returned to me. The debt was wiped out in a few -months, but I never got the line back.... I had no money left to sue -for it. This was the end of my pipe line. It has grown into a system -thousands of miles long, second in importance only to the railroad, -and out of it many, many millions of profit have been made, but not -a cent has it yielded me. Then I went to refining oil, and, with a -partner, built one of the first big refineries in the oil regions. -There has been no oil refined in this country since 1870 without the -help of my improvements. Some I patented, some I did not. The refiners -at Titusville were hard put to it for pure water. I drove pipes through -the river into the second gravel under the river, and got the finest -cold water there could be. This anticipated the 'driven wells' several -years. I put steam into the stills" (this had been done before both -by European and American refiners). "I found out how to burn the -uncondensable gases. I showed one of my neighbors how to do this, and -he saved $20 a day after that in his coal bills, but I got nothing for -it. Each new thing I proposed, up would go everybody's hands and eyes, -and oh, what a rumbling there would be! I never made money so fast as -in this refinery. We did not use the continuous process. I had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> -patented it, and I had partners whom it would not have been right for -me to experiment with. Our profits were over a dollar on every barrel. -We sold our product as fast as we could make it. We made $125,000 in -fifteen months, although we paid as high as $8 a barrel for crude. I -worked like a slave to make good the loss of $100,000 in my pipe line. -I worked and watched day and night, and knew I was beating them all -making oil. My partners were church elders, who could never find words -enough to express their indignation about the way my pipe line had been -taken away from me, and so virtuous that they never smoked a cigar nor -drank a drop. I got into no end of lawsuits with them, and I lost my -property again. I sold a part interest in my patent to some one who was -afterwards taken into this oil combination, and it now claims that they -own all my patents. They have frightened off or bought off every one -who has tried to use any of my inventions."</p> - -<p>The rest of the old man's story was told by him under oath in a suit -he brought against members of the combination.<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> "The idea of -continuous distillation, as it was suggested to me at Jersey City, was -always in my brain ever since. I made an attempt to construct such -works in 1876 under Mr. Cary. I run out of money. I had been robbed out -of my pipe line that cost me $100,000, and my oil-refinery in which I -had more than $100,000. Mr. Cary said he was going to build a little -refinery. He said he had $10,000 that we might use in making oil in a -continuous way. We got our lease and broke ground in 1876. We had not -got very far—we got the pipe on the ground and some brick and one -old-fashioned still—when" the representative of the oil combination, -one of its principal members, "came on to the ground ... the 15th -of December, 1876. He asked me if I would not take a salary and not -build these works in opposition to them. I told him 'No.' Then he -wanted I should take a life salary, one that would support me for life -comfortably. I told him I did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> want his salary; I wanted to build -this refinery and make oil in a new continuous way. He then wanted me -to let him build it. He said, 'We will build it for you.' I objected -to this. He then said that I could make no money if I did refine oil. -He also said if I did I could not ship it. He said he would say to me -confidentially that they had made such arrangements with the railroads -in reference to freight—in reference to getting cars—he knew I could -make no money if I did make oil."</p> - -<p>Almost on the same day—May 14, 1888—on which Van Syckel was giving -the jury this undisputed account, sustained by the judge and jury, of -how the combination used "arrangements with the railroads" against -its rivals, another pioneer, even more distinguished, was relating -his almost identical experience before the committee of Congress -investigating trusts, May 3, 1888. This was Joshua Merrill, "to whom," -said S. Dana Hayes, State Chemist of Massachusetts, "more than to any -one else, belongs the honor of bringing this manufacture to its present -advanced state."<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> Merrill's inventions and successful labors are -described in the United States Census Report on Petroleum, 1885. He was -at work guessing the riddles of petroleum as long ago as 1854.<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a></p> - -<p>From 1866 to 1888 he and his partners ran a refinery at Boston.</p> - -<p>"What has become of it?"</p> - -<p>"We have recently dismantled it."<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p> - -<p>For several years their business had been unprofitable. There were two -causes, he explained. One was that they made a better quality of oil -than the average, at a cost which they could not recoup from the prices -established in the market by poorer oils. The other cause was the -extraordinary charges made against his firm by the railways in Boston -which brought their crude.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> - -<p>His firm had their own tank-cars, in which their crude oil came from -Pennsylvania. From Olean to Boston his freight cost him the last few -years 50 cents a barrel. From the depot in Boston, to get it over two -miles of track to his refinery, cost him $10 a car, or about $1.25 a -barrel. This was at the rate of about 42½ cents a ton a mile. The -average freight rate for the United States is about half a cent a ton -a mile. His rate was an advance of 8400 per cent. on the average. He -appealed to the Railroad Commission of Massachusetts.</p> - -<p>"We wrote to the commissioners that we thought the charge was very -high, and they ought to interfere to have it reduced. But it was not -done.</p> - -<p>"We made repeated efforts, personal solicitations, to the railroad -officers, and to the railroad commissioners also, but it was the -established rate."<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a></p> - -<p>Two roads participated in this charge of $10 for hauling a car two -miles. One of these was the New York and New England road, whose haul -was a mile and a half, and its charge $6.</p> - -<p>"Who was president of the New York and New England road?"</p> - -<p>The dismantled witness's experience had made him timid.</p> - -<p>"I do not know."</p> - -<p>"Do you not know," he was asked, "that one of the oil trustees is -president?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a></p> - -<p>The same railroad is the principal New England link in the lines of -circumvallation which the combination in coal, hard and soft, American -and Nova Scotian, is drawing about the homes and industries of the -country. His company sold their tank-cars to the oil combination, as -"we no longer had any use for them."<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a></p> - -<p>"I was thirty-two years in the oil business," the veteran said, -mournfully, as he left the stand. "It was the business of my life."<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a></p> - -<p>To return to Van Syckel. After his warning to the inventor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> that he -could get no cars and make no money, even if his new idea proved a -success, the representative of the combination invited Van Syckel to -put himself in its hands.</p> - -<p>"He said they would furnish the money to test the invention and pay me -all it was worth. I felt a little startled at the rebates, and I knew -it before, but I did not know it was so bad as he had figured it out. -I then asked him who of his company would agree to furnish me money to -test the patent and to pay all it was worth. He asked me who I wanted -to agree with. I then asked him if a man" (naming him) "that I had had -more or less dealings with" (one of the trustees) "would agree to what -he had said. He said he had no doubt he would. He said, 'We will go and -see him, and go at his expense.' He said he would take the works off my -hands at cost, and would satisfy my partner to stop building them if I -would go to New York, and I think it was the next day when we went to -New York."</p> - -<p>They went to the office of the member of the combination whom Van -Syckel had said he would confide in. "He seemed to be very glad to -see me, and very sorry to learn I had been so unfortunate in the oil -regions. He then asked me what these patent works would cost in a small -way to prove that oil could be successfully made under continuous -distillation. I told him it could be done for about $10,000. He said -they would give it, ... and if it proved a success they would give me -$100,000. He said it was worth more. He would give me $125 a month to -support my family during the time I was building and testing it. I -said, 'Let us put what we have agreed upon in writing.' He begged off -for a time. He said it could be done at Titusville just as well. He saw -I was not quite satisfied being cut off in that way, so he took my hand -and said he would give me his word and honor what they had agreed upon -there should be put in writing at Titusville Monday morning. I did not -want to press him any harder. I told him I would take the $125 a month -until the thing was tested. If it proved a failure the whole thing -should come back where it started from, and if it proved a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> success he -was to pay me $100,000" (for the patents and the business). "He said -we all understood it, then. I went home." Van Syckel called upon the -Titusville member of the trust. "He begged off from me the same as the -other did in New York; said they were pressed with business. He said -they would fix it this afternoon, or words to that effect." Instead -of building for him, as it had agreed, the combination, the moment he -placed himself in its hands, destroyed the building he had already -begun.</p> - -<p>"What did they do with the works when they bought them?"</p> - -<p>"They took the brick that was on the cars and hauled them to other -places, I suppose, and I don't know where they threw the still. They -kept that leased property during the five years for a junk-yard. I went -the next day to see him, and pressed him about it the best I could. -I could not accomplish anything; he appeared to be busy, or kept out -of the way. I kept chasing to his office. I tried to catch him and -talk over what I should depend on, where we were going to build; but -he kept out of the way. He said he had not seen their folks. In July, -1879, more than three years after our contract in New York, he said -they had had a meeting of all their wise-heads, and they had called in -chemists, and they all unanimously agreed that oil could not be made -by a continuous process, and gave that as a reason for not furnishing -the money to build these works. I said, in reply, 'I am not responsible -for the knowledge that the "oil combination" has for refining oil; -neither would I exchange mine for all they have got combined. You said -you would furnish me the money and build these works, and do as you had -agreed to do.' I walked out. That was about the last I had to say to -him on that subject."</p> - -<p>"Did you after that build, or undertake to build, an oil refinery to -test your continuous process?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir; in connection with a German. He was going to build a small -refinery. He said he would build it my way, if I would let him use -it in the new way. He constructed it on that principle; but he was -slow—he was a very slow man to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> deal with. We ran ... twenty days -without stopping" (to clean out the stills).</p> - -<p>"And it actually ran that length of time?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"What became of these works?"</p> - -<p>"Hauled off to the junk-yard"—by one of the companies in the -combination. It "bought them out after we just got them under way, and -then tore them down and hauled them off."</p> - -<p>"You then brought them up to Buffalo, and tried to put them into the -Solar Works?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"What became of those?"</p> - -<p>"They eventually went the same way."</p> - -<p>In court the combination claimed that Van Syckel's was an inferior -process, but it had not left it to die the natural death of the -inferior process.</p> - -<p>"And how about the expense of the two ways?" he was asked.</p> - -<p>"The same help that would make 1000 barrels the old way, to take three -or four days, I would make in the new process in one day; the old way -takes about a ton of coal more and gets less oil, and the oil is not -near so good."</p> - -<p>No contradiction was offered by the defendants of any of these -statements. Uncontradicted evidence showed that the new process was -cheaper and produced better oil than the old processes. Stillmen from -the Herman and Solar refineries, in which Van Syckel tried his new -process after the combination refused to build for him, testified to -the practical success of his method. "We must have run these continuous -works for two months while I was there" (at the Solar).<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></p> - -<p>"We kept Van Syckel's process running right along continuously for -sixteen days" (at the Herman refinery).<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a></p> - -<p>"We did not have to clean out the patent stills, while by the old -process they would have to be cleaned out about every day or thirty-six -hours."<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> - -<p>A number of residents of Titusville, dealers in oil and consumers, -testified to the superiority of the illuminant Van Syckel produced. -It burned much better than that made by the monopoly, several said. -"The burning qualities was extraordinarily good." "It gave better -satisfaction to my customers." "It did not gum the lamp-wicks, and did -not smell."<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a></p> - -<p>This was done in spite of rusty and choked-up pipes, defective stills -and apparatus.</p> - -<p>One of the owners of the Solar, who was a practical refiner and -the overseer of the works, testified that he had seen Van Syckel's -continuous process run successfully both in Titusville and Buffalo:</p> - -<p>"The result was much beyond my expectation."</p> - -<p>"How long did you run the works?"</p> - -<p>"I think about two weeks."</p> - -<p>"What was the cause of it stopping?"</p> - -<p>"The president of the company, also the treasurer, had been to New -York two or three times; after the second or third visit he came back -seemingly disgusted with the business; afraid of losing his money if he -continued any longer, and quit."</p> - -<p>"Was there a mortgage upon your property?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir." It had been foreclosed, he said, in conclusion, by one of -the leading members of the oil combination.<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a></p> - -<p>The only thing Van Syckel can do to carry out his part of the contract -he does. He develops his invention. He is successful in his application -to the United States patent-office. He made his contract with the -combination in 1876, and got four patents thereafter in 1877, 1878, and -1879.</p> - -<p>"Well," it was said in court, "they are a large concern; they would -make money out of this; I should think they would want it if it is -such a good thing." "Why, my dear man, they have got a monopoly of the -business, anyway," Van Syckel replied. "They don't care what kind of -oil they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> sell; but they have got a plant that has cost them millions -of dollars that they have got to change, and all that sort of thing, if -they take my patent. That is the situation."</p> - -<p>He lived on the $125 a month while he was testing and proving the -invention. In July, 1880, when four years of his life had been thus -wasted, the allowance was changed, without notice or his consent, to -$75 a month. The next month he was refused even that sum "unless I -signed a receipt in full of all demands, and I walked out without it."</p> - -<p>His pipe line has become a part of the net-work of pipe lines of which -the oil combination boasts. His refinery of 1869, one of the largest -built in western Pennsylvania up to that time, passed into its hands. -Three times in succession, after it refuses to build for him as it -agreed, he arranges to put his idea of continuous distillation into -use, and in each case the refinery in which he sets up his pipes and -stills is bought up by it and destroyed. He is kept dangling for years -by its policy of delay. Then his independent efforts are broken up; -capitalists are made afraid of him. He can get no means for building -new works. "Ever since I went into their hands," he said in court, "I -have been just as I am now. I could not make oil; could not build a -refinery; could not get anybody help me to do it; and here I have stood -these last twelve years, and I want to be out. That is just where they -want to keep me, so I cannot make any oil. It is the whole profit of -the whole of it. They hold me to my contract, and they break theirs."</p> - -<p>When twelve years had gone by, and he found that they would neither -build for him as agreed nor let any one else build for him, Van Syckel -turned to the law and sued them for damages. On the trial all the facts -as we have stated were admitted—the abandonment of the enterprise in -consequence of the threats that he would not be allowed to ship and -market his oil; the interviews in New York; the contract; the sale; Van -Syckel's later efforts to make oil in other refineries; his success -in producing better and cheaper oil; its popularity; the purchase and -destruction of the works using the new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> method. Not a word of evidence -was adduced in disproof. The judge and the jury found all these -questions in Van Syckel's favor.</p> - -<p>The defence was twofold. It was admitted that the two representatives -Van Syckel had dealt with had made the contract as he described it. The -members of the combination did not deny that. But, they argued, it was -not legally binding. "We simply concede," said these great men to the -Court, "that they made a contract, but leaving it to the corporation -itself to decide upon it.... There cannot be the slightest claim that -the company was bound by a contract of that character." On this point -they were defeated in the trial. Their second defence was that there -were no damages. "The trouble is," they said, "that there are no -damages sustained, no damages whatever sustained." They took the ground -that his possessing a creative mind was the cause of Van Syckel's ruin, -not their betrayal of him. "Mr. Van Syckel," they argued to the Court, -sympathetically, "is an instance of what it means to get out a patent, -and deal in patents—in nine cases out of ten. He was an inventive man. -He has got out a good many patents. No question they were meritorious -patents. And what is the result? Poverty, a broken heart, an enfeebled -intellect, and a struggle now for the means of subsistence by this -lawsuit. So that, if your honor please, there is nothing here from -which we can determine what the original value of this patent was." The -jury and the judge decided against them, and held there was a contract, -legal and binding. That brought them face to face with the question of -damages, and here the ruling of the judge saved them, as the decision -of another judge saved other members of the combination in the criminal -case in the same city, about the same time.<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> The judge ordered the -jury to find the damages at six cents, and the jury—in the evolution -of freedom juries appear to have become merely clerks of the Court—did -so. "This direction of a verdict," said the Court to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> Van Syckel, -"decides every other question of the case in your favor."</p> - -<p>Six cents damages for breach of such a contract, and in Buffalo $250 -fine for conspiracy to blow up a rival refinery! Here are figures with -which to begin a judicial price-list of the cost of immunity for crimes -and wrongs.</p> - -<p>Lawyer Moot, Van Syckel's counsel, deferentially asked the Court to -suggest where was the defect in the proof of damages. It would be "the -wildest speculation and guesswork," the Court said, for the jury to -attempt to compute the damages.</p> - -<p>"Then the Court is unable to suggest any particular defect in the -proof?"</p> - -<p>The Court evaded the point of the counsel, and repeated in general -terms that there was no testimony upon which a jury could assess -damages.</p> - -<p>Those whom he was suing did not disprove that, by threats of making it -impossible for him to get transportation, they had driven Van Syckel -to abandon his own business, and make a contract with them by which -they were to pay him $100,000 for his new process, if successful. The -Court held the contract binding. They had not furnished the money and -works to test the inventions as they had agreed to do; but he had -nevertheless gone on and completed the invention, so that patents -were granted for it by the government. He had tested the invention in -other works, they failing him, and had proved it a success; they had -thereupon purchased and destroyed these works; he was beggared, and -nobody else under these circumstances could be induced to venture money -on his invention. Upon these facts, judicially ascertained, the judge -refused to let the jury compute the damages, and ordered them to find -the damages "nominal," as another judge sentenced their associates in -Buffalo to "nominal" punishment.</p> - -<p>"There are many things known to the law," said Parnell to the president -of the Special Commission trying the Irish members of Parliament, -"which are strange to a non-legal mind."</p> - -<p>This pioneer, inventor, and true Captain of Industry, real<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> creator of -wealth, has ever since had his neck bent to the pressure of hands too -heavy for him. While all over the earth homes are brighter, knowledge -is more easily got, and civilization forwarded, because of what his -head has thought and his hands have done, he has retired to what is, -in fact, a life of penal exile. He has been cut off from the darlings -of his brain. Like the political prisoners of Siberia, he can eat -and sleep and dress, but he cannot go into the world. His mind is at -work there, in every factory and pipe line and lamp; but he must sit, -unknown and unrewarded, in his pine cottage on unpaved Maurice Street, -ploughed up in the prairies on the outskirts of Buffalo. Dearer than -money to him, as to all such creative minds, would be the privilege -of feeding the appealing activities of his brain with work. But he -is banished from work. He has been set down outside the frontier of -industry, and commanded never to return. No one dares buy or sell of -him, nor adventure labor or money with him. He is an outcast. This is -his greatest grief. The day I visited him he came into the sitting-room -from the patch of garden behind the house. "I keep busy," he said, -"to keep my mind off—anything to keep busy, if it is only pulling -weeds." He is glad to see visitors. "I have been knocked out," he -said, "so that nobody now comes to see me." His clear gray-blue eyes, -tall, strong frame, firm mouth, large features and limbs, eager face, -fit the facts of his career. He is one of the type of country-bred, -hard-working American manhood of the last generation. There are -no visionary lines in his face, as in his life there have been no -impracticabilities, except his too great trustfulness. Gambling oil -exchanges, wild oil-land speculations, inside "deals" with railroad -freight agents, have never caught him. He has been a money-maker—not -a money-taker. To-day, at eighty, the only thing he asks is that he -may have the chance to work out his ideas. He talks patiently and -courteously, with perfect intelligence and memory, but every once in -a while breaks in with an outburst of what is evidently an unceasing -refrain within—"I want to make oil."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> - -<p>The diminutive room we are in is stark in its simplicity and poverty. A -paragraph in the morning paper on the table tells of "a massive oaken -case, similar to a bookcase," which one of the chief reapers where -Van Syckel has sowed is having put into his stable in New York. "It -has doors of polished oak, with brass hinges, and heavy plate-glass. -The inside will be lined with purple plush, and, when completed, the -bits which shine in the mouths of his trotters and coach-horses will -be arranged inside of this magnificent case in rows, ready for use, as -well as an appropriate ornament for the stable."</p> - -<p>It is better to be one of the king's horses than one of the king's -men. But no words of envy pass his lips. He does not seem to repress -them. He simply appears never to feel them. It chanced that as I -left him, standing on the uppermost of the three wooden steps of his -cottage, bleakness all about, "plain living" within, plain enough to -satisfy the hardest climber for "high thinking," it chanced that his -last words to me were—"I want to make oil," with an appeal to seek -for him the opportunity so long denied. These words, plain and homely -as they must seem to those who feed their appetite for the sublime -and heroic with the highly varnished sayings of the battle-field and -illustrious death-beds, will never cease to ring in my ears with a tone -of greatness.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></p> - -<p class="center">SYMPATHETICAL CO-OPERATION</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Some</span> day, perhaps, when more of our story-readers have learned that -there are things in the world quite as important as the frets, follies, -and loves of boys and girls half-grown, more of our story-tellers will -hold their magic mirror up to the full-pulsed life with which mankind -throbs through the laboring years that stretch along after the short -fever of mating is over. George Rice, coming from the Green Mountains -of Vermont, entered the oil business twenty-nine years ago, when he and -it were young. He was one of the first comers. Beginning as a producer -in the Pithole region, in the days of its evanescent glory, in 1865, -he prospered. Escaping the ruin which overtook those who stayed too -long in that too quick sand, he was one of the first to develop the new -field at Macksburg, Ohio, and to see the advantages of Marietta, on the -Ohio River, as a point for refining. Crude oil could easily be brought -from Ohio and Pennsylvania by barge down the Ohio River. The field he -entered was unoccupied. He drove no one out, but built a new industry -in a new place. In 1876 he had risen to the dignity of manufacturer, -and had a refinery of a capacity of 500 barrels a week, and later of -2000 barrels. Owning wells, he produced, himself, a part of the crude -which he refined. His position gave him access to all the markets by -river and rail. Everything promised him fortune. His family took hold -with him in the work of bread-winning. "The executive part of the -business is done altogether by my family," he says. "One daughter keeps -the books, another daughter does nine-tenths of the correspondence, and -my son-in-law is the general manager."<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> One of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> the daughters was -a witness in one of her father's cases before the Interstate Commerce -Commission. "She discussed with counsel," said the New York <i>World</i>, -"the knotty points involving tank-car rates, mileage, rebates, and the -long and short haul as familiarly as any general freight agent present."</p> - -<p>Several other refiners, seeing the advantages of Marietta, had settled -there. They who elected themselves to be trustees of the light of the -world, thus having the advantages of the place pointed out to them by -practical men, determined that Marietta must be theirs. They bought up -some of the refiners. Then they stopped buying. Their representative -there, afterwards a member of the trust, "told me distinctly that -he had bought certain refineries in Marietta, but that he would not -buy any more.... He had another way," he said, "of getting rid of -them."<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> Of these "other ways" the independents were now to have a -full exposition. In January, 1879, freight rates on oil were suddenly -and without previous notice raised by the railroads leading out of -Marietta, and by their connections. Some of the rates were doubled. The -increase was only on oil. It was—in Ohio—only on oil shipped from -Marietta; it was exacted only from the few refiners who had not been -bought, because there were "other ways of getting rid of them."<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a></p> - -<p>This freight-tariff attack on the independent refiners was arranged by -their powerful rival and the railroad managers at a secret conference, -as the latter admitted.</p> - -<p>"Did you have any consultation or invite consultation with other -manufacturers of oil at Marietta?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></p> - -<p>When the representatives of the combination in this market were taxed -by a dealer with getting the benefit of this manipulation of freight, -"they laughed." All the railroads took part in the surprise. Curiously -enough, the minds of the managers of a dozen roads acted simultaneously -and identi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>cally, over thousands of miles of country—some, as they -admitted, with suggestion, and some, as they testified, without -suggestion—upon so precise a detail of their business as the rates -on oil at one little point. "I did it at my own instance," said the -freight agent of the Baltimore and Ohio. Freight officials of railways -as far apart east, west, and south, and in interest, as the Baltimore -and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania, and the Lake Shore, which had no direct -connection with Marietta, and reached it only over other lines, stopped -their "wars" to play their part in the move by raising the rate on oil -only, and, most remarkable of all, to a figure at which neither they, -nor the railroad connecting them with Marietta, nor (and this was the -game they were gunning for) the independent refiners could do any -business. From other points than Marietta, as Cleveland, Parkersburg, -Pittsburg, and Wheeling, where the combination had refineries, but the -Marietta independents had none, the railroads left the former rates -unchanged.<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a></p> - -<p>Rice was "got rid of" at Columbus just as effectually as if Ruskin's -"Money-bag Baron," successor of "the Crag Baron," stood across the road -with a blunderbuss. His successful rival had but to let its Marietta -refineries lie idle, and transfer to its refineries at Wheeling its -Marietta business—and Rice's too. By the pooling of the earnings -and of the control of all its refineries—the essential features of -the combination—its business could be transferred from one point -to another without loss. One locality or another could be subjected -to ruinous conditions for the extermination of competitors, and the -combination, no matter how large its works there, would prosper without -check. It gets the same profit as before, but the competitor by its -side is ruined. All its refineries along a given railroad can be closed -by high rates made to "overcome competition," but profits do not cease. -Their business is done elsewhere by its other refineries, and all the -profits go into a pool for the common benefit.</p> - -<p>From Rice's point of view, Marietta was the storm-centre;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> but the -evidence before the Ohio Legislative Investigation of 1879, before the -Legislative Committee of New York of 1879, before Master in Chancery -Sweitzer in Pennsylvania, and in the suit against the Lake Shore -Railroad, showed that the low barometer there was part of a disturbance -covering a wide area. The demonstration against the independent -refiners of Marietta was only part of a wider web-spinning, in which -those at all points—New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Oil -City, Titusville, Buffalo, Rochester,<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> and Cleveland—were to be -forced to "come in" as dependents, or sell out, as most of them did.</p> - -<p>That rates were not raised from points controlled by the combination -is only part of the truth. At such places rates were lowered. This, -like the increase of rates, was done at a secret conference with the -oil combination and at its instance.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> Where it had refineries the -rates were to be low; the high rates were for points where it had -competitors to be got rid of without the expense of buying them up. The -independents knew nothing of the increase of freights prepared for them -by the railroad managers and their great competitor until after, some -time after, it had gone into effect.</p> - -<p>The railroad company gave notice to their rivals what the rates were -to be, but withheld that information from them.<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> That was not all. -Before the new rates were given all the old rates were cancelled. "For -a few days," said an independent, "we could not obtain any rates at -all. We had orders from our customers, but could not obtain any rates -of freight."</p> - -<p>As to many places, the withholding of rates continued. "There's many -places we can't obtain any rates to. They just say we sha'n't ship to -these other places at any price."<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></p> - -<p>When the Ohio Legislature undertook to investigate, it found that the -railroad men professed a higher allegiance to their corporations than -to the State. They refused to answer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> the questions of the committee, -or evaded them. "I am working under orders from the general freight -agent," said one of them, "and I don't feel authorized to answer that." -The arguments of the committee that the orders of an employer could not -supersede the duty of a citizen to his government, or the obligations -of his oath as a witness, were wasted. "I will tell you just how I -feel," said the witness to these representatives of an inferior power. -"I am connected with the railroad company, and get my instructions from -the general agent, and I am very careful about telling anybody else -anything." The Legislature accepted the rank of "anybody else" to which -it was assigned, and did not compel the witness to answer.</p> - -<p>To a question about the increase in freight: "I object," said another -railroad officer, "to going into details about my own private -business."<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a></p> - -<p>One peculiar thing about the action of the railroads was that it was an -injury to themselves. The Baltimore and Ohio, for instance, by raising -its rate, cut off its oil business with Marietta entirely. "What -advantage is it, then?" the freight agent of the road over which the -Baltimore and Ohio reached Marietta was asked.</p> - -<p>"There is no advantage.... We had revenue before this increase in -rates, and none since."</p> - -<p>"What would be the inducement for her (the Baltimore and Ohio) to do -it, then?"</p> - -<p>"That is a matter I am not competent to answer."<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a></p> - -<p>The railroad men testified positively that the increase affected all -alike at Marietta. It was supposed even by those who thought they saw -to the bottom of the manœuvre that the combination would close its -Marietta works temporarily, in order to seem to be equally affected -with all the rest. It could do this with no loss whatever, since, as -explained, no raise in rates had been made from Wheeling, Parkersburg, -Pittsburg, Cleveland, where it was practically alone, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> could -reach all its customers from those places as well as from Marietta. But -the combination kept on filling orders from its refineries at Marietta -at the old freight rates, while by its side the men it was hunting down -sat idle because the discriminating rates of freight made it impossible -for them to use the highways. It was so careless of appearances -that oil ordered of its works at Parkersburg would be sent from the -Marietta branch,<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> and at the old rate of 40 cents, while the other -refineries could not ship because the rate to them was 65 cents; the -increase at Marietta was not enforced against it, but only against the -three independents—just as planned in the South Improvement scheme.</p> - -<p>The move was far-reaching—as far as Chicago, the rate to which was -made $1.20 a barrel, instead of 90 cents a barrel.</p> - -<p>"Then they cut you off from the Western trade as well as this State?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir; almost entirely.... I was selling in Chicago, and it cut -trade entirely off."<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a></p> - -<p>"Before the rates were changed did you run to your full capacity?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir; about that."<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a></p> - -<p>At one stroke the independents lost the business which it had cost them -years of work to get. As the testimony of witness after witness showed, -the merchants who had been their customers in Chicago, Columbus, and -other places, now had to send their orders to those for whose benefit -the railroad men had raised the rates. This sweeping change was not due -to any change in their desire to sell, or of their old customers to -buy. They could still make oil which was still wanted. But they were -the victims of a competitor who had learned the secret of a more royal -road to business supremacy than making a better thing, or selling it -at a better price. Their better way was not to excel but to exclude. -When their "secretary" was called before the Ohio Legislature, after -this freight ambuscade had transferred the bulk of the business of -the inde<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>pendent refineries at Marietta to him and his associates, he -declared that the sole cause of their success was the "large mechanical -contrivances" of the combination, its "economy," and its production of -the "very best oil." "With an aggregation of capital, and a business -experience, and a hold upon the channels of trade such as we have, it -is idle to say that the small manufacturer can compete with us; and -although that is an offensive term, 'squeezing out,' yet it has never -been done by the conjunction of any railroads with us."<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a></p> - -<p>The small manufacturer did compete and flourish until these railroad -men literally switched him out of the market. He competed and got his -share of the business, until the men who wanted monopoly, finding that -they had no monopoly of quality or price or business ability, resorted -to the "large mechanical contrivance" of inducing the managers of -the railroads to derail the independent, throwing him off the track -by piling impassable freight tariffs in his way. The successful men -secured their supremacy by preventing their competitors from entering -the market at all. Instead of winning by "better" and "cheaper," they -won by preventing any competitor from coming forward to test the -questions of "better" and "cheaper." Their method of demonstrating -superiority has been to prevent comparisons.</p> - -<p>All the independent refiners at Marietta, except Rice, died. "Most of -those we received from have gone out of the business," a Cincinnati -dealer told the Legislature. Some had fled; some had sold out.<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> -Rice set himself to do two things: the first, to drag into the light -of day and the public view the secrets of these "better methods"; and -the second, to get new business in the place of what he had lost. He -succeeded in both. It was in January that he had notice served upon him -that he could no longer go to market. In two months he had the Ohio -Legislature at work investigating this extraordinary administration of -the highways. This was a great public service. It did not yield the -fruit of immediate reform, but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> did work which is the indispensable -preliminary. It roused the people who were still asleep on these new -issues, and were dreaming pleasant dreams that in George III. they had -escaped from all tyrants forever, and that in the emancipation of the -blacks they had freed all slaves forever.</p> - -<p>Rice knew that the Legislature were planting trees for posterity, and -did not wait for help from them. He set about looking up markets where -the public were free to choose and buy. He could not go West or East or -North. He went South. The little family kept the refinery at Marietta -running, and the father travelled about establishing new agencies in -the South, and studying freight tariffs, railroad routes, and terminal -facilities for loading and unloading and storing. In 1880, through all -the storm and stress of these days, he was able to double the capacity -of his refinery. Again he succeeded in building up a livelihood, and -again his success was treated as trespass and invasion. His bitter -experience in Ohio in 1879 proved to be but an apprenticeship for a -still sterner struggle. Rice was getting most of his crude oil from -Pennsylvania, through a little pipe line which brought it to the -Alleghany. The pipe line was taken up by the oil trust.<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a></p> - -<p>This compelled him to turn to the Macksburg, Ohio, field for most of -his petroleum. He had one tank-car, and he ran this back and forth -faster than ever. Then came the next blow. The railroad over which he -ran his tank-car doubled his freight to 35 cents a barrel, from 17½. -That was not all. The same railroad brought oil to the combination's -Marietta refineries at 10 cents a barrel, while they charged him 35. -That was not all. The railroad paid over to the combination 25 cents -out of every 35 cents he paid for freight. If he had done all the oil -business at Marietta, and his rival had put out all its fires and let -its works stand empty, it would still have made 25 cents a barrel on -the whole output. Rice found a just judge when he took this thing into -court. "Abhorrent," "danger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>ous," "gross," "illegal and inexcusable -abuse by a public trust," "an unparalleled wrong," are the terms in -which Judge Baxter gave voice to his indignation as he ordered the -removal of the receiver of the railroad who had made this arrangement -with the combination, to enable it, as the judge said, "to crush Rice -and his business."<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a></p> - -<p>In an interview, filling four columns of the New York <i>World</i> of March -29, 1890, the head of the trust which would receive this rebate is -reported to have made this attempt to reverse the facts of this and -similar occurrences: "The railroad company proposed to our agent," -he said. But the judge who heard all the evidence and rendered the -decision, which has never been reversed or impaired, declared that it -"compelled" the railroad to make the arrangement, "under a threat of -building a pipe line for the conveyance of its oils and withdrawing its -patronage." This arrangement was negotiated by the same agent of the -oil combination who engineered the similar "transfer" scheme by which -the trunk-line railroads gave it, in 1878, 20 to 35 cents a barrel out -of the freights paid by its competitors in Pennsylvania, as already -told.<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a></p> - -<p>"I reluctantly acquiesced," the receiver said, writing in confidence -to his lawyer, anxious lest so acquiescing he had made himself legally -liable. The interview describes the arrangement as an innocent thing: -"A joint agreement for the transportation of oil." It was an agreement -to prevent the transportation of oil by anybody else. Judge Baxter -shows that it was a joint agreement, procured by threats, for the -transportation of "$25 per day, clear money," from Rice's pockets into -the pockets of the members of the trust for no service rendered, and -without his knowledge or consent, and with the transparent purpose of -transporting his business to their own refineries. Judge Baxter called -it "discrimination so wanton and oppressive it could hardly have been -accepted by an honest man, and a judge who would tolerate such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> wrong -or retain a receiver capable of perpetrating it, ought to be impeached -and degraded from his position."<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a></p> - -<p>This matter was also passed upon by the Select Committee of the United -States Senate on Interstate Commerce. "No comment," the committee say, -"is needed upon this most impudent and outrageous proposition"—by the -oil company to the railroad.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a></p> - -<p>"Are you going to deny that story?" a great American statesman of the -latter-day type was asked by one of his friends.</p> - -<p>"Not I," was the reply. "The story's false. When you find me taking the -trouble to deny a thing, you can bet it's true!"</p> - -<p>This "agreement for the transportation of oil" had its calculated -effect. It put a stop to the transportation of oil from the Ohio field -by Rice over the railroad, just as the destruction by the same hands -of the pipe line to the Alleghany had cut him off from access to the -Pennsylvania oil-fields. He then built his own pipe line to the Ohio -field. To lay this pipe it was necessary to cross the pipe line of his -great rival. Rice had the pluck to do this without asking for a consent -which would never have been given. His intrepidity carried its point, -for, as he foresaw, they dared not cut his pipe for fear of reprisals.</p> - -<p>In turning to the South, after his expulsion from the Ohio and Western -markets, the Marietta independent did but get out of one hornet's -nest to sit down in another. His opponent was selling its oil there -through a representative who, as he afterwards told Congress, "was very -fortunate in competing." He thought it was "cheaper in the long-run to -make the price cheap and be done with it, than to fritter away the time -with a competitor in a little competition. I put the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> price down to the -bone."<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> Rice, in the South, ran into the embrace of this gentleman -who had the "exclusive control" of that territory, and whose method of -calling the attention of trespassers to his right was to cut them "to -the bone." The people and the dealers everywhere in the South were glad -to see Rice. He found a deep discontent among consumers and merchants -alike. They perhaps felt more clearly than they knew that business -feudalism was not better, but worse, because newer, than military -feudalism. This representative of the combination assured Congress -that "99.9 of all the first-class merchants of the South were in close -sympathetical co-operation with us in our whole history"—that is, out -of every hundred "first-class merchants" only one-tenth of one merchant -was not with them. This is a picturesque percentage.</p> - -<p>Rice's welcome among the people would not verify his opponent's -estimate that his vassalage included all but one-tenth of one dealer -in every hundred. From all parts came word of the anxiety of the -merchants to escape from the power that held them fast. From Texas: -"Most of our people are anxious to get clear." From Arkansas: "The -merchants here would like to buy from some other." From Tennessee: "Can -we make any permanent arrangement with you by which we can baffle such -monopoly?" From Kentucky: "I dislike to submit to the unreasonable -and arbitrary commands." From Mississippi: "It has gouged the people -to such an extent that we wish to break it down and introduce some -other oils." From Georgia, from different dealers: "They have the -oil-dealers in this State so completely cooped in that they cannot -move." "We are afraid."<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> As Rice went about the South selling oil -the agents of the cutter "to the bone" would follow, and by threats, -like those revealed in the correspondence described below, would coerce -the dealers to repudiate their purchases. Telegrams would pour into -the discouraged office at Marietta: "Don't ship oil ordered from your -agent." "We hereby countermand orders given your agent yesterday." One<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> -telegram would often be signed by all the dealers in a town, though -competitors, sometimes nearly a dozen of them, showing that they were -united by some outside influence they had to obey.<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a></p> - -<p>Where the dealers were found too independent to accept dictation, -belligerent and tactical cuts in price were proclaimed, not to make -oil cheap, but to prevent its becoming permanently cheaper through -free competition and an open market. Rice submitted to Congress -letters covering pages of the Trust Report,<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> showing how he had -been tracked through Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Georgia, Kansas, -Kentucky, Iowa, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama. -The railroads had been got to side-track and delay his cars, and the -dealers terrorized into refusing to buy his oils, although they were -cheaper. If the merchants in any place persisted in buying his oil -they were undersold until they surrendered. When Rice was driven out -prices were put back. So close was the watch kept of the battle by the -generals of "co-operation" that when one of his agents got out of oil -for a day or two, prices would be run up to bleed the public during -the temporary opportunity. "On the strength of my not having any oil -to-day," wrote one of Rice's dealers, "I am told they have popped up -the price 3½ cents."<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a></p> - -<p>The railroad officials did their best to make it true that "the poor ye -have with you always." By mistake some oil meant for the combination -was delivered to Rice's agent, and he discovered that it was paying -only 88 cents a barrel, while he was charged $1.68, a difference of 80 -cents a barrel for a distance of sixty-eight miles.</p> - -<p>"Could you stand such competition as that?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir. Before that I went up there and sold to every man in the -place nearly. They were glad to see me in opposition.... I lost them, -except one man who was so prejudiced that he would not buy from them."</p> - -<p>"Your business had been on the increase up to that time?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Increasing rapidly.... I haul it in wagons now forty miles south of -Manito."</p> - -<p>"The rates against you on that railroad are so high that you can for -a distance of forty miles transport your oil by wagon and meet the -competition better than you can by using their own road?"</p> - -<p>"Infinitely better."<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></p> - -<p class="center">"TURN ANOTHER SCREW"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">A spy</span> at one end of an institution proves that there is a tyrant at -the other. Modern liberty has put an end to the use of spies in its -government only to see it reappear in its business.</p> - -<p>Rice throughout the South was put under a surveillance which could -hardly have been done better by Vidocq. One of the employés of the oil -clique, having disclosed before the Interstate Commerce Commission that -he knew to a barrel just how much Rice had shipped down the river to -Memphis, was asked where he got the information. He got it from the -agents who "attend to our business."</p> - -<p>"What have they to do with looking after Mr. Rice's business?... How do -your agents tell the number of barrels he shipped in April, May, and -June?"</p> - -<p>"See it arrive at the depot."</p> - -<p>"How often do your agents go to the depot to make the examination?"</p> - -<p>"They visit the depot once a day, not only for that purpose, but to -look after the shipment of our own oil."</p> - -<p>"Do they keep a record of Mr. Rice's shipments?"</p> - -<p>"They send us word whenever they find that Mr. Rice has shipped a -car-load of oil."</p> - -<p>"What do their statements show with respect to Mr. Rice's shipments -besides that?"</p> - -<p>"They show the number of barrels received at any point shipped by Mr. -Rice, or by anybody else."</p> - -<p>"How often are these statements sent to the company?"</p> - -<p>"Sent in monthly, I think."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> - -<p>"It is from a similar monthly report that you get the statement that -in July, August, and September, Mr. Rice shipped 602 barrels of oil to -Nashville, is it?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"Have you similar agents at all points of destination?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a></p> - -<p>This has a familiar look. It is the espionage of the South Improvement -Company contract, in operation sixteen years after it was "buried." -When the representative of the oil combination appears in public with -tabulated statements exhibiting to a barrel the business done by its -competitors for any month of any year, at any place, he tells us too -plainly to be mistaken that the "partly-born," completely "buried" -iniquity, sired by the "sympathetical co-operation" of the trustees and -their railroad associates of easy virtue, is alive and kicking—kicking -a breach in the very foundations of the republic.</p> - -<p>A letter has found the light which was sent by the Louisville man who -was so "fortunate in competing," immediately after he heard that one -of "his" Nashville customers had received a shipment from the Marietta -independent. It was addressed to the general freight agent of the -Louisville and Nashville Railroad. It complained that this shipment, -of which the writer knew the exact date, quantity, destination, and -charges, "slipped through on the usual fifth-class rate." "Please turn -another screw," the model merchant concluded. What it meant "to turn -another screw" became quickly manifest. Not daring to give the true -explanation, none of the people implicated have ever been able to make -a plausible explanation of the meaning of this letter. The railroad man -to whom it was sent interpreted it when examined by Congress as meaning -that he should equalize rates. But Congress asked him:</p> - -<p>"Is the commercial phrase for equalizing rates among railroad people -'turn another screw'?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> - -<p>He had to reply, helplessly, "I do not think it is."</p> - -<p>The sender before the same committee interpreted it as a request "to -tighten up the machinery of their loose office."<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> Rice found out -what the letter meant. "My rates were raised on that road over 50 per -cent. in five days."</p> - -<p>"Was it necessary to turn on more than one screw in that direction to -put a stop to your business?"</p> - -<p>"One was sufficient."<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p> - -<p>The rates to the combination remained unchanged. For five years—to -1886—they did not vary a mill. After the screw had been turned on, -he who suggested it wrote to the offending merchants at Nashville, -that if they persisted in bringing in this outside oil he would not -only cut down the price of oil, but would enter into competition on -all other articles sold in their grocery. He italicized this sentence: -"<i>And certainly this competition will not be limited to coal-oil or -any one article, and will not be limited to any one year.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> "Your -co-operation or your life," says he.</p> - -<p>"Have you not frequently, as a shipper of oil, taken part in the -competition with grocers and others in other business than oil, in -order to force them to buy oil?"</p> - -<p>"Almost invariably I did that always."<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a></p> - -<p>"The expense and influence necessary for sustaining the market in this -manner are altogether expended by us, and not by the representatives -of outside oil," he further wrote. "Influence," as a fact of supply -and demand, an element of price-making, is not mentioned in any -political economy. And yet the "influence" by which certain men have -got the highways shut to other shippers has made a mark as plain as -the mountains of the moon on our civilization. "If we allow any one to -operate in this manner," he continued, "in any one of our localities, -it simply starts off others. And whatever trouble or expense it has -given us in the past to prevent it we have found it to be, and still -believe it to be, the only policy to pursue."<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> - -<p>They "are threatening," his Nashville agent, after the screw was -turned, wrote Rice, "to ruin us in our business."<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a></p> - -<p>The head of the Louisville "bone-cutters," when a witness before -Congress during the trust investigation, stigmatized the action of his -Nashville victims as "black-mail." They were "black-mailers" because -they had sold a competitor's oil, and refused to continue to sell -his own unless it was made as cheap or cheaper. Competition, when he -practised it on others, was "sympathetical co-operation." Tried on -him, it was "black-mail." "That man wanted us to pay him more than we -paid the other jobbers"—<i>i.e.</i>, he wanted them to meet the prices of -competitors "because he thought we had the market sustained, and he -could black-mail us into it. I bluffed him in language, and language is -cheap."<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> The "language" that could produce an advance of freights -of 50 per cent. in five days against a competitor was certainly "cheap" -for the man whose rates remained unchanged, and who thereby absorbed -his neighbor's vineyard. The inevitable result followed at last. Rice -fought out the fight at Nashville seven years, from 1880 to 1887; then, -defeated, he had to shut up his agency there. That was "evacuation day" -at Nashville. It was among his oldest agencies, he told Congress, "and -it was shut out entirely last year on account of the discriminations. I -cannot get in there."<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a></p> - -<p>State inspection of oil and municipal ordinances about storage have -been other "screws" that have been turned to get rid of competition. -City councils passed ordinances forbidding oil in barrels to be stored, -while allowing oil in tanks, which is very much more dangerous, as the -records of oil fires and explosions show conclusively. His New Orleans -agent wrote Rice concerning the manœuvres of his pursuer: "He has -been down here for some time, and has by his engineering, and in -consequence of the city ordinances, cut me out of storage. As matters -now stand, I would not be able to handle a single barrel of oil."<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> -In Georgia the law was made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> so that the charge to the oil combination -shipping in tank-cars was only half what it was to others who shipped -in barrels. The State inspector's charge for oil in tanks was made 25 -cents a barrel; for oil in barrels it was 50 cents a barrel. But as if -that was not advantage enough, the inspector inspected the tanks at -about two-thirds of their actual capacity. If an independent refiner -sent 100 barrels of oil into the State, he would have to pay $50 for -inspection, while the oil combination sending in the same would pay -but 25 cents a barrel, and that on only 66-2/3 barrels, or $16 in all. -This difference is a large commercial profit of itself, and would -alone enable the one who received it to sell without loss at a price -that would cripple all others. In this State the chief inspector had -the power to appoint inspectors for the towns. He would name them only -for the larger places, where the combination had storage tanks. This -prevented independent refiners from shipping directly to the smaller -markets in barrels, as they could not be inspected there, and if not -inspected could not be sold.<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> All these manœuvres of inspection -helped to force the people to buy of only one dealer, to take what he -supplied, and pay what he demanded. Why should an official appointed -by the people, paid by them to protect them, thus use all his powers -against them? Why?</p> - -<p>"State whether you had not in your employ the State inspector of -oil and gave him a salary," the Louisville representative of the -combination was asked by Congress.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a></p> - -<p>Throughout the country the people of the States have been influenced -to pass inspection laws to protect themselves, as they supposed, from -bad oil, with its danger of explosion. But these inspection laws prove -generally to be special legislation in disguise, operating directly -to deprive the people of the benefit of that competition which would -be a self-acting inspection. They are useful only as an additional -illustration of the extent to which government is being used as an -active<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> partner by great business interests. Meanwhile any effort of -the people to use their own forces through governments to better their -condition, as by the ownership of municipal gas-works, street-railways, -or national railroads and telegraphs, is sung to sleep with the lullaby -about government best, government least.</p> - -<p>This second campaign had been a formidable affair—a worse was to -follow; but it did not overcome the independent of Marietta. With all -these odds against him, he made his way. Expelled from one place and -another, like Memphis and Nashville, he found markets elsewhere. This -was because the Southern people gave him market support along with -their moral support. Co-operation of father and son and daughter made -oil cheaper than the "sympathetical co-operation" opposing them, with -its high salaries, idle refineries, and dead-heads. Rice had to pay no -dividends on "trust" stock capitalized for fifteen times the value of -the property. He did not, like every one of the trustees, demand for -himself an income of millions a year from the consumer. He found margin -enough for survival, and even something more than survival, between the -cost of production and the market price. "In 1886 we were increasing -our business very largely. Our rates were low enough so that we could -compete in the general Southern market."<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a></p> - -<p>Upon this thrice-won prosperity fell now blow after blow from the same -hand which had struck so heavily twice before. From 1886 to the present -moment Rice and his family have been kept busier defending their right -to live in business than in doing the business itself. Their old enemy -has come at them for the third time, with every means of destruction -that could be devised, from highway exclusion to attacks upon private -character, given currency by all the powerful means at his command. The -game of 1886 was that of 1879, but with many improvements gained from -experience and progress of desire. His rates were doubled, sometimes -almost tripled; in some cases as much as 333 per cent. Rates to his -adver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>sary were not raised at all. The raise was secret. Suspecting -something wrong, he called on the railroad officer July 13th, and asked -what rates were going to be. The latter replied that he "had not the -list made out." But the next day he sent it in full to the combination. -Rice could not get them until August 23d, six weeks later, and then not -all of them. As in 1879 the new tariff was arranged at a conference -with the favored shippers.<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a></p> - -<p>This was the first gun of a concerted attack. Rice was soon under fire -from all parts of the field. One road after another raised his rates -until it seemed as if the entire Southern market would be closed to -him. While this was in progress the new Interstate Commerce Law passed -by Congress—in part through the efforts of Rice—to prevent just such -misuse of the highways, went into effect. But this did not halt the -railway managers. A month after it was passed the Senate Committee on -Interstate Commerce was shown that discrimination was still going on, -as it is still. At points as far apart as Louisville, New Orleans, -Atlanta, St. Louis, and San Francisco switches were spiked against -Rice, and the main lines barricaded of all the highways between the -Ohio River, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico. In -the face of the Interstate Commerce Act the roads raised his freights -to points in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and -Mississippi in no case less than 29, and in some cases as high as 150, -168, and 212 per cent. more than was charged the oil combination. Where -the latter would pay $100 freight, he, shipping the same amount to the -same place, would sometimes pay $310—if he got it taken at all.<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a></p> - -<p>The general freight agent of one of the roads, when before the -Interstate Commerce Commission, denied this. When confronted with -written proof of it he could only say, "It is simply an error."<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a></p> - -<p>Rice shows that in some cases these discriminations made him -pay four times as much freight, gallon for gallon, as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> -monopoly. The differences against him were so great that even the -self-contained Interstate Commerce Commission has to call them "a vast -discrepancy."<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> The power that pursued him manœuvred against -him, as if it were one track, all the railroads from Pennsylvania to -Florida, from Ohio to Lake Superior and the Pacific coast. "Through its -representative the oil combination was called before the Interstate -Commerce Commission to explain its relation to this 'vast discrepancy.'"</p> - -<p>"Your company pays full rates?"</p> - -<p>"Pays the rates that I understand are the rates for everybody."</p> - -<p>"Pays what are known as open rates?"</p> - -<p>"Open rates; yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a></p> - -<p>That the increase of rates in 1886, like that of 1879, was made by the -railroads against Rice, under the direction of his trade enemy, is -confirmed by the unwilling testimony of the latter's representative -before Congress. "I know I have been asked just informally by railroad -men once or twice as to what answer they should make. They said, Here -is a man—Rice, for instance—writing us that you are getting a lower -rate." He was asked if he knew any reason, legal or moral, why the -Louisville and Nashville Railroad should select his firm as the sole -people in the United States. "No, sir," the witness replied; but then -added, recovering himself, "I think they did because we were at the -front."<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> The railroads bring the people they prefer "to the front," -and then, because they are "at the front," make them the "sole people."</p> - -<p>Rice did not sleep under this new assault. He went to the -Attorney-General of Ohio, and had those of the railroads which were -Ohio corporations brought to judgment before the Supreme Court of -Ohio, which revoked their action, and could, if it chose, have -forfeited their charters. The Supreme Court found that these railroads -had charged "discriminating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> rates," "strikingly excessive," which -"tended to foster a monopoly," "actually excluded these competitors," -"giving to the favored shippers absolute control."<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> Rice went to -Cincinnati, to Louisville, to St. Louis, and Baltimore to see the -officials of the railroads. He found that the roads to the South -and West, which took his oil from the road which carried it out of -Marietta, were willing to go back to the old rates if the connecting -road would do so. But the general freight agent of that company would -give him no satisfaction. He wrote, October 3d, to the president of -the road over which he had done all his business for years. He got -no answer. He wrote again October 11th, no answer; October 20th, no -answer; November 14th, no answer. Rice had been paying this road nearly -$10,000 a year for freight, sending all his oil over it. The road had -used its rate-making power to hand over four-fifths of his business -to another, but he has never been able to get so much as a formal -acknowledgment of the receipt of his letters to the head of the road, -asking that his petitions for restoration of his rights on the highway -be considered. A part only of the letters and telegrams which he sent -during these years—to get rates, to have his cars moved, to rectify -unequal charges, to receive the same facilities and treatment others -got—fill pages of close print in the Trust Report of the Congressional -Committee of Manufactures of 1888.</p> - -<p>"Your time is a good deal occupied with correspondence, is it not?"</p> - -<p>"I should say so. If the rates had been more regular, I would not have -had so much correspondence. It takes about all my time to look after -rates."<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a></p> - -<p>Driven off his direct road to market, Rice set to hunting other ways. -The Baltimore and Ohio, he found, was, though very roundabout, the only -avenue left by which he could get his oils into Southern markets. He -began to negotiate with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> it immediately, but it was not until several -months later—the middle of November—that he succeeded in closing -arrangements. To get to Chattanooga, Tennessee, over this route his -oil had to travel 1186 miles as against 582 miles by the roads which -had been closed to him, and yet the rate was lower over the more than -double distance. Again, he could send a barrel of oil 1213 miles by the -Baltimore and Ohio to Birmingham, Alabama, for $1.22, while the roads -he had been using put his rate up to $2.26, although their line to -Birmingham was only 685 miles.</p> - -<p>All the arrangements had been concluded to the mutual satisfaction -of Rice and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After this thorough -discussion of four months, in which every point had been examined, -Rice sends forward his first shipment December 1st. He is not a little -elated to have blazed his way out of the trackless swamp in which he -had been left by the other roads. His satisfaction is short enough. In -about a fortnight—on December 15th—the then general freight agent of -the Baltimore and Ohio telegraphed him that he could not be allowed -to ship any more. "We will have to withdraw rates on oil to Southern -points, as the various lines in interest"—the connections to which the -Baltimore and Ohio delivered the oil for points beyond its own line, -and which shared in the rates—"will not carry them out."</p> - -<p>This was stunning. It nullified the labor of months which had been -spent in opening a way out of this blockade. It put the cup of ruin -again to the lips of the family at Marietta, innocent of all offence -but that of trying to make a living out of the industry of their -choice, and asking no favors, only the right to travel the public -highway on equal terms, and to stand in the open markets. The excuse -given was heavy-laden with inaccuracy. Rice immediately found out by -wire that the Piedmont Air Line, one of the most important of the -connections, had not refused to carry at the agreed rate. Its traffic -manager telegraphed the Baltimore and Ohio people to reconsider their -action, and continue taking Rice's oil. When asked first by Rice, -and afterwards by Congress, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> name the lines which refused, as he -alleged, to carry out the rates he had agreed upon, the general freight -agent of the Baltimore and Ohio could not give one. He escaped from -Congress by promising to send its committee, "within a day or two," -all the correspondence with these other companies. Once out of the -committee-room, he never sent a scrap of paper to redeem his promise, -and the whole matter was lost sight of by the committee.<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></p> - -<p>Rice, badly shattered, still sought and managed to find a few -long-way-around routes. He presented to Congress in 1888 a table -showing how he still managed to get to some of his markets. To -Birmingham, Alabama—the direct route of 685 miles, as well as the -Baltimore and Ohio, being closed to him—he shipped over seven -different railroads forward and backward 1155 miles. The rates of all -these roads added together made only $2.10 a barrel instead of $2.66, -to which the shorter line had raised its price, for the purpose, as -this comparison shows, not of getting revenue, but of cutting it off. -To get into Nashville he had to go around 805 miles over five different -lines instead of 502 miles, as usual, and still had a rate of $1.28 -instead of $1.60.</p> - -<p>From 1880, the moment he turned to the Southern field, after the -destruction of his business in the West, everything that railroad men's -ingenuity could do was done to prevent him from becoming a successful -manufacturer who might increase the amount to be shipped, open new -markets, and steady the trade by making it move by many minds of -different views and reasons instead of by one. In order barely to live -he was kept writing, telegraphing, travelling, protesting, begging, -litigating, worrying, and agitating by press, prosecutions, private -and public, and by State and national investigation. The ingenuity of -the railroad officials in chasing him down was wonderful. Nothing was -too small if it would hurt. Sometimes the railroad made through rates -so high that it was cheaper for him to ship his oil along by short<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> -stages, paying the local rates from place to place until it reached -its destination. In this way he got a car from Cincinnati to Knoxville -at the rate of 32 cents altogether, when, if it had been shipped at -once all the way on the through rate, it would have cost 40 cents a -hundred. The railroads have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, -used up armies of gifted counsel, and spoiled tons of white paper -with ink to argue out their right to charge more for short hauls than -long hauls; but when some traffic manager wants to crush one of his -employer's customers, no short-haul long-haul consistency stands in -his way.<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> It was not enough to fix his rates at double what others -paid. All kinds of mistakes were made about his shipments. Again and -again these mistakes were repeated; nor were they, the Interstate -Commerce Commission shows, corrected when pointed out.<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> One of -the stock excuses made by railroad managers for giving preferential -rates to their favorites is that they are the "largest shippers," and, -consequently, "entitled to a wholesale rate." But when Rice was the -largest shipper, as he was at New Orleans, they forgot to give him the -benefit of this "principle." When Rice wrote, asking if a lower rate -was not being made, the railroad agent replied: "Let me repeat that the -rates furnished you are just as low as furnished anybody else." "This -lacks accuracy," is the comment of the Interstate Commerce Commission.</p> - -<p>Wishing to know if the Louisville and Nashville would unite with other -roads in making through rates to him, Rice asked the question of -its freight agent. He replied: "I do not see that it is any of your -business." "It was undoubtedly his business," the Interstate Commerce -Commission says, sharply; "and his inquiry on the subject was not -wanting either in civility or propriety." When Rice asked the same road -for rates, the officials refused to give them to him, and persisted in -their refusal.<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> Like Vanderbilt before the New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> York Legislative -Committee, they seemed to think excuses to shippers were a substitute -for transportation, and evidently thought they had done more than their -duty in answering Rice's letters. But as the Commission dryly observes, -their answers to Rice's letters did not relieve him of the injurious -consequences. In attempting to explain these things to the Interstate -Commerce Commission, the agent of the railroad said:</p> - -<p>"If I have not made myself clear, I—"</p> - -<p>"You have not," one of the Commission interrupted.<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a></p> - -<p>The refusal to give Rice these rates was an "illegal refusal," the -Commission decided; "the obligation to give the rates ... was plain and -unquestionable." This general freight agent was summoned by Congress to -tell whether or not lower rates had been made to the oil combination -than to their competitors. He refused to produce the books and papers -called for by the subpœna. He had been ordered by the vice-president -of the road, he said, to refuse. He declined to answer the questions of -the committee. Recalled, he finally admitted the truth: "We gave them -lower rates in some instances."<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a></p> - -<p>Rice took to the water whenever he could, as hunted animals do. The -Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri were public highways that had -not been made private property, with general agents or presidents to -say "No" when asked permission to travel over them. He began to ship -by river. The chairman of the Committee of Commerce rose in his seat -in Congress to present favorably a bill to make it illegal to ship oil -of less than 150 degrees fire-test on the passenger boats of inland -waters. The reason ostentatiously given was public safety. But, as was -at once pointed out in the press, the public safety required no such -law. The test proposed was far above the requirement of safety. No -State in its inspection laws stipulated for so high a test. Most of the -States were satisfied with oil of 110 degrees fire-test; a few, like -Ohio, went as high as 120 degrees. All but a very small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> proportion of -the oil sent to Europe was only 110 degrees fire-test. The steamboat -men did not want the law, and were all against it. There was no demand -from the travelling public for such legislation. General Warner, member -of Congress, said, in opposing the bill: "Petroleum which will stand a -fire-test of 110 degrees is safer than baled cotton or baled hay, and -as safe as whiskey or turpentine to be carried on steamers. What is the -object, then? There can be but one, and I may as well assert it here, -although I make no imputation whatever upon the Committee of Commerce, -or any member of it. It will put the whole carrying trade of refined -petroleum into the hands of the railroads and under the control of ... -a monopoly which has the whole carrying trade in the oil business on -railroads, and they will make it as impossible for refiners to exist -along the lakes and the Ohio River as it is impossible for them now to -exist on any of the railroads of the country." Why the trust, though -it was the greatest shipper, should seek to close up channels of -cheapness like the waterways was plain enough. They were highways where -privilege was impossible. With its competitors shut off the railroads -by privilege, and off the rivers by law, it would be competition proof.</p> - -<p>The United States authorities, too, moved against Rice, responsive to -the same "pull" that made jumping-jacks for monopoly out of committees -of commerce and railway kings. When the Mississippi River steamer <i>U.P. -Schenck</i> arrived at Vicksburg with 56 barrels of independent oil, the -United States marshal came on board to serve a process summoning the -officers and owners to answer to the charge of an alleged violation of -law. Several steamboats were similarly "libelled."</p> - -<p>"We were threatened a great many times," the representative of the -steamboat company told Congress.<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> The steamboat men were put to -great expense and without proper cause. When the cases came to trial -they were completely cleared in every instance. But the prosecution had -done its work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> of harassing competition. The success of the campaign -of 1879 in Ohio was now repeated over a wider field. The attack of -1886, "in a period of five months," Rice said before Congress, "shut up -fourteen of my agencies out of twenty-four, and reduced the towns we -had been selling in from seventy-three to thirty-four."<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> This was a -loss in one year of 79 per cent., or about four-fifths of his business.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></p> - -<p class="center">IN THE INTEREST OF ALL</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> difference in freights against Rice was so great, as the Interstate -Commerce Commission found, after taking hundreds of pages of testimony, -that he had to pay $600 to $1200, "or more," on the same quantity his -opponent got through for $500. These discriminations were made, as the -commissioners say, "on no principle.... Neither greater risks, greater -expense, competition by water transportation, nor any other fact or -circumstance brought forward in defence, nor all combined, can account -for these differences."<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a></p> - -<p>The railroads had, of course, to give some reason, and they put forward -the plea that it was much more expensive and dangerous to carry Rice's -shipments, which were in barrels, than those of the combination, which -were in tank-cars.<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> This excuse for charging him rates at which -he could not ship at all did not stand examination by the Interstate -Commerce Commission.</p> - -<p>But he did not wait for that. When he found the railroads were so fond -of tank-cars, he set about getting them. He wrote the general freight -agent and the president of the road that he would build tank-cars, and -asked what his rate would be then; but he got no answer. He wrote other -roads, but got no answer. He asked the general manager of the Queen -City and Crescent Route the same question. After a correspondence of -five months with him and other officials, in which he was shuttlecocked -from one to another and back again, he had not only not succeeded in -getting any tank-car<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> rates, but at the end of that protracted exchange -of letters the general manager wrote: "I was not aware that you had -asked for rates on oil in tank-cars."<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> Rice wrote the Louisville -and Nashville: "I will build immediately twenty tank-cars if you will -guarantee me ... as low a net rate as accorded any other shipper." -Commenting on his failure to get answers, the commissioners say: -"Complainant did not succeed in obtaining rates. The denial of his -right was plain, and stands unexcused.... What reason there may have -been for it"—the refusal of rates—"we do not know, but find that they -were not just or legal reasons."<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a></p> - -<p>How history is made! One of the reasons given by the solicitor of the -oil trust<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> for its success is its use of the tank-car, with the -obvious inference that its would-be competitors had no such enterprise. -And Peckham, in his valuable and usually correct "Census Report on -Petroleum," in 1885, says that the railroads require shippers to use -tank-cars!<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a></p> - -<p>Determined to keep in the field and to have tank-cars, if tank-cars -were so popular with the railroad officials, Rice went to the leading -manufacturers to have some built. He found they were glad to get his -contract. After making arrangements at considerable trouble and expense -to build him the cars, they telegraphed him that they had to give it -up. Bankers, who had promised to advance them money on the security of -the cars, backed out "on account of some supposed controversy which -they claim you have had with the Standard Oil Company and various -railroads in the West. They feared you could not use these cars to -advantage if the railroads should be hostile to your interests."<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a></p> - -<p>Through the all-pervading system of espionage, to which cities<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> -as well as individuals were subject, his plans had been discovered -and thwarted. The espionage over shipments provided for by the -South Improvement scheme has now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> extended to business between -manufacturer and manufacturer. Why should it stop at unsealing private -correspondence in the post-office in the European style, and making its -contents known to those who need the information for the protection of -their rights to the control of the markets?</p> - -<p>Rice, who was nothing if not indomitable, finally got ten cars from the -Harrisburg works. But this supply was entirely inadequate, and he had -to continue doing the bulk of his business in barrels. What a devil's -tattoo the railroad men beat on these barrels of his! They made him pay -full tariff rates on every pound weight of the oil and of the barrel, -but they hauled free the iron tanks, which were the barrels of his -rivals, and also gave them free the use of the flat-cars on which the -tanks were carried.<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> Hauling the tanks free, on trucks furnished -free, was not enough. The railroads hauled free of all charge a large -part, often more than half, of the oil put into the tanks. In the exact -phrase of the Interstate Commerce Commission, they made out their bills -for freight to the oil combination "regardless of quantity." This is -called "blind-billing."</p> - -<p>Of the 3000 tank-cars of the combination only two carried as little as -20,000 pounds; according to the official figures there were hundreds -carrying more than 30,000 pounds, and the weight ran up to 44,250 -pounds, but they were shipped at 20,000 pounds.<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> A statement put in -evidence showed that shipments in tank-cars actually weighing 1,637,190 -pounds had been given to the roads by the combination as weighing only -1,192,655 pounds. Cars whose loads weighed 44,250, 43,700, 43,500, -36,550 pounds were shipped as having on board only 20,000 pounds. At -this rate more than one-quarter of the transportation was stolen.</p> - -<p>The stockholders of the road were paying an expensive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> staff of -inspectors to detect attempts of shippers to put more in their cars -than they paid for, but these shippers paid for three car-loads and -shipped from four to six regularly, and were never called to account. -This "blind-billing," the Commission said, was "specially oppressive." -It was done by the roads in violation of their own rule. It had -been mutually agreed among them, and given out to the public, "that -tank-cars shall be taken at actual weight."<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a></p> - -<p>When Rice was trying to get the roads to allow him to use tank-cars, -he asked how the charge on them was calculated. Of those that answered -none answered right. None of them gave him the slightest intimation -that there was any such practice as "blind-billing." On the contrary, -they assured him he would have to pay for every pound he shipped. -The Missouri Pacific replied with a "statement not warranted by the -facts," as the Commission softly put it. They said they charged -for the "actual weight," while, as the Commission shows, they made -shipments "regardless of quantity." Rice asked the Newport News -and Mississippi Valley Railroad for tank-car rates. "A tank-car is -supposed to weigh (carry) 20,000 pounds; if it weighs more, then we -will charge for it." At the same time the agent wrote Rice this, he -was hauling cars containing 35,000 pounds "with no additional charge." -"If this statement was made in good faith," the Commission says, "it -is difficult to account for it, and it is not accounted for." "Had he -(Rice) provided himself with cars for tank shipment, and been charged -as he was told he would be, the discrimination against him would have -put success in the traffic out of the question."</p> - -<p>When they wanted to turn some new screw in freight rates against Rice, -the railroad officials would whip themselves around the stump by -printing a new tariff sheet on a type-writer, and tacking it, perhaps, -as one of the Interstate Commerce Commission said, on some back door in -their offices. This they called "publishing" their rates, as required -by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> Interstate Commerce law. To Rice, asking for tank-car rates, -they would send this printed sheet, showing that if he shipped by -tank-car he must pay for every pound, and they held him off with this -printed, official, and apparently authentic tariff, though shipping -44,000 for 20,000 pounds for the trust. This was done after the -Interstate Commerce Act went into force.<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p> - -<p>One of these roads assured Rice that its rates had been fixed "by the -special authority of the National Railway Commissioners." The fact was, -as the Commission declares: "The Commission never investigated coal-oil -rates, or gave special authority for their renewal; it never sanctioned -any difference in the rates as between tank-car and barrel shipments, -and had never, up to the date of this letter, had its attention called -to them in any way."<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a></p> - -<p>The representative of the combination was called as a witness before -the Interstate Commerce Commission. "We pay for exactly what is put -in the tanks,"<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> he testified. "In fact, this was never done," -says the Commission.<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> Even the railroad officials, who could go -any length in "blind-billing" for him, could not "go it blind" on the -witness-stand to the extent of supporting such a statement. "Our price -per tank-car was not based on any capacity or weight; they have been -made simply per tank-car."<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a></p> - -<p>"What, generally, is the object of false billing?"</p> - -<p>"I suppose to beat the railroad company."<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a></p> - -<p>In defence of the discrimination against the barrel shippers, a great -deal has been made of danger from fire, damage to cars from leakage, -and trouble of handling in the case of barrel shipments, but the best -expert opinion which the Interstate Commerce Commission could get -went against all these plausible pretences.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> The manager of the -tank line on the Pennsylvania roads showed that the risks were least -when the transportation was in barrels. Another reason given for the -lower rates on tanks was that they returned loaded with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> turpentine -and cotton-seed oil from the South; but, as the Interstate Commerce -Commission shows, this traffic was taken at rates so astonishingly low -that it was of little profit;<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> and the commissioner of the Southern -Railway and Steamship Association informed the Commission that the -return freight business in cotton alone, brought back by the box-cars, -to say nothing of other freight, was worth more than these back-loads -of turpentine in the tank-cars.<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> It was, consequently, the box-car -in which barrel shipments were made, and not the tanks, on which the -railroad men should have given a better rate, according to their own -reasoning. Turpentine and cotton-seed oil are worth three or four times -more than kerosene, and it costs no more, no less, to haul one than the -other; but the railroads would carry the cotton-seed oil and turpentine -for one-third or one-fourth the rate they charged for kerosene. The -Commission could not understand why the rates given by the roads on -these back-loads of turpentine and cotton-seed oil were so low. "This -charge, for some reason not satisfactorily explained to the Commission, -is made astonishingly low when compared with the charge made upon -petroleum, although the cotton-seed oil is much the more valuable -article."<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a></p> - -<p>The newspapers of the South have contained many items of news -indicating that the men who have made the oil markets theirs have -similarly appropriated the best of the turpentine trade, but nothing is -known through adjudicated testimony. The trustees of oil have always -denied that there was any connection between them and the Cotton-seed -Oil Trust, although the latter shipped its product in the oil trust's -cars. The reasons, therefore, for the "extraordinarily low" rates made -on the turpentine and cotton-seed oil shipped North in its tank-cars -must remain, until further developments, where the Commission leaves -it—"not satisfactorily explained." The railroads said they made -the rates low for tanks because of the enticing prospects of these -back-loads,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> in which there was no profit to speak of; but they -extended these special rates to points from which there was no such -back-loading.<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> Rice saw how the cost of sending his oil South could -be reduced by bringing back-loads of turpentine at these "astonishingly -low" rates. He found there was still turpentine in the South he could -buy; but the railroads would not so much as answer his application for -rates.</p> - -<p>"They absolutely refused."</p> - -<p>"Was this refusal since the Interstate Commerce decision in your case?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir; since that decision."<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a></p> - -<p>It might have been thought this would have been enough—hauling the -tank itself free; furnishing the flat-cars free for many tanks; -carrying free a quarter to a half, "or more." But there was more than -this. The railroads paid the combination for putting its tank-cars on -their lines. For every mile these cars were hauled, loaded or empty, -the roads paid it a mileage varying from ¾ to 1½ cents. This -mileage was of itself a handsome revenue, enough to pay a profit of 6 -per cent. on its investment in the cars. But when Rice asked what the -railroads would charge him for hauling back his empty tank-cars, he was -not told that he would be paid for their use, as others were. He was -told that he would be charged "generally a cent and a half a mile," -or, "we make the usual mileage charge on return of empty tanks." "This -last statement," the Interstate Commerce Commissioners say, "was not -warranted by the facts."<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> The vessel which contains the oil of the -combination "receives a hire coming and going," Mr. Rice's lawyer said -before the Committee of Congress on Commerce; "that which contains -Rice's oil pays a tax." When Rice tried to sell his oil on the Pacific -coast he found that if he shipped in tank-cars he would have to pay $95 -to bring the empty car back, which others got back free.</p> - -<p>The representative of the oil combination was questioned about all this -by the Interstate Commerce Commission.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Are you allowed mileage on tank-cars?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."</p> - -<p>"Neither way?"</p> - -<p>"Neither way."<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></p> - -<p>But the railroad officials again could not "blind-bill" him as far as -this. Asked what mileage they paid him, they replied:</p> - -<p>"Three-quarters of a cent a mile."<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a></p> - -<p>When the freight agents who did these queer things at the expense of -their employers—<i>i.e.</i>, their proper employers, the stockholders—were -put on the stand before the Interstate Commerce Commission to explain, -they cut a sorry figure. "It was an oversight," "a mistake," said one. -Another could only ring confused changes on "I think it is an error.... -I cannot tell why that is so.... It is simply an error.... I cannot -tell."<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> There were never any errors, suppositions, oversights for -Rice.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> Referring to this, the Commission says, caustically:</p> - -<p>"The remarkable thing about the matter is that so many of these -defendants should make the same mistake—a mistake, too, that it was -antecedently so improbable any of them would make. The Louisville and -Nashville, the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, the Newport -News and Mississippi Valley, and the Illinois Central companies are -all found giving out the same erroneous information, and no one of -them can tell how or why it happened to be done, much less how so many -could contemporaneously, in dealing with the same subject, fall into so -strange an error. It is to be noted, too, that it is not a subordinate -agent or servant who makes the mistake in any instance, but it is the -man at the head of the traffic department, and whose knowledge on the -subject any inquirer would have a right to assume must be accurate. In -no case is the error excused."<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a></p> - -<p>The cases in which Rice prosecuted the railroads before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> the -Interstate Commerce Commission are among the most important that -have been tried by the Commission. The charges made by Rice were -conclusively proved, except as to some minor roads and circumstances. -The Commission declared the rates that were charged him to be illegal -and unjust, and a discrimination that must be stopped. It ordered the -roads to discontinue using their power as common carriers to carry -Rice's property into the possession of a rival. "The conclusion is -irresistible that the rate sheets were not considerately made with a -view to relative justice."<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a></p> - -<p>The facts of these discriminations—"unjust," "illegal," and -"abhorrent"—are on the records as judicially and finally determined. -But one of the combination said before the Pennsylvania Legislature, at -Harrisburg, as reported in the Harrisburg <i>Patriot</i>, February 19, 1891:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"I say to you all, in good faith, that since the passage of the -Interstate Commerce law, and the introduction of that system, we have -never taken a rebate. I mean we have taken no advantage over what any -other shipper can get. I make the statement broadly, and I challenge -the statement to the very utmost, and will pay the expenses of any -litigation undertaken to try it."</p></blockquote> - -<p>When it was found that this practice of charging the preferred shipper -for only 20,000 pounds when it shipped 25,000, 30,000, 40,000, or -44,000, was going to be investigated by the Interstate Commerce -Commission, there were intellects ready to meet the emergency. A pot -of paint and a paint-brush furnished the shield of righteousness. -Each car being known by its number, and only by its number, all the -old numbers of the 3000 tank-cars of the oil trust were painted -out, and new numbers painted on. Whether its mighty men left their -luxurious palaces in New York, and stole about in person after dark, -each with paint-pot and brush, or whether they asked employés to do -such work, the evidence does not state. The device was simple, but -it did. Rice was suing for his rights to use the highways before -the Interstate Commerce Commission, and before the Supreme Court of -Ohio, through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> the Attorney-General of the State, who had found the -matter of sufficient importance to use his official power to institute -suits in <i>quo-warranto</i> against two railroads. It was necessary that -evidence should be forthcoming in these suits to prove what his rate -was in comparison with the others. The only way this could be done was -by comparing the actual size of the cars with the size given in the -freight bills, or manifests. The cars are known in the bills only by -their numbers, and without its number no car could be identified. The -report of Congress reprints the following from the testimony of the -representative of the trust before the Interstate Commerce Commission:</p> - -<p>"Has there recently been any general change in the numbering of the -cars?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir; there has been quite a general renumbering, repainting, and -overhauling."</p> - -<p>"When did that change take place?"</p> - -<p>"I think it was commenced some time in July; it may have been later."</p> - -<p>The result of that renumbering made it practically impossible to -identify any car as connected with any shipment made before that time. -The cars were there, looking as fresh and innocent as good men who -have donned robes of spotless white earned by the payment of generous -pew-rent. The cars showed even to the unassisted eye, as the Interstate -Commerce Commission said, how much larger they were than was pretended. -There were still the accounts of the railroads, showing that these cars -had been "blind-billed" as containing only 20,000 pounds, but the cars -mentioned in the manifesto could no longer be identified with the cars -on the tracks. The sin of "blind-billing" was washed out in paint. Rice -went to the Interstate Commerce Commission with his complaint in this -case in July. Immediately the repainting and renumbering took place. -"It was commenced some time in July; it may have been later."<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> - -<p>In such cases time is money, and more. "Seest thou a man diligent in -business, he shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean -men."</p> - -<p>The members of this combination have many thousand tank-cars engaged -in carrying their oil, and some of them have another kind of tank-car -travelling about the country. Under the head of the "Gospel Car" the -<i>Daily Statesman</i>, of Portland, Oregon, printed the following article, -Sunday, December 13, 1891: "<span class="smcap">The Gospel Car.</span>—The mission car -'Evangel' arrived yesterday, and was side-tracked on the penitentiary -switch. A song service attracted many people during the morning. There -will be services at 10.30 this morning, and in the afternoon, at 3 -o'clock, a Sunday-school will be organized. This will be the first -Sunday-school ever organized from the gospel car, which has been on -the road since last spring. The 'Evangel' is sixty feet in length, ten -feet wide, and seats nearly one hundred people. It is the generous -gift of"—several New York millionaires, the most important of them -belonging to the oil trust—" ... to the American Baptist Publication -Society. The reverend gentleman who was in charge of the 'Evangel,'" -the <i>Statesman</i> continued, "will visit the smaller towns along the -railway, and conduct evangelistic meetings in the car." One of these -cars was in Chicago early in 1893, and was admiringly described by -the Chicago press. Though corporations have no souls they are ready -to help save the souls of others, for the railroads give these cars -free hauling, and the messages and the packages of its occupants are -franked by the telegraph and express companies. The contents of this -tank-car are distributed by its donors to the people without money and -without price. It is conceivable that by making it so "cheap" and by -multiplying the "Evangel" into an evangelical tank line of thousands -of cars, the donors might drive the churches, which have no tank-cars, -out of the business, as they have done the tankless refiners, and -ultimately add to their monopoly of the Light of the World that of the -Light of the other World.</p> - -<p>Tho effect of all this on the family co-operation at Marietta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> does -not need to be described. Its head told Congress that if he had had -no difficulty in getting the same freight as others he could have run -his refinery to its full capacity, and could have increased his works -largely.</p> - -<p>"Are not your expenses less than theirs?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir.... I am running very moderately now.... One-third to -one-half generally."<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a></p> - -<p>"I am virtually ruined," he says still later in a statement of his -condition in a circular to the public, urging them to petition -Congress to make the imperfect Interstate Commerce law operative. He -is virtually ruined, though he has won his cases before the Interstate -Commerce Commission, and that Federal tribunal has ordered the roads to -give him his rights on the highways; but it has been a barren victory. -His circular is entitled "My Experience Very Briefly Told." Its opening -sentences give us in a phrase the secret of the significance of Rice's -story, and dignify his appeal to the public. They show how thoroughly -adversity had driven home into this plain man's mind a great civic -truth which his fellow-citizens have not yet learned, probably because -they have not yet had adversity enough. His solitary and fruitless, -although successful, struggle taught him that the citizens of industry -can no more maintain their rights acting singly than the citizens of -government. He had learned that "competition," "supply and demand," -"eternal laws of trade," were catchwords as impotent in the markets to -give individuals their rights, if unassociated, as the incantations of -royalty and loyalty, and law and order, to save people from their king -until they made themselves a People. Persons fail; only a People can -get and keep freedom. This Rice had begun to learn from his failure to -enforce single-handed rights which all the courts declared were his, -but which no court could secure. In his card to the people, he said: -"I am fighting for my rights and for my existence (which happens to be -in the interest of all) single-handed and alone, at my own expense and -time lost....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> I am here ... to do what I can to get the Interstate -Commerce Act amended at this present session of the Fiftieth Congress, -to cure existing evils, and all I ask is that you will take hold and -assist me by your signature and approval to the enclosed petition. -You are subject to the same influences, and now is your time, my -fellow-countrymen, to come forward and assist a little to stop this -nefarious work."</p> - -<p>"In the interest of all." This is exactly the relation which the -struggle of this common citizen bears to the general welfare. The -investigation by the Ohio Legislature in 1879;<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> the removal by the -United States Court of the railroad receiver who agreed to pay the -oil trust $25 out of every $35 freight collected from Rice;<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> the -refund ordered by the Supreme Court of Ohio from a pipe-line company -which had charged Rice 15 cents extra on every barrel he shipped to -pay it to his competitors;<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> the successful prosecution, by the -Attorney-General of Ohio before the Supreme Court, of the railroads -discriminating against Rice;<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> the cases before the Interstate -Commerce Commission from its beginning till now, involving hundreds of -railroads, and decided, so far as it did decide, on almost every point -in Rice's favor;<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> the disruption, as far as forms go, of the oil -trust in Ohio by the Supreme Court of the State ousting corporations -from the right to become members of such combinations and to pool their -earnings therein;<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> the investigation of the oil trust by Congress -in 1888 and 1889, devoted in large part to the various aspects of -Rice's experience—these are some only of the public functions which -had to be invoked in the ineffectual attempt to protect this one man on -the high-road and in his livelihood, and they show how little his was -merely a "private affair."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> - -<p>When the amendment of the Interstate Commerce law was before Congress -in 1889, eminent counsel were employed by Rice to explain the defects -of the law to the committees, and petitions to Congress through his -instrumentality were circulated all over the country, and numerously -signed. Though a poor man, who could ill afford it, he gave time -and money and attention, frequently spending weeks at Washington, -discussing the subject with members, and presenting petitions. The -act was amended in partial accordance with these petitions and -recommendations.</p> - -<p>To obtain the elementary right of a stockholder, never withheld in the -course of ordinary business—to vote and receive dividends on stock in -the oil trust which the trustees had sold and he had bought in the open -market—Rice had to sue through all the New York courts from 1888 to -1892. The Court of Appeals decided that there had been no lawful reason -for the denial of his rights, and ordered that they be accorded him. -This was another barren victory. The trust had meanwhile ostensibly -been dissolved; but the dissolution has every appearance of being like -that of its progenitor, the South Improvement Company, a dissolution -"in name" only; not in reality. In place of the old trust certificates -listed on the New York Stock Exchange, new certificates have been -issued which were selling in the spring of 1894 at about the same -quotation as the former ones.</p> - -<p>In this case the trust asked the New York courts to deny Rice his -rights because he had in other matters, and as to other parties, -appealed to other courts. His other suits had been against the -railroads, not against the oil combination. He acted on the defensive, -and went into court only to save himself from commercial strangulation. -In all of them that went to trial he was successful, with but one or -two exceptions. He was so successful that even the judges who heard his -case and decided in his favor were moved to outbursts of unaffected -indignation on the bench. The only result aimed at or procured was that -the courts decreed that these common car<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>riers must in the future give -this citizen his legal rights on the railways; not that he must have -the same rates as his opponent, but only that the difference in their -favor shall not be "excessive," "illegal," "unjust."</p> - -<p>Because of this attempt to secure the fair use of the highways side by -side with it, the trust pleaded in the Supreme Court of New York that -his appeal to courts as a shipper was a reason why the courts should -withhold his rights as a stockholder.</p> - -<p>In making this plea the trustees described themselves as having been -for years persecuted by the independent of Marietta, and moistened the -dry pages of their legal pleadings with appeals for the sympathy of the -courts and the public. He has "diligently and persistently sought to -become acquainted with" our "methods of business and private affairs;" -"he has used efforts to injure" our "business"; "he is attempting to -harass, injure, and annoy" us; "he has ever since ... 1876, when he -first engaged in business, ... maintained a hostile attitude, and -been engaged in hostile transactions and proceedings against" us, ... -"for the purpose of injuring" us and our "business"; he "has been -uninterruptedly prosecuting ... a series of litigations ... in the -courts, as well as before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and -before an investigating committee of Congress ... for the purpose of -harassing and annoying" us.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> And when in 1891 Rice was appealing -to the Attorney-General of New York to bring suit in the name of the -State against the oil combination in New York, like that which had been -successfully brought in Ohio, he was publicly stigmatized in court as -a "black-mailer" because he had once named a price at which he was -willing to sell his refinery and quit. So the citizens of Nashville -were called black-mailers for competing, and the citizens of Buffalo -for bringing a criminal conspiracy to justice.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is this dancing attendance upon State legislatures, courts, -attorney-generals, Congress, the Interstate Commerce Commission, as -shown in this recital, which the modern American business man must add -to Thrift, Industry, and Sobriety as a condition of survival.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></p> - -<p class="center">ORDINARY SUPPLY AND DEMAND</p> - - -<p>"<span class="smcap">Do</span> I understand you that they have not sought in any way to make the -operations of refineries outside the trust so unprofitable that parties -would either come into the trust or have to abandon the business—has -anything of that sort been done?"</p> - -<p>"They have not; no, sir, they have not," was the triple negative of the -president.</p> - -<p>"They" (the trustees) "have lived on good terms with what I may call -their competitors?"</p> - -<p>"They have; and have to-day very pleasant relations with those -gentlemen."</p> - -<p>"So far as you know," he was asked, "the product of the crude oil and -the manufacture and sale of the refined oil has been absolutely left to -the ordinary rules of supply and demand, has it not?"</p> - -<p>"It has."<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p> - -<p>In the winter of 1873 a young farmer living among the blue hills of -Wyoming, in western New York, where he had been born and bred, was -asked by a stranger from Rochester to help him in a search for oil -lands. The old-fashioned quiet of the little community was agitated by -the hope that the milk and honey of their valleys might be replaced -by a more precious flow. The stranger and his son were prosperous oil -refiners, but a little cloud, about the size of a "trustee's" hand, -had crept into their sunshine. As they set about drilling a well on -some "likely-looking" land<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> they had leased, the stranger told the -farmer why he was so anxious to strike oil for his own exclusive use. -The reader is better prepared to understand his explanation than the -then inexperienced agriculturist to whom he gave his confidence. It had -begun to be difficult for him to get a full and regular supply of the -crude petroleum for his works. There were restrictions, he said, about -the shipments.<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> What that meant the young farmer was to learn for -himself.</p> - -<p>There was no oil in Wyoming, and the refiner went back to Rochester, -and, as so many others have done, sold the control of his works, -the Vacuum, to the "successful men" of the combination, and stepped -silently into the minority place. His Wyoming friend, Charles B. -Matthews, had continued in his service, and when the Vacuum was sold -he and two other of its employés made up their minds to go into the -business of refining in Buffalo on their own account. They were under -no obligations or contract to remain, and did not suppose themselves -to have been sold along with the concern. They were capable men, and -showed great business sense in their arrangements. Buffalo, by its -connections by rail and the lake with the market, and its nearness -to the oil supply, was a much better situation than Rochester or -Cleveland. An independent refining company—the Atlas—was then -constructing an independent pipe line from the oil regions to Buffalo. -"This made Buffalo the best point for establishing refining industries -in the country, with its canal and lake transportation for the products -of the factory, and with a pipe line, in the hands of independents, -from the crude oil wells to the city," said the Buffalo <i>Express</i>. -Matthews had by this time had several years' experience in the -business. Of the two with him, Albert was a laborer, who had worked -his way up in the Vacuum refinery until he could run the stills, and -had learned how to make oil. He and his thrifty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> wife had saved a few -thousand dollars. He was ambitious. He had learned at school and in the -army and at Fourth-of-July celebrations that America is a free country -for all, and that there are no classes here, and that any workman -may go to the top. Farmer Matthews had fed his boyhood with stories -of country boys who had gone to the city and matured into business -magnates. He and Albert pooled their visions and their savings, -borrowed some money, and went to work. As for competition, though -they knew it was close, they were not afraid but that they could hold -their own in a fair fight, and of anything but a fair fight they never -dreamed.</p> - -<p>"How are you going to get your crude oil?" Albert and Matthews were -asked when they went to tell their employer what they were going to do.</p> - -<p>"From the Atlas pipe line."</p> - -<p>"You will wake up some day and find that there is no Atlas Oil Company.</p> - -<p>"We have ways," he continued, "of making money you know nothing about," -using, singularly enough, the phraseology employed by a greater man in -the interview with another would-be competitor.<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a></p> - -<p>"As gentlemen," he went on to say, "I respect you, but as to the -Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company I shall do all in my power to injure or -destroy it."<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></p> - -<p>Afterwards Albert alone was sent for. "Don't you think it would be -better for you to leave these men, and have $20,000 deposited to your -wife's credit than go with these parties?"</p> - -<p>"I went out with them in good faith, and I propose to stay."</p> - -<p>"It will be only a matter of a few days with the Buffalo institution at -the furthest. We will crush them out, and you will lose what little you -have got."</p> - -<p>Albert was shown an elaborate statement of the cost of making oil and -its selling price, proving that there was no money in oil.<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> The -record of dividends was produced in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> court afterwards. It showed that -just before this—January 18, 1881—a dividend of 50 per cent. had been -paid in one month.<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> Dividends of $300,000 had been paid in 1881 on -the capital of $100,000. "No wonder they did not want competition," -said the New York <i>World</i>.</p> - -<p>These negotiations had been with the son. Albert not yielding to this -pressure, and pushing ahead with the construction of the rival stills, -the father, who was in California, came back. At his request Albert -again interrupted the work on the new refinery, which he alone of -the partners could direct, and came from Buffalo to Rochester for an -interview.</p> - -<p>"You have made a grand mistake," said his old employer, "by going out -with those fellows.... The company will not last long.... The result -will be, if you stay with them, you will lose all you have got in -it.... We are going to commence suits against them. We will not only -sue them, but serve an injunction on them and stop their work. The -result of it is that when these suits commence, if you are in it, you -will be responsible, and you have got a little money, and you will lose -it all.... If you come back and work with us everything will be all -right, and we will make everything satisfactory to you."</p> - -<p>"If I leave them it will leave them in bad shape," Albert urged.</p> - -<p>"That is just exactly what I want to do,"<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> his former employer -replied.</p> - -<p>Albert began to weaken. "I had," he afterwards told in court, ... -"about $6000 altogether, or a little more. They had reason to know -that I had some property there."<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> This was all he had to show for -the work of a lifetime, and it began to look as if it were fading away -under these reiterated threats and warnings, which went on from March -to June. Albert gave way. He went to his lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, of -Rochester. "We have come," said his former em<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>ployer, who accompanied -him, "to see what disposition can be made of Al's property."</p> - -<p>"They are going to bust the company up," said Albert to his lawyer, -when asked why he was going back to the Vacuum Company. "I am an -indorser on one of its notes, and if I do not come back with the -Vacuum, what property and money I have will be taken away from me."</p> - -<p>The lawyer was pressed to tell how Albert could get out of his -arrangement with his company. They could not get along without him, and -were not likely to discharge him.</p> - -<p>"If they won't release him or buy him out, the only other way," said -the lawyer, "is to leave them, and take the consequences. If he has -entered into a contract and violated it, I presume there will be a -liability for damages as well as for the debts."</p> - -<p>"I think there is other ways for Albert to get out of it," said the -representative of the Vacuum method in commerce and morals.</p> - -<p>"I see no way except to back out or sell out; no other honorable way," -persisted the lawyer.</p> - -<p>"Suppose he should arrange the machinery so it would bust up or smash -up, what would the consequences be?"</p> - -<p>"If negligently, carelessly, not purposely done, he would be only -civilly liable for damages caused by his negligence; but if it was -wilfully done, there would be a further criminal liability for -malicious injury to the property of the company."</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't want me, would you," said the poor man to his late -employer and friend, "to do anything to lay myself liable?"</p> - -<p>"You have been police justice," said the Vacuum man to the lawyer, "and -have had some experience in criminal law. I would like to have you look -up the law carefully on that point, and we will see you again."<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> -Or, in effect: "See about how much crime we can commit," District -Attorney Quinby paraphrased it afterwards to the jury.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> - -<p>In a day or so the two managers of the Vacuum—father and son—came -back again with Albert.</p> - -<p>"Have you looked up that matter, Mr. Truesdale?" asked they.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I have looked it up."</p> - -<p>"What do you think about it?"</p> - -<p>"My impression has not changed. Such a course would involve him in a -criminal liability if he did it on purpose. Everybody who advised or -counselled him in such a course would be equally liable with him. The -consequences, if you follow that course, would be that you would get -into State's prison. If he is an honest man he won't think of taking -any such action as that. I advise him to keep out of any such thing."</p> - -<p>"Such things will have to be found out before they can be punished," -was the Vacuum reply. "They will have to find him before they can do -anything to him. We will take care of him." "Having in mind," said -District Attorney Quinby to the jury, "what happened afterwards—that -they should spirit him away."</p> - -<p>"The suggestion is altogether wrong," persisted the lawyer. "The action -would certainly be very hazardous as well as wrong."</p> - -<p>On leaving, the elder of the two, evidently persisting in his plan, -said to the lawyer, "If you want to communicate with Albert, you can do -so through C.M."<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a>—his son.</p> - -<p>These men were too careless to note that the lawyer they were talking -to was not their lawyer, but Albert's. When they were brought to trial -for the crime that followed, and Albert, repentant, told the truth, -the lawyer was free to testify against them. "I am entirely willing," -said Albert in court, "that Mr. George Truesdale shall state what took -place. I withdraw any legal objections I might have."</p> - -<p>The accident which has let us see how the employés of a trust coolly -debated with lawyers the policy of blowing up a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> competitor's works, -is one of the few glimpses the American public will ever get into the -relations of great legal lights and law-reformers with the mighty -capitalists who wreck railroads and execute wholesale corruption of -courts, legislatures, and trustees, and evade and transgress the laws -with the sure march of those who know that indictments and bail-bonds -and verdicts of "guilty" and the penitentiary are only for men not -rich enough to plan crime "by advice of counsel." When such men went -marauding through the treasury of a great railroad and the courts of -an Empire State, we saw the greatest of law-reformers, with a host -of legal luminaries, picketing and scouting for them. Every sound in -nature is phonographed somewhere, as its waves strike, and Judgment Day -will be rich with the revelations from these invisible rolls of the -confidential conversations between "trustees" and counsel, who are not -honorable lawyers as George Truesdale was, prostituting their functions -as "officers of courts" into those of officers of crime.</p> - -<p>All these trips from Buffalo to Rochester for these interviews made bad -breaks in the construction of the works of the new company at Buffalo. -The partners, who were wholly dependent upon Albert's knowledge and -experience for the building of the refinery, and running it when built, -were mystified and alarmed. Time and again he ran away without a word -to them, and all work would stop until he came back. When he was on -hand his task did not prosper as if his heart were still in it. When -one of the three stills of the refinery had been set up ready for use, -and before any oil was run, Albert went up to Rochester again. At this -rendezvous the sinister suggestion of "doing something" was repeated. -"You go back to Buffalo and construct the pipes and stills so that they -cannot make good oil, and then if you would give them a little scare -... they not knowing anything about the business ... you know how to -do it." Swearing he would not consent, but already succumbing to this -temptation, as he had given way to the threat of ruin, he replied as -before: "I don't propose to do anything to make myself criminally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> -liable."<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> At their suggestion he took a man they sent all through -the new works, showing him how the stills had been constructed, how the -oil was to be made, and all the details of the refinery.<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a></p> - -<p>The day came at last—long expected, delayed by these unaccountable -absences—when the members of the new company were to have the -happiness of seeing their enterprise set going. The one still that -was ready was filled with crude oil. The morning of the start Albert -weighted down the safety-valve with heavy iron, and packed it with -plaster of Paris. "Fire this still," he said to his fireman, "as heavy -as you possibly can." The fireman did as he was ordered. During the -forenoon Albert came to him. "Damn it!" he said, "you ain't firing this -still half. Fire this still! I want you to fire this still! You ain't -got no fire under it!" He took the shovel himself and threw some coal -in, although there was, as the fireman expressed it, "an inordinary -fire." The fire-box grew cherry red.<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a></p> - -<p>Albert knew well enough what the next chapter in the history of his -associates was likely to be. He had carried a dark-lantern into the -still-room one day when he was superintendent of the Vacuum. "I was -badly burned by the explosion," he testified before the coroner's jury -investigating the explosion in Rochester, in 1887. There were four -explosions in the Vacuum works while he was there. In the second, four -men were burned. As one of them ran to get water, with his clothes -burning, he set fire to the gas coming out of the sewer. Flames flashed -all about him. "There's hell all around!" he exclaimed. The third -explosion came from an overheated condensing-pipe, and destroyed one of -the buildings. The fourth burned up three tanks. Remembering all this, -he now took himself off to the grounds of the Atlas Company, out of -harm's reach. The brickwork about the still cracked apart with the heat.</p> - -<p>But the "smash-up or something" had not been thoroughly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> arranged. -Despite the heavy weight and the packing of plaster, the safety-valve -lifted itself under the unusual pressure, and was a safety-valve yet. -It was blown open, and a large mass of vapor rose and spread. This -was the real accident: that the safety-valve broke loose instead of -keeping the gases in to explode, as had been planned. The spreading -vapor was not steam, as that had not been admitted to the still, but -the gas of distilling petroleum, as inflammable as gunpowder. There was -danger still, as great almost as that of explosion. A spark of fire, -and it would have wrapped all within its reach in flames. The boiler -fires were but twenty feet distant; not far from them the distilled oil -was being gathered in the "tail-house"; near the tail-house stood the -tanks of crude oil, hundreds of barrels of the fuel that conflagration -loves—the kind of fuel the cooks use who, beginning with kerosene for -kindling, make the whole house into a stove, and cook themselves and -the family with the breakfast.</p> - -<p>The kindly wind of a June day carried the cloud of gas away from the -fire until it passed out of sight. The unsuspecting, inexperienced -men, whose lives and property had been at the mercy of explosion, knew -nothing of their peril until years afterwards. The worst they knew -then was that the "batch" of 200 barrels of petroleum was spoiled, -and that Albert, the only practical man among them, was gone, leaving -them crippled for a year. They waited for him, but he did not come. -They looked for him, but could not find him. Matthews went to the -depot night after night, sometimes at midnight, or later, to watch the -trains, but Albert never came.</p> - -<p>"What would be the consequences?" Albert was asked afterwards in court, -when he was telling about "the pretty heavy fires" he had made under -the still—"what would be the consequences in case too hot fires were -applied, and the gas should blow off the pipes and become ignited?"</p> - -<p>"The consequences would be that, if ignited, there would be a -fire."<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> - -<p>An Associated Press despatch from Louisville, Kentucky, June 30, 1890, -describing an explosion in an oil refinery there, and the "five acres -of fire" that followed, reproduces for us the picture which it had been -planned to paint at Buffalo as part of the panorama of "the ordinary -rules of supply and demand." A tank-car had been opened to run some oil -out. As the workmen lifted the cap from the manhead of the tank a cloud -of gas poured forth. It had been generated simply by the heat of the -summer sun, without the aid of an "inordinary" hot fire. The men jumped -and ran. Before they had taken a dozen steps the vapor, spreading over -the ground and moving with the wind, had reached one of the sheds near -by in which there was a fire. There was a flash. The men were bathed in -a lake of fire. They ran with the flames streaming from them. At the -infirmary their bodies were found to be charred in spots, literally -roasted alive, and the flesh dropped off as their clothing was removed. -Three men died and several were injured.</p> - -<p>Several years after the Buffalo explosion, when those convicted for -their part in it were fighting for stay of proceedings, new trial, -anything to escape sentence, and were trying by every means in their -power to impress upon the public the altogether innocent character of -the little incident at the works of their rival, something happened -at their own works—the Vacuum in Rochester—which gave the people -an appalling sense of the terrors of the new school of supply and -demand. Naphtha is one of the by-products of petroleum distillation, -and is used by the gas companies in the manufacture of the greased -air they furnish under the name of gas. The Vacuum Company were -selling their naphtha to the Rochester Gas Company. It was delivered -to the gas company through a pipe line. On the afternoon of December -21, 1887, there was an explosion on Platt Street, Rochester, tearing -away the pavement, shattering the basement of a building, and filling -the air with missiles. In a few seconds another explosion occurred -a short distance away, making a hole in the street several feet in -diameter, from which came large volumes of smoke and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> flame. A third -and fourth "bust-up" rapidly followed, and then a fifth, in the -Clinton Flouring Mill, tearing away a considerable portion of the -building, blowing off the roof and upper stories of the Jefferson -Mill adjoining, and shattering the Washington Mill. The Jefferson and -Clinton and Washington mills were burned to the ground. People were -killed by flying débris, burned to death, smashed by falling walls, -crippled by jumping from the upper stories of factories and mills on -fire. "There is probably no chemical product," says Professor Joy, of -Columbia College, "which has occasioned the loss of so many lives and -the destruction of so much property as naphtha.... From its highly -explosive and inflammable nature it has proved little better in the -hands of ignorant people than so much gunpowder."</p> - -<p>"The counsel for the defence," said District Attorney Quinby, in -summing up the case before the jury, "laughed at the idea of Matthews -and his associates coming to Buffalo with a little money to compete. -I congratulate him that instead of defending for conspiracy he is -not here to-day pleading for the defendants' lives. If a person had -been killed, and it had been under the advice and instruction of his -clients, he would have been differently situated from what he is -to-day. How well you men may be thankful that the gases from this still -did not flow down and, becoming ignited, explode and kill the fireman! -You ought to get down on your knees and thank your God that Providence -prevented any such terrible thing as that for you."</p> - -<p>After the "bust-up" had been planned, and before it was done, one of -the Vacuum managers went to New York, where the "trustees" for whom -he was managing the company were. After the "bust-up" Albert heard by -telegram from New York, as had been arranged, and went to meet his -old employer. "What do you say to going down to Boston?" he was asked -on his arrival. Later a man came in and was introduced by the name -of one of the three trustees who purchased and directed the Vacuum. -On leaving, this "trustee" said: "I will see you again if you do not -go to Boston." He thus showed that he knew of the plan that Albert -should be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> taken away, and that they should go to Boston. The manager -of the Vacuum now gave the world a genuine illustration of the harmony -of labor and capital. He couldn't let Albert out of his sight. They -went to Boston on the Fall River boat. The representative of a hundred -millions took the laborer into his own state-room, and at Boston -carried him into the splendors of Young's Hotel, where he registered, -naming himself "and friend," and they shared one bedroom. They went to -church together, and to Nantasket Beach, his friend introducing Albert -to those whom they met under an assumed name. "You don't want to be -known here," he said, "and I will introduce you by the name of Milner."</p> - -<p>"That is the name I was known by while I was there."</p> - -<p>"Albert has nothing to fear," said District Attorney Quinby on his -trial. "He had never been in Boston before in his life. He had no -acquaintance there. There was no reason why he should be registered -'and friend' at the hotel. There was no reason, so far as he was -concerned, that he should be introduced under a fictitious name, except -that his employer had been schooled in the wonderful university known -as" the oil combination. In Boston, on a Monday, on the Common, within -sight of the equestrian statue of the Father of his Country, his former -employer made a contract with Albert to pay him $1500 a year for doing -nothing except staying away from Buffalo.</p> - -<p>"You won't have much to do, and you can stay here in Boston, and keep -away from those fellows, and we will protect you."</p> - -<p>"Who's going to make up if those fellows come on and sue me for -damages? Who will make up this loss that I have been going to by -sacrificing my property?"</p> - -<p>"Leave that to me; I will fix that all right. You do just as I tell -you, and you will come out all right.... Go wherever you like, stop -where you like, and we will pay all your expenses while you are -here."<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> - -<p>Albert loafed about Boston several weeks, sometimes helping to roll -a barrel of oil in the Vacuum's store. When he wanted money he asked -for it and got it. He had once been a hard drinker. Destruction was -as carelessly invited upon the soul of a poor brother as upon the -lives and property of competitors. He hung around Boston and Rochester -nearly a year. Then his old employer, who was in California, sent for -him to come there to help in a fruit cannery, his salary continuing -as before. From the moment he deserted his partners, as Judge Edward -Hatch, the counsel for Matthews, stated in the civil suit for damages -in this conspiracy, Albert "never earned enough to cover the end of -your knife-blade with salt at your dinner. But they pay him, in salary -and bonus, over $4000. Why? To get him away, and to stifle lawful, -legitimate, and honest competition; to stifle that which brings into -every poor man's home an article of necessity at a cheaper rate." -He stayed in California a few months, and, finally, sickened of the -disgraceful part he was playing, turned at bay, and gave notice that -he was going to leave. "This is kind of sudden," the agent of his -employers replied, but said he would write to the principal director in -New York and advise that he release him. "You will give me time, won't -you? You know it takes a couple of weeks or longer to do business from -here to New York." Albert waited, and in time the word came from New -York. "I have heard from these parties, and they are willing to release -you."<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a></p> - -<p>Albert, who had put himself into the extraordinary position in which -he was on the repeated pledges of the tempters that they would make it -"all right" with him, and protect him from loss and harm, found that -he had put his "trust in princes." When he came to settle he expected -that those for whom he had sacrificed his honor, his property, and his -career would make him some compensation. In answer to the question how -much they ought to make up to him, he named $5000 or $10,000, which -was certainly little enough, in view<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> of the fact that the business -he had sacrificed to them was one in which, as the Vacuum's career -showed, $100 shares came to be worth $2666 each. But the representative -of the trust declared he could not think of such a thing, and in full -of all obligations gave him nothing but the balance due of the wages -agreed on. Then he asked Albert to hold himself still further at their -service. As they parted, he said: "Now we have settled up; now we are -good friends.... If anything ever comes up in this matter I would like -to have you stand by us.... We will see that you are paid all right, -and give you $25 a day while we need your services." Albert replied -that he did not feel under any obligations to the oil combination. -"I do not know as my interest lays that way. I do not think I shall -do anything to benefit them; they have injured me all that they can; -they have switched me all around, all over the country; they have got -me out of employ, not given me anything to do, which I sought to have -them do. I do not think they have used me right, and I have sacrificed -considerable money by this transaction, and you have always promised -that it would be made good, and you have not done so."<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></p> - -<p class="center">THROUGH THE WOMAN'S EYES</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Matthews</span> knew nothing and suspected nothing about the worst part of -the plot against him until Albert's lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, nearly four -years later, was called upon to testify in the suit Matthews brought -for damages against the Vacuum people. This suit was to recover from -them for having enticed Albert away, and having persecuted Matthews -with false and malicious suits; but Truesdale's evidence at once -revealed that there had been a deeper damnation still in the conspiracy -against him. Mr. Matthews, one day on the street in Buffalo, ran across -Albert, who had just come back from California.</p> - -<p>"No man ever used another meaner than I have you," said the now -repentant man to him, volunteering all the information he had, -and agreeing to testify if called on. This revelation made the -farmer-refiner a reformer. This was the public's business. If such -things could be plotted and done with impunity by one man against -another, there was an end forthwith of every liberty the republic -boasted. Especially menacing was such a conspiracy when concerted by -the rich fanatic of business against the poorer citizen to prevent -the latter from disputing the claim that a great market was a private -preserve, and that the right to trade in it is a privilege which -"belongs to us."<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> Matthews could have used his discovery as an -irresistible weapon to force his enemy to his knees, but he laid his -evidence before the district attorney. This official presented it to -the grand-jury, which found that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> the facts warranted indictments. -When the first indictment was quashed on technical grounds a second -grand-jury, sifting the facts, agreed with the first that the accused -should be held to answer in the criminal courts. This was six years -after the crime. The five persons indicted were the two former owners -of the Vacuum, now the resident managers of it for the combination, -and the three members of the oil trust, as the combination then called -itself, who had bought the Vacuum for it, and had been elected by the -trustees directors to manage it for them, and had so managed it even -to the most picayune details. The case caught the ears of the world, -not because crime was charged against men who had dazzled even the -gold-filmed eyes of their epoch by the meteor-like flash of their -flight from poverty into a larger share of "property"—the property -of others—than any other group of millionaires had assimilated in an -equal period; not for that, but because the charges of crime against -these quickest-richest men were to be brought to trial. Members of the -combination had been often accused; they had been indicted. This was -the first time, as District Attorney Quinby said in his speech to the -jury, that they had found a citizen honest enough and brave enough to -stand up against them—the only one. "There is no man," he said, "so -respected to-day in Buffalo as he for the method he has used to bring -these men to justice." He succeeded in doing alone what the united -producers of the oil regions failed to do, although their resources -were infinitely greater. The people of the entire oil country failed -utterly to do so much as get the members of the oil combination, when -indicted for conspiracy in 1879, to come into court to be tried. All -its principal men were indicted—the president, the vice-president, -the secretary, the cashier, and others. They could not even be got to -give bail. One of them had said when the indictments were found, that -the case would never be tried, and it never has been. The Governor -would not move to have those of the accused who were non-residents -extradited, as he would have done, does daily, in the case of poor -men, and the courts so tangled up the questions of pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>cedure that the -people withdrew, and left the indictments, as they remain to this day, -on file in the Clarion County court, swinging like the body of some -martyr on a road-side gibbet in the pagan days, polluting the air and -mocking justice.<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a></p> - -<p>That the trust was thoroughly alarmed, and saw the necessity of -rallying all its resources to save itself, was apparent from the -formidable display with which it appeared in the court-room. Present -with the five defendants, as if also on trial—a solid phalanx—were -its president, the vice-president, the manager of its pipe-line system, -the principal representatives of the trust in Buffalo, and many others. -Their regular attorney of New York was present with two of the leading -lawyers of Buffalo. Besides these there was a distinguished man from -Rochester, reputed the ablest lawyer in western New York, whose voice -is often heard in the Supreme Court at Washington. He had two important -members of the Rochester bar as assistants, one of them in the summing -up unmercifully scored by the District Attorney for fixing witnesses; -and, not least, a well-known United States District Attorney, who made -the convention speeches by which a distinguished citizen of Buffalo -was nominated, successively and successfully, for Sheriff, Mayor, -Governor, and President. The defendants come here, said the people's -attorney, with the best legal talent the country affords, the best -the profession can furnish; for the trust—"they are practically the -defendants in this action—with its great wealth, has the choice of -legal talent." Other eminent lawyers were also consulted, but were not -present. Never was a weak defence made the most of with more skill -than these gentlemen exhibited upon the trial.... But great as was the -ability of the defence, Mr. George T. Quinby, the District Attorney, -and his assistant, William L. Marcy, proved a match for them. Every -political and moneyed influence that could be brought to bear was used -to mislead the District Attorney, but all to no purpose. The jury -could see that the complainant, Charles B.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Matthews, did not get the -indictment to sell out, otherwise he would have sold it out and not -have insisted upon a trial. The fact that the case was on trial, at a -cost of many thousands of dollars to the defendants, was conclusive -upon that point. An emissary, trying to get Matthews to call off the -District Attorney and to hush up this criminal prosecution, said the -oil trust could "give him anything, even to being governor of a Western -territory."<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> "You will have a chance," Matthews told the District -Attorney, "to line the street from your house to the City Hall with -gold bricks." But this public prosecutor had no price. He grasped the -full scope of this extraordinary case, which involved not only a crime -against persons and against the people, but against that true commerce -of reciprocal and equal service on which alone the new civilization of -humanity can rest.</p> - -<p>The room in the Buffalo court-house, where the case was being heard, -was bright with the sunshine of a May day, putting out the shadows of -indictments and verdicts lurking in corners and pigeon-holes. Although -it was a criminal case, the on-looker saw, strange as it seemed, that -whatever strain there was in the situation appeared to be felt least -by the accused, and most by the public and the jury. The nearer the -eyes of the on-looker travelled towards the prisoners, the lighter -and brighter was the scene. Close to the accused sat a bench full of -notables, evidently friends lending moral support. That the bench was -occupied by men of importance was evident. They were supported by -platoons of eminent counsel and detectives. Only the judge betrayed -no consciousness of the presence of the herd of millionaires. The -whisperings and pointings and namings by one spectator to another -showed that the people's curiosity was greatly excited by the -sight of the richest men in the country, if not in the world, with -attendant millionaire esquires in or about the dock of a criminal -court. On this particular day the notables and their suite had come -in specially good-humor. Nods of kindly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> recognition went about and -smiles rippled everywhere as, settled into their seats, they listened -to the recital by the witnesses. It had been as good as a play to hear -the working-man, Albert, tell on the stand how he had been bribed and -threatened with ruin until he yielded to the suggestion that he should -"bust up" the works of his friends, partners, and employers, and run -away. There had been nothing funny to Albert in those threats: "We will -ruin you," "We will crush you," "You will lose what little you have got -left."<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a></p> - -<p>"Then the compensation you got was $300 and the pleasure of selling -out your friends?" Albert was asked by one of the great lawyers.<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> -Albert did not smile, but "they seemed to enjoy hugely," reported -the press, "the idea that men could be bought so cheap." The eminent -counsel of the prisoners took the cue from their clients, and treated -the proceedings as a farce. When the State's Attorney was questioning -his witnesses, they objected to his questions with laughs and sneers -until he became indignant, and asked, with considerable emphasis, to -have the joke explained to him—a need the jury also felt, as their -verdict showed. When the Boston agent of the trust told that his -instructions from headquarters were that if there was to be any selling -at a loss to let the new competitor have the loss,<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> they all -laughed again.</p> - -<p>So all the morning there had been fine sport in the court-room, and -the good-humor had risen higher with every fresh incident in the -entertainment until Albert's wife took her place in the witness-box. -She, too, raised a laugh, but it was not she who laughed. Serious -enough she was when taking her place on the witness-stand. She had to -face these gentlemen, before whose hundreds of millions her husband's -little venture had withered, but, as she herself afterwards said: "I -wasn't afraid of them, but I was nervous. But as soon as I got talking -I didn't care anything for them, although they all sat there in front, -in a row, looking straight at me."</p> - -<p>The wife's story to the jury showed how such an adventure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> appeared -when looked at and experienced from the woman's stand-point—the -home-maker's and the home-keeper's—which the smiling row before her -were as little able to grasp as the participants in a pigeon-shooting -match to look upon that vision of flames, demons, and death-dealing -thunder from the point of view of the hapless birds. A bright-faced, -brown-eyed, pleasant-looking woman, as she took the stand she looked -what she was—an artisan's honest wife. "My husband," she said, "had -been employed in the Vacuum oil works at Rochester thirteen or fourteen -years, and we had accumulated some property—mortgages and money -and real estate. We moved to Buffalo, April 5, 1881, where he was -superintending the building of the Buffalo works."<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> After Albert -had yielded to the threats and the temptation, and had fixed the stills -and the fires for an explosion, he fled without a word to his wife -or his associates, hid, under an assumed name, in Boston, and then -travelled over the continent for a year—from Buffalo to Boston, to -Rochester, to San Francisco.</p> - -<p>"When you left Buffalo did you leave any word with Matthews where you -were going?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."</p> - -<p>"Or your wife?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir."</p> - -<p>While the wife was in Buffalo wondering what had become of her husband, -he was in New York with his venerable ex-employer, getting lessons -like the following in the secrets of building up a great commercial -enterprise:</p> - -<p>"The best thing you can do, Albert," said the latter, "is to go and -write a telegram, and tell your wife to go back to Rochester."</p> - -<p>"You'd better write it; I am a poor writer," said Albert.</p> - -<p>"No," he said; "I do not want to appear in this case at all. Write it -so," he continued, "that she can move on the Fourth of July, and they -can't attach her things."<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a></p> - -<p>The first word she got from her husband was this telegram<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> to move -between two days, and back to Rochester the dutiful woman packed -herself and her things.</p> - -<p>"It was two or three weeks before I heard from him direct or knew just -where he was," she said.</p> - -<p>"I asked Charles"—one of the two managers—"how Al was, and he said Al -was all right."</p> - -<p>"Would he tell you where he was?" the State's Attorney asked.</p> - -<p>"No, sir; when I wrote to my husband I left the direction blank, and -gave the letter to Charley. I got an answer through Charley."<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a></p> - -<p>For three weeks they would not let her know where her husband was. -"Think of that," said the District Attorney. "She had to go and take -her poor little letter to her husband, thinking, perhaps, if he was -away from her tender care he might get to drinking, because he does -drink some; but when with his wife they lived year in and year out -without his tasting a drop; ... afraid that he might get to drinking, -and that she could not watch over him.... It was a cruel thing to do."</p> - -<p>"C. told me to go to the real-estate agents," Albert's wife continued, -"and try to sell our property and get it into money. He made out a list -of real-estate agents from the city directory. I guess that is all he -did about assisting me in the sale of the property."</p> - -<p>"I asked C. if my husband could not come home from Boston. I was sick. -He said 'Yes.' Al came home and stayed a week or two. Then he went back -to Boston. C. told me they did not want the Buffalo company to know -where Al was."<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a></p> - -<p>Albert was a man infirm under temptation. The employer knew, by -fourteen years' acquaintance, the weakness this man had acquired in his -service in the army. He gave him idleness, money, temptation, and an -assumed name to go to the devil with, if that agent of the trust was to -be found in Boston.</p> - -<p>"You want to take good care of Al," said the good old man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> to his clerk -in Boston, "and not let him get homesick. If he wants any money, let -him have it." Albert travelled the broad way made smooth for him.</p> - -<p>"Of course I never went around with him," said the clerk, in a -deposition; "a porter that I had was the party that went around with -him in the evening. I would hear what was going on, and I could judge -about the size of Al's head when he came around in the morning."</p> - -<p>With all Albert's faults he kept one dignity to the end which makes -him tower above his seducers—the dignity of the laborer. A life's -discipline in daily toil had made his whole fibre too honest to enjoy -idleness, even at the rate of $1500 a year. He was free to come and go -amid the gaudy joys of a great city, as irresponsible under the assumed -name given him as if he wore the ring of Gyges. He had money for the -asking, and boon companions. But the habit of a lifetime of honest, -hard manual work was too deeply ingrained into the very substance of -his nature for him to become a cheap American Faust, revelling in -a pinchbeck paradise. This simple son of poverty had all his life -handled only real things, and had at every point had the mind's native -wantonness and riot checked by the hard surface which had calloused -his hands, and the outer air which had cooled him as he worked. His -were dreams of honest rest earned by honest work, and of family joys. -The self-indulgence that was revealed by the "size of his head in the -morning" was an animal exuberance that, as the result showed, did but -stain the "rose-mesh of his flesh," and went no deeper. Albert could -not stand the idleness of his Boston life. He went back to Rochester.</p> - -<p>"I want something to do."</p> - -<p>"What brings you here?" said his employer. "Go back."</p> - -<p>After hanging around the office in Boston a few weeks longer, the -workman's nature reasserted itself again. He went back again to -Rochester. "I want something to do." "We have not got anything for you -to do just now," he was told. "You are all right."<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> - -<p>Months of idleness were interrupted only by odd jobs, like -superintending the digging of a ditch or the sinking of a salt-well. -Time and again, though he was drawing his pay of $125 a month, he went, -as he told the story in court, to repeat the plea for "something to -do." Finally, the elder of the managers, who was in California, sent -for him. He was to be made "an independent man," the new promise ran, -but really, as the sequel showed, was, if possible, to be kept out of -the way of too inquisitive juries and prosecuting attorneys. The wife, -treated as a mere pawn in the game, protested vehemently. "I went down -to the Vacuum Oil Company's office, and asked C. to give Al something -else to do. I didn't want him to go to California. He said that there -was not anything that he knew that he could do."</p> - -<p>"I don't want Al to go. I won't go. Give him something else to do."</p> - -<p>"I have nothing else."<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a></p> - -<p>She had to yield, and her husband left her to go to California. His -employer persuaded Albert to buy a piece of land in California. "He -seemed to be very anxious to locate me there."<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> Albert sent to -his wife for the money, but the shrewd little woman sent only half. -"I thought I would let him pay it out of his pay." With the same good -sense the wife had not sold all the property when sent out alone among -the real-estate men. "I did not sell the real estate," she said; "I -thought there was too much expense."<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> She was not with her husband -when the rupture came in California. The first news the anxious wife -had of a change in her husband's affairs was when "Charley" came to -her, as she was sitting one summer evening on the porch of a neighbor's -house, and told her "Al" had quit them. "I do not know what to make of -it," he continued: "I think he must be crazy or something."<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a></p> - -<p>It was not until his return that she learned the details of the painful -experience he had been through. When it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> heard that Albert, upon -his return from California, had made restitution as far as he was able, -by telling what he knew to the authorities, to aid them in bringing -the principals in the crime to justice, there was consternation in the -trust. One of its detectives had been captain of the company Albert -was in during the Civil War. The captain now presented himself before -Albert as he went to his work in Corry, Pennsylvania, where he had -gone after his return from California, and became sociable rapidly. -He had great plans for Albert, and came to the house to discuss them -confidentially. Albert and his wife had been simple folks to start -with, but they had learned a thing or two by this time. The captain's -desire for confidential talk with his old comrade was so intense that -it would have been rude in Albert's wife to thwart it. She packed off -her daughter on an errand, and announced that she had a call up the -street, and would leave them to themselves; but she did not add, as she -might have done, that during her absence she would be represented by -the Chief of Police, whose appetite for confidential communications was -as keen as the captain's, but whose retiring disposition kept him in -the dark seclusion of an adjoining room, with his ear to the crack of -the door.</p> - -<p>"Wouldn't Albert like to go to Russia?" the captain asked his dear -friend the private, whose existence he had never personally recognized -when they were so close together during the Civil War. "If the Court -will allow me to show by this witness," said the prosecuting attorney, -"that the captain came there as a detective for the oil trust, and made -a proposition, after the indictments were found, to Albert to flee the -country, and go with him to Russia." One of the army of trust lawyers -was instantly on his feet with "I object." The judge sustained him, and -the testimony was shut out.</p> - -<p>Albert's wife kept close to his side, and held him steady. No, Albert -did not care to go to Russia. Advertisements of an alum-mine in Corry -then began to appear in newspapers where Albert's attention could -be called to them. By a lucky chance the captain happened to know -the capitalists whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> boundless powers of enterprise could find -full outlet only by developing the hitherto unsuspected resources of -Corry for supplying the nations of the earth with alum. By a joyful -coincidence, these capitalists wanted for superintendent of their -bottomless alum-mines just such a man as the captain knew his dear -Albert to be. Would Albert like to go to Italy to learn the true -science of alum manufacture, and to show the effete monarchies how -an American could disembowel the earth of its alum? Salary, $5000 -and expenses. No, Albert had no unslaked ambition to go to Italy as -superintendent of mines of alum, or green cheese, or any other lunar -commodity.</p> - -<p>At least, Albert would take a drink? That poor Albert would do; and -when he failed to come home at night his wife went up and down the -streets seeking him. "A persistent effort had been made" by the trust, -Mr. Matthews testified, "to get Albert out of the country. I was afraid -they would get him away, as he might not be used in this case. Men -had been sent there to get him drunk, and had debauched him."<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> -Money was potent enough to persuade lawyers to make it a part of their -professional duty to help in this. One of the trust's lawyers sat with -Albert and its detective in the stall of a cheap saloon, and plied him -with liquor to get from him some letters of Matthews' they wanted. -"There they sat," said the keeper of the saloon; " ... they got what -they called for, probably.... I couldn't tell how many drinks they got -into Albert on that occasion; I think they drank there."<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a></p> - -<p>While this courtship was in progress with Albert in Pennsylvania, wires -were being pulled to get him indicted in New York. The grand-jury of -Rochester was asked to indict him for receiving stolen property in a -watch trade he had made seven years before. This would have ruined him -as a witness in the forthcoming criminal case against the members of -the oil trust, but the grand-jury decided that there was no evi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>dence -on which to indict. When Adam Cleber, a stolid-looking German laborer, -who worked in the same place with Albert in Corry, took the stand for -the State at the close, an eager excitement filled the court-room. -The State's Attorney was known to have his darkest sensation still in -reserve. What it was he would not, of course, disclose in advance, but -those hardly less familiar than he with the evidence hinted that the -fertile genius of the captain, having exhausted itself in the ideas -of the trips to Russia and Italy, had fallen back upon the genius of -his superiors, and had arranged to have Albert go a-hunting, and get -a "bust-up" as much as possible like the one he had been induced to -attempt upon his employers and partners.</p> - -<p>"Did the captain tell you what he wanted you to do to Albert?" Cleber -was asked.</p> - -<p>"Yes—" That was as far as Cleber got.</p> - -<p>"I object!" screamed one of the lawyers.</p> - -<p>"I propose to show that the captain made a request of this witness in -regard to what he should do to Albert, and what he should come and -swear to about Albert, there being no truth in the matter he wanted -Cleber to swear to," the State's Attorney urged to the Court. The judge -took the matter home for consideration over-night, and announced in the -morning that he would not admit the evidence. It was acknowledged by -one of the lawyers for the members of the trust on trial that he had -employed the captain to get evidence for them; but the judge, instead -of admitting Cleber's testimony, and leaving the question of its value -to be settled by the jury, excluded it.</p> - -<p>In his closing speech District Attorney Quinby said: "Why, in Heaven's -name, my friends, didn't you place the captain on this witness-stand? -He would have been a feast for you and a feast for me. His ways -have been curious and sinuous, his methods have been peculiar and -corrupting, and they did not dare to put him on the stand because if -they did he would have left it to go to prison. That is the reason. -They know it."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> - -<p>The brave and steadfast woman told her part of this story on the -witness-stand. Her home had been broken up again and again. As she -herself said afterwards: "I had to live with my carpets packed, and -moved around like a gypsy." Her husband had been tempted to commit a -crime which compelled him to lead the life of a fugitive. He had been -spirited away and secreted; she had not been allowed to know where -he was, and could communicate with him only through a third person; -they had moved around, in her expressive phrase, until they had moved -into two rooms; the savings of fifteen years' hard work were all gone, -and the independent business, in which her husband had just got his -footing, swept away. He and she faced the world with no other assets -than their child and the palms of their hard-working hands.</p> - -<p>"Well, it's taken all we had," she says; "we've lost it all, but I'd -rather it would be so than to have the money they have, and go about -hiding and sneaking. I'd like money, but not so well as that. When I -said to 'Charley,' 'I shall have to sell all my furniture'—'Oh, that's -nothing.' And when I told him it had cost us $100 to pay the expenses -of selling real estate—'That isn't much.' It wasn't much to them, but -it was to us, who had made every dollar by hard work. Well, we'll have -to do without the money, and just live along by honest work. We can -live that way. We have had all this trouble and lost our money, and -haven't made money enough to buy a calico dress."</p> - -<p>All the good that had come of this loss of savings and home and honor -had gone to those at the bar of justice and their associates sitting -in the tickled row before her. On the cross-examination, which was -to crush the witness and her damaging testimony, the distinguished -counsel, not content with all the suffering and loss already inflicted -on this wife, tried to humiliate her still further, but the woman's wit -of truth was too much for the lawyer's wit of wile.</p> - -<p>"Don't you recollect," the lawyer asked, "that you went to the house -of the manager of the Vacuum, and that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> saw him in the parlor, and -that you asked him to take your husband back?"</p> - -<p>"I never asked him to take my husband back."</p> - -<p>"Then you did not ask him at the time and place I spoke of?"</p> - -<p>"I never asked him anywhere to take him back."</p> - -<p>"Don't you recollect upon that occasion being considerably affected, -and asking him to take your husband back, and his speaking of the way -in which he had left the company, which he characterized as shameful, -and that you cried—shed tears?"</p> - -<p>"I never asked him to take him back. I recollect going there. I -recollect I felt bad, because I was talked to so much about it. I had -reason to feel bad. I am trying to tell the truth as near as I can."</p> - -<p>"Then what was the occasion of your bad feeling?"</p> - -<p>"It was because I thought we were going to lose everything, and would -not have nothing left. That is what I felt bad for—was shedding tears -for, if I did. I don't know as I did."<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a></p> - -<p>Then came the laugh. From millionaire to lesser millionaire went -the enlarging laugh. The mighty cortege of the retained ex-judges, -famous constitutional and criminal lawyers, detectives, camp-followers -laughed. It was the laugh of hundreds of millions, and it clinked and -tinkled and rang. As if every mouth were a bagful of gold, and as if -every bag had burst, the golden notes of mirth filled the air, and -struck the ceiling, and rolled over the floor, rebounded and fell and -rose in mellow chimes of sound, and the golden rain dripped everywhere. -Millions on millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of the -coin of the republic, and in every coin a cackle.</p> - -<p>"Yes, they all laughed at me," the little woman told her friends; "it -looked like such a great joke to them. Perhaps I did not tell it very -well, but I told the truth."</p> - -<p>In closing the case the State's Attorney said to the jury:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> "A sorrow -was placed on that woman's heart that can never be removed. One of the -pathetic things in this case was that when this woman was on the stand, -telling her little story, how they were afraid they might lose the -few thousand dollars they had saved, the $6000 or $7000 they had been -struggling for for fifteen years, these New York gentlemen with their -millions laughed in her face at the idea of her being sorry to lose the -pittance of $6000 or $7000. It was the only time in the case, really, I -felt that these gentlemen were outraging common decency."<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a></p> - -<p>Some time after the trial was over, and sentence passed and satisfied, -these men sent for Albert to come to Rochester. He went with witnesses. -There in the office of a leading lawyer he was tempted with desperate -propositions to do something or say something that would break the -force with which these disclosures must act on public opinion. "They -need not think," he replied, "that they can get me to make a false -oath to let them out of a hole. I would not do it for all the combined -wealth of the trust. When my wife was on the stand they laughed her -in the face when she told about losing all we had. Do you suppose any -man with a particle of American blood could have any love for them? I -think as much of my wife and daughter as any of them of theirs, and I -will do nothing to disgrace them." This hard-working and hard-living -laborer and his wife had, by thirteen or fourteen years of toil and -stinting, saved $6000. The laughers had in the same time saved about -$300,000,000, and somebody else had done all the work. The poor man and -his wife had been afraid that the $300,000,000 would devour the $6000. -It said it would, and it had. Shall not they laugh who win?</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a></p> - -<p class="center">TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> District Attorney put the president of the light of the world on -the stand. His evidence showed that the purchase of the three-quarter's -interest in the Vacuum Company, sold because "there were restrictions -in the shipments," was made by the three New York men on trial. "They -are share-holders in the trust," he said. When they bought the stock -they transferred it to the oil trust. He had known of the contemplated -purchase. Having thus proved that the three indicted directors from -New York on trial were members of the oil trust, and were managing -the Vacuum for it, the District Attorney proceeded, in pursuance of a -logical plan of inquiry, to bring before the jury what the trust was, -and its relations to the companies it covered.</p> - -<p>"What is it ... if you know?" the District Attorney asked. The -president, through his counsel, objected to the question.</p> - -<p>"What is the object of this?" the judge asked the District Attorney.</p> - -<p>The trust, the District Attorney explained, owns a majority of the -stock of this Vacuum Company and others, and controls the manufacture -in this country of substantially all the lubricating and illuminating -oils. These defendants belonging to the trust, and "one of these being -chairman of a committee of the trust, it was the desire and motive -of the three to do away with competition, to destroy and ruin the -competitive works in Buffalo."</p> - -<p>The Court asked the president of the trust if it was a manufacturing -company.</p> - -<p>"It is not, your honor."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Court ruled out the question "What is it?" although in doing so he -used language apparently contradicting his ruling, saying, in effect, -that it was "quite immaterial what the objects or purposes of the oil -trust are, unless these defendants are in some way interested so as -to create a motive to do what it is claimed they did do." Again, when -the District Attorney sought to ascertain in what other corporations -engaged in the manufacture of oil in 1879, 1880, and 1881 the trustees -on trial owned stock, it was objected to and the objection sustained, -although the Court but a few moments before had said, "I will allow -you to show everything these defendants have done upon the question of -motive, ... to show what their business is, the companies they have -stock in, whether it is an oil company or some other company—that -is, any company engaged in the manufacture of oil that would come in -competition with the Buffalo company...."</p> - -<p>The judge, declaring that he would admit such evidence, refused to -admit it. What the District Attorney would have been able to uncover -as to the responsibility of the "trustees" for what was done by the -subordinate companies, the reader, freer than the jury in this case, -can find out for himself.</p> - -<p>The nine trustees, of whom three were on trial, owned as their -individual property more than half of this as of every establishment in -the trust. They decided who were to be elected directors and officers -of each company. They exercised full control over these officers -when elected. They declared the dividends. The profits of all these -shares are put into one purse, and distributed in quarterly dividends -among the trustees in proportion to their interest in the trust—the -purse-holder.<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a> In the case of the Vacuum Company, accordingly, we -find that the minutes of stockholders' meetings record the presence -of members of the oil trust, in person and by proxy, representing -a majority of the stock, electing the officers and directors, and -declaring the dividends. How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> thorough and minute is the supervision -over the vassal companies an employé, who had been in the service of -the combination for several years in a confidential way, and "had -access to every book and paper and their cipher arrangement," has -told.<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> They "control every movement of every branch of their -business." The subordinate companies "make a report every day of all -their business.... They have blanks there on which they make a report -of all their shipments, where shipped, and who shipped to, and all -their purchases; and they report every month the exact percentage they -have made out of their crude oil, of all the different products they -get out of it. They report everything in detail."</p> - -<p>This was in 1879. Ten years later, in 1888, the testimony of the -president shows that the system is the same. "They know the cost at -every refinery. They get such reports once in thirty days; each report -shows just what it has cost for everything.... Made out on regular -blanks."<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p> - -<p>But when put on the stand in this case, in Buffalo, he had professed -himself altogether ignorant of any such reports.<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> Asked if the -Vacuum Company had made them, he replied:</p> - -<p>"I can't recall any such reports."</p> - -<p>Asked if it was obligatory upon the Vacuum Oil Company to make reports, -he said:</p> - -<p>"I can't state."</p> - -<p>But the manager's testimony in the same case shows that the system of -reports which his superior "could not recall" was in regular operation.</p> - -<p>"There are reports of sales of the Vacuum Oil Company made to certain -parties in New York."<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a></p> - -<p>The three trustees who bought the control of the Vacuum stock did -not keep it for themselves. They transferred it to the trust, and -received for it shares in the trust. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> not stockholders in -the Vacuum, but stockholders in the trust. It was the trust which was -the real stockholder in the Vacuum. The profits on this Vacuum stock, -therefore, went into the common fund in which the trust accumulated the -profits of all its controlling ownerships in companies all over the -country—all over the world. Every trustee shared in the profits of -every company so controlled, whether in the United States or Europe or -Asia. The president of the trust, now on the witness-stand, was a large -participator in the profits of the Vacuum, because he was a large owner -in the trust which possessed three-quarters of it. Similarly as to the -three trustees indicted and on trial, and every other trustee.<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> -The case was interwoven, notwithstanding the exclusion of this by the -judge, with evidence that the three members of the trust on trial -were the managers of the company for the trust, and were consulted -habitually about the current details by the salaried agents.</p> - -<p>"After this purchase was made did you continue to represent the -purchasers in the management of the affairs of the Vacuum Oil Company?" -one of the three was asked.</p> - -<p>"I did."</p> - -<p>After the purchase of the Vacuum by the trust, Mr. Matthews, before he -left to go into business on his own account, had to go to its office -in New York half a dozen times, to see the New York directors when he -wanted instructions. His testimony on this point covers thirty pages of -the official testimony, and shows repeated interviews between him and -the members of the trust about every kind of detail of the business of -the Vacuum. When Matthews asked the manager of the Vacuum to give him -more pay, the latter had told him to speak to one of the trustees—one -of the three now on trial. "It will be as he says about it." Again, as -to another matter, he said to Matthews: "I cannot tell you. There is no -use for me to pretend that we run our business, for we do not."<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a></p> - -<p>This evidence must be sought in the original records of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> case at -Buffalo, as it is left out in the transcript furnished by the trust to -the committee of Congress, which represents the case against the two -local managers only. The Rochester manager, after the explosion, and at -the time of sending for Albert to come to New York, telegraphed to his -son: "Our views with regard to Albert confirmed." By whom? as Matthews' -lawyer asked. The manager saw one of the three accused trustees in New -York after he returned from the trip to Boston to hide Albert. "I told -him that I had hired him," he testified.</p> - -<p>The trustee denied this, as the president denied the monthly reports. -But he has himself furnished the evidence that his employé told the -truth. In their answer in court to the allegations of the suit against -them for damages, he and the other two trustees concerned in the -Vacuum direction testified that they advised the Rochester managers -"to endeavor to retain the said" Albert, ... "and after" he "had left -the employment of the Vacuum Oil Company ... they further advised that -he should be re-employed if it could be done by reasonable increase of -his wages. They were afterwards informed that he had been re-employed." -This shows they knew about the negotiations before, during, and after. -They knew the man was to have more wages, though the increase was only -$300 a year, and their income was millions yearly. When he had been -gotten away they were informed of that too. The District Attorney knew -all about this answer in the civil case, but under the statutes of New -York it could not be used in a criminal prosecution against those who -had made it. He put the trustee on the stand, and did his best to get -him to tell the same story, but in vain.</p> - -<p>The body-guard of lawyers surrounding the great men who made the -court-room a veritable curiosity-shop for the people of Buffalo, did -a deal of acting throughout the trial to impress on the jury that the -whole proceeding was a farce. They laughed and yawned and pooh-poohed, -and sneered at the District Attorney's questions and points, and went -through all kinds of dumb-shows of indignation and ennui that their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> -clients should be so needlessly called on to waste priceless time. But -this could not prevent their faces from lengthening as the story was -told by witness after witness, as more than one observant reporter -saw and noted. When the evidence was all in, and District Attorney -Quinby had closed his case, the situation was desperate. There was no -doubt about that. The great men of the trust on trial had been proved -to be the actual directors of the Vacuum at every turn of its daily -affairs. Before any evidence was introduced for the defence, one of -the distinguished lawyers arose and moved the discharge of the three -members of the trust, who were a majority of the Board of Directors -of the Vacuum Company, and managed it for the trust. The prosecution -were not taken unawares by the motion. The District Attorney's able -assistant, William L. Marcy, had gathered all the precedents and -equipped himself to resist the discharge. He and the District Attorney -fought hard to have the principals in the company go to the jury with -their agents, but in vain. Mr. Marcy pointed out that, as shown in the -case of The People <i>vs.</i> Mather, "to charge partners as conspirators it -is not necessary even to show that they were the original conspirators. -It is sufficient if at a subsequent time they become party to it by -accepting the benefits derived from the conspiracy. The case lays that -down in exact terms."</p> - -<p>The Judge: "Must there not be an adoption?"</p> - -<p>Mr. Marcy: "That is an adoption—accepting the benefits."</p> - -<p>The Judge: "They may accept the benefits without knowing."</p> - -<p>Mr. Marcy: "Then the jury may infer that knowledge from all the -circumstances. The jury are the tribunal to determine whether or not -the parties had the knowledge." Mr. Marcy pointed out that there was -everything to lead the jury to infer that these men were parties to the -plan. "Where did the meetings of the Board of Directors take place? -At Rochester, where the works are? No; at New York, where these men -carried on their other business. The Rochester representatives dance -in attendance wherever these New York parties<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> desire them to go." He -pointed out to the judge that the trustee whom Albert met in New York -after the explosion knew of the plan to take him to Boston. He showed -that the same trustee, when remonstrated with by Matthews for bringing -patent suits without foundation, said that he intended to carry them -on, and if he was beaten in one court, he would carry them to a higher -court. Just in the same way the Rochester representative of the trust -had said: "I will bring lawsuits against you. I will get an injunction -against you." "When the Rochester manager," said Mr. Marcy, "hired -Albert, he did not pretend to be able to make a bargain until he had -been to New York and consulted about it. He was in New York before he -telegraphed to him to come to New York. This significant fact points -home the conspiracy upon the gentlemen who reside in New York."</p> - -<p>But the judge, and not the jury, rendered the verdict as to the three -members of the trust on trial. He failed to remember or observe the law -that leaves it to the jury to render the verdict. He announced that he -had decided to grant the motion for their discharge. There was silence -in the court-room for a moment. Then: "Gentlemen of the jury, hearken -to your verdict as advised by the Court," came in sonorous tones from -the clerk; "you find the defendants"—naming the three members of the -oil trust at the bar—"not guilty of the crime, as charged in the -indictment, so say you all."</p> - -<p>The jury looked scared at being addressed so peremptorily, but said -nothing.</p> - -<p>"The New York men looked happy," said one of the observers, "but -their Rochester associates and codefendants did not smile." Upon the -discharge of the trustees, one of the Buffalo dailies said that whether -there was any conspiracy at all is an undecided question, but it should -be remembered that the oil trust and the Vacuum Oil Company "have been -honorably acquitted of the charge of having anything to do with the -matter. As the case now stands, it is simply The People against"—the -two Rochester managers.</p> - -<p>Poor men! It was for this that they succumbed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> attacks of the -oil trustees upon their business, sold them for $200,000 three-quarters -of a concern which produced $300,000 in dividends in one year for -the lucky conquerors, became vassals instead of masters in their own -refinery. It was for $10,000 a year, divided into $6500 for one and -$3500 for the other, that they undertook to fetch and carry for their -suzerains, even to the gates of the penitentiary; and when discovery -and conviction came, to bear in silence upon their own shoulders the -guilt and shame from which others got only "more."</p> - -<p>The trial of the two remaining defendants proceeded. Neither of them -took the stand. In a deposition the elder said it was Albert who had -spoken about misplacing the pipes; but when asked what he said in reply -to a suggestion, which no one better than he knew the significance -of, he replied: "I made no reply to it, but I thought it would be a -very scandalous proceeding."<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> Albert had told how, in conversation -in California, his employer had described his plans with regard to -Matthews.</p> - -<p>"We would have just got them fellows in a boat, right in the middle -of the stream, and we would have tipped them two over, and drowned -them, and you would have been all right."<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> "If I ever made such a -remark," this defendant deposed, "it was in a playful humor. I am in -the habit of making playful remarks."</p> - -<p>Witness after witness had to confess, under cross-examination, that -his testimony had been written and rewritten by himself or the lawyer -for the defence, and carefully conned before coming on the stand. The -District Attorney asked one of these tutored witnesses why he had read -over the written preparation of his testimony in the rotunda of the -court-house just before going on the stand.</p> - -<p>"I read it over," he replied, lucidly, "for the simple reason of -reading it over."</p> - -<p>"Just to practise in reading?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Well, perhaps we might call it practice in reading."<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a></p> - -<p>"This preparation of the testimony," said the District Attorney to the -jury, "which I stigmatize as infamous, this going to a witness and -writing him down, and having him fix it, and write it over again, and -keeping it in his mind, and reading it over, and so going on the stand, -is not the way to try a lawsuit, in my mind. I write nothing down. I -coach no witnesses. I want a witness to tell me his story. I put him on -the stand and he tells me his story; but no writing down, no reading -over. It is not right, and it is very liable to be very wrong."</p> - -<p>Several witnesses were introduced to prove that Matthews had offered -to settle the criminal prosecution. He could not have done so had he -wished to. The criminal case was in the hands of the State. Of the -witnesses who made this charge against Matthews, one was a stockholder -in the trust, another had been a stockholder in one of its pipe lines, -and both had to admit on cross-examination that the occasion of his -alleged agreeing to settle the case had been that they had gone to him -for their friends, unsolicited by him and unexpected, to find out at -what price he would sell his works to the combination." I was anxious -to settle the criminal prosecution," said one of these ambassadors.</p> - -<p>"Anxious for whom?" asked the ever-ready District Attorney.</p> - -<p>"I should say—nobody," replied the witness, in confusion.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Matthews told him," said Mr. Hiram Benedict, one of the best-known -citizens of Lockport, who was present, "that if they bought the capital -stock of the company they could do what they chose with the civil -suits, but with the criminal suit he had nothing to do; the people had -that in charge."<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a></p> - -<p>The lawyers tried to make a jest of the whole proceeding, and affected -to look upon the incidents of this rivalry with their powerful client -as something too trivial to be noticed. "Is it a trivial matter," asked -District Attorney Quinby, "that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> it shall be decided, once for all, in -a court of justice, that in an alleged republic you and I shall not -start a business which is a rival to some one else? That is the issue -here, and yet the lawyers for the accused tell us it is trivial. It -is the most important question that was ever left to a jury of twelve -men in this or any country in this age of monopoly." The jury thought -so too. The meaning of the policy of suppressing competition was -skilfully described by Judge Edward Hatch, Mr. Matthews' counsel in -the civil suit for damages, and here again the jury, representing the -people, thought so too. "When a man or a corporation is in a position -to control the market as to a given article, then everybody is within -their power, and it rests with their conscience to determine what -shall be the price. Every time you farmers at home, or your wives or -daughters, take your oil-can, turn it up, fill your lamp, and then -sit down to read by it, you can understand what is meant by this -proposition to crush these men out.... It was a matter that not only -these three men were interested in, but every person that lived in the -community. Competition would run along to a point where you could get -the oils that you use in your families, to grease your wagons, and to -burn in your houses, or for any other purpose, at a price that should -give the manufacturer a fair profit, and at the lowest possible price. -On the other hand, if you leave that open to these parties to regulate -as they saw fit, having a monopoly of the market, then you rest upon -the conscience of a corporation and put your faith in a soulless -individual."</p> - -<p>It is one of the few bright lines in this picture that whenever the -people got a chance to make themselves heard, their utterance was -always right and true. The four juries which passed upon the facts -understood them, and had the moral standard by which to judge them -aright.</p> - -<p>One of the trust's employés was put on the stand to break the effect -of the evidence that the competition of the new works had put down the -price of oil. "In the early part of 1881—the winter of 1881"—he said, -"common oil was 5½ cents a gallon"—this to prove that the reduction -had pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>ceded the appearance of the new refinery. He was confronted -by the District Attorney with one of his own bills of oil sold in -February, 1881. "That would seem to be a sale of 120 degrees oil at 12 -cents a gallon," he confessed, and added, awkwardly, "I was asked as to -the winter of 1881. That is not the winter of 1881 as I understand. I -meant to speak from July, 1881, and so on."<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a></p> - -<p>The great lawyers held up to the ridicule of the jury the idea that the -gases of distilling petroleum were dangerous. Matthews stated on the -stand that he had seen this gas burn up derricks, property, and several -men. The lawyers could not let anything so absurd go unchallenged.</p> - -<p>"Did it explode?" he was asked smartly.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"And how did the 'explosion' burn up the men and property?" with a -knowing look to the jury.</p> - -<p>"The gases crept quietly to the boilers, unobserved," said the witness, -"and all at once the whole atmosphere was ablaze."</p> - -<p>The witnesses who tried to prove that no harm could have resulted from -the tampering with the still broke down. One of them was the inspector -of oils at the combination's refinery at Cleveland. He, too, had once -been an independent refiner, but had passed under the yoke. He declared -with every possible variation of phrase that there could not have been -an explosion at the Buffalo works; but the District Attorney got out of -him piecemeal admissions that the "escaping petroleum gases would be -inflammable"; that "in a damp day you would expect them to settle close -to the still"; that then, if they came in contact with fire, "you would -have a large flash, and consume those vapors; if a person was in the -vicinity he would burn."</p> - -<p>"I ask you if it would be a safe thing to fill a still with 175 barrels -of petroleum, put under it an extremely hot fire, so that the front -portion of the still is a cherry red, and a weighted safety-valve is -blown off—would you consider that a safe thing to do?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I would not."</p> - -<p>Still another of these witnesses ended, like Balaam, by saying just the -opposite of what had been wanted of him. He testified that the escape -of gases from the stills, and even their ignition, was a matter of no -consequence—"it may occur at any time"—until he was cross-examined. -It turned out then that his own works had been burned three times by -the gases from distillation taking fire. "These gases," he had to -admit, "took fire and burned the receiving-house. A man got burned up -with it."</p> - -<p>"Are you willing," the District Attorney asked, sarcastically, "to go -down to the Buffalo works and have them run some vapor, on a quiet day, -on the ground, and let you stand in the middle of it and touch it off?"</p> - -<p>"I am not anxious to do that."<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a></p> - -<p>Every one looked to see Matthews crushed by the cross-examination, in -accordance with the widely advertised promises of the counsel on the -other side.</p> - -<p>"As he stood up to take the oath," said the New York <i>World</i>, "and -confronted the men with whom he had been at sword's-point for six -years, men of unlimited wealth and almost unlimited influence, and -controlling the most gigantic monopoly of any age or any country, -Charles B. Matthews looked, as a good observer said, what he proved -himself to be, a fighter, who will never know when he is whipped. Hard -knocks and a struggle of years against an all-powerful enemy have -whitened his hair, and set firm, hard lines about his face. His eyes -are deep-set under a protruding forehead and black, bushy lashes, and -are dark, firm, and searching. His jet-black beard is luxuriant but -coarse, his whole head and face bespeak the dogged persistence in -following a foe that is characteristic of the man. He is tall, well -built, and with those whom he knows to be friends he is kindly and -almost jovial in his manner." He told his story, and the jury believed -it. One of the most damaging portions of his testimony was that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> given -to connect the New York members of the trust with the conspiracy by -showing that they had the actual, practical, continuous management of -the Vacuum in matters small as well as large. Matthews, when in their -employ, was kept running to New York continually to see one or the -other of them about some detail of the business. Seeking to break down -the force of this testimony, the big gun of the legal battery opened on -him.</p> - -<p>"But you did not see the name" of the oil combination "up over the -office that you went into (in New York)?"</p> - -<p>"I do not think I ever saw the name over the office that I went into. I -think that name is not often in view over where they do business."</p> - -<p>"What makes you think so?"</p> - -<p>"My experience and observation."</p> - -<p>"What experience and observation have you had?"</p> - -<p>"Do you want I should tell it all?"</p> - -<p>"No, you need not tell it all. We will let that go now." Matthews had -been in their employ. He knew about the staff of lobbyists they keep to -go from capital to capital as needed.</p> - -<p>For lack of evidence the jury was offered abuse of Matthews, spoken by -the brilliant attorney on a shout which enabled the populace outside -the court-house to hear his speech, and, as the verdict proved, -deafened the jury to his eloquence. The jury preferred the view given -by the District Attorney. "When I look upon the troubled face of -Matthews," said District Attorney Quinby in his closing of the case, "I -know what is coming upon his head. When I know the struggle he has gone -through, the integrity that is in his heart, I would say to him, 'Well -done, good and faithful servant, you have withstood the powerful arm -of this insatiable corporation. You stand to-day honored from one end -of this land to the other.' ... I am proud that in the county of Erie -has been born a gentleman who has had the bravery and fortitude he has -shown."</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a></p> - -<p class="center">CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> jury was composed of nine farmers, one tailor, one store-keeper, -and one railroad foreman. "So intelligent a jury," said the Buffalo -<i>Express</i>, "is proof perfect that the verdict it returns is the -only one warranted by the law and evidence." The jury found all the -defendants guilty whom the court allowed them to try. The verdict, -"Guilty as charged in the indictment," was given May 18, 1887. Every -possibility of appeal and reversal was resorted to. The judge granted -a stay, and this left the defendants unsentenced. A motion for a new -trial postponed the day of fate until December 24, 1887.</p> - -<p>When the judge decided against the new trial an appeal was taken, and -was carried through every court except the highest. Legal procedure -in New York makes the courts a hunting preserve for those who can -afford the luxuries of litigation. The law was changed by the Field -code so that demurrers and counter-appeals, proceedings and ancillary -proceedings, on technical points can be carried, one after another, -from court to court, while the real point at issue has to wait untried -below for the results of this interminable contest. By grace of -this power to carry preliminary and technical questions from court -to court, at the pleasure of quibbling and appealing lawyers and -procrastinating judges, from courts of Oyer and Terminer to the Supreme -Court at General Term, to the Court of Appeals, rich corporations and -individuals are able to tire out altogether all ordinary opponents. -It was only by help of very able and highly paid lawyers, officers of -the courts and of justice, that the law of New York<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> was "reformed," -so that the technical parts of a case could be to such an extent -disengaged from the main body, and sent forward and backward, up and -down, through the whole series of appeals, consuming endless time and -money, while poor men seeking justice kick their heels in the lowest -courts.</p> - -<p>As the time for pronouncing sentence came on, petitions for mercy were -circulated in Buffalo and Rochester. The members of the jury which -had found the accused guilty were labored with separately to sign -a recantation. Only six succumbed and signed a statement that the -prisoners were found guilty, not because they had conspired to blow up -their rival's refinery, but because they had enticed away Albert. This -recantation was in the face of the judge's charge, which had made the -plot to blow up the Buffalo works the chief and the important inquiry -in this case, and the verdict had been given under the influence of -this view of the case. Six of the jury saw the impropriety of making -this statement after they had disbanded and passed from under the legal -and moral restraints they felt when sitting under their oath of office, -and refused to sign it.</p> - -<p>When the paper from the complaisant six jurors was handed in, the -District Attorney said in court: "These jurors received money for -making these affidavits. If required to do so I will prove the -statement." He was not called upon to do so. "These affidavits," he -said afterwards, "were procured for the purpose of influencing the -Court to administer the lighter punishment, since they tended to -show that the verdict was directed against the lighter offence. One -of the jurors told me he had been offered money to sign one of these -affidavits, and he knew of one juror who had received $10 for signing -one."</p> - -<p>When the last possibility in the way of proceedings for a stay or for a -new trial had been exhausted, except argument of an appeal in the Court -of Appeals, which was known to be useless, sentence was pronounced. -The penalty provided in the statutes was imprisonment for one year in -the peniten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>tiary, or a fine of $250, or both. The lawyers pleaded -that the elder of the convicted men was old, that the younger had just -returned from a wedding tour in Europe, that some of the wealthiest -and most prominent citizens of Rochester had petitioned for mercy, -and that six of the jury had done likewise. Each was sentenced to pay -a fine of $250. Notice of appeal was given by the convicted, and a -year was consumed on both sides in preparations to fight the case to -a bitter finish. But the appeal was abandoned. A new trial and new -sentence might have ended worse. The fine was paid, and these employés -of the trust, upon whose record as reputable and inoffensive citizens -for all the years of their business career no shadow had fallen till -they entered its employ, took thereby the place assigned them by the -jury—that of convicts guilty of crime.</p> - -<p>Crime, it seems, may in this country be cheaper than competition. -They who received the larger part of the benefit of the enticement -of Albert, of the harassing litigation, of the damage done by the -explosion, and of the bankruptcy which was finally produced by these -means, went free of all punishment; and the employés found their crime -but little less than a pastime. After his conviction, and before his -sentence, one of the two married. His wedding was attended by many of -the great men of the trust—magnates in the New York world of affairs -and its affiliated interests. It glittered with gold and silver and -precious stones which they sent to signify to the world that they stood -sponsor for him.</p> - -<p>The case of some humble boycotters was then fresh in the public mind. -Certain working-men, on strike, handed around printed circulars in the -streets of New York, requesting people not to buy beer sold by their -employer. In a few weeks from the time they dropped those circulars in -the streets they were in the penitentiary at Sing Sing. It was shown on -their trial that they were entirely ignorant of the fact that they were -violating any of the laws of the State in what they did. It was shown -on the trial of the oil men that they did know that the course they had -in view was criminal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> and were warned by a lawyer it might land them -in prison. "It was very fortunate," said the New York <i>World</i>, "that -they were not poor men convicted of stealing a ham."</p> - -<p>One of the reasons given by the judge for his leniency was that -prominent citizens of Buffalo and Rochester had begged for mercy. "With -the very highest respect for the judge," said the Buffalo <i>Express</i>, -"as the <i>Express</i> has often demonstrated, we must say that this is a -mighty queer excuse. Three-fourths of those citizens are in one way -or another identified in interest with the oil trust, as the judge -could readily have ascertained, and their names on that petition were -entitled to no more moral weight in the consideration of this case than -the names of the two guilty men should have had if they had seen fit to -sign it."</p> - -<p>The sentence raised a whirlwind of indignation. "As ridiculous as -anything that could be imagined," said the Philadelphia <i>Ledger</i>. "It -is high time," said the New York <i>World</i>, "that the lines were drawn -between competition and conspiracy, between business and brigandage." -Referring to the golden harvest of $300,000 dividends in one year on -a capital of $100,000, representing an original investment of only -$13,500, the <i>World</i> said: "The monopoly of this sort of business is -a very seductive thing. It is calculated to make men of more boldness -than morals blow up factories, or do almost anything else to control -the field." "It can afford to blow up a rival refinery every day -in the year at that price," said the Erie <i>Dispatch</i>. "There have -been conspiracies," said the Oil City <i>Blizzard</i> (Pa.), "to injure -the business of opposition concerns right here in Oil City, and the -conspirators have never been punished." "It is—a light sentence," was -the comment of the Buffalo <i>Commercial</i>. "Poor criminals," the Buffalo -<i>Express</i> declared, "may well wonder why rich ones are let off so -easily. It is equivalent to deciding that wealth may securely indulge -in that inexpensive sort of amusement as a mere pastime. Who's afraid?" -it asked. "What conspirator 'in restraint' of trade is afraid of a $250 -fine?" "Certain it is that no wealthy criminals convicted of such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> -crime ever before received from a court such a mockery of justice," was -the verdict of the Springfield (Mass.) <i>Republican</i>.</p> - -<p>The facts of this case have not been carelessly examined or decided. -Two grand-juries in succession passed upon the evidence and found it -good enough for indictments. Two petit juries heard the evidence, -both for and against, in the civil and criminal suits, and found it -good enough—one jury for $20,000 damages, another for a verdict of -criminally guilty. Seventy picked citizens have unanimously concurred -in the decision "Guilty." And this scarlet letter the monopoly will -always have to carry.</p> - -<p>"So surely as Matthews lives, and so long as he lives," District -Attorney Quinby said in the criminal prosecution, "he will never again -make another dollar upon a barrel of oil he may manufacture. The -word has gone forth, right in this court-room, that this man shall -be crushed, and he can never again run his works successfully. That -is going to be one of the results of this case." The fulfilment of -this prediction came swiftly. This sentence of ruin upon Matthews was -executed before sentence was even pronounced upon the conspirators -against him. He had been left crippled by the flight and corruption -of his partner, the only practical oil man in the enterprise. When -he tried to obtain some one to take his place, he could not get word -of any one not connected with the oil combination. He did not dare -to advertise, and knew no one in Buffalo he could venture to speak -to. He had made contracts before opening the works, and was unable to -fill them. The pipes had been laid wrong; it took him a year trying -one way and another, and making a great many mistakes, to set them -right. His third partner was frightened back into the employ of the oil -combination by threatening litigation.</p> - -<p>Then came the suits to destroy, punctually as threatened.<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> "If one -court does not sustain the patents, we will carry them up until you -get enough of it," one of the trustees said to Matthews. One of the -Rochester managers, in speaking of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> suits, said: "I don't know as -we will gain anything really, but we will embarrass them by bringing -these suits, and, if it is necessary, we will bring them once a month; -yes, we will bring them once a week." One, two, three, four, five suits -came with injunctions. "Null and void" was the verdict of court after -court on the worthless patents and pretended trade-marks on which he -was sued.</p> - -<p>Matthews had to keep pushing his pursuers to trial. What they wanted -was not decisions but delays, to ruin him by the waste of time and -money.<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> "It cost me one-third of my time, and $25,000 or more to -defend these suits." These suits were used to scare away his customers. -"I was instructed," said the Boston representative of the combination, -"to tell the customers that the Buffalo company were using their -patents."<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> The sole legal victory the combination won was the -recovery of six cents damages on a technical point.</p> - -<p>Matthews, on his side, took to the courts. He sued his persecutors as -individuals and corporations. He pursued them civilly and criminally. -He was successful in defending himself against their suits. All his -suits were successful as far as he was able to carry them. One suit -for damages produced a $20,000 verdict; another was for $250,000, -on the still stronger evidence procured in the criminal trial. It -took Matthews two years—from 1883 to 1885—to get his first case -for damages for conspiracy to trial. All that time was consumed by -his opponents in quibbles about procedure, technical objections, and -motions for delay, appealing them from court to court. The judge, in -taking from the jury afterwards the three trustees who had been brought -to trial for conspiracy, declared that he could see no reason to -believe that these suits had been brought without probable cause. But -the jury before which the suit for damages was tried saw plenty of such -reasons, and gave Matthews' company a verdict of $20,000 damages. The -views of the judge and jury might have varied in the same way on the -question of the guilt of the three members of the trust.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> - -<p>Matthews woke up one morning to discover, as he had been told he would, -that there was no Atlas Company to get his oil from. Corporations may -have no souls, but they can love each other. The Erie Railroad killed -the pipe line of the Atlas Company for the oil combination.<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> The -courts had been kept busy granting injunctions against it on the -motion of the Erie. These were invariably dissolved by the courts, -but an application for a new one would always follow. At one time the -lawyers had fifteen injunctions all ready in their hands to be sued -out, one after the other, as fast as needed. The pipe line was finally -destroyed by force. Where it crossed under the Erie road in the bed -of a stream grappling-irons were fastened to it, and with an immense -hawser a locomotive guarded by two freight cars full of men pulled it -to pieces. The Atlas line and refinery became the "property" of their -enemy. Matthews' supply of crude oil was not cut off immediately. He -was tapered off. One of the superintendents of the Atlas testified in -the suit for damages Matthews brought against the Atlas after it passed -into the hands of the combination, that by the order of the manager -of the refinery he mixed refuse oil with the crude which they sold to -the Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company. Finally the supply was shut off -altogether.</p> - -<p>Matthews turned to the railroads connecting Buffalo with the oil -country. They all put up their rates. At the increased rates they -would not bring him enough to keep him going; they would not give him -cars enough, and told him they would not let him put his own cars on -the road. Even the lake steamers raised their rates against him. The -farmer-refiner was taking his lesson in the course which had driven -his first employer to dig oil-wells because "there were restrictions -in the shipments." Cut off from a supply by either pipe or rail at -Buffalo, Matthews made an alliance with the Keystone Refinery in the -oil regions. War was now made upon the Keystone. It was finally ruined.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> - -<p>Packs of lawyers were set upon Matthews, and they finally brought -him down. An attorney appeared before a judge and made a motion that -the property of Matthews' company be taken out of Matthews' hands -and be placed in the charge of a receiver, as officer of the court, -to secure a debt due a Buffalo bank. This done, the lawyer appeared -before the judge who afterwards decided that $250 fine was punishment -enough for criminal conspiracy, with an offer from the monopoly to -pay $17,300 for the discontinuance of the suits for damages which -Matthews had instituted, and $63,700 for all the other assets. The -other creditors and all the stockholders opposed the motion, but the -judge granted it. There were two suits. One had produced a verdict of -$20,000, and the other one for $250,000 was brought on the new and -much stronger evidence secured in the criminal trial. As to the value -of the property, Matthews had brought his enterprise to the point -where it was worth $20,000 a year. It was capable of producing many -times that amount of profit. Had not Albert been enticed away, the new -works would have yielded a profit of over $100,000 the first year. -They had a capacity of 70 to 80 barrels a day of lubricating oil, -and the profit was $5 to $6 a barrel at the time Matthews and Albert -went into the business.<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a> The judge, overruling a majority of the -creditors, ordered the receiver to accept the offer. He gave as his -reason for selling these damage suits that a criminal prosecution had -already taken place for the same offences, and a person could not be -punished twice for the same offence. As they had not yet been punished, -this meant, if it meant anything, that the suits were to be sold out -for this inconsiderable sum, and the guilty men were to get their -punishment in the sentence he was to pass upon them in the criminal -court.</p> - -<p>Three months later, before the same judge, these convicted agents stood -up to receive their criminal sentence. The judge gave them the lightest -sentence in his power, "nominal punishment." He did so, he was reported -by the Buffalo press<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> to have said, because "it has come to the -attention of the court that civil suits have been brought to recover -damages sustained by reason of the same overt acts. Large punitive -damages are demanded in those actions. It is fundamental that a person -cannot be punished twice for the same offence."</p> - -<p>The judge released them from the suits for damages because they were -to be punished criminally. Then he released them from any but nominal -punishment, because there had been suits for damages. One would infer -that the civil suits for damages were in full career in the courts, -to end possibly in hundreds of thousands of dollars' damages against -the convicted. No one would infer what was the truth—and who should -have remembered it so well as the judge, for it was he who had done -it?—that the civil suits had been ordered sold. The judge had ordered -his officer—the receiver—who had the luckless Matthews' affairs in -his grip, not to try the cases, but to sell them. The suits had been -ordered sold in February preceding, and they were as dead as—justice. -But as all the technical formalities and slow proceedings needed to -consummate the sale had not been completed when sentence was passed in -May, the damages they might produce were made a reason for inflicting -none but nominal punishment. The order of sale made it impossible that -they should ever be tried.</p> - -<p>Of the money paid into court, nearly half—$30,000—went to the -lawyers, and, crudest stroke of all, the attorney who had made the -successful motion before the judge to take Matthews' property away, and -to order the forced sale, got $5000. Matthews got nothing. Even his -right to sue his destroyers had been sold to them on their own motion -and at their own price.</p> - -<p>The crime was plotted in March, 1881. The participants were indicted in -1886. It took until May 15, 1887, to secure conviction. While sentence -was still unpronounced Matthews' property was put into the hands of a -receiver of the court, January 16, 1888; the property was sold by order -of the court, February 17, 1888; sentence was pronounced May 8, 1888; -the formalities of the sale were consummated July<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> 11, 1888; and the -sentence, coming last of all—the fine of $250—was executed May 1, -1889.</p> - -<p>Matthews had tried to make money in oil, and had failed; but his -competition had forced those in control of the markets to increase the -price to the producer, and he made light cheaper to the community. In -Buffalo his enterprise had caused the price to drop to 6 cents from 12 -and 18 cents, in Boston<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> to 8 cents from 20. Oil has never since -been as high in Boston or Buffalo as before he challenged the monopoly. -And he forced the struggle into the view of the public, and succeeded -in putting on record in the archives of courts and legislatures and -Congress a picture of the realities of modern commerce certain to -exercise a profound influence in ripening the reform thought with which -our air is charged into reform action.</p> - -<p>Nothing is so dramatic as fact, when you can find the fact. The -treatment his church gave the brother, who had been the victim, as -judicially declared, of a criminal conspiracy, is described in the -following letter from Matthews:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -"<span class="smcap">Buffalo</span>, January 19, 1888.<br /> -</p> - -<p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,—As your father was a clergyman, and as you -feel an interest in church affairs, I think you will wish to know of -my recent experiences. My church here is not a rich one, but we pay as -much for church music as we do as salary to our pastor. Probably the -wealthiest man in our church is an agent of the oil trust. He receives -a salary of $18,000 per year, and keeps their retail store here, and -has been a witness for them in important suits. He does not belong -to our church, but is a trustee and treasurer of the Church, and is -very kind to our pastor, whom he took last summer on quite an extended -vacation trip in New England. But you know the class of men that -usually become trustees in our city churches these days.</p> - -<p>"My pastor surprised me a few days ago by making a visit at my office, -and telling me that as my term of office as member of the session -expired soon, it might be best for me not to be a candidate for -re-election, in view of what the newspapers had said about me, and -the opposition there was. He said, however, that he personally felt -friendly to me, and regarded me highly. He seemed to be embarrassed, -but I quickly relieved the situation by saying that I had told my -family some months before that I should not again hold a church -office. I told the doctor he well knew I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> did not desire office in or -out of the Church. True, the newspapers, under the influence of the -oil trust, had ridiculed me as 'farmer Matthews from the country.' But -why should my pastor mock me with such shallow pretences for reasons -for church opposition to me? I had engaged in the oil business without -the consent of the oil monopoly, and my pastor then and there told me -my friends thought me foolhardy in doing so. I could hardly suppress -my feelings on hearing this said by the man who baptized my children -and ministers at the church altar. What could all this mean? I had -only fought for my rights as an American citizen, as a manufacturer -and shipper of oil. I had been sustained in every detail by the -courts. I had convicted in our courts prominent men of conspiracy, -little thinking that the subtle power of these men could come to -dominate the Church itself. My feelings were intense, and words came -thick and fast—all too tame to express my feelings. I told the doctor -how I had struggled on from boyhood, and at middle age had accumulated -a few thousand dollars, and in all these years had never sued a man or -been sued, and that my struggle with the oil monopoly was for rights -that no one worthy to be called a man dare to surrender. I told the -doctor how I had been hounded, and my business beset by spies—that -my friends had often told me I was in danger of assassination if I -continued the fight in the courts. He, having done his errand, seemed -uneasy, and anxious to go. I told him I had seen the rising and -corrupting power of this trust in their control of our aldermen and -courts, in state and national legislation. I could witness all this -with comparative composure; but it made every drop of my blood hot -to see them erect their altars for Mammon worship in the Church of -the living God. I had seen the hard-won earnings of a lifetime swept -away, and had hoped that at least one word of sympathy might come -from the Church. If I had been robbed by old-fashioned highwaymen and -the Church received none of the loot, church sympathy would have been -hearty and abundant. But no; Sabbath after Sabbath our reverend doctor -rises in the pulpit, and, at the regular time, says: 'Let us worship -God in the gift of money.' Religion, divine worship, and money all -seem to have a like meaning as they are alternately mentioned in our -pulpit. My ancestors far back were church people, but this worshipping -money, or worshipping God with money, is all new to me. It was not the -acceptable worship required by Christ and taught by his disciples. -After the conversation I had with my pastor that day I trudged home, -but could not sleep that night. My heart was too full of sorrow as -well as anger. I hope you will forgive me for writing you so long a -letter. I have written much more than I intended to, but did not see -where to stop. There are many things I wish you could see but not -experience in the life of a business man nowadays. I want you to write -often, as every word from a true friend is prized highly in these dark -days for me."</p></blockquote> - -<p>The action of the judge in this and another celebrated case was made -an issue in the elections in New York in 1889. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> June, 1882, the -railroads in New York City, rather than pay the freight-handlers the -20 cents an hour they asked for, instead of 17 cents, brought the -business of the city to a stop. They refused to employ their old men -at that price, and did not supply their places. Trucks by thousands, -heavy with merchandise, stood before the railroad freight-houses for -days, waiting in vain to be unloaded. The trade of the metropolis was -paralyzed, and the railroad officials sat serenely in their offices, -letting the jam pile up until the freight-handlers were starved into -accepting the wages they were offered, and commercial distress had made -the business community desperate enough to tolerate that injustice, or -any other iniquity, provided the "Goddess of Getting-on" were allowed -to get on again. It was so clear that the price asked by the men was -fair, and that the refusal of the railroads to set them at work and -keep the channels of trade open was due to a purpose to manufacture -such widespread loss and trouble that the public should be goaded into -forgetfulness of the rights of the men, that public opinion forced the -Attorney-General of the State to act. Re-enforced by able counsel, he -applied for a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel the roads to resume -operations. This motion came before this Buffalo judge, then sitting -by assignment in New York. He kept the people waiting ten days, and -then quashed and dismissed the petition. The decision of the Supreme -Court, composed of judges of both parties, reversing his action, was -unanimous, but the mischief he had done was by that time—January 17, -1883—long past mending.</p> - -<p>When he was nominated to be judge again, after his indecision and -decision had swelled the dividends of the great railways of New York, -the presiding officer of the convention which was to choose him to be -their candidate was, by a coincidence, also the president of one of -the great railway corporations which had been involved in the judicial -proceeding of 1882. The judge's record was made one of the issues in -the State election which followed the defeat of justice in Buffalo. He -was nominated by the Republicans in 1889 for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> Judge of the Court of -Appeals, the highest court in the State of New York, and the nomination -was asserted by the New York <i>Times</i>, in a leading editorial, to have -been procured by the oil trust. Its "influence was active," said the -<i>Times</i>, "in securing the nomination of" this judge. " ... An attorney -who has labored in its interests at Albany during the last two sessions -of the Legislature was conspicuous among the men who did the work." The -New York <i>Times</i>, the Buffalo <i>Courier</i>, the New York <i>Star</i>, the New -York <i>World</i>, and other leading journals of the State retold the story -of the trial, and declared that the judge's action in taking the case -of the members of the trust from the jury, and the sentence he gave the -convicted agents, made it clear that he was unfit to be a judge. The -oil combination, the <i>World</i> said, editorially, "have had agents busy -this year trying to secure his elevation to the highest court in the -State.... We say confidently that the history of the case establishes -his conspicuous unfitness for a place on the bench of the Court of -Appeals. He should be defeated, and with him the oppressive monopoly -which is actively seeking his election."</p> - -<p>He was defeated with the rest of the ticket. District Attorney Quinby -was re-elected several terms in succession. After their victory the -people went to sleep, but not the sower of tares. At the election of -1890 the nomination of this judge to a seat on the bench was secured -from both parties. For fourteen years, therefore—from 1890—a seat of -the Supreme Court, one of the most important tribunals of justice in -New York State, will be occupied by this judge, before whom must come -many questions affecting oil transportation, electric lighting, natural -gas and illuminating, street railways, banking, and other interests of -the oil trust.</p> - -<p>Monopoly cannot be content with controlling its own business. It is the -creature of the same law which has always driven the tyrant to control -everything—government, art, literature, even private conversation. Any -freedom, though seemingly the most remote from any possible bearing -upon the tyrant, may—will grow from a little leak of liberty into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> -mighty flood, sweeping his palaces and dungeons away. The czar knows -that if he lets his people have so much freedom as free talk in their -sitting-rooms their talk will gather into a tornado. In all ages -wealth, like all power, has found that it must rule all or nothing. Its -destiny is rule or ruin, and rule is but a slower ruin. Hence we find -it in America creeping higher every year up into the seats of control. -Its lobbyists force the nomination of judges who will construe the laws -as Power desires, and of senators who will get passed such laws as it -wants for its judges to construe.</p> - -<p>The press, too, must be controlled by Power. During the criminal trial -at Buffalo one of the oil combination's detectives was put on the -stand. He was compelled to produce his written instructions from the -counsel of the trust.<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> These had been given him at the office of -the oil trust in New York. He forwarded his reports to its office in -New York, and received his pay from the same place.<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> He sent his -subordinates to get employment in Matthews' works, and through them -obtained information from the inside. The monopoly paid one of these -detectives $2.50 a day for spying, while he could earn only $1.50 a day -for working.</p> - -<p>"I see here further," said the District Attorney, "'Why the <i>Express</i> -published the last complaint'"—in Matthews' suit for $250,000 damages. -"Did he ask you to find out about that?"</p> - -<p>"He did."</p> - -<p>"That is, he wanted you to find out what arrangements were made with -the Buffalo <i>Express</i> to have the complaint published?"</p> - -<p>"Yes; the whole complaint. It covered the whole of the newspaper."</p> - -<p>"And do you know 'how many copies were taken by Matthews?' Did he tell -you to find that out, too?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a></p> - -<p class="center">ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> South is the most American part of America. Close observers note -as its especial characteristic the preservation of the original -Anglo-Saxon types, which gave this country its first and deepest -impress.</p> - -<p>The South is not yet so steeped as the North in the commercialism to -which it is all of life to buy and sell, and its population, less -affected by trade and immigration, remains more nearly American, as the -fathers were American, than the parts of the country flooded by the -full force of the modern tide. Only in the South is there record all -through this history of a man "too prejudiced to buy" from those who -claimed the sole right to sell.</p> - -<p>The merchants of Columbus, Mississippi, were buying their oil of the -southern branch of the combination when they were offered a supply at -cheaper prices by an independent refiner. They asked the combination -to meet this competition of the market. This was refused. There were -eleven firms there which sold oil in connection with other things. The -combination "coolly informed us," wrote one of the firms to a journal -of the trade, "that we were in their power, and could not buy oil -from any one else, and that we should either pay such prices as they -demanded or not sell oil. We immediately formed an association among -ourselves and ordered from other parties. On receipt of our first car -they immediately put the retail price below the cost per car lots, -and for some time tried to whip us in that way, as we still declined -to handle their oil. They then wrote offering to rebate to several of -the larger firms if they would withdraw and leave the smaller ones to -fight the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> battle alone. This proposition we declined, and they again -tried the low-price dodge, their agent telling us that they would -spend $10,000 to crush us out. This game they have now been trying for -three years, and in that time we have not handled one gallon of their -oil." As these devices, irresistible in more commercial civilizations, -did not fool the brotherhood of Columbus, a special agent was sent to -Columbus to carry on the war.</p> - -<p>"You can tell the Columbus merchants if this does not succeed we will -have it out on other lines," the agent was instructed, in the strain -of the letter to the merchant of Nashville.<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> "The battle has not -fairly opened yet; sharpen up your sword, we mean war to the knife." -And again: "We want Columbus squelched," was the word sent the agent -from the headquarters at Louisville.</p> - -<p>He was ordered to start a grocery store in Columbus, to compete in -their entire business with the "black-mailers." While the fight was -on, and it was still hoped to conquer Columbus, the following was kept -prominently before the people in the daily papers:</p> - -<p>"We desire to state that we did not establish an agency in Columbus to -force the wholesale grocers to handle our oil."</p> - -<p>But seven years later the general in command of this department told -Congress it was his practice to fight in that way. "Almost invariably I -did that always."<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a></p> - -<p>"To threaten the people elsewhere with Columbus," the agent at Columbus -was told, "will make them scat, as it were, and take our oil at any -price." But the people of Columbus did not "scat." The new store had a -complete stock of groceries. Prices on everything, including oil, were -put "down to the bone." But one essential feature of the enterprise all -the ingenuity and power of the invader could not furnish—customers. -Goods were advertised at cost; alluring signs were hung out with daily -variations; but the people would not buy. A few citizens who bought at -the beginning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> without understanding the plan of campaign, came out -in the newspapers with cards of apology, and pledges that they would -not repeat the mistake. Local bankers refused to honor the drafts of -the enemy, threw out its accounts, and gave notice that they would -advance no money to persons who bought at its store. The public opinion -of Columbus so bitterly resented the attack upon the livelihood of its -merchants, because they had dared to buy where they thought best, and -so clearly saw that the subjugation of the merchants would be but the -preliminary of a conquest of themselves, that any one seen within the -doors of the odious store fell into instant and deep disgrace. "Their -store is regarded as a pest-house," wrote one of the leading business -men, "and few respectable people ever darken their doors, their trade -being confined mostly to negroes. Their oil trade has dwindled down to -almost nothing, and we are selling now to merchants in other towns who -heretofore bought exclusively from them."</p> - -<p>At the first sign of aggression the merchants had given up competition, -which they saw meant only mutual ruin, and had tied themselves together -in an association. Now as the struggle widened the people did the -same, and found a greater benefit and pleasure in co-operation than in -keeping up the delusion of the "higgling of the market" where there was -no market. The <i>Index</i>, of Columbus, printed an agreement signed by -hundreds "of those who will sustain our home merchants in the struggle -they are making.... It will receive many more signatures among our -citizens.... The people have only to understand to properly decide in -this matter between right and wrong."</p> - -<p>"You ask if the feeling is bitter against them in our 'community,'" -one of the merchants wrote. "I can only liken it to the spirit which -prevailed when the people of Boston emptied King George's taxed tea -into Boston Harbor."</p> - -<p>Attempt was made to intimidate the press. Advertisements were -discontinued because the papers supported the cause of the people. -"If the agent," said the <i>Index</i>, of Columbus, "thought the cash that -might be obtained for such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> advertisements could purchase the silence -of this journal when it should speak, or its support in a wrong cause, -he reckoned without his host." "The pledge" was signed by practically -every man in the place. The country people about Columbus, when they -came to town to sell produce and buy supplies, took back with them -blanks of the agreement not to buy the obnoxious oil, and circulated -them among their neighbors for signature. Agents were sent among -these country people to win back their trade, but they could not be -moved. The competition was made "war to the knife," and the knife "to -the bone." It was a singular sight—this concentration of millions -to "kill" these little men in this remote country town in far-off -Mississippi. Nothing was too small to do. When one of the Columbus -"rebels" bought oats for his trade, a competitive stock of the same -kind of oats was hurried into Columbus, and these instructions sent -with it: "Put your sign out. Rust-proof oats to arrive at 98 cents to -$1 a bushel. This will kill him. The same signs should be posted about -meats, sugar, coffee, etc."</p> - -<p>The plan of action of the Merchants' Association was simple: they -declined to handle the enemy's oil at any price. "Then to have a stock -of our own always on hand, ready to sell whenever we could at a profit, -and hold in reserve whenever they put prices below cost; and in this -way we have made it a losing business to them for over three years, and -will continue to do so as long as they remain in our town.... When our -association buys a car of oil, each member pays for and takes charge of -an equal share, but the oil remains the property of the association; -and should any member sell out before the others, he has the right to -buy from them at cost, and the next car is not ordered until all are -nearly sold out."</p> - -<p>It is "our pleasure to make oil cheap"; but a written proposition was -made to the merchants that if they would repent and return, the price -would be 20 cents a gallon, with a rebate to the loyal dealers. As -this oil could be, and was being, laid down in Columbus at 12 cents -a gallon, the proposition amounted to a request that the merchants -join in imposing a tax on the people of 8 cents a gallon, which must -be added to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> the retail price, and go to swell the profits of the -"sympathetical co-operation." "Can any one," said the <i>Index</i>, "after -knowing these facts, doubt that in a pecuniary point our merchants -could have done better by surrendering the principle and joining the -ring? But, at the same time, could any reasoning man (even viewing it -in the light of policy alone) advise such a course?—one which, if -adopted, would only open the door for other monopolies to enter and -demand high prices on meat, flour, and the other necessaries of life, -until our city becomes the highest market in the land. Let all good -citizens, then, unite in a steady effort to resist the yoke which this -monopoly is now trying to force upon us, and let us teach them and all -others that our people are too loyal to each other and too intelligent -to allow themselves to be made the instruments of their own destruction.</p> - -<p>"Remember, that should our merchants be forced to yield, the day of -low prices will be a short one, and then these strangers, having -accomplished their purpose and forced their yoke upon you and us, will -return to their homes, and while rioting in the taxes wrung from you, -with your own assistance, will laugh at you for allowing yourselves to -be so easily duped, and, emboldened by their success in forcing upon -you high-priced oil, will soon return to demand high prices on sugar, -coffee, and every other article of trade."</p> - -<p>The nose for news of the American press scented out the novelty of a -whole community acting as one man in successful resistance to those who -had till then found nowhere any cohesive brotherliness to make a stand -against them. The newspapers of the county took the matter up. It was -absolutely the first time any method had been found that could prevail -against the tactics of divide and conquer, which had been elsewhere -irresistible. Public attention was fascinated by the revelation that -a brotherhood to ravage the people turned impotent when the people -were roused to meet it with their brotherhood of the commonwealth. -There was in the spectacle a moral illumination—the light that never -fails. Instead of becoming, as had been planned, a warning to all the -people of the dire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> destruction to be visited upon any who dared to -disobey, the encounter between the one-man power of united Columbus -and the one-man power of hundreds of millions of dollars became every -day more brilliantly a sign in the sky, showing all the people how the -invasion of their industrial liberties could be changed into a ruin -more complete than the retreat from Moscow. Scores of such assaults on -the people had been won before. "What was being done at Columbus," said -one of the papers, "is but what they have done before at Aberdeen, and -at hundreds of other places North and South."</p> - -<p>But as despoilers always have to fear, one defeat may undo a lifetime -of conquest. The success of the people of Columbus was teaching the -people of the whole country, and of all markets, that their real enemy -was not the oil trust, but the lack of trust in each other. The people -were learning there was a magic in association more potent than the -trick of combinations. The <i>Index</i> proposed to the people of the South -to join the citizens of Columbus, and make the fight general. "There -is this about it: if there was concentrated action among the smaller -cities and towns throughout even this section of the State, we would -have no fear of the result. The oil trust may be too strong for a -single small locality, but if a combination of a certain number of -localities handling oil were effected, they would soon be forced to -retire. Such a combination can be and should be brought about at once."</p> - -<p>The struggle at Columbus lasted three years. It had seemed unequal -enough—a few thousands of dollars against hundreds of millions. But -three years of this commercial warfare failed to break the spirit or -resources of the brave—and wise because brave—people. The community -never broke rank. They laughed when they were tempted with cheap -coffee, flour, sugar, to join in the attempt to bankrupt their home -merchants. They could see that the gift of forced cheapness, used to -destroy natural cheapness, was a Trojan horse bearing within itself -the deadliest form of dearness. Defeated, the oil lords gave up the -contest, closed their store in Columbus, and left the people of that -place free.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> - -<p>"England," says Emerson, "reaches to the Alleghanies; America begins -in Ohio." In the Western Reserve of Ohio, hive of abolitionists and -Union soldiers, was the same spirit of America which, at Columbus, -Mississippi, had defended its market rights as outposts of all other -rights. It was only a few years ago discovered that the flames of the -"burning springs" of the Caspian Sea, China, and America, whose torches -kindled the lamp of history, were beacon-fires uncomprehended by a -procession of civilizations, and waiting to light man to the knowledge -that the earth beneath him was a city of domes, huge receivers storing -up the products of vaster gas-retorts below. Man found that he need not -wait for this spirit to come to him out of the "caverns measureless to -man." He could go to it, as in oil, and, tapping the great tanks, could -lead their flighty contents to homes and mills, to emerge there as -light and warmth and power.</p> - -<p>Experience in oil had made ready skill and capital to use the new -treasure. In a very few years thousands of miles of pipe were laid, and -millions of capital invested in the natural-gas business, mainly in -Ohio and Pennsylvania. The gas was found in the same general localities -as oil, and the methods of procuring and distributing it were similar, -and the similarity easily extended to the methods of administering this -bounty of nature as "property." Toledo began to be supplied in 1887 -with the new fuel through pipe lines by two companies. They obtained -their franchises as competitors, but were soon found to be one in -ownership, prices, and all details of management. The discovery that -the two companies at Toledo were really one, and that one the evil one -of the oil trust, aroused the apprehensions of the people, and these -were increased by a number of circumstances.</p> - -<p>The Toledo companies got from the city as a free gift a franchise -worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, on condition that they would -supply Toledo before a certain date. But in the midst of the work of -laying pipes they suspended operations, and declared that they would -do nothing more unless the City Council fixed, at rates dictated by -them, the prices the peo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>ple were to pay. These rates were enough -to pay not only a fair dividend, but to return in a few years every -dollar of capital invested in lands, pipes, etc. Later they demanded -another increase which, according to the sworn statement by their -superintendent of the amount of gas supplied daily, would have -amounted to $351,362.50 a year. They made the charges regardless of -the ordinance, and used delay in furnishing gas as a means to make -people willing to pay these illegal rates. Consumers seeking to renew -their contracts were informed that the price would be doubled. The -companies had assured the people that they should get their heat at -half the price of coal; but when the bills were footed up, the gas in -many cases cost more than coal. The companies refused to supply fuel -to an oil refinery which had been built in Toledo in opposition to the -trust refineries. The companies discriminated against some customers, -and in favor of others. The power to say which manufacturer should -have cheaper fuel than his competitor was a power to enact prosperity -or ruin.<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> It was a power to force themselves into control of any -business they desired to enter.</p> - -<p>Those who controlled these gas companies appeared in the Circuit Court -of the city in a proceeding which alone contained warning enough to -put any self-governing community on guard. The Court was asked to deny -the right of farmers in Wood County to give a way over their lands to -the Toledo, Findlay, and Springfield Railway, being built to give the -independent oil-refiners and producers of the Ohio oil-field a route to -market. The farmers in question had made leases to an oil corporation -of the trust, giving only the specific right to bore for and pipe and -store oil and gas. The farmers supposed that they had parted only with -what they had signed away in the leases. They supposed they still owned -their farms. When the new railroad sought the privilege of a right of -way the farmers granted it. Suit was at once brought for an injunction -to prevent this use of the land. According to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> the logic of the claim -in these cases a farmer who has made such a lease could not build a -road across his own farm without permission. "Most certainly not," was -the reply made by one of the lawyers to the judge who asked if the -farmer could do so.</p> - -<p>By occurrences like these an increasing number of influential citizens -were convinced that the gas companies would hold a power over the -comfort and daily life of the people not wise to surrender entire to -any corporation. An agitation was begun for the supply of gas to the -people by themselves acting through the municipality. Six thousand -citizens sent a petition, in the session of 1887-88, to the Legislature -to pass the necessary enabling act. There was a discussion of the -project for two years. Public opinion grew more favorable every -day. The citizens chartered a special train to carry a delegation -to Columbus the day the pipe-line law came before the Senate. The -Legislature in 1889 passed the law. It authorized the people of Toledo -to issue bonds to the extent of $750,000 to buy gas land and build -pipe lines. This legislation was, of course, bitterly opposed by the -existing gas companies, and they demanded of the Legislature that -before the law became operative it should be ratified by a three-fifths -vote of the people. The friends of this scheme of municipal self-help -and independence accepted the challenge. In the ensuing campaign the -opposition to the people was officered by the president of one of the -natural-gas companies, twice Governor of Ohio, afterwards United States -Secretary of the Treasury. The natural-gas trustees of the City of -Toledo in an official communication said: "There is reason to believe -the money of the natural-gas companies was freely spent to defeat it."</p> - -<p>The act was ratified April, 1889, by a vote of 7002 for to 4199 -against—"a vote," say the trustees, "in which the heavy taxpayers -were largely acting with the majority."<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a> Organized labor took an -enthusiastic part in the work of this election. The Central Labor Union -held a special meeting which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> filled the largest public hall. Men -paraded the streets with banners favoring the policy of independence. -The Knights of Labor held meetings to discuss the project, and the -Central Council, representing all the assemblies in the city, passed -unanimously resolutions appealing to all members of the order and all -working-men to support no candidate who would not pledge himself to -the city pipe line. At a meeting of the glassworkers it was resolved -to be "the duty of every working-man to vote 'Yes' for the pipe line -next Monday." "Many of us glassworkers," said the resolutions adopted, -"have been employed in factories in the Ohio Valley, receiving their -natural-gas fuel from a gigantic corporation similar to that which now -supplies Toledo. We have seen our employers unfairly dealt with, and -arbitrarily treated in the matter of making rates. Some of them were -forced to go into the courts, to prevent the extortion of the piratical -company who were bent on assessing each citizen and industry at the -highest rate possible, irrespective of its effect on the industries or -the wages of the employés. Many manufacturers were compelled to move -their plants to the cheap gas-fields of Ohio and Indiana. The employés -were compelled to break up their homes and emigrate, in order to follow -their trade for a livelihood." The question came before the people -again the next spring, when both the Republican and Democratic parties -by acclamation renominated a natural-gas trustee, whose term was -expiring, to succeed himself. At the election the vote was 8958 for, -and only 58 against—a practically unanimous indorsement of the project -by the people.</p> - -<p>Toledo now began to make history. "It is entirely safe to say," a -well-known citizen declared in the Toledo <i>Blade</i>, "that in the history -of this country no other people have been called to the experience -which Toledo has been undergoing for the past year. Communities often -are agitated and divided on questions of local policy; but no second -case will be found in which a people, after settling such questions -among themselves according to recognized rules, were confronted with -warfare, bitter and persistent, such as this city is now called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> to -meet, and at the hands of a combination wholly of non-residents, -without the slightest proper voice in their domestic concerns." -In every direct encounter with the "commons" the "lords" had been -defeated—in the two years' debate which preceded the first appeal to -the Legislature; in the Legislature, where the bill passed the House -almost unanimously, and the Senate more than two to one; in the appeal -to the voters; before the governor, who had been approached to cripple -the enterprise of the municipality by naming unfriendly trustees. The -gas companies had tried at each city election, after the Legislature -acted in 1889, to seat in the City Council a majority in their -interest; but the people, making the city pipe line the issue of the -election, gave an overwhelming preponderance of their votes to the men -pledged to see it through.</p> - -<p>"Strong and subtle opposition"<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a> was then brought to bear on the -Common Council to prevent it from passing the necessary ordinances; -but, in spite of it, both branches of the Council voted them -unanimously. A clearer case of the will of the people and of law and -order there could not be. A free and intelligent community, in a matter -of vital concern to its industrial freedom and business prosperity, -after thorough discussion, in which all sides had been freely heard, -had by constitutional proceedings decided by an overwhelming majority -upon a policy altogether within its legal, moral, and contract rights. -The ablest lawyers, writers, and financiers that money could hire had -had it under the microscope to find some breach for attack, but had not -been able to find a flaw. All was constitutional, legal, proper, and -expedient. A glance at the contestants brings out in clear outlines -some conditions of our modern development which have come upon us -almost unawares. The City of Toledo was a vigorous community of 90,000 -people; its opponent was a little group of men; but they controlled -in one aggregation not less than $160,000,000, besides large affairs -outside of this. The assessed valuations of the property of the people -on which Toledo could levy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> taxation was, in 1889, but $33,200,000. -The total income of the municipality was $961,101; that of a single -member of the little group opposing them had been acknowledged to -be $9,000,000 a year, and was believed by the best informed to be -several times as much. This individual income was greater than the -product of all the manufactories of the city, and three times greater -than the combined wages of the workmen in these establishments. There -were several members of the natural-gas syndicate who collected and -disbursed every year more than the community. Toledo had about the -same population as Kansas in 1856. The slave power of the South that -assailed the liberties of the 90,000 in Kansas numbered millions, but -the new power in the North, which in a short generation had grown so -strong that it did not fear to attack the 90,000 freemen of Toledo, -counted only nine names. The people could act only after public -deliberation, and through the slow stages of municipal and State -procedure. Their antagonist met in secret council, and devised plans -executed by a single hand, armed with the aggregated power of hundreds -of millions of dollars, and liable, if found illegal or criminal, to -only "nominal" punishment, or only 6 cents damages.<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a></p> - -<p>At Columbus the struggle was with something very simple but -extraordinarily difficult to overcome, as simple things often are—an -obstinate, immovable, thoroughly angry public opinion, acting only -through private voluntary means, its set will to exchange the fruits of -its labor with whom and on what terms it pleased. There was absolutely -no leverage to be got to bear upon the people of Columbus except by -changing their feelings. Compulsion was out of the question. But at -Toledo compulsion was possible. There the people had acted not through -unofficial combination as at Columbus, but through the official -machinery of the town and State. If the law could be turned against -them by able counsel or compliant judges; if any smallest fault, -however technical, could be found in the legislation of the State or -the city or the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> practical administration of the official machinery -provided for the natural-gas business of the city—if this could be -done, the people of Toledo could be compelled, however little their -will had changed, to see their enterprise of independence balked; this -compulsion could be carried to the use of force if they resisted, and -the militia of the State and the regular army could be brought into the -conflict.</p> - -<p>Such is the prize of power which tempts—more than tempts, drives as -by fate—our overgrown wealth to fortify itself by control of judges, -governors, presidents, commanders-in-chief—all the agents of the -supreme authority and force.</p> - -<p>Columbus was so local that its people were sufficient unto themselves. -All they had to do was to keep on saying, We will not buy. But Toledo -was a citizen of the great world of affairs and finance. It was part -of London, New York, Chicago. Much of it was owned as an investment -elsewhere. Sensitive nerves connected it with all the markets, -especially the greatest of all—the money-market. It sold and bought -and borrowed and lent far beyond its own border. What Wall Street -gossips said about the people of Columbus would not make a dollar's -difference to the whole town in a year, but a whisper started through -the offices of the great capitalists in New York and abroad would -flash back by wire to Toledo, and go like a quick poison through its -industries and credit, private and public.</p> - -<p>"Private enterprise" could not afford to let the people of Toledo go -forward with their public enterprise. Many millions had been invested -in getting control of a business representing $200,000,000. Many -towns and cities, as Fostoria, Sandusky, Fremont, Clyde, Bellevue, -Norwalk, Perrysburgh, Tiffin, and Detroit, were being supplied with -gas at a handsome profit. If Toledo should set a successful example -of self-supply, it would find imitators on every side. The essence of -"private enterprise" was that the people should get their gas from -Captains of Industry, and pay them for their captaincy two or three -times the real cost as profit, just as monarchical countries pay kings -for kindly supplying the people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> with the government which really comes -from the people. The essence of municipal supply was that the people -should supply themselves at cost without profit, and without Captains -of Industry, except as the people provided them. Toledo, in fine, -proposed to keep step with the modern expansion of self-government, -which finds that it can apply principles and methods of democracy -to industry. It proposed to add another to many demonstrations -already made, noticeably in this very department of gas supply to -municipalities, of the truth that the ability to carry on the business -of supplying the various wants of mankind is not a sort of divine right -vouchsafed from on high to a few specially inspired and gifted priests -of commerce, by whose intermediation alone can the mysteries of trade -be operated; but, like the ability to govern and be governed, is one -of the faculties common to mankind, capable of being administered of, -by, and for the people, and not needing to be differentiated as the -prerogative of one set of men. The Toledo experiment was another step -forward in the world-wide movement for the abolition of millionaires—a -movement upon which the millionaires look with unconcealed apprehension -for the welfare of their fellow-beings.</p> - -<p>Mankind views with equanimity the expulsion of the profit-hunter from -the businesses of carrying letters, minting coins, administering -justice, maintaining highways, collecting taxes, in which -millionaireism has been universally put an end to. It views with hopes -of larger results the newer manifestations of the same tendency which -in England have abolished millionaireism in telegraphs and parcel -express; in Germany and France, Australia, and India have gone a long -way towards the abolition of the millionaire in railroads; and in -various cities and towns in Europe, America, and Australia have put up -local signs, "No millionaires allowed here," by the municipalization of -trade in water, gas, electricity, street-railways, baths, laundries, -libraries, etc. The trust of millionaires was therefore fighting for a -principle, and what will good men not sacrifice to principle!</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a></p> - -<p class="center">FREEDOM OF THE CITY</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Towns</span>, like men, stamp themselves with marked traits. Toledo had an -individuality which showed itself from the start. Its leading men -clubbed together and borrowed money as early as 1832 to build one of -the first railroads constructed west of the Alleghanies—the Erie and -Kalamazoo, to connect Toledo and Adrian. When, in 1845, the steamboats -on the lakes formed a combination, and discriminated against Toledo, -the city through its council refused to submit, and appropriated -$10,000 to get an independent boat to Buffalo. The city appropriated -its credit and revenues to other important and costly enterprises, -including four railroads, to keep it clear of the cruel mercies of -private ownership of the highways. In 1889 it expended $200,000 to -secure direct railway connections with the Pennsylvania and the -Baltimore and Ohio railways for competition in rates with the Lake -Shore Railroad.</p> - -<p>As it had been authorized to do so by the State, the City Council of -Toledo, April 29, 1889, ordered gas bonds to the amount of $75,000 -sold, that work on the city pipe line might begin. Before proceeding -with the enterprise confided to them, the natural-gas trustees gave -the private companies an opportunity to save themselves from the -competition of the city. They asked them in writing if they would agree -to furnish gas cheaply for a term of years, or if they would sell -their entire plant to the city? They did this, as they expressed it, -as "an honorable effort ... to obtain cheaper gas without unnecessary -expenditure, and without injury to established rights." After a -delay of nearly a month a reply was received, refusing to enter into -negotiations either for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> reduction of charges or for the sale of the -private plants to the city. The trustees then asked for a personal -interview, but this was refused. Then when the city began preparations -to sell its bonds, a cannonade was opened on it in the courts, the -money-market, the gas-fields, the city government, the press, among -the citizens, and everywhere. Injunctions were applied for in three -courts, unsuccessfully in all instances. No injunction was ever granted -in these or any other of the many suits brought for the purpose of -enjoining the sale of the bonds. Courts will usually grant temporary -injunctions awaiting a hearing on the merits when complainants will -enter into ample bonds and indemnify defendants. But the parties -instigating this litigation would not put up the necessary bonds. They -thus could smirch the bonds without incurring any personal liability in -so doing.</p> - -<p>An expensive array of lawyers was sent before the United States -courts to prevent the issue of the bonds on the ground that they were -illegal, and the law under which they were issued unconstitutional. -The principle involved had been frequently discussed and always upheld -both by the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United -States.<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a></p> - -<p>"Does not your argument appear to be in conflict with the views of the -Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United States?" the -judge asked. The counsel for the gas companies responded in substance: -"If so, then so much the worse for the views of those courts."</p> - -<p>As it was through the suffrage that the people of Toledo were able to -do this, the attack was widened from an attack on the enterprise to one -upon the sovereignty of the citizens which made it possible. "Everybody -votes in Ohio—in fact, too many people," said the lawyer who applied -for an injunction against Toledo. If he had his way, he declared, there -would be fewer voters, and he stigmatized the arguments of Toledo as -those of John Most, the communist.</p> - -<p>"Unquestionably," decided Judge Jackson, "the Legisla<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>ture may -authorize a city to furnish light, or facilities for transportation, or -water to its citizens, with or without cost, as the Legislature or city -may determine.... Since the decision in Sharpless <i>vs.</i> Philadelphia -it is no longer an open question whether municipalities may engage in -enterprises such as the one contemplated by the act in question in this -case. The act of January 22, 1889, authorizing the city of Toledo to -issue bonds for natural-gas purposes, is clearly within the general -scope of legislative power, is for a public use and purpose, and is -not in contravention of any of the provisions of the constitution. The -court being of the opinion that the legislation is valid, it follows, -of course, that the injunction applied for must be refused."<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> When -the news of Judge Jackson's decision was telegraphed to Toledo nothing -less than the booming of cannon could express the joy of the citizens. -They sent this message to the just judge: "One hundred guns were fired -to-night by the citizens of Toledo in honor of your righteous decision -to-day." Judge Jackson again upheld the bonds at Toledo, January 14, -1890, when he again dismissed the case against the city "for want of -equity, at cost of complainants."</p> - -<p>The favorable decision by Judge Jackson, although an appeal was taken, -made it possible for the city to sell the $75,000 bonds which had been -issued by order of the Council. The bonds brought par, interest, and -over $2000 premium. With the money thus procured the city's Board of -Natural Gas Trustees began operations. Their opponents had spread far -and loud among the voters before the election—among those who would -be likely to buy the bonds, everywhere it would hurt—the assertion -that all the territory that was good had been bought up by them, and -the city's trustees would not be able to get any. One of the companies -had no less than 140,000 acres of gas lands in its possession or under -contract, at a cost in rentals and royalties of $100,000 a year.<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> -But the city trustees, even with the small sum at their com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>mand, were -able to secure at the very beginning wells with a capacity more than -four times as great as the private companies had had when the latter -began the investment of a million or more to lay their pipe lines to -Toledo.<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> Together with this supply the city trustees got 650 acres -about 35 miles from Toledo of as choice gas territory as there was in -Ohio, almost all of it undrilled, and they had offers amounting to 5000 -acres more within piping distance from the city. The city's trustees -made their purchases with success, and received the laudations of their -constituents for having got lands and wells at better prices than the -private companies.</p> - -<p>August 26, 1889, after a decision in the United States courts that -there was no ground on which to object to the issue of the bonds, the -City Council voted the issue of the remaining $675,000.</p> - -<p>Defeated in the public debate which preceded the decision of Toledo -to supply itself; defeated at the State Capitol; defeated at the -polls of Toledo time and again—every time; defeated in the Common -Council; defeated in the gas-fields; defeated in the courts of their -own choosing, the opponents of the city, thorough as only the very good -or the very bad can be, refused to submit. When the two corporations, -in 1886, were seeking the franchise indispensable for doing business -in Toledo, they said to the Board of Aldermen: "We ask no exclusive -privilege.... We cannot have too many gas companies." They also said: -"If the city desires to furnish its own gas, there is nothing in this -ordinance to hinder it. We are ready and willing at any time to enter -into competition with the city or any other company." They said, on -the same occasion, in answer to apprehensions which had been expressed -about the danger of putting the fuel supply of the city into the hands -of a monopoly: "You can go before the Legislature and obtain the right -to issue bonds for furnishing yourselves with gas." It was by these -assurances the companies induced the Common Council to grant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> them -gratuitously the very valuable franchises they were seeking.</p> - -<p>The right of the people to compete was not left to these assurances. -It was specifically and formally asserted in the ordinance of July 5, -1887, fixing rates. This was the ordinance to procure which the gas -company suspended its operations in mid-course, and declared it would -not continue unless the prices which it wanted were made. The ordinance -was, in fact, prepared by the company. It said: "Provided that nothing -herein contained shall be construed as granting to existing companies -any exclusive rights or privileges, or prevent any other company from -furnishing natural gas to the citizens of said city." But the same -learned counsel who, in behalf of the companies, had assured the city -that "there was nothing in this ordinance to hinder it," went before -the United States Court and pleaded that ordinance as good reason for -the intervention of the Federal Government to prevent the city from -going on with its enterprise.</p> - -<p>The only morning paper—an able advocate of the city pipe -line—suddenly changed owners and opinions. Among its new directors -were two of the lawyers of the trust opposing the city, a director -in one of its companies, and, besides them, the manager, a contract -editor from Pennsylvania. His sole conspicuity there had been won in -turning against the people of the oil regions a paper which had been -their stanchest defender. This Toledo daily, in its espousal of the -cause of the city, had been firing hot shot like this against the oil -combination: "It wants a monopoly of the natural-gas business. This -is what it is driving at." Under its new management it roared like a -sucking dove, thus: "It is fashionable with demagogues and men who are -not capable of appreciating the worth of brains in business to howl -against it"—the oil combination—"as a grasping, grinding monopoly." -Just after the people had decided in favor of the pipe line, and only -a few days before it changed owners, it had said: "All manner of -influences were brought to bear to defeat this proposition.... All the -plausible falsehoods that could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> be invented, and all the money that -could be used, were industriously employed, but the people saw the -situation in its true light, and the majority voted right." It now made -the defeat of the city's pipe line the chief aim of its endeavors. In -this work "no rule or principle recognized in decent journalism was -respected."</p> - -<p>In all the history of Toledo no interest on its bonds had ever been -defaulted or delayed; no principal ever unpaid at maturity. The city -was prosperous, its growth steady; its debt growing less year by year -in proportion to its population and wealth. Its bonds ranked among the -choicest investments, and commanded a premium in the money-market.<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> -But the credit and fair fame of the city were now over-whelmed with -wholesale vituperation by this paper, and others elsewhere under -similar control. Articles were carefully prepared for this purpose by -skilled writers. These were then copied from one newspaper to another. -By some arrangement insertion was obtained for them in financial -journals in New York and in London, and in other foreign capitals. -The Toledo organ declared that Toledo was an unsafe place for the -investment of capital in any form. Its public affairs were said to be -run by a set of "demagogues and speculators," whose administration was -"piratical mob rule." The city pipe line was a "monstrous job," and the -men who favored it were "a gang of throttlers and ravenous wolves." -They were "blatant demagogues, who made great pretence of advancing -the city's interest, but whose real aim is to enrich themselves at -public expense." The bonds, which had been issued in due form by -special authority of the Legislature, ratified by a vote of more than -three-fifths of the citizens, and declared to be valid by the United -States Court, were described as "chromos," "worthless rags," "bad -medicine," "disfigured securities," "like rotten eggs, highly odorous -goods," "but few persons at most can be found ignorant enough to buy -them."</p> - -<p>The Mayor, City Auditor, Board of Natural Gas Trustees,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> united with -a citizens' committee of the Board of Trade in a plan to promote the -sale of the bonds direct to the people of Toledo through a financial -institution of the highest standing. This action the paper described -as "a scheme for gulling simples," "a blind pool," "an unpatented -financial deadfall"; compared it with "gambling, pool-playing, and -lottery selling." These grave charges were widely circulated throughout -the country. Bankers and capitalists in other cities who received them -had no means of knowing that they were not what they pretended to -be—the honest if uncouth utterances of an independent press chastising -the follies of its own constituency. Newspapers which supported the -city's project were assailed as ruthlessly as the community and -citizens. The <i>Blade</i> was constantly referred to as "The Bladder." -Another journal was given a nickname too vulgar to be printed here. One -of the most prominent journals of Ohio was punished by the following -paragraph, which is a fair sample of the literary style of monopoly: -"That aged, acidulous addle-pate, the monkey-eyed, monkey-browed -monogram of sarcasm, and spider-shanked, pigeon-witted public -scold, Majah Bilgewater Bickham, and his backbiting, black-mailing, -patent-medicine directory, the <i>Journal</i>."</p> - -<p>An old journalist and honorable citizen who wrote over his initials, -"C.W.," a series of able and dignified letters in the <i>Blade</i>, which -had a great influence in the formation of public opinion in favor -of the pipe line, was assailed with "brutal falsifier," "hoary old -reprobate," "senile old liar." Caricatures were published depicting the -buyers of the bonds as "simple greens." When the County Court of Lucas -County, following the United States Court, sustained the bonds on their -merits, and did so on every point in question, because, as the judge -stated, "the equities of the case are with the defendants," the organ -falsely stated that judgment for the city was given "because the merits -of the case are involved in a higher court." When a capitalist of New -York, who had been an investor in the bonds of Toledo and a taxpayer -there for twenty-five years—one of the streets of the city was named<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> -for him—bought $10,000 of the city pipe-line bonds, the paper attacked -him by name in an article headed "Bunco Game," charging him with being -a party to a bunco game in connection with "public till-tappers" for -"roping Toledo citizens into buying doubtful securities." When the -Sinking Fund Commissioners of Toledo very properly invested some of the -city's money in the gas bonds, they were held up by name as "public -till-tappers," "menials" of a "hungry horde" of "boodle politicians," -accomplices of "plunderers of the public treasury," unable to withstand -"the brutal threats and snaky entreaties of the corrupt gas ring." For -one of the associate editors the position of Deputy State Inspector -of Oil was obtained—an appointment which cost the Governor who made -it many votes in the next election, and did much to defeat him. Such -an appointment might give a versatile employé the chance to do double -duty: as editor to brand as bad good men who could not be bought, and -as inspector to brand as good bad oil for sale.<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a></p> - -<p>One of the means taken to defeat the pipe line was the publication of -very discouraging accounts of the "failure" at Indianapolis, where the -citizens had refused to give a natural-gas company belonging to the -oil trust the franchise it demanded, and, forming an anti-monopoly -trust, had undertaken to supply themselves. Some "influence" prevented -the Common Council of Toledo from sending a committee to Indianapolis -to investigate. A public-spirited citizen, prominent and successful -in business, came forward, and at his own expense secured a full and -accurate account of the experience of Indianapolis for the city. -This proved that the people were getting their fuel gas at less than -one-half what Toledo was paying. The contest against giving the -Indianapolis franchise to a corporation of the trust had been a sharp -one. Its success was due to the middle classes and the working-men, -who stood together for freedom, incorruptible by all the powerful -influences employed. "We will burn soft coal all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> our lives," one of -their leaders told the Toledo committee, "rather than put ourselves in -the power of such men."</p> - -<p>In Indiana the Legislature meets only once in two years, and when this -issue arose had adjourned, and would not meet again for a year. The -people, not being able to get authority for a municipal gas pipe line, -went to work by voluntary co-operation. Every voting precinct in the -city was organized and canvassed for the capital needed. The shares -were $25 each, and they were bought up so rapidly that the entire -amount—$550,000—was subscribed in sixteen days by 4700 persons, -without a cent of cost to the city. When subscriptions to the amount of -$550,000 had been raised, $600,000 more was borrowed on certificates of -indebtedness.</p> - -<p>Gas lands were bought and 200 miles of pipe lines laid, all at a cost -of about $1,200,000. The income in one year, during a part of which the -system was still under construction, was $349,347. In the first year of -complete operations the Indianapolis people's trust paid off $90,000 -of the principal. The income for the year ending October 31, 1892, -was $483,258.21, and the bonded debt has been paid. The stock, since -January 1, 1893, has been paying dividends at the rate of 8 per cent. a -year.</p> - -<p>A prominent citizen of Indianapolis, one of the State judges, told the -Toledo papers, in an interview: "The private companies had their gas -laid to the city and along the streets several months in advance of the -Citizens' Trust, but it did them little good. Everybody said: 'I will -wait for the Consumers' Trust.' 'Yes, but we will furnish you gas just -as cheap,' said the Indianapolis company; 'why not take it of us?' To -this the citizens replied: 'To take gas of you means cheap gas to-day, -but high gas to-morrow.' And wait for the gas they all did." The charge -to manufacturers was 2½ cents a thousand feet, as against 8 cents, -at that time charged at Toledo. There were 12,000 private consumers. -Cooking-stoves in Indianapolis were about $12 a year, against $19.50 -in Toledo. One of the representatives of the private company declared -at a public meeting at Indianapolis that its charges were made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> -such as to give a full return of all the invested capital in three -years, as that was the probable life of the supply. A year after the -inauguration of the Indianapolis movement a committee of the citizens -at Dayton, who had risen against the extortionate prices charged them, -investigated the condition of affairs at Indianapolis. They reported -that Indianapolis had paid $200,000 on its bonded debt, and was getting -ready to pay as much more. The Consumers' Trust supplied between 10,000 -and 11,000 consumers, and spent $1,000,000 less than the Dayton private -company spent to supply 3000 fewer consumers. The annual charge at -Dayton was $54.80; at Indianapolis only $26.80—less than half.</p> - -<p>When facts like these were brought out, to the demolition of the -fictions circulated in Toledo, the answer was characteristic. The -"organ" could not deny the statements, but it fell upon the citizen -through whose generosity the information had been got for the people, -and assailed his private character in articles which, one of the daily -papers declared, editorially, "would almost, if not quite, justify him -in shooting their author on sight."</p> - -<p>This newspaper charged the city natural-gas trustees with being "rotten -to the core," and with every variation of phrase possible to its -exuberant rhetoric sounded the changes upon their official career as a -"big steal," "fostered by deception, falsehood, and skull-duggery." It -sought to intimidate the Legislature and the courts when they failed -to enact or construe laws against the people. It said: "Law-makers, -judges, and others may feel the force of this element when the proper -time comes and political preferment is sought."</p> - -<p>It was money in pocket that facts like those of the experience of -Indianapolis, Detroit, and other places should not be made known. Even -ideas must not be allowed to reach the public mind. Professor Henry C. -Adams, the well-known political economist, lectured in Toledo during -this contest, in a University Extension Course, on "Public Commissions -Considered as the Conservative Solution of the Monopoly Problem." The -"organ" gave a synopsis of the lecturer's views,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> which is printed -herewith in parallel columns, with a synopsis of what Mr. Adams really -said, as revised by himself:</p> - - -<table summary="views" width="100%"> -<tr> -<td align="center">WHAT THE ORGAN OF MONOPOLY REPORTED.</td> -<td align="center">WHAT THE LECTURER REALLY,<br /> SAID.</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tda"> -The lecturer made reference to Toledo as an unfavorable place to -discuss the matter of municipal control of quasi-public business -and competition of municipalities with private corporations. But -he deprecated anything in that line. He did not mention particular -instances, but broadly condemned the policy pursued by this city in -matters of this kind, and his remarks had a visible effect on his -audience. He considered municipal control of business enterprises the -worst form of monopoly, as they began by having the unfair advantage -of the law-making power, and the tendency to corruption was greater -than when individual enterprises were asking privileges. The audience -was much pleased with the lecturer. -</td> - -<td> -Professor Adams thought the solution of the monopoly problem must be -found either in public control or in public ownership. He advocated -public control, and held that the State and Federal railroad -commissions should have a fair trial, that their hands should be -strengthened by further and adequate legislation. He entertained the -hope that this control and regulation would ultimately protect the -interests of the public in a satisfactory manner. He was willing to -admit, however, if this effort to secure the needed public control -by the aid of commissions and legislation should fail, then public -ownership was the only remaining solution. He held that in local -monopolies it may still be wise to try the experiment of public -control by aid of commissions. He said, however, that if anything -should be owned and controlled by and for the people it would be -street-railroads, gas and water works. He admonished his audience -not to be misled by the argument that municipal ownership would -be dangerous because of undue political influence, for the local -monopolies under private ownership were already in politics, and in a -most dangerous manner. He observed facetiously that he hesitated to -discuss the question of municipal control or ownership before a Toledo -audience. -</td> -</tr> -</table> - -<p>From the control of the markets to the control of the minds of a -people—this is the line of march.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> - -<p>So direct, persistent, and bold were the charges of corruptions rung -day after day by this journal against all the officials concerned -in the city gas enterprise that some people began to believe there -must be truth in them. But when the community at last turned upon -its maligners, and the grand-jury brought indictments against the -active manager of the paper and his chief assistant for criminal -libel upon the city's natural-gas trustees, the whole structure of -their falsehood went down at a breath. They had no defence whatever. -They made no attempt to justify their libels or even explain them. -Their only defence was a series of motions to get the indicted editor -cleared as not being responsible for what had appeared in the paper. -Counsel labored over the contention that the accused was none of the -things which the language of the law holds for libel. He was neither -the "proprietor," "publisher," "editor," "printer," "author," nor a -person "who uttered, gave, sold, or lent" a copy of the newspaper, -but only the "manager." The employés gave testimony which would have -been ludicrous but for the contempt it showed for court and community. -The journalist who was the "managing editor" of the paper under the -indicted chief editor was asked:</p> - -<p>"Who was the head of the paper when you entered upon your duties as -managing editor?"</p> - -<p>"I do not know."</p> - -<p>"Who hired you as managing editor?"</p> - -<p>"I really can't say that I was hired at all."</p> - -<p>"Who employed you to come to Toledo?" The witness had been an employé -in Pennsylvania of the editor on trial, and had followed the latter to -Toledo to take the place of managing editor. "Nobody employed me."</p> - -<p>The son of the indicted editor had also followed his father to Toledo, -and was employed on his paper. Asked for what purpose he came, he said: -"I had no purpose in coming."</p> - -<p>The gentleman who had charge of the counting-room was asked who fixed -his salary.</p> - -<p>"I regulate my own."</p> - -<p>The advertising manager declared:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I have no knowledge who is my superior."</p> - -<p>The accused had to let the case go to the jury without a spark of proof -of the accusations which had filled the paper every day for months. -He had no evidence to offer either that the charges were true, or -that he believed them to be true. He stood self-confessed as having -for years printed daily gross libels on citizens, officials, and -community, as part of the tactics of a few outside men to prevent a -free city from doing with its own means in its own affairs that which -an overwhelming public opinion, and the legislative, executive, and -judicial authorities, and its present antagonists themselves, had all -sustained its right to do. The agent of this wrong was found guilty, -and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail, with heavy costs and -fine; like the unhappy agents at Buffalo—"made cheap" for others.<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> -But sentence was suspended pending hearing of the motion for a new -trial. This did not come up for a year. The court could find no error -in the proceedings of the trial court, and could not sustain any of the -objections made. But it found a point which even the lawyers had not -hit on, and strained this far enough to grant the new trial. Then the -convicted editor went before another judge—not the one who had tried -him—pleaded guilty, and was fined, and so saved from jail.</p> - -<p>One of the last scenes in this Waterloo was the abandonment of the -newspaper with which the corruption and intimidation of public opinion -had been attempted. Failure was confessed by the sale of the paper, and -it was bought by a journalist who had been especially prominent in the -defence of the city, and against whom on that account a bitter warfare -had been waged by the daily which now passed into his possession. The -<i>Sunday Journal</i> of Toledo, in commenting on the surrender, declared -that the course of the organ had been one of the strongest factors of -the success of the people. "In every possible way it slandered and -outraged the city, where of necessity it looked for support. There -could be but one result. Scores who had opposed the pipe line became -its most ardent advocates purely in the general defence."</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a></p> - -<p class="center">HIGH FINANCE</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Judge Jackson refused to enjoin the city from issuing its bonds an -appeal was taken. The court and the lawyers of the city were promised -that it would be carried up without delay. Months passed, and no use -was made of the privilege of filing new pleadings and taking new -testimony—that is, no use but to make the suits the basis for libels -on Toledo and its bonds.</p> - -<p>Time ran on until the day was at hand for opening bids for the -bonds. That was to be Wednesday. Then the counsel for the opposition -notified the city that on Monday they would begin the taking of -depositions. This was not then or afterwards done, but on the strength -of the notification news despatches were sent over the country -that the proceedings against the legality of the Toledo bonds were -being "pressed." In consequence of this and other manœuvres, -when Wednesday came there were no bids. A hasty rally of some -public-spirited capitalists at home, learning of the emergency, made -up a subscription of $300,000. The names of the citizens who made -this patriotic subscription were printed in the daily paper under the -heading of "The Honor Roll."</p> - -<p>Only by extraordinary manœuvres could the market for such securities -offered by such a community have been thus killed in a time of great -general and local prosperity, and extraordinary they were. What they -were was formally and authoritatively ascertained by an investigation -made by a committee appointed at a mass-meeting<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> of the citizens -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> Toledo called by the mayor, the Hon. J.K. Hamilton. The call ran:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"For the first time in the history of Toledo, its general bonds, -secured by the faith and property of the city, and bearing a fair rate -of interest, have been offered, and only such of them sold as were -taken at home by popular subscription. It is deemed desirable that -under such circumstances the citizens of Toledo should meet together -and determine what further steps should be taken to carry out the will -of the people as expressed by 62 per cent. of the voters of the city.</p> - -<p>"It is believed that with proper effort a large additional popular -subscription may be obtained, and thus notice given to the world that -notwithstanding all opposition the citizens of Toledo have confidence -in and will maintain the credit of this fair city, and that a great -enterprise undertaken by its people will not be defeated by the -machinations of private opposing interests, no matter how powerful and -unscrupulous."</p></blockquote> - -<p>The meeting appointed a committee of three—David Robinson, Jr., Frank -J. Scott, and Albert E. Macomber—"to prepare and circulate throughout -the financial circles of the country a pamphlet which shall set forth -the case of the city of Toledo in its struggle against those who by -anonymous circulars and other dishonorable ways have attempted to -prevent the sale of the Toledo natural-gas bonds." This committee put -the facts before the public in a very able pamphlet, "The City of -Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds." In an official statement asked for -by this committee the city natural-gas trustees say: "Skilled writers -were employed to furnish articles for Eastern financial journals, to -cast discredit on the bonds on the very grounds that had been set -aside by Judge Jackson's decision. Not content with this open warfare, -anonymous circulars were sent to leading investment agencies in the -United States, warning them to beware of these bonds, as they were -under the cloud of doubtful constitutionality and an impending lawsuit. -When the day arrived for bidding for the bonds no bids were made. -Agents of investors were present, who came to bid, but by some unknown -and powerful influence they were induced not to put in their bids. The -writers are not aware that any similar mode of striking at the credit -of a whole community was ever before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> resorted to in this country. -It is an insult and a wrong not only to this city, against which it -is aimed, but to people of independence everywhere in the United -States who have a common interest in the maintenance of the rights of -all."<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a></p> - -<p>Press despatches impugning the validity of the bonds and -misrepresenting the facts were sent all over the country. The anonymous -circulars referred to were mailed to all the leading banks, investment -agencies, capitalists, and newspapers. The New York <i>Mail and Express</i> -said: "It would be decidedly interesting to know who is responsible -for the ... methods by which it was thought to prevent the city from -undertaking the enterprise. A number of volunteer attorneys and -correspondents deluged bankers and newspapers with letters warning them -against the bonds which the city proposes to issue, on the ground that -it had no right to issue them. The <i>Mail and Express</i> received several -communications of this kind."</p> - -<p>"Not only the financial centres of this country," say the city's -natural-gas trustees in their official report for 1890, "but those -of Europe were invaded with these circulars."<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> The circular was -headed "Caveat Emptor." It contained twenty-four questions, and every -one of the answers, except those which referred to matters of record -and routine, like the date, amount, name, etc., of the bonds, was -incorrect. What hurt the people of Toledo most, as it was most base -and baseless, was its attack on their hitherto unquestioned credit and -financial honor. Asking the question, "How does the credit of the city -stand?" the circular answered: "Refunding has been going on ever since -1883. The bonded debt was greater at the beginning of 1889 than of -1888; bonds bearing interest at 8 per cent. will become due in three or -four years. The mayor, in his last annual message, admits the inability -of the city to pay much of these except the refunding." "Willing to -wound, and yet afraid to strike," the authors of this attempt to pull -down an entire city managed, by the inter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>weaving of such phrases as -"ever since 1883," "bonded debt greater," "inability of the city to -pay," to create by insinuation the feeling of financial distrust for -which their greatest industry and ingenuity had been able to find not a -particle of foundation. No modern municipality is asked or expected or -desired "to pay much except the refunding." Capitalists would greatly -prefer that even the refunding should not be carried on, but that the -debt should run along at the original high rates of interest, which -they regretfully see dwindling away. The circular failed to state that -the city was borrowing money at 4 per cent. to pay off debts bearing 8 -per cent. The insinuations of the circular could have been used of "the -credit" of the United States, New York, Paris, London, Chicago, with -the same appropriateness—with this exception, that Toledo's municipal -financial credit was relatively to its resources on a sounder and more -conservative basis than these much more highly financed cities. The -circular did not state that the proportions of debt to population had -been decreasing for many years past.<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a></p> - -<p>"Toledo has not two years' supply of gas," the circular said, "in all -the territory acquired." The State Geologist, in his annual report -for 1890, said that Toledo would have no gas to supply its pipe lines -or citizens in 1891. In 1892 the city pipe line supplied gas to the -value of $168,954.46. Three years have passed, Toledo wells still flow, -and new ones are being found continually. "Whatever may have been his -object," say the city gas trustees, "in volunteering such a statement, -we know that so far in 1891 it is untrue, and that such positive -declarations, based upon hypothetical conditions, are utterly unworthy -of scientific pretensions."<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> The State Geologist also took part in -his annual report in the debate between municipal control and private -enterprise, siding altogether with the latter.</p> - -<p>The quantity of gas land owned by the city was put by the circular at -300 to 500 acres. The city had 650 acres. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> circular declared the -life of an ordinary well to be one to three years. There is no such -limit. Referring to the quantity of gas land the city had, the circular -asked and answered:</p> - -<p>"Cannot other territory be acquired?</p> - -<p>"Not in Northwestern Ohio, and not nearer than the gas fields of -Indiana."</p> - -<p>This was untrue, for the gas trustees had already been offered, as -stated, several thousands of acres of the best gas lands in addition -to those they had bought. But the authors of the circular did their -best to make it true. The city's natural-gas trustees say in their -report for 1890: "As soon as the trustees were prepared to negotiate -for gas wells and gas territory, the field swarmed with emissaries and -agents of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company to compete with -the trustees. In order to prove what had been previously stated, 'that -Toledo could procure no gas territory,' no means were left untried; -agents of that company even fraudulently represented themselves to the -owners of gas property that they were connected with the gas trustees -and working in their interest, and in some instances introducing -themselves as the president of this board. Prices went up 1000 per -cent. in some instances rather than let it fall into the hands of the -trustees. A conspicuous officer of that company, as an excuse for -paying an enormous sum of money for a gas well, is reported as saying, -'We did not want the gas well, but we had to buy it in order to keep -Toledo from getting hold of it.'"<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a></p> - -<p>Referring to the private companies, "Are the people of the city already -supplied with natural gas for public and private use?" the circular -asked. "They are," it answered, and goes on: "Why does the city want -to go into the natural-gas business, then?" "To boom the lands of -real-estate speculators." This is a charge affecting the Legislature -and Executive and State courts of Ohio, the courts of the United -States, the people of Toledo, and all the members of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> city -government. Burke confessed that he did not know how to draw up an -indictment against a whole people. That art has been acquired since his -day.</p> - -<p>"Are these bonds of unquestionable validity?" this catechism of libel -upon a community queries.</p> - -<p>"By no means. Prominent taxpayers have suits pending attacking the -constitutionality of the act under which they are issued."</p> - -<p>"Have these cases," the last question ran, "ever been tried on their -merits?"</p> - -<p>"They have not."</p> - -<p>They had been tried so far that the United States and State courts had -refused on every ground urged to interfere with their issue and sale, -declaring the legislation authorizing them to be valid. They had never -been tried any further in the United States courts for a very good—or -bad—reason. The "prominent taxpayers," after their defeat before Judge -Jackson, took every possible means to prevent the case from reaching a -final adjudication. The invariable rule of the United States Supreme -Court has been to treat as final and conclusive the decisions of State -courts as to such domestic issues. During the hundred years of its -existence not a case can be found in which that court has overruled -the fixed and received construction given to a State law by the courts -of that State.<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> The only hope for the suit of the "prominent -taxpayers" was, therefore, that the Supreme Court of the United States -would for their special profit reverse the practice to which it had -consistently adhered since the establishment of the government. What -they really thought of their prospect of success in that effort they -confessed when their case, no longer delayable, was upon the point of -being reached.</p> - -<p>They who had been so "anxious to get to the case as soon as possible" -refrained from printing the record, a condition precedent to putting -the case on the docket of the United States Supreme Court. The city -wanted the decision, and in order<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> that the case might not be dismissed -for this failure to print the record, and a decision upon the merits be -thus prevented, the city's gas trustees advanced the money—$1100—to -the court printer for printing the record. Pushed thus against their -will to trial, when the day came on which they must rise to state their -case the opponents of Toledo folded their tents and stole silently -away. On the motion of their attorney the case was dismissed, against -the protest of the city. They paid all the costs, including the money -advanced by the city for printing the record. To their defeat all along -the line they did not want to add a formal decision against them from -the Supreme Court, which was inevitable. And they ran away to fight -another day.</p> - -<p>Another purpose of these suits was confessed only a few weeks after -this circular was issued. The existence of the suits was used to try to -frighten the city's natural-gas trustees into accepting a "compromise." -The compromise was that they should abandon the enterprise, sell out -pipes and lands for a fraction of their worth, get their gas from the -private company at higher rates, and put the city in its power for -all time to come. "It will be three or four years before your case is -through the Supreme Court," its representative told the natural-gas -trustees, in urging them to accept. "You can't sell your bonds," he -continued; "you have no money." The "compromise" was refused, but the -city's pipe line had been delayed so long that the profits of the -company for another twelvemonth were secure.</p> - -<p>The demonstration against the bonds in the United States Circuit Court -had been followed by similar suits in the State courts. Here again the -city was successful. It was upheld on every controverted ground—in -the enabling act, in the vote of the people, in the appointment of the -trustees by the governor, and in the issue of the city bonds. Appeal -was taken here, as in the United States courts, and, as there, for -delay, not for decision. To checkmate further use of this lawsuit to -smother the law and cripple the city, the friends of the pipe line -began a suit against the authorities to force an immedi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>ate decision -from the Ohio Supreme Court as to the legality of the bonds. It was -certainly, as was said in the press, "a curious state of things when -the defendant is compelled to bring suit against himself because the -plaintiff refuses to allow trial in his own case."</p> - -<p>These litigations, the circulars, the press, were only part of the -campaign. One of the committees of the Common Council was brought -under control, and induced to throw technical difficulties in the way -of the sale of the bonds, which caused months of delay.<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a> Effort -was made to get the Governor to appoint natural-gas trustees hostile -to the city, but failed. It was attempted, also without success, to -get the Legislature to prevent the sale of the bonds at private sale. -During all this controversy the city was most fortunate in receiving -the needful authority from the State Legislature. This was due mainly -to a faithful and able representative of Toledo in that body, the Hon. -C.P. Griffin. He was offered every promise of political preferment -and other allurements to betray his constituents, but he always -remained faithful. Without his support the efforts of the city would -have failed. His services amid great temptations deserve the grateful -remembrance of the public.</p> - -<p>Some of the devices of "private enterprise" were childish enough. -"A Business Men's Protest" was published, which proved under the -microscope to have been largely signed by men whose names could not be -found in the directory. A similarly formidable-looking remonstrance -against the pipe-line bill was sent to the Legislature. It had 1426 -names; of these 464 could not be found in the directory, and over 300 -of the 962 remaining names signed the petition for the city's bill. -Many of them avowed that when they had signed the "Remonstrance" it -had a heading in favor of the pipe line, which must have been changed -afterwards. As part of the tactics of misinformation, a report was -published—in January, 1890—claiming to give the business of both the -private com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>panies; but the members of the Council Committee on Gas, -when afterwards examining the books for the gas company, found that -it gave the receipts of only one company. A paper was prepared by a -citizens' meeting for circulation among the manufacturers to ascertain -how much they would contribute towards the city pipe line; but when -reported back to the meeting it had become, in some mysterious way, a -paper asking the manufacturers how much they would advance to quite a -different scheme, the effect of which would be to sell out the city -pipe line or convert it into a manufacturers' line.</p> - -<p>These were the infantile methods of men who could not see the -ludicrousness of the position they put themselves in by such efforts to -keep a business which they were constantly declaring to be hazardous -and unprofitable.</p> - -<p>Detectives appear in almost every scene of our story, and are as common -in its plot as in any extravagant melodrama of the Bowery thirty years -ago. To counteract the anonymous circulars the City Council sent a -committee headed by Mayor Hamilton—the "War Mayor," one of the ablest -lawyers of the city, upright and loyal at all times to Toledo—to visit -the Eastern money-markets. The committee, in their official report, -state that they were assured by responsible dealers in municipal -securities in New York and Boston that they would bid for the entire -amount to be sold. "We regret, however, to have to report that the -powerful and influential parties who have on all occasions and in every -way sought to obstruct and defeat the enterprise for which the proceeds -of these bonds were to be used, in some way succeeded in inducing those -who intended to purchase to withhold their bids—in fact, no matter -how guarded our movements, we believe that every person or firm with -whom we had interviews was reported to the agents of the Standard -Oil Company, for in every instance where from our interviews we had -encouragement that the bonds would be bid for, within a short time more -or less influential agents of opponents interviewed these parties and -succeeded in changing their minds."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> - -<p>What a picture of "high finance," of the "beneficent inter-play of the -forces of supply and demand," of the "marvellous perfection" with which -capital moves under "natural laws" to carry its fertilizing influences -where they are most needed! The officials of this free city compelled -to sneak around in the open money-market under cover with "guarded -movements," seeking buyers for its bonds as if they were stolen goods! -About them a cloud of spies and detectives reporting every movement as -if it were a crime to the little handful of trust millionaires in their -grand building on Broadway! "They have entered the —— Bank!" "They -have just left ——'s office!" After each report the leash is slipped -of a waiting sleuth, who flies away to run down the quarry.</p> - -<p>The gas trustees made public a letter and telegram they received from a -prominent New York bank:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -"<span class="smcap">New York</span>, November 27, 1889.<br /> -</p> - -<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—A gentleman named" (naming a man who signs the -certificates of the Standard Oil Trust as treasurer),<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> "introduced -by the card of Mr. ——" (one of the richest men in New York not -otherwise known as connected with the trust), "called on us to-day and -stated that understanding that our firm was on the point of bidding -on the Toledo bonds, etc., he would caution against the purchase, as -they were not legal. Mr. —— represented himself as coming from ——" -(one of the companies of the oil combination), "and referred us to -their lawyer for further information. Now as this may hurt the sale -of the bonds we want to be cautious, and on Friday will make further -inquiries, and will wire you accordingly. We may not care to hand in -our bids on this account."</p></blockquote> - -<p>The telegram sent on Friday is as follows:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -"<span class="smcap">New York</span>, November 30th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>"Fearing sale of bonds has been injured, will not bid at present."</p></blockquote> - -<p>"That tells the story," said one of the trustees, "in a nut-shell."</p> - -<p>A local bank bid for $500,000 of the bonds, but did not sustain its -bid. A reputable citizen, an ex-mayor, wrote for publication in one of -the leading journals that he had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> informed by a well-known banker -there was reason to believe a banking firm which, in 1892, defaulted -on its bid for bonds, had been indemnified by the opposition for the -$5000 it thereby forfeited to the city, and for the profits it would -have made from the sale of the bonds. With the city line crippled the -gas company would pocket the profits on the sale of a million dollars' -worth of gas a year. Five thousand dollars, or several times that, was -a small insurance to pay for such a gain.</p> - -<p>This was the game of hide-and-seek played in Wall Street by detectives -and financial stilettos against "simple greens," who thought supply and -demand still rule values. This was the reality which the officials of -Toledo found behind the outward aspect of its magnificent buildings, -the benevolent millionaires who look out through their plate-glass, the -grandiloquent generalizations of professors about "the money-market."</p> - -<p>The city was brought to the humiliation of seeing its officials meet -in public session at an appointed hour to open bids it had invited -from all the money centres for its bonds, only to have the news -flashed all over the country that not a bid from abroad had been -made. This opposition cost the city in one way and another not less -than $1,000,000, according to the estimate of the city's natural-gas -trustees. The feeling of the people was expressed in the following -language in a circular sent out with the pamphlet report of the -committee appointed in mass-meeting to make a statement of Toledo's -case to the public:</p> - -<p>"We have seen the modern aggregation of corporations—trusts—suppress -other corporations in the same line of business. But this Toledo -contest is believed to be the first instance where private -corporations—creatures of the State—have assumed to exercise -monarchical powers over a portion of the State—one of its leading -municipalities; to dictate the policy of its people; to seek to -control the legislation as to the laws that should be enacted for such -portion of the State; to bribe and intimidate the votes of such city -at the polls; to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> attempt to subsidize the press by the most liberal -expenditure of money; to at last purchase, out and out, a heretofore -leading paper of the city, place its own managers and attorneys as -directors, import one of its long-trained men as editor, and turn -this paper into an engine of attack upon the city, an attack upon -the city's honor and credit, characterized by the most unscrupulous -misrepresentation and a perfect abandonment of all the amenities of -civilized warfare."</p> - -<p>The Toledo public felt no doubt as to who were attacking it under -the convenient anonymity of the two gas corporations. At a public -conference, January 16, 1889, between the presidents of the private -natural-gas companies and the people assembled in mass-meeting, the -representative of the former said the only condition on which the -members of the oil trust had been induced to interest themselves in -natural-gas in Northwestern Ohio was that of absolute and unqualified -control of the entire business through a majority of the stock of all -the gas companies to be organized.</p> - -<p>"The trust is interested in companies engaged in supplying natural -gas?" the president of the oil trust was asked by the New York -Legislature about this time.</p> - -<p>"To a limited extent, yes."</p> - -<p>"Have they a majority interest in any of these companies?"</p> - -<p>"I think they have."<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a></p> - -<p>This was identically the arrangement by which the nine trustees owned -as their private property the control of the oil business. At several -later conferences with the city's trustees and the Common Council -the gas companies were represented by one of the principal members -of the oil combination, the ingenious gentleman who had managed the -negotiations with the railroads by which, under the <i>alias</i> of the -American Transfer Company, the trust claimed and got a rebate of 20 -to 35 cents a barrel,<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> not only on all oil it shipped, but on all -shipped by its competitors. He was also its representative in the -similar arrangement by which the Cleve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>land and Marietta Railroad -agreed to carry its oil for 10 cents a barrel, to charge Rice 35 cents, -and to pay it 25 out of every 35 cents Rice paid.<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a> He had acted in -the same interest throughout the gas field as well as in oil, and his -pathway could be traced through one independent company after another, -whose wrecks, like those in oil, are milestones.</p> - -<p>July 27, 1889, in an item originating in New York, in the <i>Tribune</i>, a -friendly paper, and given an extensive circulation by news despatches -sent to the leading papers in other cities, it was said that the -representatives of the oil trust "in this city say emphatically -that they will attack in the courts the right of the city to issue -them"—the bonds.</p> - -<p>At the great meeting of the citizens, October 19, 1889, to organize -a popular subscription to take the bonds killed in the money-market, -the resolutions named the oil combination as the power responsible for -the attacks on the city, and appealed to the people to observe that -it, "no longer content with destroying individuals and associations -which stand in the way of its moneyed interests, now rises to grapple -with and destroy the rights of cities and states; we therefore ask all -liberty-loving men to make common cause with us in the defence of the -community against the aggression of colossal power."</p> - -<p>The aldermen and the Common Council of Toledo unanimously adopted -resolutions, September 15, 1890, requesting the State and Federal -courts to give decisions as promptly as possible in the suits pending -against the validity of the natural-gas bonds. These bodies in their -official utterance declared that the oil combination, "through its -officers and agents in the city of Toledo and at many other points in -the United States, has circulated false and malicious statements about -the bonds of the city of Toledo issued for natural-gas purposes." The -natural-gas trustees of the city say in their report for 1890: "These -injunctions and circulars, although fathered in the first instance -by non-resident taxpayers, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> in the second by irresponsible or -anonymous parties, were traced directly to the oil trust, a trust -having a large number of corporations within its control, among which -is the North-western Ohio Natural Gas Company, and to whom the city -of Toledo may reasonably attribute a loss of more than a million of -dollars already. What further financial embarrassment it may suffer -in the future cannot be measured by the depravity and moral turpitude -which its seeds have sown in our midst."<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p> - -<p>When the warfare against Toledo became a scandal ringing throughout -the country and beyond, the organ of the trust in Toledo attempted to -make it appear that the oil trust was not the party in interest. But -there was open confession on the record. Its connection and its control -were admitted by two representatives in conference with a committee -appointed by the mayor at their request to discuss the situation.<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> -They described the circumstances under which the members of the oil -trust had gone into the project of the Toledo line and the project -of the natural-gas business. One of the two stated that he came into -it as its "more direct representative." The pipe line of the private -gas company was built, he went on to say, by one of the principal -corporations in the oil trust. At the same interview it was admitted -that the oil trust owned 60 per cent. of the natural-gas company's -stock.</p> - -<p>The people of Toledo did not surrender to this success of their enemies -in the money-market. The bonds which calumny and espionage prevented -them from selling at wholesale to the great capitalists of New York and -Boston they took themselves at retail. The Legislature having given -authority for such sales, a committee of one hundred had been appointed -by the citizens' meeting, October 19, 1889, to canvass all the wards of -the city for subscriptions to the gas bonds. "Gas Bond Pledges" were -circulated, to which people subscribed according to their ability, in -amounts ranging from $2 to $5000. The employés at the Wabash Railway's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> -car shops sent in a list signed by fifty names for a total of $1102, an -average of $22 each. The labor of two hundred men for a week without -pay was offered the gas trustees as an earnest of the good-will of the -people. Piece by piece the city's pipe line was pushed through. At a -critical moment a shrewd and patriotic contractor saved the enterprise -by building a large part of the line, and taking for his pay the bonds -the banks would not take. In June, 1890, the public were gratified by -the announcement that their trustees had secured the means "for the -construction of three miles more," making eight miles in all, or nearly -one-fourth the entire line. In August a contract was made for five -miles more, and so the work went on, step after step.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a></p> - -<p class="center">A SUNDAY IN JUNE</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the midst of the anxious discussion by the citizens of Toledo as -to the character of the power which ruled them both by night and by -day, the same question arose in the metropolitan religious press, but -in its broader ethical aspects. After the petition of Toledo to be -allowed to take the control of its light, heat, and power into its own -hands had been laid before the Legislature, the <i>National Baptist</i> -of Philadelphia, in an article on the trusts, criticised them as the -prophet Nathan would have done. It gave to that in oil, "of course, -the bad pre-eminence in all this matter." "This corporation has, by -ability, by boldness, by utter unscrupulousness, by the use of vast -capital, managed to control every producer, every carrier, to say -nothing of the legislatures and courts." The <i>Examiner</i>, the leading -religious weekly of the Baptist denomination in New York, rose against -this. "We can readily understand how there should be differences of -opinion in the matter of these trusts, and their influence is a proper -subject of discussion; but to make it the occasion of so unjust and -intemperate an attack on Christian men of the highest excellence of -character is something that was not expected from a paper bearing -such a name. The four most prominent men in the oil trust are eminent -Baptists, who honor their religious obligations, and contribute without -stint to the noblest Christian and philanthropic objects.... All -of them illustrate in their daily lives their reverence for living -Christianity."</p> - -<p>The <i>National Baptist</i> did not submit to this attempt to cite men's -creeds to prevent judgment on their deeds. It quoted the reply Macaulay -makes Milton give to the similar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> pleas urged for King Charles: "For -his private virtues they are beside the question. If he oppress and -extort all day, shall he be held blameless because he prayeth at night -and morning?" It held to its ground, and cited against the trust -the recorded evidence, but it declared it was "a marked breach of -propriety for the <i>Examiner</i> to bring their private character into the -discussion." The <i>National Baptist</i>, going on to speak in praise of a -series of lively cartoons in <i>Harper's Weekly</i> on the Forty Thieves of -the Trusts and similar subjects, said, with some sadness: "It will be -a sorry spectacle if the secular papers shall be ranged on the side of -justice and the human race, while the defence of monopoly shall be left -to the so-called representatives of the religious press."</p> - -<p>Later, March 20, 1890, the <i>Examiner</i> returned again to its -discussion of the religious performances of the chiefs of the oil -trust as a matter of public importance. Of one of them it said: "The -prayer-meetings of the Fifth Avenue Church are on Wednesday evening, -and no business man in the church is less likely to be absent from one -of them than he. His wife and children, when they are in the city, come -with him, and it is by no means an unusual thing for the whole family -to take part, each of them occupying one or two minutes of time. He and -they are at church every Sunday when in the city, and no husband and -wife keep up the good old Baptist habit more faithfully of exchanging a -kind word with the brethren and sisters after the regular services are -over. He dresses plainly, and so do his family, and every one of them -has a kind heart and a pleasant word for all. They are among the last -to leave the church and the prayer-meeting. Now the question is, How -is it, as things go, that a man possessing the great wealth imputed to -him should have so warm a fraternity of feeling for the lowly in their -temporal conditions? And is there not an example here that might well -be imitated in all the churches of our Lord?"</p> - -<p>In an address on Corporations the reverend secretary of the Church -Edifice Department of the Home Missionary Department of the Baptist -Church followed the example of the lead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>ing Church journal. "The oil -trust was," he said, "begun and carried on by Christian men.<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> They -were Baptists, and, so far as the speaker knew, both the objects and -the methods of the oil trust were praiseworthy." A clergyman of another -denomination once called upon one of the great men of the trust to seek -a subscription.</p> - -<p>"But," said the rich man, "I am not of your Church."</p> - -<p>"That does not matter," said the minister, "your money is orthodox."</p> - -<p>The secular press followed the example of the religious press in -treating their public faithfulness to Church ceremonies as news of the -day, and part of the record of their social functions. The New York -correspondent of the Philadelphia <i>Daily Record</i> wrote for the people -of Philadelphia: "It is not often that a millionaire stands up to lead -in prayer, but I heard the president of the oil combination make an -excellent prayer the other evening. He is said to be worth $25,000,000, -but he neither drinks nor uses tobacco, and he is a deacon in Dr. -Armitage's church. He likes a fast horse, and has eleven horses in his -stable here. Few men, however, lead plainer lives than he, and few put -on less style. He gives liberally to unsectarian charities, but, he -says, 'when it comes to Church work I always give to the Baptists—my -own denomination—and to no other Church.'" A New York daily described -the same trustee "as one of the few millionaires who devote much of -their time to the improvement of the condition of others. When not -called away by social or business engagements, you are pretty sure -to find him at home evenings. Here, in his costly and well-equipped -library, he receives his visitors, many of whom represent the various -benevolent and religious undertakings in which he is interested. He -has for years been a hearty supporter, financially and personally, of -foreign-missionary work, and no layman, perhaps, is so well informed -concerning the details of it. He has a personal acquaintance with -many of the leading missionaries of the world, and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> residence is -frequently the scene of a gathering of these workers among the heathen. -He is now devoting considerable attention to home-missionary work, -a field which, he is convinced, presents splendid opportunities for -Christian endeavor."</p> - -<p>Many descriptions have been given by the press, metropolitan and -interior, of the success with which one of the trustees built up the -largest Sunday-school in his city at the same time that he was building -up the monopoly—leading the children of his competitors and customers -to salvation with his left hand, while with his right he led their -fathers in the opposite direction financially. The church where these -men appear has had columns of admiring description in the leading -daily papers of New York and other cities. "There are few wealthier -congregations than this one," says a reporter of the New York <i>World</i>, -though he adds, "the wealth is elsewhere more evenly divided." The -trustee of the light of the world "is the magnate of the church, the -centre around which all lesser millionaire lights revolve. Everybody -stops to speak and shake hands with him. Everybody smiles upon him, -this modest man of nearly $200,000,000." "It is amusing," says the -Brooklyn <i>Eagle</i>, "to note the manner in which his neighbors watch him -during the service. Quite a number of people loiter near the door to -see him as he walks out of church." "They are worth a bit of careful -study," says another paper of the trustees, "and no place is quite so -convenient as when they are at church. Their interest in religion is -as sincere as their belief in oil. From the moment they enter church -until they leave they are examples that Christians of high and low -degree might follow with profit." "They have made the most of both -worlds," writes another journalist. The oil trust was criticised -by the Rev. Washington Gladden at Chautauqua, in 1889. One of its -prominent officials, as reported in a friendly journal, defended it as -"a sound Christian institution; and all these communistic attacks are -due entirely to the jealousy of those who cannot stand other people's -prosperity."<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> - -<p>"In Anniversary week" in Boston, in May, 1889, at the meeting of the -American Baptist Education Society, the secretary said he had an -announcement to make. "It had been whispered about," says the New -York <i>Examiner</i> of May 23, 1889, from whose friendly account we are -quoting, "that something important was to occur at this meeting, and a -breathless silence awaited the announcement. Holding up a letter, the -secretary said that he had here a pledge from a princely giver to our -educational causes, naming him (here he was interrupted by a tremendous -cheer), of $600,000 for the proposed Chicago college.... This statement -was followed by a perfect bedlam of applause, shouts, and waving of -handkerchiefs. One brother on the platform was so excited that he flung -his hat up into the air, and lost it among the audience." Eloquent -speeches at once overflowed the lips of the leading men of the meeting, -which was a delegate assembly. They sprang to their feet, one after -the other, and mutually surpassed each other in praising God and the -giver of this gift, which was equal to his income for a fortnight. "I -scarcely dare trust myself to speak," said a doctor of divinity. "The -coming to the front of such a princely giver—the man to lead.... It -is the Lord's doing.... As an American, a Baptist, and a Christian I -rejoice in this consummation. God has kept Chicago for us; I wonder at -his patience." Another reverend doctor said: "The Lord hath done great -things for us.... The man who has given this money is a godly man, who -does God's will as far as he can find out what God's will is."</p> - -<p>The audience rose spontaneously and sang the Doxology. On motion the -following telegram was sent, signed by the president of the society:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -"<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, May 18, 1889.<br /> -</p> - -<p>"The Baptist denomination, assembled at the first anniversary of the -Education Society, have received with unparalleled enthusiasm and -gratitude the announcement of your princely gift, and pledge their -heartiest co-operation in the accomplishment of this magnificent -enterprise."</p></blockquote> - -<p>The name signed to this telegram happened to be the same as that of -the divine with whom, when president of Brown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> University in 1841, one -of the most devoted of the laborers for the freedom of the negro had a -discussion which is perhaps the most pungent in the literature of the -antislavery movement.</p> - -<p>On August 30, 1841, Henry C. Wright wrote to Edmund Quincy: "I once met -the president of Brown University, in the presence of several friends, -to converse on the subject of slavery. The conversation turned on the -question: Can a slaveholder be a Christian? To bring it to a point, -addressing myself to the doctor, I asked him, 'Can a man be a Christian -and claim a right to sunder husbands and wives, parents and children, -to compel men to work without wages, to forbid them to read the Bible, -and buy and sell them, and who habitually does these things?' 'Yes,' -answered the reverend doctor and president, 'provided he has the -spirit of Christ.' 'Is it possible for a man to be governed by the -spirit of Christ and claim a right to commit these atrocious deeds, -and habitually commit them?' After some turning he answered, 'Yes, I -believe he can.' 'Is there, then, one crime in all the catalogue of -crimes which of itself would be evidence to you that a man had not the -spirit of Christ?' I asked. 'Yes, thousands,' said the doctor. 'What?' -I asked. 'Stealing,' said he. 'Stealing what, a sheep or a <i>man</i>?' -I asked. The doctor took his hat and left the room, and appeared no -more."<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a></p> - -<p>The Sunday following a special service was held in the churches -throughout the country in behalf of further help in "the new -educational crisis." Many eulogistic sermons were preached that day -by the leading clergymen of the denomination. "And so," one of them -is reported to have said, "when a crisis came God had a man ready to -meet it.... An institution was bound to come, and unless a God-fearing -man established it it was likely to be materialistic, agnostic.... In -this emergency, and in God's providence, society raised up a man with -a colossal fortune, and a heart as large as his fort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>une." "God," said -the Chicago <i>Standard</i>, a religious weekly, "has guided us and provided -us a leader and a giver, and so brought us out into a large place."</p> - -<p>Another of the trustees has poured into a Southern State hundreds -of thousands of dollars for churches of various denominations, and -millions for hotels of a more than Oriental magnificence. "There is -no philanthropist," says an editor of that State, commenting on these -expenditures, "who renders the world greater service than the man of -enterprise." But "Western Pennsylvania," said the Pittsburg <i>Post</i>, -"looks more with awe than pride at the liberal diffusion of its wealth -in Florida improvements and Baptist universities." A daily paper of -Richmond, Virginia, in an editorial commenting on a report that the -hostlery glories of St. Augustine were to be repeated in Richmond, -said: "We have naught to remark on the tyrant monopoly if some of -its profits are to come in such a direction. We could forgive much -that monopoly visits on the down-trodden, horny-handed son of toil -if it would come with open pockets proclaiming the era of luxuriant -accommodations for all those other millionaires whose money we want to -see invested in Richmond."</p> - -<p>The next year after the Boston meeting the Church celebrated its -"Anniversary week" in the city which was to be the seat of the new -college. And the anniversary closed with a jubilee meeting, which -filled the largest assembly room in America. "All the church-going -people of Chicago must have attended," one of the daily papers said. It -was addressed by the principal clergymen of the denomination from all -parts of the country. Again, as at Boston, the centre of interest was -the gift of a fortnight's income to the university. A telegram making -the gift conclusive, since the conditions on which it was promised had -been complied with, was read. Cheer after cheer rose from the assembly, -and oratory and music expressed the emotion of the audience. The divine -who made the closing speech declared that he needed ice on his head on -account of the joyful excitement of the occasion. The cheers and the -hand-clapping closed again, as at Boston, with the spirited sing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>ing -of the Doxology. Not only in the religious press of all denominations, -but in the worldly press, the topic was the best of "copy." The great -dailies gave columns, and even pages, to the incident, and to the -subsequent gift from the same source of larger sums. "Conspicuously -providential," "princely," "grand," "munificent contribution," -"man of God," were the phrases of praise. A writer in the New York -<i>Independent</i> said: "Your correspondent speaks from opportunities of -personal observation in saying that pecuniary benefaction to a public -cause seldom if ever, in his belief, flowed from a purer Christian -source." The only recorded note of dissent came from a humbler source. -Under the text, "I hate robbery as a burnt-offering," a weekly business -journal said: "The endowment of an educational institution where the -studies shall be limited to a single course, and that a primary course -in commercial integrity, would be a still more advantageous outlet for -superabundant capital. Such an institution would fill a crying want."</p> - -<p>It was the last Thursday in May, 1890, when this great representative -convention of the Church from all parts of the United States celebrated -the acceptance of this endowment. Even while the roll of the Doxology -was still rising to the roof of the auditorium the plans were preparing -for a performance at Fostoria the next Sunday, three days later, which -had a profound effect upon Toledo, though just the opposite of what was -expected.</p> - -<p>Fostoria, Ohio, is the home of the president of the principal -natural-gas company in Ohio controlled by the oil trust and leader -in the vendetta against Toledo. A wealthy miller erected in Fostoria -in 1886 a flouring-mill, with a capacity of 1000 barrels a day. One -of the inducements was a contract made with this manufacturer by the -gas company, by which it bound itself to supply him with natural-gas -at a price which would be one-fifth what coal would cost him, and to -continue to supply him as long as it supplied any one. The manufacturer -carried out his agreement by the expenditure of $150,000 for the -erection of the mill, and by running it continually to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> its full -capacity. His bills for gas he paid promptly every month. Relying upon -the contract with the gas company, the mill was built for natural -gas, and could use no other fuel. In February, 1890, the gas company, -dissatisfied with the bargain it had made, demanded better terms. The -milling company refused. On a Sunday morning in June, "when, if ever, -come perfect days," a gang of men appeared, led by an officer of the -gas company, and dug up and tore out the pipes supplying the mill with -gas.</p> - -<p>Church bells of different denominations were scattering their sweet -jangle of invitations to the sanctuary as the tramp of these banded -men, issuing on their errand of force, mixed with the patter on the -sidewalks of devout feet. Private grounds were unlawfully entered, -property was destroyed, the peace broken, a day of love changed to one -of hate, all the bonds of community cut asunder, and the people turned -from the contemplation of divine goodness to gaze at shapes of greed -and rage. Sunday is chosen for such deeds, since the help with which -the pagan law, gift of heathen Rome, would interpose, cannot be invoked -by the victims on Sunday, and because on Sunday Christian people go -to church, and leave their property undefended. The peace-officers -were summoned to arrest the invaders for violating the Sunday law, but -before they could get on the ground the mischief was done. The pipes -had all been excavated, the connections wrenched off, and the trench -nearly filled up. The milling company began suit for $100,000 damages -against the gas company,<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> but a private settlement was made, and -the case has never been pressed to trial. The laborers who did the work -of the Captains of Industry in this matter were tried and convicted at -the County Court in July, but by no process did the law, which is "no -respecter of persons," reach out towards the principals.</p> - -<p>This Fostoria incident occurred during the heat of the Toledo -contest—June, 1890—while the city was pushing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> sale of bonds -for its emancipating pipe line by popular subscription and in odd -lots. Notice had been already served on the people of Toledo at public -conference, that despite contracts, charters, franchises, the private -companies would not take any less price from Toledo than they demanded. -In pursuance of this, after the council had fixed the price in -accordance with its admitted right, a circular was sent out containing -this significant threat: "If it"—the legally declared price—"is -approved by our customers we will know what course to pursue."</p> - -<p>Even before the occurrence at Fostoria it had been definitely suggested -to the people of Toledo that in case the council failed to accept -the demand as to rates in making the new ordinance (July, 1890) the -pipes would be so far removed as to cut off the supply on some Sunday -when no legal help could be invoked. The possibility of this Sunday -cut-off of the fuel supply of 15,000 consumers became a living topic of -discussion, public and private, and was considered in all its bearings -by the Toledo press. Calculations were made and published of the -number of men it would require to take up the hundred miles or so of -pipe in the streets of Toledo between dark and dark some holy Sabbath -day. It was confessed, hopelessly, that they would be more than the -police could handle. "Of course," as was said in the Toledo <i>Blade</i> by -a leading citizen, "such enterprise would involve a very remarkable -degree of both lawlessness and desperation on the part of the managers. -It would be a mode of withdrawal from trade quite unknown among sound -business men. But then their processes have been peculiar from the -start."</p> - -<p>It was nothing less than startling to Toledo, almost before the print -on the types of these words was dry, to hear the news from Fostoria of -the Sunday raid there. There were those who declared that the Sunday -violence at Fostoria was deliberately done as a warning to Toledo. If -it were a warning to them not to insist on the legal and equitable and -contract right of their Common Council to fix the rates of gas, it -was a failure. The council went forward and did its duty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> If it were -a warning to the people to redouble their labors to free themselves -forever from the possibility of such thraldom as that in which Fostoria -and other cities were enchained, it was a success. The people heard and -heeded, and in ten months thereafter gas began to flow into the city -through its own pipes.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a></p> - -<p class="center">TOLEDO VICTOR</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was remarkable to see the revival of the passion of freedom of 1776 -and 1861 in the editorials, speeches, resolutions of public meetings, -and the talk of the common people in Toledo as in Columbus. The example -of "the heroic liberty-loving people of Boston" was held up in every -aspect to fire the heart of Toledo not to be frightened into subjection -to the foreign power that threatened them. To resist "the domination -of an economic monarchy" was the appeal made in posters with which the -town was placarded.</p> - -<p>"During all the time George III.'s soldiers were quartered in Boston -that monarch did not spend as much money to bring the city to terms as -has been spent in this effort to subjugate the city of Toledo," said -Alderman Macomber.</p> - -<p>"A people like those of Toledo," said one of them in the press, "when -once united and determined as they now are, cannot be subjugated by any -combination of mercenaries yet known."</p> - -<p>"It is evident," the Toledo <i>Sunday Gazette</i> said, "that the people -of Toledo have come to a full realization of the truth that the money -saved by the independent pipe line, though great, is a matter of little -importance compared with the social and political issues involved. It -would be a thousand times better," it continued, "to utterly bankrupt -the city than permit the oil combination to win. The fight was not for -the present alone, but it was for the present and future, and for all -time to come. It was not for the people of Toledo alone, but it was for -the whole Union, though God had chosen the people of Toledo for the -struggle."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Cincinnati <i>Commercial-Gazette</i> said, in its editorial columns: -"In itself the Toledo enterprise is not a big one, but it will prove -an object-lesson for the whole country. It will show the open door -through which people may pass from under the yoke of a most gigantic, -unscrupulous, and odious monopoly. And it will be surprising if this -does not extend beyond gas and ultimately cover oil. We are only on the -verge of a revolution that is as sure to come as that which followed -the throwing overboard of a lot of tea in Boston Harbor. Neither the -power nor the vulgarity of capital can long rule the people."</p> - -<p>Numerous letters of sympathy, congratulation, and indignation -were received by the Toledo committee appointed by the citizens' -mass-meeting to make a statement of their case to the people of the -United States. There were letters from chairs of political economy in -the universities, from scholars and students in history and politics, -and from men in affairs and finance.</p> - -<p>The completion of the line to the city was not the completion of the -enterprise. Mains had still to be laid in the streets, and house -connections made. At every step, now as before, unrelenting opposition -did all that could be conceived of—in the courts, the Legislature, the -city government, the money-market—to block municipal self-help. Great -numbers of the citizens desired to change from the private companies -to the city. Over 7500 consumers were at one time, in 1891, calling -upon the city to supply them.<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> The litigation which was kept up, -and the defeat of the attempt of the city to sell its natural-gas bonds -in the open market, had exhausted the funds at the disposal of the -city trustees. But they showed a readiness of resource equal, with the -help of the people, to all these emergencies, and proving that public -enterprise can more than hold its own in the competition with private -enterprise. Contractors were got to pipe the streets by sections, and -take for pay the pledge of the income earned by the pipes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> so laid. In -other cases people wanting the gas were willing to advance a part of -the cost. The same contractor who had faith enough in the city to build -the main line from the gas-fields and take the bonds while they were -under fire volunteered in the same way to build the submerged lines -across the Maumee River, and ten miles of mains within the city. This -was done at a moment when otherwise the enterprise must have come to a -stop, and the name of this patriotic contractor is given to the public -by the trustees in their annual report with words of gratitude.</p> - -<p>The amount of bonds originally authorized was $750,000. The trustees, -in consequence of the delays and enhanced cost caused by lawsuits and -other tactics of opposition, had to incur a floating debt of $300,000. -The council by ordinance directed the issue of bonds by the city to -the amount of $120,000 to pay off part of this floating debt. The -State Circuit Court refused to sustain this action of the council, -but pointed out that all the city lacked was the authorization of the -Legislature. This was the only decision against the city in all the -litigations, and in this the State Court was afterwards overruled by -the United States Circuit Court. A bill was accordingly introduced, -giving the city the right to issue $300,000 in bonds for the floating -debt, and $100,000 for the extension of the gas plant: wells, pipes, -pumps—whatever was needed. A strong lobby immediately appeared in the -State Capitol to defeat the bill. As part of its ammunition a pamphlet -was circulated among the legislators, giving "Facts and Reasons" why -the Legislature should not authorize the new issue of bonds. This -pamphlet illustrates the easy virtue with which some lawyers dispose -of themselves to those who have the money to pay them. Two of its -strongest points were that the contracts for which the floating debt -had been incurred were let without proper competition, and that the -trustees had no power to make the contracts. This pamphlet was signed -by two lawyers, one of whom, before these contracts were let, had -given the trustees his written opinion supporting such contracts -unqualifiedly. The representatives of the people were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> able to exhibit -to the Legislature his written opinion stating that the trustees had -the power to make the contracts, and had let them in compliance with -the requirements of the statute as to bids. The pamphlet declared that -the court, in granting the injunction against the issue of the $120,000 -of bonds by the Common Council, had declared the claims which were to -be paid by the proceeds of the bonds to be "illegal and invalid." This -was untrue. The court had held only that the city had not the power to -issue the bonds, and pointed out that the remedy was in new legislation -by the State to remedy the want of power.</p> - -<p>Pursuing the tactics of defamation of the city and its authorities -which had been used throughout this contest, the pamphlet said: "We -are prepared to prove ... that the contractors put in their bids -substantially as gambling transactions, at such excessive price -that they thought they could take the risk of the illegality of the -natural-gas proceedings, trusting that these illegal transactions would -be permitted to pass without question, or that subsequent legislation -would ratify these illegal acts; all, or nearly all, of the contracts -were taken at prices more than double the fair cash value for all the -work and material provided for; and all the work and materials, the -claims for which now aggregate about $350,000, could have been obtained -in the open market, under valid laws, upon proper terms of payment, -for less than $250,000. We have the evidence within our control to -establish that the work under some of these contracts was actually -done for less than 40 per cent. of the amount named in the contract. -In addition to these facts, we can establish, if permitted to offer -evidence, that the certificates issued by the natural-gas trustees -were, immediately after the conclusion of the contracts and before any -litigation was had upon them, hawked about the streets of Toledo at -from 60 to 75 cents on the dollar; and that the great majority of these -certificates are now in the hands of speculators, who bought them at -not to exceed 65 per cent. of their face value."</p> - -<p>The authors of these statements were at once challenged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> by the city's -gas trustees to prove them. "We assert," the gas trustees said, in -a formal challenge, "that you cannot establish the truth of those -statements. We deny that the facts are as you state them to be, either -in substance or in detail." This was signed by John E. Parsons, W.W. -Jones, Reynold Voit, J.W. Greene, gas trustees, and Clarence Brown -and Thomas H. Tracy, ex-gas-trustees. The city's trustees proposed -that they and their accusers deposit $1000 on each side as a forfeit -to abide the result of an inquiry by the three judges of the Court of -Common Pleas, or any other disinterested arbitrators. They placed at -the service of the accusers and the arbiters all the books, records, -and employés of the city's gas department.</p> - -<p>The challenge was not accepted, and the authors of these attacks made -no attempt to prove them. The Legislature disregarded them, and granted -the city and the gas trustees all the additional power to issue bonds -asked for. In a subsequent proceeding in the Federal courts—the issue -involving the validity of these certificates—it was admitted, contrary -to these allegations, that the prices were fair, and that the contracts -were entered into in good faith, and the court held the certificates -valid.</p> - -<p>The most serious crisis in the contest was still to come. In 1892 the -gas wells of the city began to do what the people of the city will -never do—surrender to the enemy. When the oil trust found, after years -of opposition in the Legislature, the courts, and the gas-fields, that -it had been helpless to prevent Toledo from getting ample tracts of -excellent gas territory, with some of the largest gas wells in the -field, and equal to the supply of the entire consumption, domestic and -manufacturing, it turned to other tactics.</p> - -<p>All about this territory secured by Toledo and found so productive the -private companies of the trust proceeded to buy or lease and to sink -wells. The trust shut off all its own wells, except those adjacent to -the city territory, and for two years drew exclusively from the wells -nearest those of the city. When the city's line was completed to the -wells the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> volume of gas was found to be largely reduced. It had been -drawn off into the wells of the opposition. In the spring of 1892 the -private companies resolved to put in pumps to strengthen the diminished -natural pressure, but to prevent the city from doing the same thing. -Then, with their pumps alone at work, the pressure could be so much -further reduced as to render the Toledo pipe line valueless. To this -end all efforts were directed. The newspapers were kept full of matter -showing how impossible it was to pump gas, that all the money expended -in pumps would be just so much wasted, and that the companies had -canvassed the matter fully, but abandoned the idea. Column after column -of inspired interviews filled the papers, all admonishing the city of -Toledo not to commit such an act of folly as to put in gas pumps. Then -application was made to enjoin the sale of the bonds authorized by the -council and the Legislature for pumps. So month after month dragged -along. The bonds remained unsold, and the pumps unobtainable.</p> - -<p>The injunction was refused both by the Court of Common Pleas and by -the Circuit Court. But there was a right of appeal to the Ohio Supreme -Court until the beginning of 1892. Boston bankers had subscribed for a -large block of the bonds, but withdrew upon learning these facts. "It -is possible for the contestants," the lawyers advised them, "to carry -the matter to the Supreme Court. This, we understand, they propose -to do." The simple assertion of a purpose to continue the litigation -was enough to defeat the sale of the bonds. The payment of costs and -lawyers' fees would be a very moderate price to pay for compelling the -city's gas plant to go past midwinter without the pumps indispensable -for its operation. One of the employés of the private pipe line, -according to an account in one of the Toledo papers, declared to a -reporter that "if we could not prevent the city from putting in a -[pumping] plant any other way, we would blow it up with dynamite."<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> - -<p>Any faithful employé familiar with the blowing up of derricks in the -shut-down of 1887,<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a> the explosion in the independent refinery at -Buffalo,<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> and the "chemical war" waged by the whiskey trust against -the "outsiders" in Chicago<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> might almost be pardoned for thinking -this was "only good, reasonable talk." The oil monopoly is evangelical -at one end and explosive at the other, and it has made both ends meet.</p> - -<p>The people of Toledo were thus prevented from getting the pumping -facilities ready during the summer of 1892 for the work of the winter. -Meanwhile its rival had been secretly pushing pumps for itself to -completion, in the hope that it alone would be ready when cold weather -came. This would mean a gain to it, at the city's expense, of hundreds -of thousands of dollars. Late in August, 1892, the representatives of -the city found that two powerful duplex gas pumps had been shipped -to the gas-field, and were being put in place by the very opponents -who had declared pumps impracticable. Public sentiment became aroused -to the need for the immediate purchase of pumps to protect their -wells. The city attempted to use its income from the sales of gas to -buy pumps. An injunction was applied for and granted. This emergency -was finally met by having the gas trustees hand over to the city -authorities the accumulated earnings they were forbidden by the court -to spend themselves. The city thereupon turned around and invested -this money in the gas bonds. In this way the identical money the gas -trustees could not use while it remained in their hands was made -available to them by passing through the hands of the Sinking Fund -Trustees, and coming back to them. Thus the natural-gas trustees were -enabled to make a contract in September, 1892, for pumps to assist the -flow of gas to the city.</p> - -<p>The gas pumps are a patented device. The private companies, wanting -all the profit of everything, had had their pumps made at their own -factory. The city made its contract directly with the owner of the -patents. The result was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> that the city got its pumps in place in time -to save the city pipe line, while its opponents were delayed by the -inexperience of their own pump-makers. This was the most critical -period in our history. Greed had again defeated itself. Had the -opposition gone to the owner of the patents he would have been unable -afterwards to take the city's contract and complete it in time, and the -effort to make the city line valueless would have succeeded—for the -time being, at least. The bonds in question were afterwards held valid -by the Supreme Court.</p> - -<p>Toledo knew it was building wisely, and every day brought new proof -that it had builded better than it knew. Its saving was great, but -that was the least of its gains. It escaped tyranny and extortion and -other wrongs which fell upon communities in plain sight, which had not -the wit and virtue to establish their independence. When the city pipe -line was opened in 1891 the city began supplying gas to its citizens -at 8 cents a thousand for houses. The private companies were charging -12 cents a thousand, or 50 per cent. more. Profits were such at this -charge of 12 cents a thousand feet that in some tracts single wells -would repay the cost of the land every four days and two hours, or -eighty-nine times a year. Since then the private corporations have -raised their rate to 25 cents. The city continued the rates at 8 cents -until December, 1892, when the rate was advanced to 15 cents. This -advance would have been unnecessary but for the losses arising from the -obstructions placed in the way of the city plant.</p> - -<p>The people of Toledo got their gas lands, pipe line, and street mains -for an outlay of $1,181,743 up to the end of 1891,<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> and $1,294,467 -up to the end of 1892. In the canvass before the election in 1889 their -opponents declared that $4,000,000 would be required.</p> - -<p>Private enterprise cannot find rhetoric strong enough to express its -contempt for the inefficiency, costliness, and des<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>potisms of public -enterprise. Private enterprise put at $6,000,000—twelve times the -amount of the property they reported for taxation—the "capital" -stock invested by the two natural-gas companies. The city pipe line -was capitalized (bonded) at just what it cost—a little more than -a million. The city trustees built a better pipe line than private -enterprise had laid. The private line was of cheap iron of 14-feet -lengths, while Toledo's was in 24-feet pieces. One of the private lines -was laid with rubber joints and in shallow trenches, in many places of -not more than plough depth. It leaked at almost every joint; its course -could be traced across the fields by the smell of gas and the blighted -line of vegetation. There were frequent explosions from the escaping -gas; lives and property were much endangered. The city line was laid -with lead joints, and had every device that engineering experience -could suggest for its success, and was so constructed that it could -be cleaned or repaired, and freed from liquids interfering with the -flow of gas, without shutting off the supply—features the other pipe -had not. The action of the city trustees had to endure the microscopic -scrutiny of friend and foe. No one was able to show as to a single acre -that the title was defective, or that it could have been bought for -less, or to find any taint of a job in the construction of the pipe. A -committee of the city council sat and probed for six weeks, but failed -to find any evidence whatever to confirm the reported "irregularities."</p> - -<p>What Toledo will save in one year by the difference between the actual -cost at which its people can supply themselves and the price the -private companies would have charged, to pay dividends on $6,000,000 of -"capital," is only part of the story. The profit of the city enterprise -is to be estimated by its competitive effect upon the charge of the -private companies. These have been kept down in Toledo much below the -average of other towns, where they have been as high as 35 cents a -thousand. If the city had not supplied a foot of gas this check on the -private companies would make its pipe line still a good investment. -The people, when it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> in full operation, can pay the cost of the -system complete out of the savings of a few years, then pay off the -entire city debt, and have a large income left for public buildings, -roads, parks. Or by reduction of price they can keep this sum in their -pockets, where it will do quite as much for the general welfare as if -it had been transferred to the bank accounts of non-residents.</p> - -<p>The city, at the end of 1891, had 3299¾ acres of gas land. In March, -1892, forty-five wells were giving over 50,000,000 cubic feet of gas, -equal to 3500 tons of anthracite coal. Its income from the sale of gas -was at the rate of $20,032 a month in winter, and $10,221 in summer. -An investigation made in March, 1892, by a committee appointed by the -mayor at the request of the city's gas trustees, showed that an income -could be counted on ($180,000) ample to pay all expenses ($128,120), -including interest, rentals, and the cost of drilling new wells, and -provide a small fund annually ($51,880) for the extinction of the -bonded debt. The committee said: "We believe that if the gas plant is -properly managed upon prudent business principles and methods, that it -can be made a profitable investment for the city and her people; that -the class who will derive the greatest benefit is the laboring class, -who pay rent or taxes upon their little homes, and to whom the matter -of cheap fuel is quite an item in the total amount of annual expenses; -and we believe it to be the duty of every good citizen to aid and -encourage this class."</p> - -<p>These were the results with a charge of 8 cents a thousand. Gas to -the amount of $167,899 had been sold up to August 1, 1892. Between -November, 1891, and August, 1892, the city earned on the million -invested the sum of $150,000, or nearly one-ninth of the cost of -the plant, and this at the low price of 8 cents a thousand feet. -Unobstructed by its enemies and at the price charged by the private -companies, 20 cents a thousand, the city would pay for its entire plant -in less than three years.</p> - -<p>To discourage the public from going forward with its pipe line the -private companies "talked poor." In an inter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>view in the public -press the president of the principal company said it had paid but -9 per cent. in dividends in two and a half years. The net earnings -were stated to be "about 4 per cent. per annum on the capital," -$4,000,000;<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> for the smaller company they were figured out to be -at the rate of a fraction less than 1 per cent. a year on its capital -of $2,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> "We feel sore and hurt about it," said the "direct -representative" of the oil combination to the citizens' committee; "we -have seen no good return from our money." "It has pretty nearly swamped -us," said the president of the company. The citizens of Toledo were -shrewd enough to ask themselves how long their antagonists would have -been likely to remain in a business which paid only 3 per cent., and -was as "hazardous" and "shortlived" as they pictured it to be. Careful -estimates made by close students of the question calculated that of -the $6,000,000 of paper capital "invested" in the two companies which -supplied Toledo and other cities, $1,125,000 was the proportion of -actual cash devoted to Toledo. The receipts upon this Toledo investment -in the two and three-quarters years between the opening of the business -and the date at which, by the contract with the city, the council was -to make new rates (June 30, 1890), were, as nearly as can be calculated -from the figures of their report, $1,300,000 greater than the expenses -of the Toledo business. This is a profit of 115 per cent. In less than -three years the total investment had been repaid by the profits, and, -in addition, enough to have paid dividends of 5 per cent. a year. -This was an estimate, but it was an estimate publicly made from the -companies' figures, and by a responsible man. It remained unchallenged -at a time when every cranny of fact and fiction was being rummaged for -missiles to fling at the people.</p> - -<p>When the citizens' committee sought a reduction in price, the companies -pointed to the small dividend their stockholders had had. In the face -of the fact that they had received but a 3-per-cent. dividend the -previous year, no business man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> their spokesman said, could ask them -to reduce their price. It is for such uses that shrewd men "water" -stock. The surface of the capital is broadened, so that even large -dividends can cover it only by being spread out very thin. This 3 per -cent. a year was on $6,000,000 of dilution, representing a solid, at -the most, of only $1,500,000. The balance sheets of the companies -showed that the companies had paid small dividends for the additional -reason that a large part of their receipts had been reinvested in -lands, wells, and extensions of the pipes and plants.</p> - -<p>The people are often assured that these false figures of capitalization -are merely romantic and do them no harm, because charges must be -governed by the "laws of trade." One of the "laws of trade" that -regulates the "market price" of such commodities as transportation, -light, water, gas, furnished by the help of the public franchises, is -the power of the public to regulate. This public power depends upon the -public knowledge and the public disposition. To make the public believe -that the profit of serving it has been only 3 per cent. a year, when it -has been nearer 50 per cent., is to manipulate public opinion, the most -potent of all the "laws of trade," for a competing supply cannot be got -easily, often not at all.</p> - -<p>A committee of citizens were invited by the representatives of the gas -companies to meet them to verify the statements of the companies as to -the unprofitableness of the business, and the inexpediency of municipal -self-supply. But when the committee wanted to know what had been the -real cost of the private pipe lines, on the $6,000,000 nominal capital -of which the people were expected to pay dividends, they could not get -any satisfaction. The companies would only give an estimate. To the -request for more definite information, the reply of both companies -was, "We have not got the books of the contractors; we have never -had them. We have no means of knowing the actual cost of the Toledo -plant, or any books to show it.<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> We have no papers or documents in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> -regard to the construction of this line." It came to light later that -one of the companies in the oil trust had constructed the pipe line -for the gas company, and at a price approximating the large figures -claimed. The company that built this pipe line is a ring within the oil -and gas ring, always on hand for such contracts and at like margins -of profit, and it is owned almost wholly by the principals of the -combination.<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> The people—mostly Ohioans—who took the minority 40 -per cent. of stock of the gas company were really the "simple greens." -All that was paid for this construction by those who were members -both of the inside ring and the gas company came back to them; their -associates in the minority paid, but got nothing back. It was from the -latter came the profits of this contract to the insiders.</p> - -<p>The people of Dayton had a similar experience. Their natural-gas -company demanded an advance to 25 cents a thousand, and met a committee -of the people to prove that the demand was proper. But it would not let -the people know what the actual investment was to make which good it -sought to tax the people. The books containing the construction account -were "not accessible." "The actual cost to construct the plant is what -we most desired to know," the committee reported. As at Toledo, so at -Dayton; all private enterprise would let its customer-subjects know was -what it wanted them to pay; information to show what they ought to pay -"was not accessible." What the profits were elsewhere can be guessed at -from the fact that in Pennsylvania $36 a year was charged in most of -the towns for cooking-stoves. In Toledo the charge was $19.50 a year.</p> - -<p>Almost every day after the pipe line had been decided on the people saw -something done, showing how well founded their apprehensions had been. -The power to discriminate in rates the people saw used by the private -companies for selfish and anti-public purposes, precisely as they had -foreseen it would be. When the fight for and against the city<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> pipe -line was on, one of the gas companies sought to enlist the strong men -in their support by making them special rates, pursuing the tactics of -divide and conquer. Manufacturers with influence useful in controlling -public sentiment were conceded special rates. Others were given to -understand that any lack of "loyalty" would be followed by punishment. -So effective were these alternating methods of boodling and bulldozing -that the council committee on gas, in a subsequent investigation, found -it almost impossible to obtain any information from manufacturers as -to their use of natural gas for fuel. What little they did secure was -under injunctions of secrecy. The committee found that some were made -to pay twice, some three, and some even four times as much as was paid -by neighbors for like service. The only rule for charging seemed to be -to favor those who had "influence." This was using municipal franchise -just as the franchise of the highways had been used in their behalf by -the railways. An assembly of divines could not be trusted with such -power over their fellows.</p> - -<p>After the Fostoria incident the people of Toledo had another -illustration given them of how wisely they had builded. The gas supply -of the people of Columbus, Ohio, was shut off arbitrarily and suddenly -in midwinter—January, 1891—and they were informed that the company -would supply them with no more gas unless the City Council would raise -the price to 25 cents a thousand feet from 10 cents. The gas had not -failed. The caverns that discharge gas at 25 cents a thousand will let -it come just as freely at 10 cents. The council had fixed the price -at 10 cents, and the company had accepted it. The demand for a higher -price was close upon an increase in the capital stock of the Columbus -company from $1,000,000 to $1,750,000. More stock called for more -dividends, and this was one way to get it—to strike this sudden blow, -and then to say, after the manner of Silas Wegg, "Undone for double -the money!" It was for the power to do this at Toledo, to preserve the -power of doing it everywhere else, that hell and earth were being moved -in Toledo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> to prevent the people from serving themselves and setting an -example to the rest of America. In the same way the gas was turned off -at Sidney, Ohio, and not turned on again until, upon the application of -the mayor, the company was ordered to do it by the courts. "There is a -great deal of suffering here," the press reported, "and it is feared -that several deaths will result from exposure."</p> - -<p>The people did not fail to comprehend the significance of criticisms -in the Toledo organ on the municipal water supply. Monopoly must go on -conquering and to conquer, or be overborne by the ever-recuperating -resentment which rises against it, freshened with each new day. Nature -hates monopoly, says Emerson. The studied attack on the city water -works was believed to be meant to prepare the people to intrust that as -well as the gas supply to the trust's "sound business men" and "private -enterprise."</p> - -<p>Finding that the council would not bend to the demands as to rates, -and that the people were too resolute to be in any way diverted from -their pipe line, Toledo was given some such doses as could be ventured -upon of the Fostoria and Columbus medicine. The company shut gas off -from those who would not pay the increased rate. It deprived public -institutions of their fuel. It refused to supply gas to a new public -school whose building was planned for natural gas. As the city's pipe -line was not completed, the children had to go cold. The winter of -1891-2 was the first winter the city's pipe line was in operation. With -the first cold snap, at the end of November, great distress and danger -were brought upon the people by a lawless act, done secretly by some -unknown person to the city's pipe line. One of the main pipes in the -gas-field, through which flowed the product of two of the largest gas -wells, was disconnected, so that its gas could no longer reach Toledo. -Who did this was never discovered.<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a></p> - -<p>Defeat, final and irrevocable, crowned the unvarying series of -defeat which the private companies had suffered every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>where and in -everything—in public meetings, in the Legislature, in the gas-fields, -at the polls, in the courts, in the sale of the bonds, and in the -competition with the city. The City Council of Toledo, advised by its -lawyers that it could recover damages from those responsible for the -losses brought upon the city by the opposition to its pipe line, has -had suit brought for that purpose. April 14, 1893, City Solicitor -Read began proceedings to recover $1,000,000 damages from members of -the oil combination and the various individuals who had been used as -stalking-horses in the campaign. At the next meeting of the Common -Council several citizens of the "influential" persuasion assisted the -mayor in trying to coax and bully the council to abandon the suit, but -without success. The council were threatened with a financial boycott -to prevent the sale in future of any of the bonds of the city, but it -refused to be terrorized.</p> - -<p>April 8, 1893, the natural-gas trustees of Toledo had the happiness -of being able to give formal notice to the city auditor that no taxes -need be levied to pay the interest on the gas bonds, as it "can easily -be met from the revenues derived from the sale of natural gas." The -city pipe line was on a paying basis at last. Toledo had vindicated -its claim to be a free city. The completion of the enterprise had -been delayed three years. A loss of not less than two million dollars -had been laid on the city, but its victory was worth many times that. -Toledo's victory showed the country, in full and successful detail, -a plan of campaign of which Columbus had merely given a hint. It was -not a local affair, but one of even more than national importance, for -the oil combination has invaded four continents. This struggle and its -results of good omen will pass into duly recorded history as a warning -and an encouragement to people everywhere who wish to lead the life of -the commonwealth.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—For the year ending December 31, 1893, the city -trustees report that they sold gas to the amount of $139,066. The -city owns 5433 acres of gas territory, and has 85 wells, 73 miles of -pipe outside the city, and 91 miles in the city. Since the gas began -to flow the sales have amounted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> $388,540. Out of the receipts the -debt has been reduced $60,000, besides refunding $67,000 to those -who advanced the money for piping the streets. While doing this the -plant has been considerably enlarged. The city accomplished this while -charging the people but 15 cents a thousand, while the gas companies -of the trust charged 25 cents a thousand. Had the city been permitted -to act without obstruction, the cost of the gas plant would have been -long since fully paid, and the price of gas made still lower.<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a></p></blockquote> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a></p> - -<p class="center">"YOU ARE A—SENATOR"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">How</span> to control the men who control the highways?</p> - -<p>The railroads have become the main rivers of trade and travel, and to -control them has become one of our hardest problems in the field where -politics and industry meet. The Duke of Wellington exhorted Parliament -"not to forget, in legislating upon this subject, the old idea of the -King's Highway." But here, as well as there, the little respect paid -by the Legislature at first to this idea soon vanished. In England, as -well as in America, the State, in giving some citizens the right, for -their private profit, to take the property of others by force, legally, -for railways, began by limiting strictly the power so acquired. Then, -passing under the control of that which it had created, the State -abandoned its attempts to control. Now the State is retracing its -way, and for many years has been struggling painfully to recover its -lost authority. In the first English charters there were the minutest -regulations as to freight and passenger charges, and the right of -citizens generally to put their own cars on the tracks was sacredly -guarded.</p> - -<p>The railroads became too strong to submit to this, and the success with -which the teachings of Adam Smith were applied to the abolition of -the old-fashioned restraints on trade bred a furor against any social -control of industry. These limitations were left out of new charters, -and for fair play were revised out of the old charters. After a brief -dream of this <i>laissez faire</i>, England began, in 1844, investigating -and legislating, and, after nearly thirty years of experiments and -failures, established the railway commission in 1873. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> was a step -forward, but has not proved the solvent it was expected to be. The -expense of getting a decision from the commission and the courts to -which the road can appeal from the commission has frightened people -from making complaints. "A complainant," says Hadley, "is a marked man, -and the commission cannot protect him against the vengeance of the -railroads. A town fares no better ... even the [British] War Department -is afraid. It has grievances, but it dares not make them public for -fear of reprisals."<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a></p> - -<p>The course of events in the United States was much the same. The first -railroad powers were carefully limited. The early charters regulated -the charges, limited the profits, gave citizens the right to put their -private carriages on the road, and reserved to the State the right to -take possession of the railroad upon proper payment. But as early as -1846 the railroads had grown strong enough—in the revision of the -Constitution of New York, for example—to secure an almost complete -surrender of these public safe-guards.<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a></p> - -<p>But it was seen immediately in America, as in England, that the new -institution could not be left in the uncontrolled hands of individuals. -It created simultaneously two revolutions, each one of the most -momentous in modern civilization. It made the steam-engine master in -transportation, as it had already become in manufacturing. It made the -public highways the private property of a few citizens. An agitation -arose among the people—to-day stronger because more necessary than -ever—and they began to seek what they have not yet found: means of -regulating the relations between new rich and new poor, and protecting -the private interests of all from the private interests of the few who -had this double sovereignty. As early as 1857 New York established a -commission for the regulation of the railways. But the railroads within -a year procured a law abolishing it, bribing the leading commissioner -to make no opposition in consideration of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> receiving from them $25,000, -the whole amount of his salary for five years. "I was the attorney -of the Erie Railway at that time; I specially used to attend to -legislation that they desired to effect or oppose.... I remember the -appointment of that commission.... We agreed that if they" (the leading -railroad commissioner) "would not oppose the repeal of the law we would -pay $25,000, and have done with the commission; it was embarrassing.... -The law was repealed, and we paid the money, I think." "If the -commission had been a useless one," said the counsel of the New York -Chamber of Commerce before the Legislative Committee, "the railroads -would not have parted with their money to get rid of it."<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a></p> - -<p>Thirty of the States and Territories of the Union had established -commissions or passed laws to regulate the railroads before Congress, -in 1887, used its power under the Constitution to regulate commerce -among the States, and passed the Interstate Commerce law, establishing -the National Interstate Commerce Commission, in the hope that it might -protect the people. Congress did not act until 1887, although for years -different sections of the public, in their efforts to find a cure for -the new evils which had come with the new good, had sought to set in -action their representatives in Washington. The "Granger movement" of -1871, 1872, and 1873, with its "Granger legislation" by the States -against the railroads, is one of the never-to-be-forgotten waves of -public commotion over this problem which took on its acutest form in -the oil regions. Illinois, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, -Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Iowa established railway commissions, or -put stringent regulations on the statute-books at this time. Public -opinion did not cease to demand action by the national government -under the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate -commerce, and became clamorous. Petitions poured in by the hundreds, -public meetings were held, chambers of commerce and boards of trade and -anti-monopoly conventions passed resolutions of urgency.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> This was one -of the main issues in the election of the 44th Congress.</p> - -<p>Representative Hopkins, of Pennsylvania, rose in his place in the -House of Representatives on May 16, 1876, and asked unanimous consent -to offer a resolution for the appointment of a committee of five -to investigate the charges that "many industries are crippled and -threatened with extreme prostration" by the discrimination of the -railroads, and to report a bill for the regulation of interstate -commerce. This was the first move to reopen in Congress the great -question, first on the order of the day both in England and in America, -which had been smothered by the Committee of Commerce of 1872. It -required unanimous consent to bring the resolution before the House.</p> - -<p>"Instantly," said Representative Hopkins, in describing the occurrence -afterwards,<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> "I heard the fatal words 'I object.' The objector was -Mr. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland." Other members appealed to Mr. Payne -to withdraw his objection.</p> - -<p>The Speaker of the House: "Does the gentleman from Ohio withdraw his -objection?"</p> - -<p>Mr. Payne: "I do not."</p> - -<p>In a private conference which followed between Representative Payne -and Representative Hopkins, the former said, as Mr. Hopkins relates: -"What he objected to in my resolution was the creation of a special -committee; but if I would again offer it and ask that it be referred -to the Committee of Commerce he would not object. I thought perhaps -there was something reasonable in his objection. A special committee -would probably require a clerk, which would be an expense. He looked to -me so like a frugal Democrat, who had great confidence in the regular -order of established committees and did not want the country to be -taxed for clerks attending to the business of special committees—I say -that he so impressed me that, as the record will show, I adopted his -suggestion."</p> - -<p>When the Committee of Commerce to which the investi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>gation was -accordingly referred began its investigation, a member of the oil -combination, not then, as later, a member of the Senate, took his seat -by the ear of the chairman, who was from his State, "presiding," as -the oil producers said in a public appeal, "behind the seat of the -chairman."<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a> The financial officer of the oil combination was called -as a witness, but refused to answer the questions of the committee as -to the operations of the company or its relations with the railroads. -The vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad also refused to answer -questions. On the plea of needing time to decide how to compel these -witnesses to answer, the committee let the railroad vice-president -go until he should be recalled. But the committee never decided, and -the witnesses were never recalled. The committee never reported to -Congress, made no complaint of the contempt of its witnesses, and the -investigation of 1876, like that of 1872, came to a mute and inglorious -end.</p> - -<p>When Representative Hopkins applied to the clerk of the committee for -the testimony, he was told, to his amazement, that it could not be -found. "Judge Reagan," he relates,<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> "who was a stanch friend of the -bill"—for the regulation of the railroads—"and very earnest for the -investigation, and who at the time was a member of the committee, told -me that it had been stolen."<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a></p> - -<p>Eight years after "I object" the people of Ohio were a suppliant before -the Senate of the United States. They believed that their dearest -rights had been violated, and they prayed for redress to the only body -which had power to give it. Officially by the voice of both Houses of -the State Legislature and the governor, unofficially by the press, by -the public appeals of leading men, by the petitions of citizens, press, -leaders, and people, regardless of party, the commonwealth asserted -that the greatest wrong possible in a republic had been done their -members, and sued for restitution. They declared it to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> be their belief -that against their will, as the result of violation of the laws, a man -had taken their seat in the Senate of the United States who was not -their senator, that they had been denied representation by the senator -of their choice; and they demanded that, in accordance with immemorial -usage, the evidence they had to offer should be examined, and their -right of representation in the Senate of the United States restored -to them, if it should be found to have been taken from them. After -the Legislature had examined sixty-four witnesses, the Ohio House of -Representatives resolved that "ample testimony was adduced to warrant -the belief that ... the seat of Henry B. Payne in the United States -Senate was purchased by the corrupt use of money." The Ohio Senate -charged that "the election of Henry B. Payne as Senator of the United -States from Ohio ... was procured and brought about by the corrupt use -of money, ... and by other corrupt means and practices."</p> - -<p>Both Houses passed with these resolutions an urgent request for -investigation by the Senate of the United States.<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a></p> - -<p>Mr. Payne's election by the Legislature was a thunder-clap to the -people of Ohio. They did not know he was a candidate. Who was to be -United States Senator was of course one of the issues in the election -of the Ohio Legislature of 1884, and the Democratic voters who elected -the majority of that Legislature had sent them to the State Capitol to -make George H. Pendleton or Durbin Ward senator. One of the leading -newspaper men of the State testified: "I went over the entire State -during the campaign.... Out of the eighty-eight counties I attended -fifty-four Democratic conventions and wrote them up, giving the -sentiment of the people as nearly as I could, and during that entire -canvass I never heard a candidate for the Legislature say that he was -for Henry B. Payne for United States Senator; but every man I ever -talked with was either for George H. Pendleton or General Ward. I think -out of the Democratic candidates throughout the State<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> I conversed with -at least two-thirds of them."<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> As was afterwards stated before the -Senate of the United States by the representatives of the people of -Ohio, "He was in no wise publicly connected with the canvass for the -Senate, nor had the most active, honorable, and best-posted politicians -in the State heard his name in connection with the senatorial office -until subsequent to the October election [of the Legislature]. He was -absolutely without following."<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a></p> - -<p>The Democratic constituencies sent their legislators to vote for -Pendleton and Ward, but between the receipt and the execution of -this trust from the people a secret charm was put to work of such a -potency that the people woke up to find that the representative who -had betrayed them in Congress in 1876 was their senator, instead of -one of their real leaders. The people had been digging oil wells for -twenty years that all the value might flow into the bank accounts of a -few interceptors; they had been building railroads and pipe lines that -their business and property might be transported into the same hands; -they had organized agitation and conducted a national anti-monopoly -campaign all over the country, only to see the men who were to have -been investigated take command of the inquiry. The people had had -enough such experience not to be surprised that when they started to -make a beloved leader senator it was their enemy who came out of the -voting mill with the senatorial toga upon his shoulders. But terrible -was the moral storm that broke forth out of the hearts of the people -of Ohio. The votes they had thrown, like roses to garland the head -of a hero, had been transformed as they went, by a black magic, into -missiles of destruction, and had fallen upon him like the stones that -slew Stephen.</p> - -<p>The press, without regard to party, gave voice to the popular wrath. -Scores of the Democratic newspapers of Ohio went into mourning. One of -them said: "The whole Democratic Legislature was made rotten by the -money that was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> used to buy and sell the members like so many sheep." -Many representative Democrats of the State privately and publicly -declared their belief in the charges of corruption. Allen G. Thurman, -who had been a senator and representative at Washington, said: "There -is something that shocks me in the idea of crushing men like Pendleton -and Ward, who have devoted the best portion of their lives to the -maintenance of Democracy, by a combination against them of personal -hatred and overgrown wealth.... I want to see all the Democrats have -a fair chance according to their merits, and do not want to see a -political cutthroat bossism inaugurated for the benefit of a close -party corporation or syndicate." Again he said: "Syndicates purchase -the people's agents, and honest men stand aghast."<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a></p> - -<p>It was the "irony of fate" that this Legislature, like the 44th -Congress, had been specially elected to represent opposition to -monopolies. Of course the Legislature that had done this thing was not -to be persuaded, bullied, or shamed into any step towards exposure or -reparation. But the people, usually so forgetful, nursed their wrath. -They made the scandal the issue of the next State election, and put -the Legislature into other hands. The new Legislature then forwarded -formal charges to the Senate of the United States, and a demand for an -investigation. The State of Ohio made its solemn accusation and prayer -for an investigation through all the organs of utterance it had: the -press of both parties; honored men, both Republican and Democratic; -both Houses of the State Legislature and its senator whose seat was -unchallenged—an aggregate representing a vast majority of the people -of the State. The Hon. John Little and the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, -former Attorney-General of Ohio, both members of Congress, had been -delegated to present the case of the State. They made formal charges, -based on evidence given under oath or communicated in writing by -reputable citizens, who were willing to testify under oath. None of -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> matter was presented on mere hearsay or rumor.<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> No charge -was made to connect Senator Payne personally with the corruption. His -denials and those of his friends of any participation by him were -therefore mere evasions of the actual charge—that his election had -been corruptly procured for him, not by him. The substance of their -accusation, as contained in their statement and the papers forwarded by -the Legislature, was as follows:<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a></p> - -<p>That among the chief managers of Mr. Payne's canvass, and those who -controlled its financial operations, were four of the principal -members in Ohio of the oil trust: its treasurer, the vice-president -of one of its most important subordinate companies, its Cincinnati -representative, and another—all of whom were named.</p> - -<p>That one of these four, naming him, who was given the financial -management of the Payne campaign at Columbus, carried $65,000 with -him, "next to his skin," to Columbus to use in the election, as he had -stated to an intimate friend whose name would be given.</p> - -<p>That the cashier of the bank in Cleveland, where the treasurer of the -oil combination kept one of his bank accounts, would testify that this -money was procured on a check given by this treasurer of the oil trust -to another of its officials, and passed over by him to its Cincinnati -agent, who drew out the cash.</p> - -<p>That the back room used by the Payne manager at Columbus as his office -displayed such large amounts of money in plain view that it looked like -a bank, and that the employé who acted there as his clerk stated upon -his return home that he had never seen so much money handled together -in his life.</p> - -<p>That a prominent gentleman, going to the room used by the Payne -managers for a "converter," had said that he saw "canvas bags and coin -bags and cases for greenbacks littered and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> scattered around the room -and on the table and on the floor ... with something green sticking -out," which he found to be money.</p> - -<p>That members who had been earnest supporters of Pendleton were taken -one by one by certain guides to this room which looked like a bank, -and came out with an intense and suddenly developed dislike of -civil-service reform (Mr. Pendleton's measure), and proceeded to vote -for Mr. Payne; and that these conversions were uniformly attended with -thrift, sudden, extensive, and so irreconcilable with their known means -of making money as to be a matter of remark among their neighbors; and -that "the reasons for the change (of vote) were kept mainly in this -room, passed by delivery, and could be used to buy real estate."</p> - -<p>That this use of money in large amounts to procure the sudden -conversions of Pendleton legislators to Payne would be shown by -numerous witnesses, generally Democrats, several of them lawyers of -great distinction and high ability.</p> - -<p>That the editor and proprietor of the principal Democratic journal -in Ohio had stated, as was sworn to, that he had spent $100,000 to -elect Payne, and that it cost a great deal of money to get those -representatives and senators to vote for Payne, and they had to be -bought. "It took money, and a good deal of it, to satisfy them," and -he complained that the oil trust had not reciprocated in kind. This -statement was made by one of his editorial writers, who after making -it was discharged. The latter subsequently put it into the form of an -affidavit.</p> - -<p>That Senator Pendleton would testify that more than enough of the -legislators to give him the election had been pledged to him.</p> - -<p>That the number of members of the Ohio Senate and House of -Representatives who had been paid money to vote for Mr. Payne was so -great that without their votes and influence his nomination would have -been out of the question.</p> - -<p>That a legislator who had been violently opposed to Payne, then changed -and became violently rich, had acknowledged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> that the treasurer of -the oil trust, out of gratitude for what he had done, had "loaned" -him several thousand dollars—"a case," said the representative of -Ohio before the United States Senate, "of a man becoming well-to-do by -borrowing money."</p> - -<p>That legislators who were so poor before the election that everything -they had was mortgaged, and they had to beg or borrow funds for their -election expenses, became so prosperous after their sudden conversion -to Payne that they paid off their debts, rebuilt their houses, -furnished them handsomely, deposited large amounts in the banks, or -opened new bank accounts, bought more property, and that the reasons -they gave for this new wealth were demonstrably untrue—or impossible.</p> - -<p>That a member of the Legislature, a State senator, had himself stated -that he had received $5000 to vote for Payne,<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> and had offered the -same amount to an associate if he would do the same; and that after the -election this member opened a new bank account, depositing $2500 in his -wife's name, who immediately transferred it to him.</p> - -<p>That another member of the Legislature, who changed suddenly after his -election to the Legislature, and just before the caucus, from a warm -advocacy of one of the recognized candidates to the support of Payne, -when directly charged with having taken a bribe, did not deny it, but -"became exceedingly sick, white as a sheet, and answered not. He went -away and laid in bed two days."</p> - -<p>That, contrary to all the precedents of Ohio politics, the caucus of -the majority party was not held until the night before election, so as -to leave no time between the caucus and the election.</p> - -<p>That, also contrary to the precedents, the nomination was made, not, -as usual, by open vote, but by secret ballot and without debate, on -the demand of the Payne managers and contrary to the protests of the -opponents, so that it could not be known to the public who the Payne -men were.</p> - -<p>That this knowledge was made sure to the Payne managers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> who were -to pay for the votes, by the ingenious device of requiring each -purchased legislator to use a coupon ballot furnished by them, the -corresponding stub of which they kept. These legislators were not paid -for their votes unless the torn edges of the coupon ballot voted by -them corresponded with the edge of the stub in the possession of the -managers.</p> - -<p>That responsible men would testify that they had received confessions -from members of the Legislature that they had been bribed with money to -vote for Mr. Payne.</p> - -<p>That two members of the Legislature who had been elected as -anti-monopolists became supporters of Mr. Payne, and were heard -discussing together the amount of money they had received, and -quarrelling because one had received more than the other.</p> - -<p>That a member of the Legislature which was corrupted, standing on the -floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, pointed out members who -had been purchased to vote for Payne, saying: "These members were paid -to vote in the senatorial fight," holding a little book in his hand in -which he had the names and amounts; but although he made the charges -openly and defiantly, and although the same charges were made in -Republican and Democratic papers, no investigation was ordered. Three -attempts to have an investigation made by the Legislature in which the -bribery occurred failed.</p> - -<p>That a correspondent of a leading Cincinnati daily, sitting on the -floor of the House, daily charged that the election was procured by -bribery, talked about it generally, and dared the House to investigate -or the accused to sue for libel, and that no such step was taken by -either.</p> - -<p>That a memorandum of the names of the legislators who sold themselves, -and the amounts they received, had been furnished from a responsible -source.</p> - -<p>That on the eve of the election money was sent by draft to twenty-four -of the Democratic candidates for the Legislature, with the promise -of more the next day, and with the statement that thanks for both -remittances were due to one of the prominent members of the oil trust, -who was named, and two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> others of Payne's managers, "they paying most -of it themselves."</p> - -<p>That before the election of the Legislature one of the Payne managers -sent large sums of money amounting to $10,000, or $12,000, perhaps -$13,500—the treasurer of the oil trust "and other wealthy Democrats -contributed it— ... into different parts of the State."</p> - -<p>That the managers of the election absented themselves from the State -during the legislative investigation, and remained out of reach until -it closed.</p> - -<p>That during the two and a half years which had passed since these -specific charges of bribery had been put into circulation, there had -been no demand for investigation on the part of those whose reputation -and honor were concerned, but there had been a manifest effort to -prevent investigation.</p> - -<p>That in addition to these offers of evidence the case against Mr. Payne -would be greatly strengthened by new and additional testimony from -responsible sources.</p> - -<p>Testimony was taken by the Legislature that an ex-Lieutenant-Governor -of Ohio, afterwards Consul-General of the United States at Frankfort, -Germany, had been in the room of Payne's manager, had seen that he was -using money to procure the election, and had so told Mr. Payne before -the election, and that Mr. Payne's reply—"You don't suppose I would -endorse anything of that kind, do you?"—showed that he had understood -the use of money referred to to be an improper use, thereby fastening -upon Mr. Payne, if true, the knowledge that his agents were corrupting -the Legislature.</p> - -<p>During this deluge of charges Mr. Payne made no denial.</p> - -<p>After the investigation had been ordered by the State Legislature, -Senator Payne made an offer to the committee to submit all his private -papers and books of accounts to their examination—an empty offer, -because it was not charged that the corruption had been done by him, -but for him by others. These latter made no such offer, but fled from -the jurisdiction of the Legislature. When the representatives of the -people of Ohio appeared before the committee of the United<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> States -Senate on elections, with the offer to prove under oath the foregoing -charges, he remained voiceless. He did not rise in his place in the -Senate to deny these accusations, as every other senator since the -Senate began had done. He did not go before the committee, nor send -before them any witness, or make any explanation. When the Senate -committee decided to recommend the Senate not to investigate, and the -representatives of Ohio begged the committee to reconsider, Senator -Sherman declared that he heartily agreed with every word of the appeal, -but Senator Payne still kept silent. The records of Congress show that -his sole utterance or appearance in this matter in Congress was to make -the motion that the papers forwarded by the Ohio Legislature should be -sent, as was the routine, to the Committee on Elections. In doing this -he did more than abstain from the utterance of a word which could be -in any way construed as a demand for investigation. He delivered what -was, in effect, an appeal to his fellow-senators not to investigate. He -attacked the Legislature for sending the report of its investigation -to Congress, characterizing "this proceeding—the transmission of -the testimony here—as an attempt to circulate and give currency to -baseless gossip and scandal, after everything substantial in the way of -a charge had been discredited and disproved." In conclusion he left the -matter to the committee "for such disposition of it as they may find to -be in accordance with dignity and justice."</p> - -<p>The Legislature which made the investigation selected as the reason for -ordering it the fact that a well-known citizen had just repeated in -an open letter in the public prints the charges of bribery which had -been made already hundreds of times. When this citizen was called upon -to testify before the Legislature he stated that, as his information -was derived from others, he had no personal proof to offer of his own -knowledge that bribery had been committed. Referring to this, Mr. Payne -said to his colleagues of the Senate:</p> - -<p>"Thus fell all that the investigation was originally based upon."<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p> - -<p>This was not true. The witness furnished the committee with the names -of the men on whose authority he had spoken, and through whom evidence -based on personal knowledge could be procured as to the truth of -the charges.<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> Therefore the statement, "Thus fell all that the -investigation was originally based upon," so far as it was believed by -the senators, deceived them. The State Legislature could not compel -the witnesses to testify. Only the United States Senate could do this, -and it was deterred from doing so by this concealment of the fact that -the investigation, instead of falling because of no basis, had struck -firmer ground. The proffer of evidence was of such a character that, -as has been well said, none of the lawyers of the Senate committee -who voted against recommending investigation "would have failed to -recommend thorough investigation of such an incident if it had been -relevant to an alleged title set up against a private client."<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> -But the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections—Senators Pugh, -Saulsbury, Vance, and Eustis voting against Hoar and Frye—recommended -the Senate not to investigate, and the Senate adopted this report.</p> - -<p>No one had expected this. The unbroken precedents of the Senate had -made it a matter of course in public expectation that the investigation -would be made. A convention of Ohio editors, sending a memorial for -a reconsideration, said: "No instance has yet arisen in the history -of the Senate where specific and well-supported charges of bribery in -a senatorial election, preferred by the Legislature of a State, have -not been promptly investigated by the Senate. In fact, so jealous has -the Senate been of its own integrity and honor that it has heretofore -promptly ordered investigations upon the memorials of citizens, and in -other cases upon the memorial of individual members of a Legislature -charging fraud in senatorial elections." In so doing the Senate, to -adopt the language used by the chairman of the Committee on Elections,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> -Senator Hoar, declared that "it is indifferent to the question -whether its seats are to be in the future the subject of bargain -and sale, or may be presented by a few millionaires as a compliment -to a friend."<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> "This matter never can be quieted," said Senator -Sherman in the debate in the Senate. "There are six or seven men who -are known—I could name them—who, if they were brought before this -Committee on Privileges and Elections, would settle this matter forever -one way or the other in my judgment."</p> - -<p>The Senate decided that such a charge, accompanied by such offers of -proof, did not deserve its attention. The trial of "even a criminal -accusation," said the minority of the committee, "requires only the -oath of the accuser who is justified if he have probable cause." -The minority, Senators Hoar and Frye, further said: "It will not be -questioned that in every one of these cases there is abundant probable -cause which would justify a complaint, and compel a grand-jury or -magistrate to issue process and make an investigation. Is the Senate to -deny to the people of a great State, speaking through their Legislature -and their representative citizens, the only opportunity for a hearing -of this momentous case which can exist under the Constitution? The -question now is not whether the case is proved—it is only whether it -shall be inquired into. That has never yet been done. It cannot be done -until the Senate issues its process. No unwilling witness has ever yet -been compelled to testify; no process has gone out which should cross -State lines. The Senate is now to determine, as the law of the present -case, and as the precedent for all future cases, as to the great crime -of bribery—a crime which poisons the waters of republican liberty -in the fountain—that the circumstances which here appear are not -enough to demand its attention. It will hardly be doubted that cases -of purchase of seats in the Senate will multiply rapidly under the -decision proposed by the majority of the committee."<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p> - -<p>The debate upon the recommendation of the committee not to investigate -was impassioned. Senator Hoar said: "The adoption of this majority -report ... will be the most unfortunate fact in the history of the -Senate." When the vote of the Senate not to investigate was announced, -Senator Edmunds turned to his neighbor in the Senate and summed up the -verdict of posterity in these words: "This is a day of infamy for the -Senate of the United States."</p> - -<p>The same Legislature which sent Senator Payne to the Senate defeated -the bill to allow the Cleveland independent refiners to build a pipe -line to furnish themselves with oil. The defeat of the bill was -accomplished by a lobby whose work was so openly shameless that it -was characterized by the Ohio press "as an indelible disgrace to the -State." The bill was one of many attempts which have been made by -the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania, without success, to get from -their Legislature the right to build pipe lines. It has been tried to -get laws to regulate the charges of the existing lines, but without -success. The history of the pipe-line bills in these legislatures -for the past ten years has been a monotonous record of an unavailing -struggle of a majority of millions to apply legal and constitutional -restraints to a minority of a few dozens. The means employed in the -Ohio Legislature of 1885 to defeat a bill giving equality in pipe-line -transportation to refiners in competition with the oil trust, which -owned the existing pipe-lines, were of such a sort that that body has -gone into the history of the State as the "Coal-oil Legislature." It -is stated by Hudson, in his <i>Railways and the Republic</i>, that the -Democratic agent of the bribery openly threatened to publish the list -he had of the members of the Legislature he had purchased, and that in -consequence of this threat proceedings which had been begun against him -for outraging the House by appearing on the floor in a state of gross -intoxication were abandoned.<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a></p> - -<p>In a debate about combinations in trade and industry—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>trusts—in the -United States Senate in 1888, the sore scandal of this senatorial -election of 1884 was disinterred.</p> - -<p>"If there be such a trust," said Senator Hoar, referring to the -oil trust, "is it represented in the cabinet at this moment? Is it -represented in the Senate? I want to know the facts about these five or -six great trusts which are sufficient in their power to overthrow any -government in Europe, if they existed in those nations, that should set -itself against them—the coal, the sugar, the whiskey, the cotton, the -fruit, the railroad transportation of this country, controlled by these -giant chieftains."</p> - -<p>Senator Payne defended the oil trust and himself. "Even at this date," -he said, "it seems that that company is represented as being guilty of -all sorts of unlawful and improper things. Such allegations without -proof to sustain them I regard as unworthy of an honorable man or an -honorable senator.... The Standard Oil Company," he continued, "is a -very remarkable and wonderful institution. It has accomplished within -the last twenty years, as a commercial enterprise, what no other -company or association of modern times has accomplished." He went on to -declare that he "never had a dollar's interest in the company." But the -charge which he and it would never allow to be investigated was that -the company had a great many dollars' interest in him. "The majority of -the stockholders are very liberal in their philanthropic contributions -to charity and benevolent works," he pleaded; "but it contributed," he -said, "not one dollar or one cent directly or indirectly to my election -to this body." During the demand for investigation he uttered no such -denial to be taken as a challenge.</p> - -<p>The senator made what Senator Hoar properly called a "very remarkable -admission" concerning the part taken in elections by the oil -combination. "When a candidate for the other House in 1871," Senator -Payne said, "no association, no combination in my district did more -to bring about my defeat, and went to so large an expense in money to -accomplish it, as the Standard Oil Company."</p> - -<p>The oil trust, then, does take part in elections, and as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> company -spends larger sums of money than any other "institution, association, -combination ... to accomplish the defeat" of candidates for Congress!</p> - -<p>Then Mr. Payne said: "There never has been a national election at which -those two gentlemen—one of them was my own son—have not contributed -very liberally." He named the two men who were, as Senator Hoar showed, -among the most influential and important managers of his election to -the Senate.</p> - -<p>Senator Hoar closed the debate with these unanswered and unanswerable -words: "A senator who, when the governor of his State, when both -branches of the Legislature of his State, complained to us that a -seat in the United States Senate had been bought; when the other -senator from the State rose and told us that that was the belief of -a very large majority of the people of Ohio, without distinction of -party, failed to rise in his place and ask for the investigation which -would have put an end to those charges, if they had been unfounded, -sheltering himself behind the technicalities which were found by some -gentlemen on both sides of this chamber, that the investigation ought -not to be made, but who could have had it by the slightest request on -his part, and then remained dumb, I think should forever after hold his -peace."<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a></p> - -<p>The election of this senator was meant to be only the prelude to his -nomination and election as President of the United States. This was -publicly and authoritatively declared by the men who were charged with -having spent money to buy the Legislature for him. One of these was -the proprietor of the most influential Democratic daily in Ohio, and -that journal in a leading editorial, double leaded to make it more -prominent, declared this to be the purpose of Payne's friends. The New -York <i>Sun</i> of May 27, 1884, followed, also in double-leaded editorials, -under the caption in staring black type of the name of the Senator, -and said: "Henry B. Payne is looming up grandly in the character of -a possible and not altogether improbable successor to Mr. Tilden as -the Democratic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> candidate for the Presidency. The fact that the Ohio -delegation at Chicago in July is sure to be solid for Payne is of -peculiar importance and significancy. Everybody can see what it may -amount to."</p> - -<p>Concurrently with these formal announcements came the news from all -parts of Ohio that the Payne party were hard at work to control the -election of the delegates who were to represent Ohio in the National -Democratic Convention at Chicago in July. But the managers of this -Presidential campaign found that they had gone too far. The election -for senator had excited so fierce an anger over the whole country that -it had become perfectly plain that Senator Payne was not "available." -The education of the American public was still incomplete. It could see -senatorships bought and endure it, but the Presidency—"not yet."</p> - -<p>The use this senator made of his seat throws light where none is -needed. Again, in 1887, the great question of 1876 of the control of -the highways came up before Congress. The agitation of nearly twenty -years had come to a point. Thirty of the States and Territories of -the Union had established commissions or passed laws to regulate -the railroads. Congress had before it the Interstate Commerce bill -forbidding discriminations, and creating the Interstate Commerce -Commission as a special tribunal to prevent and punish the crime. There -had been investigation, debates, amendments, meetings of conference -committees of both Houses. It was proposed to "recommit" the bill to -prevent its passage for an indefinite time. Mr. Payne voted "Yes." Then -the question before the Senate is, Shall the bill become a law? Senator -Payne's name is called. He votes:</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>It is the same question as in 1876, and the same vote. Against the -investigation, first, and then the legislation, his word is:</p> - -<p>"I object."</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a></p> - -<p class="center">FOR "OLD GLORY" AND AN—APPROPRIATION</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1891 Congress passed the Postal Subsidy law for paying a higher than -the market rate of compensation to capitalists who would carry the -mails in vessels built in America, of American materials, and manned by -Americans. No contracts were made by the Post-office Department under -the law for the mails between Europe and America, for there were no -such capitalists and no such boats in that quarter.</p> - -<p>In May of the next year, 1892, a bill was whizzed through Congress -almost without debate, in which the forms of the principal -beneficiaries-to-be of the law of 1891 loomed into view. The subsidy -law gave its bonus only to vessels that could fly the American -flag because American built and manned. This new act exempted from -these conditions the two principal steamers of the Inman, now -the International, line—the <i>City of New York</i> and the <i>City of -Paris</i>—provided the company built two other steamers that fulfilled -the requirements of the subsidy law. The sequel disclosed that their -owners had a well-laid plan to build more than two other steamers to -get the rich rewards of the subsidy law. The steamers and the company -were not named. That was not needed. The bill was drawn with such -limitations as to size, speed, ownership, etc., that these were the -only two vessels which could come under its provisions. The bill was -introduced in the House by a prominent Democrat, and in the Senate by -a prominent Republican. It was passed by both Houses regardless of -party distinctions. The Secretary of the Navy urged the bill upon the -naval committees of Congress. He had begun to do so in his first report -to Congress and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> subsequent communications, in which he referred by -name to the vessels which were masked in this legislation. The head -of the line and other owners were members of the oil combination. -The president of the steamship company has been the president of the -pipe-line branch of the oil trust—its largest single interest—from -the time of its organization in 1881.<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> This exemption from the -law was engineered through the Senate by one who had hitherto always -been conspicuously strenuous in refusing to abate his opposition to -admitting to American registry any ship not built in America, of -American materials, by American labor, but who now had suffered some -sea change.</p> - -<p>Ordinary citizens who want to get the profits of carrying the American -mails must build their boats in American ship-yards; but the syndicate -got members of Congress to grant them by law that which all others must -earn.</p> - -<p>The enactment of the Postal Subsidy law and the exemption of these -steamers by special law were the first two parts of a progressive -programme. The third step was the negotiation of contracts with the -Postmaster-General for the prizes of subsidy. Immediately upon the -passage of this special legislation the Postmaster-General went through -the necessary but empty parade of advertising for bids for a service -for which there could be only one possible bidder. The awarding of -contracts to the steamship company so "fortunate in competing" was -announced in the press in October, 1892.</p> - -<p>The Postmaster-General dated the contracts 1895—three years ahead. -They run for ten years from that time. An iron-clad, or, better than -iron-clad, law-clad contract was thus secured, giving a complete -monopoly of the mail business between America and Europe until -<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1905, five years into the twentieth century. The -legislation of May contemplated the construction of two new boats. The -contracts secured from the Postmaster-General showed that the line -intended to build five, and obligated the government to pay subsidies -to all of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> them, as well as to the two foreign-built steamers given -by special legislation the right to fly the American flag. By these -contracts the company, after the completion of its new steamers in -about three years, will exclusively carry every bag of mail that leaves -America for Europe. Meanwhile the mails are to be given to its two -steamers now running, the <i>Paris</i> and the <i>New York</i>, whenever they -are in port. This has been frequently done in the past on account of -their speed, but the compensation for this, under the law and the new -contracts, has been made much greater than the price hitherto paid. -With but one or two exceptions the mails on all the routes where -subsidy is given—to South America, Havana, China, Europe—were carried -before the subsidy law on the same ships as now. Except a very trifling -saving in time, the only change the law has made here is that the gains -of the carriers have been swelled at the cost of the taxpayers. The -American shippers carrying the mails at the regular weight rates were -making a profit. The Post-office, under the new deal, gets only what it -has been getting—the carriage of the mails; but the steamship company -gets a great deal more. This is the "pleasure of making it cheap" -applied to the postal service.</p> - -<p>By this procession of moves the company secured profitable contracts -ten years ahead on present ships, the <i>Paris</i> and the <i>New -York</i>—although these had not yet done as much as fly the American -flag in compliance with the special legislation in their behalf—and -on future ships that were not yet built or contracted for. All was in -the future—the American registry for the <i>Paris</i> and the <i>New York</i>, -the building of the new steamers required by the special legislation. -But one thing was got in hand, and was not in the future tense—the -contract with the American Post-office, binding it to pay millions a -year. The privileges conferred by this legislation were so valuable -that, as Senator Frye stated in debate, its recipients to gain them -were to forfeit $105,000 due them from the British Government.</p> - -<p>The American registry would be a capital advertisement to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> catch the -American tourist. Travelling, says Emerson, is a fool's paradise, and -the shifting population of that paradise would never stop to think -out the fraud in the appeal to their patriotism. Much was made in the -sentimental Senate of the privilege the law would give Americans of -going abroad in their own ships under their own flag. The press was -used shrewdly and widely to gain the favor of the public for these -incursions into their Treasury. Pages of advertising, in the dress -of news-matter, were put into prominent journals, telling in glowing -phrases what a great thing Congress, the Postmaster-General, and the -steamship company were doing for the people. The same editorial on -the promised restoration of American maritime supremacy would appear -as original in journals thousands of miles apart. As the panorama of -journalism moved along with its daily shift any observer could see the -methodical and business-like way in which the syndicate "inspired" -the press. Articles about the "great steamship line" appeared on -the same date in the papers of different cities, giving the same -facts in the same order, and nearly the same words, following "copy" -evidently supplied from a common source. One day these chimes all -sing the immeasurable superiority of Southampton over Liverpool as -a port for Americans; another day the unspeakable sagacity of the -Postmaster-General in giving this company the mails is the tune; and -again the ding-dong tells how, but for the syndicate and its subsidy, -the American flag—"Old Glory"—would be seen no more on the seas. The -average citizen who reads "his" paper is no doubt duly impressed.</p> - -<p>"Old Glory on the seas!" cried the excitable metropolitan editors. "The -dear old flag!" "America again Queen of the seas!" "A new era is about -to dawn on our long-neglected commerce!" Our long-absent flag is about -to reappear, but not, as in the old days, as the symbol of a people's -commerce. It signalizes the commerce of syndicates. The democratic idea -of a chance for all has been abandoned for the aristocratic idea of the -favored few. "Poor indeed in spirit must be the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> American," said the -New York <i>Tribune</i>, "who will not hail with satisfaction and pride the -early prospect of the reappearance of the flag in English, French, and -Belgian ports." Poor, fortunately, it was replied, are many Americans -in the spirit which taxes all the people out of an industry in which -they once led the world, and then taxes them to give that same industry -as an exclusive privilege to a syndicate—and such a syndicate!</p> - -<p>There was a rapturous chorus from the press because American materials -and American labor are to be employed in the construction and use of -the new vessels to be built for subsidies. When American labor was free -to employ itself and American materials with no subsidies, American -boats did absolutely the whole packet business between England and -America.<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a></p> - -<p>Now American seamanship must remain content to be employed to such -an extent and on such terms as may suit the interests of a few men, -under whose captainship the once glorious expansion of our commerce -on the seas is replaced by a system limited on every side. Limited by -the expensiveness of entering the occupation: a special bill has to -be passed through Congress in each case to confer the right to fly -the American flag on ships bought abroad, and for this the merely -legitimate expenses are heavy—trips to Washington, appearances before -committees and departments, with expert representatives. Limited by -their small number: instead of thousands building and running new -ships, a score. Limited by their capital: great, it is still much less -than the aggregate, if all had a chance. Limited by the narrowness of -view and enterprise inevitable with a few, however capable: everybody -knows more than anybody. Limited by the lack of diversity in opinion -and interests: with many men of many minds, of varying forecasts and -moods and gaits, the currents of industry are kept fuller and steadier -than is possible under a clique rule. Limited by selfishness: the -few will inevitably come to regard the ocean-carrying business as -"belonging to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> us," like oil, and with their crushing wealth will treat -as "black-mailers" intruders with new ships and new methods. Limited by -the impossibility the subsidy system imposes upon the average citizen -of competing against the government—against himself multiplied by -all his fellow-citizens. Limited by corruption: when this subsidy -bill was under discussion, Representative Blount, of Georgia,<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> -called attention to the methods by which previous legislation of the -same sort, "to build up the American merchant marine and increase the -commerce of the country," had been sought from Congress. Quoting from -the report made to Congress in 1874-75 by Representative Kasson, of -Iowa, he showed that the Pacific Mail Company, to get a subsidy, had -disbursed $703,000 among the members and officers of Congress and other -persons influential in legislation. "Yankee maritime enterprise," this -is called. The great captains, Bursley, Anthony, Delano, Dumaresq, -Comstock, Eldridge, Nye, Marshall, Holdredge, Morgan, and other sturdy -Americans who led the nautical world wherever speed, safety, and -courage were called for, outsailing competition even from the land -where "Blake and mighty Nelson fell"<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a>—they had a manlier idea -of enterprise than being supported at the public expense in floating -poor-houses miscalled floating hotels.</p> - -<p>The few men who are the beneficiaries of taxes paid by the many will -be powerful and shrewd enough to get other dispensations or benefits, -post-office contracts, naval contracts, or modifications of the strict -terms of their agreement, and with this help from the taxpayer they can -do business at a figure which, though very remunerative to themselves, -will drive the unaided citizen competitor out of the business. Honest -citizens cannot ask for such favors. Poor men could not get them.</p> - -<p>It was the old spirit of rebate which sought and gave the preference. -Nothing could make such legislation respectable but the extension of -its benefits to all Americans owning such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> ships. But no such extension -was contemplated. The law gave a privilege not to the American flag, -but to the owners of the American flags of these two steamers. "There -is little probability," Senator Frye was reported as saying, December -22, 1892, in the New York <i>Tribune</i>, friendly to him and to the policy -of subsidy, "of the passage of any more laws giving the privilege of -an American registry to vessels upon the building of which no American -labor has been expended. The twin steamers <i>City of New York</i> and <i>City -of Paris</i> have set a fashion of which they will be the only exponents."</p> - -<p>There is a pool of the steamers between America and Europe called the -North Atlantic Steamship Association. At its meeting in December, -1892, this association discussed plans for reducing the number of -trips, increasing passenger rates, withdrawing excursion rates to -the World's Fair, and discontinuing the steerage traffic. This was -duly followed by the announcement in March, 1893, for which it was -presumably a preparation, that steerage traffic was renewed, but at -an increase of rates. Passenger rates of the higher class have also -been raised. Agreements to restrict the number of ships; pools to put -up rates; steamship wars to destroy competitors; the use of "pull" -to procure from the admiralty, sanitary, naval, immigration, and -other governmental bureaus, here and abroad, regulations ostensibly -for public convenience, really to make business, as nearly as can -be, impossible for others; lobbies to buy legislation for private -interests—all these may be expected to replace the magnificent and -manly rivalries of the days when the unbribed flag floated on its own -breath in every sea.</p> - -<p>Under the policy of subsidy—the policy of aristocracy, exclusion, -scarcity, corruption, war, and loss of liberty—the contest for -maritime and commercial supremacy becomes a contest between the subsidy -lobbies in Washington and at Westminster, Paris, and Berlin. If the -duke who is at the head of one of the great English steamship lines -obtains an increase of subsidy, the maritime dukes in America will -call on Congress not to shame itself by doing less for Americans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> than -Parliament has done for Englishmen. If all the English and American -lines pass under one ducal yoke—following the internationalization -of other syndicated businesses of Great Britain and America—one -hidden hand will manage for one purse the make-believe duel between -Parliament and Congress, while the uninitiated people glare across the -ocean at each other, and each inspired press calls on its government -not to allow its commercial supremacy to be destroyed by vulgar and -unpatriotic economy. In advocacy of subsidy—breeder of sea-dogs, -naval contractors, of war, and of treasury-suckled syndicates to fan -its flames—the Secretary of the Navy wrote to the Chairman of the -Senate Committee on Commerce in this case, "A fleet of such cruisers -would sweep an enemy's commerce from the ocean." All through the press, -from New York to Texas and the Pacific coast, every possible change of -phrase is rung to fire the American heart with "jingo" exhortations to -subsidize private steamers so as to increase our fighting kennel.</p> - -<p>The "American idea" is that individuals as well as corporations, poor -men as well as rich ones, small towns as well as large ones, one -maritime State as well as another, should be encouraged to follow the -sea. The old woman who thanked God, upon her first sight of the sea, -that at last she had seen something there was enough of, lived before -subsidies were invented and the sea shrank to be too small for all the -people.</p> - -<p>The contracts made with the International Company bind the -government to pay it $4.00 a mile for fifty-two trips a year (3162 -miles each) between New York and Southampton for the ten years -(1895-1905)—$657,696 a year, and $6,576,960 for the ten years; and the -same rate a mile for the same number of trips a year (of 3350 miles -each) between New York and Antwerp for ten years—$696,800 a year, and -$6,968,000 for the ten years. This makes an income from the mails alone -of $1,354,496 a year on the not-to-exceed $10,000,000 which the company -will have invested. At the end of the ten years it will have received -from these government contracts alone its whole investment, and more -than one-third<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> in addition. The American taxpayer will receive for his -share the profit and pleasure of being forbidden to send his letters -to Europe by faster and cheaper boats, when these appear, as they have -already begun to do. The trial trips of new steamers of other lines -show them to be faster than the vessels we have bound ourselves to. -"The American principle" used to be to send all mails by the fastest -ships. Now, to develop the "American merchant marine," we relieve it -from all necessity of competing in speed, or anything else, with the -foreign marine.</p> - -<p>With such legislation and contracts in hand, any syndicate could -go to the banks and borrow at the lowest rates every cent of the -millions it needed to carry out its plans. It need not invest a dollar -of its own. Good enough "collateral" for borrowing would be this -privilege—practically a capital of millions got from the government -for nothing. Done for favored citizens, this is "the development of our -national resources"; done for the whole people, it would be "socialism" -or something more dreadful. Thus guaranteed dividends by the forced -contributions of the American people, this company, if threatened with -competition by other lines, old or new, can lower freights and fares -to rates at which others cannot live. The subsidies are a reserve fund -on which it can subsist while doing other business below cost. The -vision of this will deter other capitalists from building vessels, as -they have been frightened out of building tank-cars. The company can, -by a war of rates, force the sale to it of such vessels as it wants -out of the present Atlantic fleet. The scheme, which has progressed -so smoothly through the various stages of the Postal Subsidy law—the -exemption by special legislation of the two steamers from their -foreign disabilities, the negotiation of the contracts for subsidies -until <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1905 for steamers yet unborn—is an entering -wedge, the broad end of which may easily grow to be a monopoly of the -transatlantic—and why not transpacific?—traffic and travel.</p> - -<p>And in future legislation, tariffs, and contracts, what bulwark -of the people would avail against the Washington lobby<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> of these -combined syndicates of oil, natural gas, illuminating gas, coal, -lead, linseed-oil, railroads, street-railroads, banks, ocean and -lake steamships and whalebacks, iron and copper mines, steel mills, -etc.? These beggars on horseback—the poor we will always have with -us as long as we give such alms—are forever at the elbows of the -secretaries, representatives, senators. The people who pay are at work -in their fields, out of sight, scattered over thousands of miles.</p> - -<p>Having evaded, by the complaisance of Congress, the requirements of -the subsidy law in the case of its two non-American steamers, the -company sought to be relieved by the Secretary of the Treasury from the -necessity of manning its boats with Americans, as stipulated by the -law. It was unwilling to sacrifice the foreign captains in its employ, -as the despatches said, "for the untried men of American citizenship," -regardless that one of the strongest promises of the subsidy givers -and takers was to recall to the sea the American citizenship banished -thence. The company had already driven its foreign-built boats through -the law, why not its foreign captains? It applied to the Treasury -Department for permission to retain them. To furnish a ground for such -a ruling, the foreign captains had given notice of their "intention" -to become citizens. They could not become citizens for five years, and -the courts hold that such a declaration does not meet the requirements -of the law that the officers of United States vessels shall be citizens -of the United States. The ruling asked for was refused by Assistant -Secretary of the Treasury Nettleton. The question was not dropped. -Some months later (December 2, 1892) the Washington despatches of -the Philadelphia <i>Ledger</i> and the New York <i>Herald</i> reported that -"Secretary Foster of the Treasury is disposed to accede to the wishes -of the company, if it can possibly be done within the law," and in the -New York <i>Tribune</i> we read that "he is inclined to the view that an -exception might safely be made in this case."</p> - -<p>The raising of the American flag on these steamers—one at New York -and the other at Southampton—in the spring of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> 1893, was made a state -ceremony in both countries. The President of the United States came on -specially from the capital to honor the occasion, though this had never -been done before when the American flag was raised on vessels admitted -to foreign registry. The American minister left the embassy at London -to officiate at Southampton. The vessels were announced to be under -American captains transferred from other ships owned by the same men. -But the Society of American Marine Engineers and the Brotherhood of -Steamboat Pilots discovered that other officers—the foreign engineers -of the vessels—had been retained, though they were foreigners. The -former began an agitation for the protection of their legal rights. -Remonstrances from every important branch of the two societies from San -Francisco to New York were forwarded to the President of the United -States and the Secretary of the Treasury of the new administration -which had just gone into office. Counsel were employed to present -their case. It was found that one of the last official acts of the -out-going Secretary of the Treasury had been the order authorizing the -issue of licenses to foreign engineers. Attempts to procure a copy -of this order from the department have failed. Engineers have always -been considered to be officers. If they are such, this exemption was -a violation of the statutes of the United States which require that -officers shall be American. It reversed all the decisions which hold -that declaration of an intention to become a citizen does not make one -legally a citizen, for that would give foreigners, as in this case, the -advantages of citizenship without its duties; and indefinitely, for the -intention might never be executed. The order of the Secretary makes a -precedent upon which foreign captains may be employed—the objection -being the same in either case—and their reappearance may therefore -be confidently looked for. The appropriation once got, "Old Glory" is -hauled down.</p> - -<p>An "American Seaman" wrote the New York <i>World</i> that when he offered -himself for employment on the boat which had just replaced with so much -pomp the British flag with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> the American he was almost laughed at, and -was told there had been ninety men on board that morning on the same -errand. All got the same answer, "We don't want you. We employ all -our hands on the other side." The articles circulated throughout the -country to create public opinion in favor of these subsidies dwell much -on the "glory" and advantage of having Americans in command of these -vessels with a full American force under them. But the subsidy secured, -we see these American vessels, which may be called upon to take part in -a war with Great Britain, are manned by British engineers and British -seamen. The lower compensation they are accustomed to will help keep -down the cost of manning the other vessels to be built for the line.</p> - -<p>The secretary by whom this was done was he who, as president of a -subordinate corporation of the oil combination, had been the commanding -officer at the front in the great battle with Toledo.<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> When he -was nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Payne made -himself conspicuous by soliciting support among the Democrats for the -confirmation of this Republican. "He could not be chosen to the Toledo -Council from any ward to-day," said the New York <i>Times</i>, February -23, 1891, "so bitter is the feeling against him," and the same paper -declared that his defeat in Ohio as a candidate for Congress in 1890 -was entirely due to his connection with the oil combination. But though -of so little political power that he could not command a majority of -the votes in his own Congressional district, there was influence behind -him which could get the head of his party and the government to put -him in the seat illustrious with the memory of such men as Alexander -Hamilton and Salmon P. Chase. "The objection to Governor Foster as -Secretary of the Treasury, that he was an associate in business of the -members of the great oil trust," said the New York <i>Press</i>, "President -Harrison did not regard as serious enough to have any weight." It -was pointed out by the Buffalo <i>Courier</i> editorially, Febru<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>ary 23, -1891, and other papers, that the oil trust, which Mr. Foster had been -serving, "is not only a heavy exporter but a heavy importer, especially -of tin plate, and is an extensive claimant for rebates of duty on the -tin of cans in which oil is exported."</p> - -<p>An item of Associated Press news in December, 1892, says that the -Secretary of the Treasury has just decided that the oil combination -shall be paid by the Treasury a drawback of the duties it has paid on -imported steel hoops for barrels in which it exports oil. "It isn't -pleasant," said the New York <i>World</i>, editorially, February 23, 1891, -"to have a Secretary of the Treasury who holds intimate relations -with the oil trust." It is through the Secretary of the Treasury -that the company receives the mail subsidies of millions a year. All -the statistics and official publications with regard to the "decline -of American shipping" and "foreign competition with American oil," -and about the tariff, as on oil, coal, steel, tin, etc., and many -other financial and commercial matters of pecuniary concern to them, -are under the charge of the Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury -Department's Commissioner of Navigation, in 1892, sends circulars to -the boards of trade and chambers of commerce all over the country, -calling attention to the small amount of money paid by our government -to American steamers for the mails, and advocating the establishment of -a merchant marine and naval reserve on the principle adopted by Great -Britain—<i>i.e.</i>, the payment of subsidies.</p> - -<p>When Senator Hoar, speaking of the oil combination in the debate on -the Payne case,<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> asked, sharply: "Is it represented in the Cabinet -at this moment?" he referred to the Secretary of the Navy. Subsidy had -not then insinuated itself into the policy of the government; but when -that came, the uses of a Secretary of the Navy were clear enough. It -was by the influence of the Secretary of the Navy that the subsidies -for these steamships of the oil trust were got through Congress.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> It -is the Secretary of the Navy who passes upon the speed of the ships -receiving subsidies; and his findings are binding upon the Post-office -Department which awards the contracts and upon the Treasury Department -which pays. In the rush of the closing hours of the session of 1889-90 -of the Fifty-first Congress, upon the urgent recommendation, made in -person to the Naval Committee, of the same Secretary of the Navy who -had pushed through the subsidy special legislation we have described, -$1,000,000 was appropriated for the purchase of nickel ore. It is an -emergency, said the senator who spoke for the Naval Committee to the -Senate. The nickel was to be bought by the Secretary of the Navy; when -and where was at his discretion. The ore was to be used for alloying -steel in the manufacture of armor plate. The same Congress took off the -duty of hundreds of dollars a ton on nickel imported. The only nickel -mine of importance in America was then at Sudbury, Canada. In pressing -the appropriation through Congress it was stated that the mine, like -the steamship company subsidized later, was owned by "our citizens." -After investigation in Cleveland, New York, Washington, and Canada, the -<i>Daily News</i> of Chicago declared that the appropriation of $1,000,000 -and the abolition of the duty were done in the interest of members of -the oil combination; that they were "our citizens" who were the owners -of the nickel mine at Sudbury; that they had sent an able lobbyist to -Washington to secure the legislation; and that, in anticipation of his -success, the product of the mine had been withheld for a year from -the market, until ore to the value of millions had accumulated. It -was said that by April 1, 1890, there were 5000 tons on the dump, the -duty on which, at the old rate, would have been $1,500,000. Whether -these statements were correct or not—and in the absence of official -investigation it is impossible to tell—the narrative answers fully -the purpose of giving the uninitiated public an idea of the relations -that may exist between public departments and private syndicates with -great profit—but not to the department. The appropriation was passed -September 29, 1890. The books of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> the Navy Department show that the -Secretary thereupon made contracts with the Canadian Copper Company, by -which, up to June 15th following, it sold the government $321,321.86 -worth of nickel. A litigation arising among its stockholders in the -spring of 1893 disclosed among them no less close a connection of the -oil trust than the senator from Ohio who had served it in Congress from -1876 to 1891.</p> - -<p>The message of a Republican President in 1892 commended the special -legislation in favor of the two steamers, and urged Congress not to -fail to appropriate money to pay them their subsidies. The Democratic -Postmaster-General, who now stands between the United States and these -carriers of the foreign mails, is one of the firm of distinguished -counsel who defended the interests of some of the owners of this -steamship line in the conspiracy trial at Buffalo.<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> He is to -give them the vouchers upon which the millions a year of subsidies -are to be paid, and he may be called upon to consider new contracts. -In the Presidential campaign of 1892 the head of the oil trust was -prominent on one side figuring among the officers of great political -mass-meetings in New York, while the associate referred to by Senator -Hoar was the active manager of the political fortunes of the other -party. This is not a solitary instance. The great man who testified -twenty-one years ago that he was a Republican in Republican districts, -a Democrat in Democratic districts, but everywhere an Erie man, has now -an army of imitators. The people had this authoritatively explained to -them while they were dazedly watching the speculation in sugar-trust -stock in Wall Street and the Senate rise and fall with the manipulation -of the sugar tariff in committee. The president of the sugar-trust, -before a special committee of the United States Senate, testified -that this "politics of business" was the custom of "every individual -and corporation and firm, trust, or whatever you call it."<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> Asked -if he contributed to the State campaign funds, he said: "We always -do that.... In the State of New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> York, where the Democratic majority -is between 40,000 and 50,000, we throw it their way. In the State of -Massachusetts, where the Republican party is doubtful, they probably -have the call.... Wherever there is a dominant party, wherever the -majority is very large, that is the party that gets the contribution, -because that is the party which controls the local matters"—which -include the elections to Congress and the Presidential election.<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> -Federal judges find the sugar trust not subject to the anti-trust -law.<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a> The Attorney-General has not got decisions in the suits -against it for refusal to answer Census questions. Congress forces -the people to buy sugar of it only, and at its price. The Secretary -of the Treasury drafts for a committee of Congress a tariff like that -the trust needs. Our President is the head of the "dominant party that -gets the contribution," and he joins the sugar lobby by recommending, -unofficially, legislation in its favor.<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a></p> - -<p>By what law gives it, and by what law does not take from it, the sugar -trust can issue $85,000,000 of securities on $10,000,000 of property, -and collect $28,000,000<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> a year of profits. Control of government, -with its Presidents, Congress, Federal Judges, Attorney-Generals, -and Cabinet Secretaries, would be a great prize. Probably none of -the trust's "raw material" would be so cheaply bought as this if it -could be purchased by campaign contributions of a few hundred thousand -dollars. In an interview in the New York <i>Herald</i> of March 25, 1894, -the debonair president of the trust, to shame the objections of -picayune souls, cries, "Who cares for a quarter of a cent a pound?" The -answer is not far to seek. He does.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a></p> - -<p class="center">"THE COMMODITY IS NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE"<br /> - - -<span style="margin-left: 45%;">—<i>Lord Coke.</i></span> -</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Three</span> hundred years ago Lord Coke, in the "Case of the -Monopolies,"<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> declared these to be the inevitable result of -monopoly: the price of the commodity will be raised; the commodity is -not so good as before; it tends to the impoverishment of artisans, -artificers, and others.</p> - -<p>In 1878 and 1879, when railway presidents were saying "No" to every -application of the few remaining independents for passage along the -road to market,<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> and the oil combination was supreme from the -well to the lamp, a concerted protest was made against its oil by -commercial bodies representing trade all over Europe. An international -congress was held specially to consider means for the protection of the -European consumer, by the interposition of the governments of Europe -and America, or by commercial measures. In the archives of the State -Department at Washington are the documents in which this episode can be -read.<a name="FNanchor_589_589" id="FNanchor_589_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a> At this moment of triumph over all rivals, "even what was -classed as superior brands was a poor article."<a name="FNanchor_590_590" id="FNanchor_590_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> The English trade -met in London, in January, 1879, and remonstrated. One of the delegates -stated that a small dealer who bought of him had written, threatening -to commit suicide on account of the trouble this poor oil was giving -him.<a name="FNanchor_591_591" id="FNanchor_591_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a> The American consul at Antwerp, under date of February 19, -1879, called the attention of the State Department to the congress -about to be held to consider the serious complaints which had been made -of late<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> against American refined petroleums. He gave the warning that -unless there was an improvement the Belgian government would interfere -for the protection of the people with regulations which would greatly -embarrass the export trade from America. A bill was introduced into the -German Reichstag to protect the people of Germany against the flood of -bad oil from America. Against those dealing in oil dangerous to human -safety it provided penalties from fines to loss of citizenship and -penal servitude.</p> - -<p>At the congress which met at Bremen in February were represented all -the European nations of any importance except France, which imports -only crude, and does all its refining at home. It was an indignation -meeting. The consul at Bremen wrote the State Department, under date -of February 27, 1879, an account of it. It was "very important," -he said. "Delegates were present from the chambers of commerce of -Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Breslau, Christiania, Copenhagen, Danzig, -Frankfort-on-Main, Hamburg, Königsberg, Lubeck, Mannheim, Nürnberg, -Rostock, Rotterdam, Stettin, Trieste, Moscow, and Vienna."</p> - -<p>The "united refiners," to explain away the faults of their oil, sent -a representative to the congress who was one of the inspectors of the -State of New York, in the pay of the people, but using his official -prestige in behalf of a private interest. The consul at Bremen names -the two chief points made in the defence: First, that the refined oil -was bad because half the crude then produced in America was from the -Bradford field, "and is so different in quality from the so-called -Parker oil that the same quality of refined oil cannot be made—at -any rate, by the ordinary processes hitherto in use." Second, that -the wicks in common use were poor. That the inferior quality of the -Bradford oil was not the real reason was proved by the fact that -the refined oil manufactured and exported by the refineries of the -combination from the crude of the other fields deteriorated at the same -time and as much.<a name="FNanchor_592_592" id="FNanchor_592_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a> The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> Bremen congress knew this. It was at this -precise moment—though this the Bremen congress did not know—that the -combination was tying up a great inventor and hauling his apparatus to -the junk-yard to prevent the test of a new method for making better -and cheaper oil.<a name="FNanchor_593_593" id="FNanchor_593_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a> Its members would have had the benefit of it if -successful, but with the spirit which men who seek exclusive control -always exhibit, they did not want to change.</p> - -<p>The congress declined to treat with any respect the excuses that were -offered. It declared "that the complaints regarding the inferior -quality of much of the petroleum recently received from America, and -especially of the different brands of the" oil combination, were "fully -justified." It consequently demanded from the American refiners, and -especially from the oil combination, "First, that they give greater -care to the refining of crude oil than they have recently done, in -order that the petroleum may in the future be again as free as it -formerly was from acids and heavy oils, that inferior qualities may no -longer be shipped to Europe, and that the consumer may again receive -the former customary good quality."</p> - -<p>The superiority of its barrels was specially mentioned by the head -of the oil combination to explain why all competitors failed. "All -its advantages," he said in court in Cleveland, "are legitimate -business advantages, due to the very large volume of supplies which -it purchases, its long continuance in the business, the experience it -has thereby acquired, the knowledge of all the avenues of trade, the -skill of experienced employés, the possession and use of all the latest -and most valuable mechanical improvements, appliances, and processes -for the distillation of crude oil, and in the manufacture of its own -barrels, glue, etc., by reason of which it is enabled to put the oil on -the market at a cost of manufacture much less than by others not having -equal advantages." But the Bremen congress made a special attack on the -"barrels" and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> "glue." It complained that "the continental petroleum -trade has suffered heavy losses on account of inferior barrels," -and demanded that the oil combination should "only use barrels of -well-seasoned, air-dried, split (not sawed) white oak staves and -heads." It even particularized that the barrels should be "painted with -blue linseed-oil paint, and supplied with double, strong head-hoops," -and "more carefully glued, and not filled until the glue is thoroughly -dry."</p> - -<p>"They were substantially without competition," was said in explanation -of the poor quality of the product sent to Europe, and also "to all -parts of this country. The quality of the oil which they sent was not -a matter of first-class importance for them to retain their business." -It was "a negligence which came in a great measure from the absence of -competition." This witness was asked by the lawyer of the combination -if he meant the committee to understand that it "was committing suicide -by furnishing a continuously deteriorating article of oil to the -consumer."</p> - -<p>"They were not committing suicide, because they had the business in -their own hands almost exclusively at that time."<a name="FNanchor_594_594" id="FNanchor_594_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a></p> - -<p>This was in 1879, and the complaints of the quality of American oil -sent abroad continue to this day. Export oil, the Interstate Commerce -Commission say, in 1892, "is an inferior oil."<a name="FNanchor_595_595" id="FNanchor_595_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a></p> - -<p>One of the means by which a market was found for American oil in -Scotland was the lowering of the British requirements in 1879 as to -quality, from a flash-test of 100° to one of 73°, so that the more -explosive American oil, until then debarred, could be legally sold -to the people of Great Britain. The oil made in Scotland was "a very -superior article—very good indeed."<a name="FNanchor_596_596" id="FNanchor_596_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a> There were two ways of -getting the market: to meet the Scotch manufacturer with as good an -oil, or to induce the government to permit the sale of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> something -inferior. The latter policy was adopted. The government was induced -to permit the sale to private consumers of oil that would give off -an inflammable gas at a temperature of 73°—a lower temperature than -often exists in living-rooms. Meanwhile the government continued to -insist upon oil that would stand a test of 105° for its own use in the -navy and 145° in its light-houses. The absurdity of this legal test -was proved by Mr. T. Graham Young, son of Mr. James Young, founder of -the Scotch oil industry, in a letter to the Glasgow <i>Herald</i> of May -12, 1894. He showed by the records that the year before there had been -sixty days in London in which the temperature had gone above 73°. The -government, that is, gave its sanction to the sale of oil which might -explode at a heat below that ordinarily reached in an English summer! -Commenting on the strange fact that the Scotch oil companies did not -move against the change of test which had put them and the British -consumer at the mercy of this explosive American oil, Mr. Young said: -"It is generally understood that they are precluded from doing so by an -agreement with the foreign producers. I hold a letter from one of the -interested parties ... stating that for the above reason he could not -discuss the matter." In discussing this matter, the Glasgow <i>Herald</i> -notes that even patient and poverty-struck India complains of the "very -poor quality" of the oil sent there.</p> - -<p>The Scotch papers are continually printing indignant comments on this -action of the British government, and wondering inquiries as to the -influence by which so injurious a change in the regulations for public -protection could have been effected. The Scotch manufacturers are -continually agitating to have the coroners in England and Ireland, and -the procurators-fiscal in Scotland, make particular inquiry in all -cases of fatal lamp explosions into the flash-point of the oil and its -origin—whether American or Scotch. At the December, 1892, meeting of -the Society of Chemical Industry of Great Britain it was declared that -about three hundred deaths a year occurred in England and Wales from -lamp accidents, due to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> the explosiveness of the American oil sold -under this reduction of the test.</p> - -<p>The agitation against this dangerous oil has been increasing in Great -Britain year by year. The subject has been investigated by the Glasgow -Chamber of Commerce, which found that many serious accidents to life -and property had resulted from the use of this oil, and at its meeting -of May 14, 1894, the chamber voted to petition the government to raise -the test again to 100°. The Manchester and Edinburgh chambers of -commerce took similar action. A number of other bodies have taken the -subject up, and the government has had to promise to make an inquiry.</p> - -<p>The statistics show that last year nearly one in five (19.3 per cent.) -of the fires in London and more than one in eight (13.24 per cent.) -of the fires in Liverpool came from kerosene. The oil used in those -cities is principally the cheap American article sold under the lowered -test of the English law. But in Glasgow, where most of the oil burned -is that of the Scotch manufacturers, who, by agreement, sell no lower -quality than 100° test, the number of fires from kerosene is less than -two in a hundred (1.7 per cent.). At a meeting of representatives of -the leading insurance companies of Edinburgh and Glasgow, June 20, -1894, experiments were made with the American, Russian, and Scotch -oils. The American was found to be the most explosive, and some of -it flashed at 69°. A lighted match thrown into this oil heated to -88° started an instantaneous blaze; thrown into Scotch oil it was -extinguished. Experts testified that the cost of making the oil safe -would be about a farthing a gallon, and that if the Americans, whose -"self-interest" and "private enterprise" are not equal to a voluntary -effort, were compelled by law to furnish a better illuminant, their -profits would be greater, not less.</p> - -<p>A rich field for investigation is concealed beneath the elaborate -system of State inspection, by which the people have sought to protect -themselves from being tempted by deceptive prices to buy a sure death. -We have seen in several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> places how the State inspectors are in the -employ, at the same time, of the State and the seller, whom it is -their duty to watch for the State.<a name="FNanchor_597_597" id="FNanchor_597_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a> Evidence abounds at every turn -of the use of inspectors and inspection laws to embarrass and even -suppress the smaller refiners. One of the latest instances is a new -law in Tennessee, which puts special difficulties in the way of oil -reaching the State by river, the avenue to which independent refiners -are forced by the discriminations of the railroad. We saw an inspector -of the State of New York appear at the Bremen congress as the avowed -representative of the "united refineries," complaints of whose bad oils -occasioned the congress.</p> - -<p>By one of those coincidences in which the world of cause and effect -abounds, the Fire Marshal of Boston, in the same year in which Joshua -Merrill described his fruitless efforts to continue the manufacture of -a first-class oil,<a name="FNanchor_598_598" id="FNanchor_598_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> found it necessary to warn the people against -the dangerous stuff they were burning in their lamps. In his report in -1888 he called attention to the fact that one-tenth, nearly, of all the -fires in Boston the preceding year had been caused by the explosion of -kerosene or by its accidental combustion. He got samples of the oil -used in a number of the places where fires had occurred from explosion, -and had them analyzed by professors of the Institute of Technology in -Boston and of the School of Mines of Columbia College in New York. They -found them to be below the quality required by the State. Singularly -enough, one of the State oil inspectors, examining similar samples, -declared them to be above the standard of the State. The Boston -<i>Herald</i>, discussing the matter, pointed out that the oil inspectors -were paid by the owner of the oil. This, it said, placed inspectors -practically under the oil combination, which has ways, it continued, of -making things unpleasant for inspectors who make reports unsatisfactory -to it. The fire marshal's conclusion in all the cases he investigated -of these fires by explosion was: "I have felt warranted in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> every -instance in attributing the blame to the inferior quality of kerosene -used."<a name="FNanchor_599_599" id="FNanchor_599_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a></p> - -<p>The European protest of 1879 followed close upon the success of the -comprehensive campaign of 1878<a name="FNanchor_600_600" id="FNanchor_600_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a> "to overcome competition." The -warning from the Fire Marshal of Boston in 1888 and the success of the -movement, begun in 1885,<a name="FNanchor_601_601" id="FNanchor_601_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> to shut the independents of Oil City and -Titusville out of Boston and New England came close together. These are -not coincidences merely. They are cause and effect.</p> - -<p>It is known that a practice has grown up among the oil inspectors -of the States of allowing certain refiners to brand their own oil -as they please, or letting it go to market unbranded. This permits -the sale of unbranded and therefore illicit and presumably dangerous -oil. Charges that inspectors in Iowa loaned their stencils to the oil -combination to do its own branding were made formally in writing, in -1890, by one of the deputy inspectors, in the form required by law, -to the governor of the State. The law provides that charges so made -shall be investigated by the governor. No investigation was made, -but the inspector was removed just as he was about to lay before a -grand-jury documentary evidence of this and other violations of the -law. This inspector declared publicly that inspectors were in the -habit of leaving their official stencils with companies in the oil -combination, and allowing them to put any brand they chose on any oil. -He refused to continue this practice, nor would he brand barrels until -they were filled. The representative of the combination in that State -used every device except force, the inspector says, to induce him to -conform to the practice. "Don't you know," this representative said, -"that if you leave us your brand and get into trouble you will have -the oil combination back of you? You will be taken care of." In his -formal complaint to the governor, this inspector declared that this -representative said in substance to him: "You are the only fool among -the inspectors. We have the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> stencils of the inspectors at every other -point where we want them."</p> - -<p>The law put upon the governor the duty to investigate upon receiving -written complaint. But when written complaint was formally made, and -that not by an ordinary citizen, but by one of the sworn officials of -the State, the governor demanded that the inspector back up his charges -with the affidavits of witnesses—that is, the governor demanded that -the inspector, who had no power, should make the investigation. This -put an end to the whole matter. The inspector could not make the -investigation, and the governor would not. The same governor refused -to allow the written charges to be seen, although they are public -documents, and they remained invisible as long as he held office. -Only a few weeks after the removal of this inspector, the State oil -inspector was sued for heavy damages by the owner of a barn which had -been burned down through the explosion of bad oil. The ground of the -suit was that the inspector, having failed to inspect and condemn this -oil, as he should have done, was liable on his bond to the State. The -press of Iowa commented freely on the probable connection between -destructive fires, like this one, and the custom of allowing the oil -ring to inspect itself, by which it was given the opportunity to put -inferior and dangerous oils on the market with the brand of the State -on them as good. As far as the case has been carried, up to date, the -Iowa courts have sustained the claim and held the inspector in damages.</p> - -<p>That which is an uninvestigated charge in Iowa is an officially -ascertained fact in Minnesota. The demonstration in the latter case -amounts practically to confirmation for the former, since the parties -in interest, the motive, and the opportunity are identical. An -investigation was made of the conduct of the State oil inspector by the -Committee on Illuminating Oils of the Minnesota Senate, in 1891. The -committee say in their report, which was adopted by the Senate:</p> - -<p>"The testimony further shows that stencils were left with different -oil companies by the State inspector or his deputy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> by which the -companies caused their barrels containing oil to be branded by their -own employés, without the supervision of any State official. It appears -that after the arrangement for the payment of the inspectors' and -deputies' salaries by the oil companies was made, the attitude of the -inspector towards his duties may be summed up in a few words of his -testimony: 'I am under no obligation to the State of Minnesota. The -Standard Oil Company paid me.'"<a name="FNanchor_602_602" id="FNanchor_602_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a></p> - -<p>The methods covered by the general phrases of the Minnesota Senate -Committee were described in detail by a "commissioner" of the Omaha -<i>Daily Bee</i>, which found the same things being done in Nebraska. The -<i>Bee</i> in 1891 made an elaborate investigation of the manner in which -the oil inspection of Nebraska was executed. Its reporter passed -incognito by the guardians of the portals of the warehouse of companies -belonging to the oil trust in Omaha, and stood by while barrels were -filled with uninspected oil and loaded on the cars for shipment to -various points. That the people who bought the oil might know their -lives were safe, each barrel bore the brand of approval provided by -law, as follows:</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Approved. Flash Test 105°</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">...........................</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;"><i>State Inspector of Nebraska</i>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">By ........................</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 17em;"><i>Deputy</i>.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>But there was no inspector present, and the barrels were all branded -beforehand and while empty, in defiance of the law and public safety. -The reporter stayed until the cars were loaded, the doors closed, -and saw the trains pull out. It is from this warehouse that the -greater part of the barrelled oil consumed in Nebraska is forwarded. -At the warehouse of the same company in Nebraska City the reporter -found the same thing going on, and there, too, he found the official -stencil-plates of several of the State oil inspectors lying at hand -on the tanks, waiting to be used at the pleasure of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> employés of -the company to brand the desired government guarantee on any oil, -regardless of what it was. The Illinois <i>State Journal</i> found the same -practice permitted in Springfield by the oil inspector in February, -1894. The <i>Bee</i> reporter describes how tanks, once branded, came and -went, were filled and emptied and filled again for months, with no -inspection of the oil in them. Often the tanks were not even branded.</p> - -<p>The Omaha <i>Daily Bee</i> of November 24, 1891, gives a careful analysis -of the recently amended inspection law of Nebraska. It shows that in -many important points the law has been changed so as to put the safety -of the people in the power of the combination which supplies almost -all the oil used in the State. The standard required has been lowered. -The liability to a charge of manslaughter for death resulting from bad -oil has been changed to a liability for damages. The method of making -the tests has been changed for the worse. No provision has been made -for the protection of travellers by the inspection of oil used by -the railroads, although accidents and serious ones, from the use of -dangerous oil were frequent in the trains and at stations.<a name="FNanchor_603_603" id="FNanchor_603_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> The -<i>Bee</i> said editorially of the oil combination that it had "managed, by -its shrewdness in enacting this law, to make Nebraska the refuse tank -for its rejected Eastern oil, and at the same time to crowd out of the -State about all opposition." By means of this lowering of the test, oil -that was too poor to pass in Iowa could be sent on to Nebraska and sold -there. The <i>Bee</i> gives instances where this was done.</p> - -<p>The <i>Bee</i> continued its investigations in 1893. It declared, December -5, 1893, that the inspection law, imperfect at best, was "being still -further annulled by the open defiance of the leading oil companies." It -declared "the leading violator" to be one of the principal companies -in the oil combination. In a later issue the <i>Bee</i> printed the result -of tests made for it of oils purchased in the principal towns of -the State. In al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>most every such case these showed that oils which -were below the test were being sold to the people as good under the -guarantee of the State. Some of them were "as safe for household use as -dynamite," the <i>Bee</i> stated. It said editorially, December 15, 1893, -that it had in its possession a letter from the secretary of the Iowa -State Board of Health affirming that oil condemned by the State of Iowa -is shipped to Nebraska. The oil inspector of the State made a vigorous -denial, but the <i>Bee</i> refused to withdraw its statements. Its tests, -it said, had been made by competent chemists. A suit is now pending -in San Francisco, brought by the New Zealand Fire Insurance Company -against the oil combination. It is charged that it sold low-test oil, -that its inflammability caused fire and destruction of a dwelling -insured by the insurance company, which was compelled to pay the loss. -Some power, certainly not originating among the people, has for years, -in States where the inspection laws required a high quality of oil, -been at work procuring a reduction of the test. In some cases this -has been accomplished only after persistent lobbying for years, as in -Michigan. The test in Michigan has been lowered by legislation, as -in Nebraska, and with similar results. The reports of the Michigan -State Board of Health show that as the standard was lowered, fires and -deaths from explosions increased. The Detroit <i>Tribune</i> of December 27, -1891, says that the reduction of the test in Michigan and Nebraska is -due to the avarice of the producers (refiners) and nothing less than -criminal carelessness of the legislators. The dangerous constituents of -petroleum, such as naphtha and gasolene, are indistinguishable by the -eye of the buyer from kerosene. They can be as easily mixed with it as -hot and warm water with cold. These reductions of the test in various -States permit mixtures more hazardous than dynamite to be sold to the -people, lulled into reliance upon the State inspectors. "The advantage -to the oil company," says the Detroit (Michigan) <i>Times</i> of April 30, -1891, "is obvious. Naphtha and gasolene are worth, perhaps, three cents -a gallon. Kerosene is worth three times as much. A test which allows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> -one quart of kerosene and three quarts of gasolene to constitute a -gallon of merchantable illuminating oil will enable a few more colleges -to be endowed, though increasing the death-roll in a notable degree."</p> - -<p>One of the demands of those who are conducting the agitation, noticed -elsewhere, for the admission of American oils free into Canada is -that the standard of Canadian oil inspection be lowered. This, says -the Hamilton (Ontario) <i>Spectator</i>, will open the Canadian market to -the low-test and dangerous oils made by the American combination, and -"restore the old order of lamp explosions, with the consequent loss of -life and property."</p> - -<p>An unwritten chapter of this story is the experience of the Ohio -oil producers, and the use of the inferior oil of the Ohio field to -adulterate oils made from Pennsylvania petroleums.</p> - -<p>Lord Coke's dictum about the decrease of quality never had a more -spectacular illustration than was given at Oil City and Titusville -on Sunday, June 5, 1892. Oil Creek was high with rains. A dam burst -and made the creek a flood. Its waters ate away the insufficient -foundations of tanks, and rivers of naphtha and gasolene and kerosene -overran the river of water for miles. A spark did the rest. Oil -refineries took fire, tanks exploded. There were two raging seas—water -beneath, fire above. Men, women, children, animals, property were -swept along in their intermingled waves. From every overturned tank -and blazing refinery fresh streams of oil flowed into the sea of -flame, which climbed the hills for the victims the other sea could not -reach. Those who escaped drowning breathed in a more dreadful death. -It was a volcano and deluge in one. It was one of the most terrible -catastrophes of our times. Even the scare-heads of the newspapers could -not exaggerate its horrors. The governor of the State made a public -appeal for help. The coroner's jury held an inquest at Oil City upon -fifty-five bodies at one sitting. It declared the cause of the calamity -to have been the gross carelessness of the owners and custodians of a -tank of naphtha, in permitting it, while filled with 15,000 barrels of -naphtha, to stand without proper pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>tection from fire and water. The -tank was shown, by the testimony, to have stood on sand within a few -feet of the creek and without safeguard. It was shown that complaints -had been made to the managers of the refinery, which was one of the -subsidiary companies of the oil trust, about this tank and others -before the disaster, but without avail. The coroner's jury laid the -blame where it belonged—upon the company whose tank gave way. Its -verdict said: "The naphtha which caused this awful destruction of life -and property ... was stored in a tank located on the bank of Oil Creek, -on the Cornplanter Farm, near McClintockville, where it was built about -four years previous to this time. At the time of its construction the -tank was from twenty to thirty feet from ordinary high-water mark in -the creek, but this distance has been gradually reduced by the action -of the water prior to this flood to between six and ten feet, and -this flood further washed away the ground up to and under the tank, a -distance of from fifteen to twenty feet. A part of the tank bottom, -thus being left without support, tore out, allowing the naphtha to -escape into the creek. The evidence of the watchman, James Marsh, -shows that he realized danger from the undermining of the tank, for he -made a feeble effort previous to this flood to protect it by throwing -loose stones between the tank and the creek. The jury find from the -evidence that all persons owning and having in custody this tank and -its contents were guilty of gross carelessness in permitting it, while -filled with naphtha, to stand without proper protection from fire and -water."</p> - -<p>The company which owned this tank belonged to the oil combination. -It was, strange to say, one of the tanks of the Keystone refinery, -to which Matthews, the Buffalo independent, had turned for a supply -of crude oil when all other sources failed,<a name="FNanchor_604_604" id="FNanchor_604_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a> and which had been -thereupon bankrupted and taken into the combination seven years before. -Here was one fruit of that victory over competition. The coroner's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> -jury at Titusville reprobated in the strongest terms the folly of -storing oil in tanks within reach of high-water. It called upon -"citizens and officials, ... for the common good of all," to do what it -said was "entirely practicable: to so locate and guard and construct -oil-tanks and other receptacles of inflammable petroleum products that -they cannot be floated away, or the contents floated out of them by -water," and that "in case of flood and fire lives and private property -cannot be endangered by them." Although here and all over the oil -regions the business was under the control of one combination, and -had been so since early in the seventies, the Titusville jury, less -courageous than that of Oil City, declared that it could "attach no -blame to any one in particular for the present loss of life," because -this "custom of storing and manufacturing oil and its products, -regardless of endangering the lives and property of others, had been -allowed to grow up here as well as all over the oil regions." These -verdicts have been followed by suits now pending in the Pennsylvania -courts, claiming heavy damages from the oil combination as responsible -for the disaster and the loss of life and property.</p> - -<p>The Oil City and Titusville disaster is but a provincial affair -compared with the metropolitan avalanche of ruin which is all ready -to move upon the cities on New York Bay from the refineries and tanks -along its shores. Several condensed oceans of unignited fire are -waiting for such accident as happens almost every day to some gas-works -or refinery or tank-car. On creeks running into the East River, on bays -opening from the New Jersey shore into the greater bay, in tanks whose -contents would overlay the whole sheet of water from the Narrows to -Hell Gate and Spuyten Duyvil, these volcanoes are dozing, and they are -light sleepers.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a></p> - -<p class="center">"TO GET ALL WE CAN"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Are</span> the combinations, trusts, syndicates of modern industry organized -scarcity or organized plenty? Dearness or cheapness? "They are doing -their work cheaper," said one of the oil combination of himself and his -associates, "than any rival organization can afford to do it, and that -is their policy, and by that only will they survive."<a name="FNanchor_605_605" id="FNanchor_605_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a></p> - -<p>"We think our American petroleum is a very cheap light. It is our -pleasure to try to make it so," said its head.<a name="FNanchor_606_606" id="FNanchor_606_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a></p> - -<p>"Our object has always been to reduce rates, and cheapen the product, -and increase its consumption by making the lowest price possible to the -consumer," said another.<a name="FNanchor_607_607" id="FNanchor_607_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a></p> - -<p>Even if this were true— But is it true?</p> - -<p>The then president of the United Pipe Lines of the oil combination, who -was also president of a subordinate corporation, was a witness in 1879 -in the suit brought by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His refinery, -he stated, did nothing but make the oil. "It is taken and sold by -another organization"—the oil combination. "We agree to take the same -prices that they take for their oil. It is kind of pooled—the sale of -the oil." The "agreement," he said, is "simply to hold up the price of -refined oil, ... to get all we can for it ... under some arrangement by -which they keep the price up to make a profit." Not only was the price -fixed under the agreement "to get all we can," but the combination, as -at Cleveland,<a name="FNanchor_608_608" id="FNanchor_608_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a> fixed the amount to be produced. The subordinate -company was allowed to have nothing to do with the business—except to -do the work, and to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> only as much as its superior chose to permit. -Other refiners, in the same investigation, were shown to be sufferers -from the same kind of "grip." Asked what other concerns besides his -of Oil City were in this arrangement, he named the principal ones of -Titusville, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York.</p> - -<p>"These companies were all acting in concert, were they?"</p> - -<p>"So far as sales of refined oil were concerned, I think they were."</p> - -<p>Capitalists are usually supposed to be hard of heart and head, -suspicious, great sticklers for "black and white," and careful to -have all that is due them "nominated in the bond." This arrangement, -by which this witness and his associates put themselves entirely at -the disposal of others—as to how much they should manufacture, what -freight they should pay, what price they should receive, etc.—was not -in writing.</p> - -<p>"It is a verbal one."<a name="FNanchor_609_609" id="FNanchor_609_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a></p> - -<p>The purchase of the refineries at Baltimore by the oil combination -in 1877, under the name of the Baltimore United Oil Company, was -immediately followed by an advance in price. The Baltimore <i>Sun</i>, in -December, 1877, said: "The combination has already begun to exert -its influence on the market. Oil for home consumption was yesterday -quoted at 14 cents, having raised from 11½ cents, the quotation -on Wednesday. The combination will not make contracts ahead, which -might be interpreted to mean an intended advance in price." In Buffalo -the manager of one of the properties of the oil combination said in -evidence: "My son is on a committee, he told me, that regulates the -price of oil."<a name="FNanchor_610_610" id="FNanchor_610_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> While the trust had the trade of Buffalo to itself, -it held the price of oil at a high rate. "In Buffalo there were then no -rival works," said State's Attorney Quinby to the jury who were trying -its representatives for conspiracy against a competing refinery, "and -we were paying for kerosene 18 cents a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> gallon. To-day, with the little -Buffalo company in the market making kerosene, you can get it for 6 -cents a gallon."</p> - -<p>This Buffalo competitor was a very modest affair, insignificant in -capital and resources, but it cut down the price of oil as far away as -Boston. It established there an agent who "went around" and "cut the -prices down," and then the agent of the combination "went around and -cut the prices further," as its Boston employé described it. He was -instructed, he said, "to follow them down, ... only not to sell at a -loss." Before this competitor came he had been selling oil as high as -20 cents a gallon. "We got the price down to 18 cents, and got down -then, I believe, to 8 cents, so that I have been selling them since -then at 8 cents."<a name="FNanchor_611_611" id="FNanchor_611_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a> Eight cents, then, was not at a loss—since -he had been told "not to sell at a loss"—and yet these passionate -pilgrims of cheapness had been making the Boston buyer pay 20 cents! -"I have been selling since at 8 cents," he says. This testimony was -given in 1886; the reduction to 8 cents from 20 was made in 1882. Four -years' consumption of this oil had been given to the buyer in Boston at -8 cents a gallon instead of 20, in consequence of the entrance of so -insignificant a competitor.</p> - -<p>When a member of the trust was testifying before the New York courts, -he referred to the competition of the independent of Marietta as "his -power for evil." Asked to define what he meant by his phrase "power -for evil," he said, "It was to make prices that would be vexatious -and harassing." He was asked if it harassed the oil trust, and the -corporations connected with it, to have prices in any part of the -country lower than they fixed.</p> - -<p>"Lower than a reasonable basis."</p> - -<p>"What they consider a reasonable basis?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."<a name="FNanchor_612_612" id="FNanchor_612_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a></p> - -<p>That we can understand. But we cannot understand what the president of -the trust meant when he said, "We like com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>petition," for that would -imply a natural proclivity for fellowship with the power of evil.</p> - -<p>"Who fixes the price of oil in New York?" was asked of one of the -witnesses before the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. That -was done, he said, by the selling agent of the oil combination. He "has -the price marked in the New York Produce Exchange daily—the price at -which they will sell oil."<a name="FNanchor_613_613" id="FNanchor_613_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a> When the vice-president of the company -representing the trust in St. Louis and the Southwest was on the stand -before the Interstate Commerce Commission, he was asked what was the -price of oil in the territory in which he was operating. The price of -oil in tank-cars, in Arkansas, he said, "is now and has been during -about three years or more—since Mr. Rice commenced shipping by water -to Little Rock—10 cents per gallon. The average price, independent of -competition, which I suppose is what you want, in the State of Texas is -about 13 cents per gallon in bulk, covering the whole State of Texas. -The average price per barrel would be about 17 cents, and the average -price in cases about 20 cents."<a name="FNanchor_614_614" id="FNanchor_614_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a></p> - -<p>"Since Mr. Rice commenced shipping by water to Little Rock;" "the -average price independent of competition in Texas"—these are telltale -phrases. Where the combination was "independent of competition" the -price was one-third greater.</p> - -<p>The committee of Congress which investigated trusts in 1889 gathered -a great deal of sworn evidence—the details of which remained -uncontradicted, and which were met only by general statements like -those quoted at the head of this chapter—showing how extortionate -prices had been charged until competition appeared, that in all cases -a war of extermination had been made upon those competitors, and that -when their business was destroyed prices were put up again. Losses in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> -competitive wars were merely investments from which to draw dividends -in perpetuity. The "cheapness" of the combination followed the -cheapness of competitors, and was merely a feint, one of the approaches -in a siege to overcome the inner citadel of cheapness, a strategic -cheapness to-day on which to build dearness forever. This battle of -prices is shown in a table covering fifty towns in Texas, Mississippi, -Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, for three to five -years. The appearance of competitive oil, for instance, cut the prices -of oil from 15 cents a gallon down to 10 in Paris, Texas; from 25 to -15 in Calvert, Texas; from 22 cents to 10 in Austin, Texas; from 16 to -5 in Little Rock, Arkansas—evidently a war price; from 16 to 8½ -in Huntsville, Alabama; from 16 to 8 in Memphis, Tennessee, and so -on.<a name="FNanchor_615_615" id="FNanchor_615_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> The committee of Congress submit pages of evidence of the -reimposition of high prices the moment competition was killed off. -If the combination found a rival dealer out of oil for only a day it -"popped the prices up 3½ cents."<a name="FNanchor_616_616" id="FNanchor_616_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> "One day," wrote one of the -dealers, "oil is up to 20 cents and over, and when any person attempts -to import here, other than the vassals 'of the oil combination,' it is -put down to 7 cents a gallon."<a name="FNanchor_617_617" id="FNanchor_617_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a></p> - -<p>Prices were frequently put higher after the war than before. In the -debate in the Canadian Parliament last year on the proposal to reduce -the Canadian tariff, supported by a strong lobby from the American -oil trust, it was shown by affidavits that at Selma, Alabama, oil -was reduced during the "war" against outside refiners to 8 from 15 -cents. After "competition was overcome," in the language of the South -Improvement Company contract, the price was put up, not to 15 cents -where it had been, but to 25 cents. In the same debate a large number -of affidavits were exhibited showing how the price charged by the oil -trust in America varied in places near each other in arbitrary and -extraordinary ways, as 7 cents a gallon at Port Huron, Michigan, and -14½ cents at Bay City,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> only a few miles distant. Under the rule of -the trust prices are on a mechanical basis everywhere, from the retail -markets to the seaboard, where the refined, the manufactured article, -is quoted at a lower price than the crude, its raw material.<a name="FNanchor_618_618" id="FNanchor_618_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a></p> - -<p>In the report of the tenth United States census in 1886, on the -necessaries of life, the retail price of kerosene is given for -thirty-five places. At a few of these there was competition; there -the price was 12½ to 15 cents a gallon. At all other points it -ranged from 20 to 25 cents. Such a tax on the 400,000,000 gallons of -oil consumed in this country is the only kind of income-tax that is -"American."</p> - -<p>Application was made in May, 1894, by the Central Labor Union of New -York City to the Attorney-General of the State to vacate the charter of -the principal corporation in the oil trust. In the argument to support -it, it was shown that New York consumers were then paying twice as much -for their lamp-oil as the people of Philadelphia, and three times as -much as the foreign consumer buying in New York for export.</p> - -<p>The trust, notwithstanding its powers of "producing the very best oil -at the lowest possible price," compels dealers to sign away their -rights to buy oil where they can buy it the cheapest or best. When -opposition is encountered from any of the retailers in a town the plan -of campaign of its "war" is very simple. Some one is found who is -willing for hire to sell his oils at a cut price until the rest are -made sick enough to surrender. Then contracts are made with all the -dealers, binding them to buy of no one else, and prices are put up to a -point at which a handsome profit is assured. After this competitors can -find no dealer through whom to sell, and the consumer can get no oil -but that of the monopoly. Price and quality are both thenceforth such -as the combination chooses to make them. There are bargains in oil, -but one party makes both sides of them. "We do not wish to ruin you -without giving you another chance," said an agent of the combination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> -gently to a merchant who persisted in selling opposition oil. "Look at -this map; we have the country divided into districts. If you insist on -war we will cut the prices in your territory to any necessary extent -to destroy you, but we lose nothing. We simply make a corresponding -advance in some other district. You lose everything. We cannot by any -possibility lose anything."</p> - -<p>Only by thus contracting themselves out of their rights could these -"free" merchants get oil with which to supply their customers. "Their -agent," wrote a dealer of Hot Springs, Arkansas, "has made threats to -some of our merchants that they must or shall buy oil from them and -no one else, or if otherwise they would come here and ruin them—by -fair means if they could, by underhand ways if necessary." Another -firm in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, wrote that the agent of the combination -had called upon them and several of the other large dealers to make -a "contract, ... and, failing to do so, in a short time he threatens -opening a retail house," as at Columbus.<a name="FNanchor_619_619" id="FNanchor_619_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> Another wrote, December -13, 1886, from Navasota that the monopoly "will not sell unless you -sign an obligation to buy from them and them only."<a name="FNanchor_620_620" id="FNanchor_620_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a></p> - -<p>This maintenance of prices until some "power for evil" appears with -lower rates, then wars to kill, and raising of prices if the war -ends in victory—these phenomena of cheapness continue to date. Many -chapters could be filled with accounts of these wars of which record -has been kept. To merely name the battle-fields would require pages. -When the combination, through its agents, attacked Toledo in the courts -for undertaking the municipal supply of natural gas, it "urged," as -it is quoted in the language of the decision, "that the main object -and primary purpose of the act is to enable the city to supply its -individual inhabitants with fuel for private use and consumption at -a cheaper rate than they can obtain it from other sources." The act -of the Legislature gave Toledo "a power for evil." At Denver oil was -sold at 25<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> cents a gallon until an independent company began refining -the petroleum which abounds in the Rocky Mountain basin. During the -Colorado war of 1892 all the familiar tactics—cut rates, espionage, -and all—were employed. This continued after the dissolution of the -trust as before, showing that its change of name and form meant no -real change. In Pueblo and Colorado Springs the price was put down -to 5 cents a gallon from 25 cents. In Denver the price was made 7 -cents. Spotters followed the wagons of the independent company to spy -out its customers, and get them, by threats or bribes, to sign away -their right to buy where they could buy cheapest. The comments of the -local press did credit to the inspiriting mountain air of the American -Switzerland. The complaint recently filed with the Interstate Commerce -Commission by a dealer of the Pacific coast charges that, among other -discriminations injurious to the public, the rates between the Pacific -coast and Colorado were so manipulated that the oil found in the Rocky -Mountains and refined in Colorado could not be shipped to California -and the other Pacific states. Consumers there had to buy the oil of the -trust hauled all the way from Cleveland or Chicago. When an independent -refiner ran the blockade into New York, in 1892, and began selling to -the people from tank wagons, the price fell in New York, Brooklyn, -and Jersey City from 8 and 8½ to 4 and 4½ cents. The St. Louis -<i>Chronicle</i> of May 19, 1892, reports a reduction of the price of the -best grade of oil to 5 cents a gallon—"the fortieth reduction," it -says, made since an independent company "entered the field three years -ago, at which time the price was 14½ cents," as it would be still -but for competition.</p> - -<p>War has been made on poor men, paralytics, boys, cripples, widows, -any one who had the "business that belongs to us." An instance taken -from abroad will be the last. The combination between the American and -the Scotch refiners, formed several years ago, fixed the price of the -principal product, scale, at threepence a pound in 1892. The break-up -in that year was followed at once by a decline from threepence to -twopence. This is a saving to the public of $1,000,000 a year.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> "All -the relative products," says the London <i>Economist</i>, November 12, 1892, -"have practically collapsed in value." Candles, for instance, declined -20 cents a dozen, "and the finer qualities were sold at the same rate -as the commoner sorts."</p> - -<p>These are the facts, to fit the phrase of one of the monopoly who -described to Congress how it "bridges it to the consumer at the lowest -reasonable rate." The "bridge to the consumer" spans 1872 to 1894 and -Europe and America, but it is not a bridge of cheapness.<a name="FNanchor_621_621" id="FNanchor_621_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a></p> - -<p>To prove that oil is cheaper than it was is not to prove that it is -cheap.</p> - -<p>Anything begins to be dear the moment the power to fix the price has -been allowed to vest in one. The question whether our monopolies have -made things cheap or dear in the past pales before the exciting query, -What will they do in the future, when their power has become still -greater, or has passed by death, descent, or sale into hands less -shrewd and greedier? Such power never moves backward. Says President -Andrews, of Brown University, in the article quoted below: "When a -commodity is turned out under such conditions, cost no longer regulates -the price. This is done quite arbitrarily for a time, the seller's whim -being perhaps sobered a little by his memory of old competitive rates. -Slowly caprice gives way to law; but it is a new law—that of man's -need. Prices go higher and higher till demand, and hence profit, begins -to fall off; and they then play about the line of what the market will -bear, just as they used to about that of cost. The producer can be more -or less exacting, according to the nature of the product. If it is a -luxury, the new law may not greatly elevate prices above the old notch. -If it is a necessity, he may bleed people to death."</p> - -<p>"At any reasonable price, say three or four times the present selling -price of refined oil, it is the cheapest light in the world, and if -the prices were advanced to 20 cents a gallon the sales would be as -large as they are now at 7½ cents," wrote Vice-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>president Cassatt, -of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to the Pennsylvania Legislature, in 1881, -opposing the Free Pipe Line bill. The possibilities here were touched -upon by the New York committee of 1888: "What the trust's course would -have been if, instead of increased production, it had been required to -deal with the problem of a constantly diminishing or stationary volume -of oil, is an interesting subject for speculation. Certain it is that -the trust has the power to put up prices, even if it fails to exercise -it. If, in the future, the field producing the commodity manufactured -and sold by this combination of corporations shall fail to increase its -present product, or shall return a diminished quantity, the oil trust -will be able to fix the price of the product of its refineries in this -country, if not in the world."<a name="FNanchor_622_622" id="FNanchor_622_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a></p> - -<p>It was not great capital which put this industry in the possession of -these enthusiasts for "all the little economies." The same universal -forces of cheapness which have been at work everywhere have been at -work upon the cost of the instrumentalities of production, and put -machinery, transportation, raw material, and market agencies within -reach of moderate capital. Such great capital is wasteful capital. It -operates through agents at great distances, attenuating incentives -to energy and care. Many practical men, real refiners, who have been -forced to give up their business to refiners of railroad privileges, -have testified to the same effect as the manufacturer who said to -Congress in 1872: "I believe a refinery of 100 barrels can be run -cheaper than the larger establishments."<a name="FNanchor_623_623" id="FNanchor_623_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a></p> - -<p>If production on a natural scale, directed by the eye of the owner, -were not more economical than production mobilized from the metropolis -by salaried men hundreds of miles away, the independent refiners -and producers of Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio would not have -been able to survive at all. It was said in one of the Buffalo -papers by one of these independent refiners: "There are several -well-equipped independent refineries in operation at the present time -in Pennsylvania<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> and Ohio oil-fields where the refiner has his own -crude oil, his own pipe line, and produces his own natural gas for -fuel purposes. It is needless to say that an experienced and skilful -refiner operating under such favorable conditions can manufacture at -less cost per barrel than any trust with a long list of pensioners and -burdened with the control of two political parties and the maintenance -of numerous city mansions, stock farms, and theological seminaries."</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—The claims of the oil combination to the credit -of having cheapened oil have been subjected by competent men to -statistical tests. President Andrews, of Brown University, shows -that from 1861 to 1872, inclusive—<i>i.e.</i>, before any combination -whatever existed—the net annual percentage of decrease in the price -of refining oil and carrying it to tide-water—that is, the difference -between the cost of the petroleum at the wells and of the refined at -New York—was 10-4332/10000 cents; from 1873 to 1881, inclusive, the -trust's infirm and formative period, the decrease was 7-8897/10000 -cents; from 1882 to 1887, inclusive, the years of its full maturity -and vigor, the decrease was only 2-2879/10000 cents.<a name="FNanchor_624_624" id="FNanchor_624_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a></p> - -<p>The New York <i>Daily Commercial Bulletin</i> (April 4, 1892) made a -similar study with similar results. It finds that under competition -in the refining of oil the difference between crude at the wells and -refined oil at New York was reduced from 13.45 cents per gallon in -1872 to 6.02 cents per gallon in 1881; under the reign of the trust -the difference was 5.84 in 1891—greater than in 1882, when the trust -began operations, when it was only 5.77. It concludes: "It has been -claimed that the oil trust has been a benefit to this county; that the -economies which it has introduced in the transportation and refining -of oil have been shared with the consumer, and that the enormous -wealth which it has accumulated during the past ten years has been -widely distributed. Not one of these claims has any substantial basis -in fact."</p> - -<p>The comparisons of cheapness are made on the wholesale price at New -York of "export oil"—an inferior, almost a refuse product. Its price -must meet that made by the Russians. These comparisons, therefore, -really shed no light on the price movements of oil going into -consumption throughout the country. But the trust really gets the -retail price on all its domestic output. A full statistical statement -of the price movement in retail markets cannot be had; nor even of -the wholesale, for the combination has lately adopted a policy of -suppressing the wholesale quotations of the higher grades of oil for -domestic consumption. Comparisons, therefore, built on the export -price of this poor oil at New York, though good as far as they go, are -of oils of a low illuminating power.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> Comparisons that would really -show the part played by the combination as a true merchant—one who -discovers and distributes abundance for all at a fair price for his -service—can only be made by such illustrations as we have been giving -from its utterances, plans, and actions. But for monopoly an average -price of 5 cents a gallon could prevail throughout the United States, -with a saving of hundreds of millions to the people.</p> - -<p>Trust prices are artificial prices, independent of supply and demand, -and in their perfection superior even to panic. This is illustrated by -the comparison below, made by Mr. Byron W. Holt:</p> - - -<p>COMPARATIVE PRICES OF STAPLES DURING THE CURRENT DEPRESSION</p> - - -<table summary="prices" width="80%"> - - -<tr><td></td><td>April 28, 1893</td> <td>July 20, 1894</td> <td align="right">Per cent. of<br />Decline since<br />April 28, 1893</td></tr> - -<tr><td>Wheat, No. 2, red</td> <td>$ 0.76-<sup>3</sup>/<sub>8</sub></td> <td>$ 0.56½</td> <td align="right">26</td></tr> -<tr><td>Corn, No. 2, mixed </td> <td>.50</td> <td>.47½</td> <td align="right">5</td></tr> -<tr><td>Cotton, middling upland</td> <td>.07-<sup>13</sup>/<sub>16</sub></td> <td>.07-<sup>1</sup>/<sub>16</sub></td> <td align="right">10</td></tr> -<tr><td>Wool, Ohio and Pennsylvania, X.</td> <td>.28</td> <td>.18</td> <td align="right">36</td></tr> -<tr><td>Pork, mess, new</td> <td>21.00</td> <td>14.00 @ 14.25</td> <td align="right">33</td></tr> -<tr><td>Butter, creamery</td> <td>.30 @ 33</td> <td>.17</td> <td align="right">45</td></tr> -<tr><td>Sugar, raw, 96°</td> <td>.03-<sup>15</sup>/<sub>16</sub> @ 4</td> <td>.03-<sup>3</sup>/<sub>16</sub></td> <td align="right">18 </td></tr> -<tr><td>Sugar, granulated</td> <td>.05-<sup>1</sup>/<sub>16</sub> </td> <td>.04-<sup>5</sup>/<sub>16</sub></td> <td align="right">15</td></tr> -<tr><td>Petroleum, refined, gal.</td> <td>.0555</td> <td>.0515</td> <td align="right">7</td></tr> -<tr><td>Pig Iron, Bessemer, Chicago</td> <td>14.50 @ 15.00</td> <td>11.25 @ 11.50</td> <td align="right">23</td></tr> -<tr><td>Steel Rails, Chicago</td> <td>30.00 @ 32.00</td> <td>25.00 @ 27.00</td> <td align="right">16</td> </tr> -<tr><td>Steel Beams, Chicago</td> <td>.02</td> <td>.01½</td> <td align="right">25</td> </tr> - - <tr><td></td><td>June 30, 1892</td> <td>June 30, 1894</td> <td align="right">June 30, 1892</td></tr> -<tr><td>Coal, Bituminous, Pittsburg</td> <td>$ 1.07</td> <td>$ 0.86</td> <td align="right">20</td></tr> -<tr><td>Coal, Anthracite, New York</td> <td>4.15</td> <td>4.15</td><td align="right">00</td></tr> -</table> - -<p>The prices of four of these products—granulated sugar, petroleum, -steel rails, and anthracite coal—are controlled by strong -trusts. These prices have declined, since the beginning of the -depression—about May 1, 1893—not quite 10 per cent. Prices of the -other ten products have declined 24 per cent.</p> - -<p>Under free conditions prices of manufactured articles would decline -faster than prices of farm products. Cost of production can be lowered -faster in machine or factory products than in farm products. Under the -influence of trusts the natural order is not only reversed, but prices -of farm products have declined more than twice as fast as prices of -factory or trust products. Trust influence is conspicuous in the cases -of sugar and coal. The price of raw sugar, in which there is no trust, -has declined 5 per cent. since June 30, 1891. The price of granulated -has advanced 4 per cent. The president of the trust admitted to -Congress in 1894 that it had advanced the price 3/8 of a cent a pound. -Cost of refining has declined since 1891. There being no well-defined -trust in bituminous coal, its price has declined 30 per cent. since -1891. The price of anthracite coal has advanced 2 per cent. in the -same time, because the producers have "regulated" production.</p></blockquote> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a></p> - -<p class="center">ALL THE WORLD UNDER ONE HAT</p> - - -<p>"<span class="smcap">This</span> business belongs to us." This was the reply the president of the -oil combination made to a neighbor who was begging to be allowed to -continue the refinery which he had successfully established before his -tardier but more fortunate competitors had left their produce stores, -lumber-yards, and book-keepers' stools. He could remember, the neighbor -told the New York Legislature, before there was any such company as -theirs, and when the president of the poor man's light was still in the -commission business opposite him and his refinery. He described how -the president left this commission business, and "commenced to build -a refinery there of a small capacity.... He used to say to me, 'What -is a good time to sell?' and 'What is a good time to hold?' as he said -he thought I knew." The day came when the neighbor who had been first -found that the last was to be first. He was making $21,000 to $22,000 -a year, but he had "to sell or squeeze." He had several conversations -with the new-comer who had been so successful in learning when it was -"a good time to hold." To save his livelihood, "I did almost condescend -to tease him," he testifies. But the only reply he could get was: We -have freighting facilities no one else can get.<a name="FNanchor_625_625" id="FNanchor_625_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> This business -belongs to us. Any concern that starts in this business we have -sufficient money to lay aside a fund to wipe it out. "They went on just -as if it did belong to them, and there were others started before he -did in it which I thought it belonged to quite as much as it did to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> -him.... I am wiped out and made a poor man.... I think they are making -a profit out of my ruin."</p> - -<p>His refinery had been giving him a profit of $21,000 to $22,000 a -year. It had cost him $41,000, but he had to sell it for $15,000. This -purchase of $41,000 for $15,000 was one of "the little economies" to -which the trust ascribes its success. It was not a "good time to sell," -but he sold. Part of the "squeeze" put upon him was the rebate given to -the buyer. He could not have got the rebate if he had applied for it, -but he would not apply for it. "I made application for lower freights, -but not for any drawbacks; I did not suppose that was the right way to -do business."<a name="FNanchor_626_626" id="FNanchor_626_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a></p> - -<p>"This business belongs to us." This remark was not prophecy, but -history. It was in 1878, and the claim had been already made good. -The New York Legislature, in 1879, reported that the speaker and his -associates had control of 90 or 95 per cent. of the industry. "It has -absorbed and monopolized this great traffic, which ranks second on the -list of exports of our country."<a name="FNanchor_627_627" id="FNanchor_627_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a> This conclusion was based on the -evidence of officers and stockholders.<a name="FNanchor_628_628" id="FNanchor_628_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a> Their shadow grew no less. -The Interstate Commerce Commission found in 1890 that they "manufacture -nearly 90 per cent. of the petroleum and its products in the United -States."<a name="FNanchor_629_629" id="FNanchor_629_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a></p> - -<p>"Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." For the -perfection of this triumph no trifle has been disdained, from the well -in the mountain to the peddler's cart in the city. The bargemen of the -Alleghany, the coasters of the sea-shore, and the stern-wheelers of -the Western rivers all had to go one way. "We drove out the shipments -in the schooners from Baltimore and Washington, and we stopped almost -the shipments by river down the Mississippi by boat," said one of the -successful men. His plan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> had been so thorough as even to seek to -"drive off the river schooners."<a name="FNanchor_630_630" id="FNanchor_630_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a></p> - -<p>The last stage in their economic development—that in which the people -of the oil region lose the ownership of the oil lands and become hired -men—is already far along. Although at first the oil combination -owned no oil lands to speak of—"It does not own any oil wells or -land producing oil, and never did," its president said, in 1880; "an -infinitesimal amount," he said later<a name="FNanchor_631_631" id="FNanchor_631_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a>—it has of late years, -through corporations organized for that purpose, been a heavy buyer and -leaser of the best oil lands in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, -and the West.</p> - -<p>Monopoly anywhere must be monopoly everywhere. At the beginning it was -enough to control the railways; by these the pipe lines, refineries, -and markets were got. These were secured, only to find that it was -vital to control the source of supply. The producers once gave an -illustration of what it would be for the sole buyer to come to the -market and find that the oil he must have was not on sale at his -price.<a name="FNanchor_632_632" id="FNanchor_632_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a> "We have during the past year," one of the combination -said, in 1891, before a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature, -"invested a very large amount of money, and have induced our friends to -come forward with new capital to engage in the business of producing -oil."<a name="FNanchor_633_633" id="FNanchor_633_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> By the policy of becoming producers the combination has -changed its position from that of mere intermediary—though one as -irresistible as a toll-gate keeper—to that of absolute owner. The -spectre it has seen rise before it, of the producers organized as one -seller to meet it as the only buyer, has been laid to rest.</p> - -<p>"We are pushing into every part of the world, and have been doing -so," the president told the New York Legislature in 1888.<a name="FNanchor_634_634" id="FNanchor_634_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> Their -tank-steamers go to all the ports of Europe and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> Asia, and their -tank-wagons are as familiarly seen in the cities of Great Britain and -the Continent as of America. An agitation of extensive proportions was -begun in 1893 in the press of Canada and in the Dominion Parliament -to admit American oil at a lower duty. There was no popular demand -for such a step. No general reduction of the tariff was proposed. The -movement was simultaneous in the press of different parts of Canada, -and it was promoted by papers as important as the Toronto <i>Globe</i> -and Montreal <i>Star</i>. It was resisted with desperation by the 20,000 -persons who are employed in the Canadian oil industries, the growth of -thirty-two years—"not a rich, gay, bloated population, rioting with -the plunderings of the farmers, revelling in all kinds of luxuries, -making merry with their friends," says a newspaper correspondent, who -visited them in December, 1892, "but a hard-working community, in which -all live comfortably; few are rich."</p> - -<p>This opposition was successful with the Dominion Parliament in that -year, and it refused to admit American oil at a lower tax. But the -finance minister then, by executive action, did in part what the -Legislature had refused to do. By lowering the inspection duty and -changing custom-house conditions he made a considerable reduction in -the tax. The agitation to reduce the tariff was not relaxed, and was -finally successful in 1894, when Parliament lowered the duties on oil, -and to that extent surrendered the Canada producers and refiners to -their American competitors.</p> - -<p>The Scotch refiners, some of whom have been in business forty years, -have become as loyal subjects of an American ruler as of their own -queen. They make only as much as he allows, and sell at the price he -fixes. He has demanded year by year a greater proportion of their -business.<a name="FNanchor_635_635" id="FNanchor_635_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a> In 1892 they were notified that they must reduce their -output by 10 per cent.<a name="FNanchor_636_636" id="FNanchor_636_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> The Scotch, anxious for the accelerating -future, begged that the "arrangement" might be made for three years -instead of one. But this was denied them. The agent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> from America who -brought them their orders would promise no more than "to place the -matter in a favorable light before his colleagues in America."<a name="FNanchor_637_637" id="FNanchor_637_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> -By October of that year the capital of the Scotch companies, held -mainly by small investors, had shrunk $5,000,000 in value. But to this -item the London <i>Economist</i> adds the consolation that "that powerful -organization"—the American—"has for years professed the kindliest -feelings for the Scotch producers." Dr. Johnson said that much may be -made of a Scotchman if caught young. The American caught him old.</p> - -<p>The disturbance fell heaviest, as always, on the working-men. -"Reduction in wages is now being effected," writes the managing -director of the oldest and largest of the Scotch companies in the -<i>Economist</i>. "Another 10 per cent. reduction in miners' wages has been -resolved upon," the <i>Economist</i> announces in its issue of October 8, -1892.</p> - -<p>One of the causes that contributed to the downfall of the Scotch -refiners was the fact that the British government reduced the test -required for illuminating oil. This new regulation opened the British -markets to a flood of cheap oil from America.<a name="FNanchor_638_638" id="FNanchor_638_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> The Scotch oil is -better made and more expensive. "We cannot tell," said a correspondent -of the Glasgow <i>Herald</i>, "what powerful interest the American oil -combination did not bring to bear on our government. The public had -then no champion, and as a rule never have on these occasions."</p> - -<p>The unkindest cut of all is that it was from the Scotch manufacturers -themselves that their American rival and ruler learned the secrets of -the industry it is now absorbing on the instalment plan. In one of its -publications it has told how its "experts visited the great shale works -in Scotland, and studied their methods," and how "the consequence was -that extensive works were erected."<a name="FNanchor_639_639" id="FNanchor_639_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a></p> - -<p>The economic development of Germany is not so much behind that of -Great Britain and America as to seem uninviting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> to the unhasting -but unresting American. Some years ago enterprising German importers -invested a large amount of capital in tank-steamers, because they -thought these solved the problem of the transportation of petroleum. -When the Americans refused to supply them any longer with oil for their -steamers to carry, they saw that there was more in this problem than -they had guessed. Importers who had no steamers found one day that -American enterprise had secured practically all of them, and had very -decided notions as to whom cargoes should be taken. The heads of two or -three of the largest houses boarded a steamer for New York, and came -back stockholders in a German-American company which controls most of -the German business, as the Anglo-American company controls that of -Great Britain. "If the great company with unlimited capital cares to -lose money, it can drive us from the field," was the explanation of -the head of one of the largest German concerns, as quoted in the Weser -<i>Zeitung</i>.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of the next year some Holland firms were invited into -the same shelter, and became the "fittest"; and then followed the -Belgian and the Scandinavian countries. The Berlin <i>Vossische Zeitung</i> -of June 18, 1891, described the line of march: "One group of business -men after another is thus made superfluous and pushed aside. First -the wells, pumps, and refineries in America, then the American export -trade, then the private freight vessels adapted for transportation of -petroleum, then the European import trade, then the export trade from -European ports, and, finally, this over-powerful company threatens to -seize the entire retail trade in petroleum. It is a world monopoly." -Hundreds of boatmen engaged in a flourishing river trade in Germany -were driven out by tank-boats. If they had changed to tanks, they -would have been dependent on their opponent for the oil to fill -them. Importers in barrels were cut off by a change which the German -government made in the tariff on barrels. The Americans were also -helped by an increase in the German tariff on Russian oil of 50 per -cent., which made it so much the more difficult for it to compete with -American oil. As one way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> to kill competition where it still existed, -all statistics were suddenly withheld by the German-American member of -the trust. Neither exports nor imports were known except to the ruling -company; all others were kept in the dark.</p> - -<p>This success in Germany has not been due to favoritism on the highways. -The extraordinary discrimination on railroads in America would be -impossible in Germany. With hardly an exception the railroads are under -the supervision of the State, and are very carefully controlled. Even -the private roads would not dare to give any but the open rates. In -Austria-Hungary, formerly, secret rates were in full swing, but the -system is now said to be destroyed.</p> - -<p>Prices have declined in Germany, and the people at large make few -complaints except about the quality of the American oil. It has become -more sooty than formerly. In the beginning it burns well, but it ends -with giving a very poor light. This has been conjectured to be due to -a mixture of the inferior Ohio oil with that of Pennsylvania; but "it -cannot be proved," the German chronicler reports.<a name="FNanchor_640_640" id="FNanchor_640_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> "The working -people," says one of the Berlin papers, "will have to foot the bill, -and the working people only. The well-to-do and rich of to-day can have -other fuel and light, but to the oppressed working-man petroleum is as -great a necessity as his potatoes." The German papers, in casting about -for means of checkmating the increase of prices which they believe will -result from the consummation of this monopoly, advocate the use of -water-power and also wind-power to create electricity.</p> - -<p>The attention that has been attracted to the growth of this power does -not come from the public at large, but from those directly interested -and the sympathy and interest of the German "national economists." -The latter point out that the present cheap prices are "war prices." -They predict that as soon as the world monopoly is established and -all territory is under complete control a rise of prices will take -place. They are advocates of State monopoly as better than private -mo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>nopoly. If State monopolies prevent free competition, at least -they are able, they say, to give some compensation to those who are -hurt. In the tobacco monopoly hundreds of millions were set aside -by the German government for this purpose, but even that was not -considered sufficient. But this monopoly is a private affair. It -swallows the profits of all those whom it destroys. Numerous industries -have been ruined—importers, ship-owners, brokers, local dealers, -exporters, retailers, river boatmen, and numerous other trades—but -no one receives indemnity. The public opinion of the government, the -Reichstag, the national economists, the philanthropists, is active -in support of the middle class, but in spite of all this a whole -department of industry has been torn away from it.</p> - -<p>There are one or two "independents" in Germany whom, like the -independents in America, the trust has not yet been able to crush, -though it is turning the markets topsy-turvy for that purpose. The -<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> of June 18, 1894, notes that the trust is selling -refined oil in Europe at prices lower than those at which crude oil can -be delivered from America.</p> - -<p>The Austrian journals have been chronicling the absorption of the -principal refineries of Austria and Hungary by a combination, of which -the Rothschilds are the most important members, as they are of that -in Russia. This combination, which first appears in 1892, has by 1894 -accumulated a reserve of 3,000,000 gulden on a capital of 1,000,000 -gulden, and its profits for 1894 are expected to be 100 per cent. -The Prager <i>Lloyd</i> of April 26, 1894, giving these and other facts, -adds that "the government of Austria as well as of Hungary takes the -ground that if a petroleum monopoly is to be formed it should be in the -hands of the State, not of a corporation, certainly not of a foreign -corporation, least of all an American one."</p> - -<p>This remedy of a State monopoly as an alternative to private monopoly, -as suggested in Austria and Germany, has as yet had few advocates in -America. Our public opinion, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> far as there is any public opinion, -restricts itself to favoring recourse to anti-trust laws and to -boycotting the monopoly and buying the oil of its competitors. But -there are too few of these to go around, and they are shut out of most -of the markets. The shrewd monopoly is itself the most diligent caterer -to such American demand as there is for the "anti-monopoly" product. It -does business under hundreds of assumed names, and employs salesmen at -large salaries to push the sale of "opposition oil" in our disaffected -provinces.</p> - -<p>With the news from Germany came the announcement that similar control -had been obtained of the business of the firm at Venice which did -most of the oil business of Italy, and a new company had been formed, -of which the American "trustees" own a majority. In a letter sent to -Minister Phelps, at Berlin, a resident representative of the American -oil combination says, as quoted in the New York <i>Tribune</i>, October -5, 1891: "For the furtherance of our programme and as participators -in the large European investment which this programme involves, we -have sought and been fortunate enough to secure the co-operation of a -coterie of well-known merchants, who have been long and prominently -identified with the petroleum commerce of the Continent." The Società -Italo-Americana del Petrolio (the Italian-American Oil Company) is in -Italy what the concerns just described are in the countries to the -north of it. The head of the oil combination was quoted by the New -York <i>Tribune</i> of July 1, 1891, as saying: "The cable despatches are -substantially correct as regards our interest in the German and Italian -companies."</p> - -<p>The French government a year ago lowered the tariff on petroleum -one-half. This was followed, the French press reports, by the erection -of a refinery by the American trust at Rouen, and the purchase by it of -land in Marseilles, Cette, Bordeaux, and Havre for other refineries. -The machinery needed was shipped from America. Large offices were -opened at Paris by the American combination for the administration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> of -the industry in France, which was to be concentrated into its hands -like that of the rest of Europe. The sequel, if the <i>Frankfurter -Zeitung</i>, a prominent German commercial paper, is correctly informed, -is that the French refiners, as the Scotch did before them, have -come to terms with the American trust. It has agreed not to start up -its refineries in France, not to sell any refined oil in America for -shipments to France, and not to allow any American outsiders to compete -with the French refiners.</p> - -<p>There was a report in June, 1892, that a Dutch company had succeeded -in refining petroleum in Sumatra, one of the possessions of the -Netherlands' East India colonies, and selling it in India. The -solicitor of the trust, asked about it by the New York <i>Times</i>, June -5, 1892, said, "It cannot be true." The oil combination, he continued, -"has agents in the Netherlands' East India colonies and at Sumatra, and -it would certainly have heard of this corporation and its competition -if there was anything worth hearing."</p> - -<p>There are great oil-fields in Peru. Since the close of the war with -Chili there has been an active development of them, and the commercial -reports of San Francisco say that fuel oil is now being supplied from -this source to our Pacific States. This has not been done by the -Peruvians. It was an American who organized the oil industry of Peru. -The principal company was formed by the same expert who went years ago -from Pennsylvania to Russia to Americanize the oil interests of the -Caucasus. After he had succeeded in that task he went to Peru. He died -in the spring of 1894. At about the time of his death the newspapers, -by a coincidence that arrests attention, chronicled the departure from -New York of a well-known man who was going to Peru, as he stated in an -interview, to look after the interests of the members of the oil trust. -But there is no official information that they have any ownership or -control there.</p> - -<p>When one of the officers of the combination was before Congress, in -1888, he was asked if there had been any negotiations by his associates -with the Russian oil men.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p> - -<p>"We have never had any serious negotiations,"<a name="FNanchor_641_641" id="FNanchor_641_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a> he replied.</p> - -<p>The word "serious" was a slip. He withdrew it. "We have never had any" -was his revision. Three years later the same official, in a speech to -persuade the Pennsylvania Legislature that the pipe-line interests of -the oil country did not need the regulation by the State then under -debate, but were abundantly safeguarded by him and his associates, -said: "It may not be amiss for me to say that we have had, at different -times during the last several years, most flattering propositions -from people who are identified with the Russian petroleum industry, -to come there and join them in the development and introduction of -that industry. We have declined these offers, gentlemen, always and -to this day, and have held loyal to our relations to the American -petroleum."<a name="FNanchor_642_642" id="FNanchor_642_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_642_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a></p> - -<p>There had been negotiations, after all!</p> - -<p>The reports of the United States consul-general at Berlin, in -1891, transmitted many interesting articles from the German papers -concerning the alliance which it was believed had been made between -the Rothschilds and the American oil combination. A company managed by -the great bankers has obtained a commanding position in the Russian -oil business, and the American and the Russian were even then said to -have divided the world between them. The Berlin <i>Vossische Zeitung</i> -said: "Heretofore the two petroleum speculators have marched apart, -in order to get into their hands the two largest petroleum districts -in the world. After this has been accomplished they unite to fight -in unison, and to fix as they please the selling price for the whole -world, which they divide between themselves. So an international -speculating ring stands before the door, such as in like might and -capital power has never before existed, and everywhere the intelligible -fear prevails that within a short time the price of an article of use -indispensable to all classes of people will rise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> with a bound, without -its being possible for national legislation or control to raise any -obstacles."<a name="FNanchor_643_643" id="FNanchor_643_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_643_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a></p> - -<p>But some of the closest European observers have seen reasons from -the beginning to believe that the Rothschilds are in the Russian oil -business only as the agents of the American combination. This is freely -asserted by the Continental press. The policy of the Rothschilds has -been never to engage in commercial enterprise on their own account. -The tactics used by the Rothschilds in oil have been an almost exact -reproduction of those of the combination in America. From the first -they gave the subject of freights their special attention. They showed -no ability for new or independent undertakings, but they tried, to use -the words of an Austrian-Hungarian consular report from Batoum in 1889, -"following the example of the combination in the United States, to get -the bulk of the Russian petroleum trade into their hands"; using the -large money power at their command for speculation, freely advancing -money for leases and delivery contracts, and specially acquiring all -the available means of transportation. The experience of the people of -Parker<a name="FNanchor_644_644" id="FNanchor_644_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_644_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a> is recalled by the statement that the Rothschild company -would leave hundreds of cars loaded with petroleum on the tracks for -weeks to prevent competitors from shipping and from filling their -contracts. When the city of Batoum, in 1888, refused to allow it to lay -pipes over the city lands to the harbor, it was with the enthusiastic -approbation of the agitated citizens. The authorities gave as their -reason that through large establishments of this kind the capitalists -gained a monopoly, crushing out smaller producers to the disadvantage -of all classes of the population. In the absence of official -investigations, a free press, and civilized courts—that knowledge -which is not only power but freedom—it is impossible for any one in -Russia, or out of it, to know the truth as to the relations of the -Rothschilds to the American monopoly. The latest news in the summer of -1894 is of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> great combination of Russian and American oil interests, -under the direction of the Russian Minister of Finance, for a division -of territory, regulation of prices, and the like. Information of this -was given to the world by that minister's official organ in November, -1893. Thus says the Hanover (Germany) <i>Courier</i> of November 11th: "With -the direct sanction of the Russian government the management of the -enormous wealth that lies in the yearly production of Russian petroleum -will be concentrated in the hands of a few firms.... The Russian -government lends its hand for the formation of a trust that reaches -over the ocean—a trust, under State protection, against the large mass -of consumers. This is the newest acquisition of our departing century."</p> - -<p>It was announced that, in pursuance of this plan, the Russians were to -be given exclusive control of certain Asiatic markets. The officers -of the American combination are not easily reached by newspaper men. -But when this news came long interviews with them were circulated in -the press of the leading cities, dwelling upon the "Waterloo" defeat -they had suffered, and reassuring the people with this evidence -that there was, after all, "no monopoly." The Russian interests are -dominated by the Rothschilds, and if the Rothschilds are, as these -European observers declare, merely the agents of the Americans, even -unsophisticated people can understand the cheerfulness with which the -trustees in New York dilate on their Waterloo at the hands of their -other self. Only this could make credible the report that the world has -been divided with the Russians by our American "trustees," who never -divide with anybody. In dividing with the Russians they are dividing -with themselves.</p> - -<p>Though it is reported that discriminations by the government railroads -of Russia were used to force the Russian producers into this -international trust, still, at worst, every Russian producer was given -by his government the right to enter the pool. But no similar right for -the American producer is recognized by our trust. It admits only its -own members. The others must "sell or squeeze." There is something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> -in the world more cruel than Russian despotism—American "private -enterprise."</p> - -<p>One of the conditions said to have been made by the Russian government -is the natural one that the American trust, as it has agreed to do for -the French, must protect its Russian allies from any competition from -America. Extinction of the "independents" has therefore become more -important than ever to the trust. The prize of victory over them is not -only supremacy in this country, but on four other continents. This will -explain the new zeal with which the suppression of the last vestige of -American independence in this industry has been sought the last few -months of 1893 and in 1894. Especially strenuous has been the renewal -of the attack on the pipe line the independents are seeking to lay to -tide-water, and which they have carried as far as Wilkes-barre.<a name="FNanchor_645_645" id="FNanchor_645_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_645_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a></p> - -<p>That pipe line, as it is the last hope of the people, is the greatest -menace to the monopoly. The independents, as they have shown by the -fact of surviving, although they have to pay extraordinary freights and -other charges from which the trust is free, can produce more cheaply -than the would-be Lords of Industry, as free men always do.<a name="FNanchor_646_646" id="FNanchor_646_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_646_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> By -means of this pipe line, suspended though it is at Wilkes-barre, are -now made the only independent exports of oil that go from America to -Europe. Once let the "outsiders" with their line reach the sea-shore -and its open roads to the coast of America and Europe, and it will be -a long chase they will give their pursuers. Everything that can be -brought to bear by market manipulation, litigation, and other means is -now being done to prevent the extension of this line, and to bankrupt -the men who are building it through much tribulation. The mechanical -fixation of values, by which the refiners who use this line to export -oil are compelled to meet a lower price for the refined in New York -than can be got for the crude out of which it is made, has been already -referred to, and, as shown above, the same prestidigitation of prices -is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> being resorted to in Europe against the independents of Germany.</p> - -<p>Early in 1894 the independent refiners and producers resolved to -consolidate with this pipe line some other lines owned by them in order -to strengthen and perfect the system, and put it in better shape to -be extended to tide-water. This consolidation was voted by a large -majority both of stock and stockholders. But a formidable opposition -to it was at once begun in the courts by injunction proceedings in -behalf of one man, a subordinate stockholder in a corporation of -which the control is owned, as he admitted in court, by members of -the oil trust.<a name="FNanchor_647_647" id="FNanchor_647_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_647_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a> The real litigant behind him, the independents -stated to the court, was the same that we have seen appear in almost -every chapter of our story, with its brigades of lawyers. "An unlawful -organization," the independents described it to the court, "exercising -great and illegal powers, ... and bitterly and vindictively hostile to -our business interests." They came into court one after the other and -described the ruin which had been wrought among them, telling the story -the reader has found in these pages.</p> - -<p>"It is our hope," they said, "when we once reach the salt-water that -there will be no power there controlling the winds and the waves, the -tides and the sun and moon, except the Power that controls everything. -When we once are there the same forces that guide the ships of this -monopoly to the farther shore will guide ours. The same winds that waft -them will waft ours. There is freedom, there is hope, and there is -the only chance of relief to this country.... Through three years of -suffering and agony we have attempted to carry on our purpose.... You -could have seen the blood-marks in the snow of the blood of the people -who are working out their subscription as daily laborers on that line -with nothing else to offer."</p> - -<p>The injunctions asked for by this opposition were granted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> by the lower -court, but the independents took an appeal to the Supreme Court of -Pennsylvania. They first placed their petition for the rehearing in the -hands of the chief-justice on Thursday, May 24th; on Monday, May 28th, -the petition was renewed before the full court; on Thursday, May 31st, -the court adjourned for the summer without taking any action upon the -petition. The court in July agreed to hear the case at the opening of -its next term, the first Monday of October. Section II. of Article I. -of the Constitution of Pennsylvania says: "All courts shall be open, -and every man, for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, -or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and -justice administered, without sale, denial, or delay." To guard against -the injustice which might arise by the granting of special injunctions -by the lower courts—like that granted in this case—which might -remain for months without remedy, the Legislature, in 1866, enacted -a law which reads as follows: "In all cases in equity, in which a -special injunction has been or shall be granted by any Court of Common -Pleas, an appeal to the Supreme Court for the proper district shall be -allowed, and all such appeals shall be heard by the Supreme Court in -any district in which it may be in session."</p> - -<p>As if there had not been enough to try these men, misfortune marked -them in other ways. The Bradford refinery of the president of their -pipe line was visited by a destructive fire during these proceedings -in court. The Associated Press despatches attributed the fire to -"spontaneous combustion," whatever that may be. But in another -newspaper an eye-witness described how he saw a man running about the -works in a mysterious way just before the flames broke out. On the same -day, by a coincidence, the main pipe of the independent line was cut, -and the oil, which spouted out to the tree-tops, was set on fire at a -point in a valley where the greatest possible damage would result, and -the telegraph wires were simultaneously cut, so that prompt repairs -or salvage of oil were impossible. The Almighty is said to favor the -heaviest battalions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> and accident, if there is such a thing, seems to -have the same preference, as has been shown in many incidents in our -history, such as the mishaps to the Tidewater pipe line, and the Toledo -municipal gas line.<a name="FNanchor_648_648" id="FNanchor_648_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_648_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a></p> - -<p>An intimation is given in the Continental press as to one of the -motives under which the Russian government acted in promoting the -alliance between the Russian and American oil men. It desired, it -is said, to secure the influence of the powerful members of the -oil combination in favor of certain plans for which Russia needed -co-operation in America. There has been nothing for which the Russian -government has so much needed "sympathetical co-operation" in America -as for the ratification of the Extradition Treaty. The Russian -government has obtained this ratification, and obtained it in a way -which indicated that some irresistible but carefully concealed American -influence was behind it. The New York <i>World</i>, in its editorial -columns of May 25, 1894, made the suggestion that the power behind -this treaty of shame was that of the oil trust, earning from the czar -the last link in its chain of world monopoly. It asked if it was the -influence of the oil combination that induced the Senate's consent -to this "outrageous treaty." "Was this one of the conditions upon -which that monopoly was permitted to secure its present concessions -from Russia? Did it wield an influence in the Senate like that -which the sugar trust has since exercised, though for an advantage -of a different kind?" The Philadelphia <i>Press</i> points out that the -Russian government had long and unsuccessfully sought to obtain the -ratification of this treaty, but at last got it quickly and quietly. -Did the oil combination, it asks, "succeed in bartering the character -of this country as a political sanctuary for the monopoly of the -world's markets?" Seldom has any public measure been so universally and -so indignantly condemned in America as was this proposal to use the -powers of Anglo-Saxon justice to return men who were accused only, and -were, therefore, legally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> innocent, to be tried without jury, counsel, -publicity, or appeal. Never has public opinion availed less. The -Federal executive refused even to delay the ratification in deference -to the sentiment against it. Those who were active in the agitation -against the treaty found something inexplicable in the unresting -and unlistening relentlessness with which it was pushed through. -Napoleon said that in fifty years Europe would be all Russian or all -republican. Even he did not dream that republican America would become -Russianized before Europe. The San Francisco <i>Call</i> of March 3, 1894, -discussing the report that a commercial treaty with China was under -consideration at Washington, says the negotiation is in the interest -of the oil combination. It warns the public that the trust is willing -to reopen the opium trade in reciprocity to China for better terms for -the admission of American petroleum. This free trade with China and -Russia in the souls and bodies of Russians, Chinese, and Americans -would add only another instance of the many manipulations of government -which this combination has successfully attempted in all parts of the -world—in the tariffs of France, Germany, Cuba, Canada, and our own -country; in the raising or lowering of the governmental requirements -as to explosiveness of oil sold the people in England and the United -States, and in the subsidy legislation by which it got from Congress -for its ocean steamers a privilege rigorously denied by law to all -other citizens.</p> - -<p>In this the oil trust is but an illustration. What it has done scores -of other combinations have accomplished, though not with equal -genius. The Hon. John De Witt Warner, member of Congress from New -York, has published a list of one hundred trusts which have been able -to influence the tariff legislation of the country in their favor. -The orgy of the sugar trust and Congress, out of which the tariff -bill of 1894 was born, was in the plain view of all the people. "The -appalling fact already disclosed," the New York <i>Daily Commercial -Bulletin</i>, the most important commercial and financial daily in the -United States, said in its editorial columns of June 4,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> 1894, "is -that for some months past the sugar trust has been the government of -the United States." The <i>Bulletin</i> estimates that the profit to the -trust of one detail of the tariff bill postponing the duty on raw -sugar for six months will be $34,620,000. In all this our country is -not singular. The governments of Europe are used as the instruments -of profit for private enterprise to an extent which the people endure -only because they do not understand it. The latest instance is one of -the best. The <i>Investor's Review</i> of London, England, in May, 1894, -calls attention to the fact that upon the accession of Lord Rosebery -to the Premiership of England the hitherto outspoken opposition of -the War Office to the Maxim gun had become entirely silent, and the -gun had been put into use in the army without competitive trial with -other machine-guns, some of them its superiors. "This is an unfortunate -fact for Lord Rosebery," says the <i>Investor's Review</i>, "because of his -relationship to the Rothschilds." This great house, the <i>Review</i> says, -has "a strong pecuniary interest in the Maxim-Nordenfeldt Company," -and his lordship's affinities to the house "have not in the past been -confined to those of family relationship alone, but extend to community -of interests on the stock exchange." The <i>Review</i> therefore appeals -to Lord Rosebery, for his own sake and the sake of the government "to -prove by his deeds that he not only has had nothing to do with it, but -will peremptory stop this crime." If not, the <i>Review</i> hopes enough may -be made of the scandal to overthrow Lord Rosebery's government, for it -desires "to see a beginning made of the endeavor to purge Parliament of -the guinea-pig director, the stock-gambler and punter, and the whole -unclean brood of City 'bulls' and 'bears,' jobbers in patents, bribers -and bribed, who help to degrade public life."</p> - -<p>We of America are most sovereign when we sit in Constitutional -Convention by our representatives, and change the fundamental law -as we will. The Constitutional Convention gives us the unique power -of peaceful and perpetual revolution, to make bloody and spasmodic -revolutions unnecessary. Of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> the inventions of that ablest group -of statesmen the world has seen—the founders of this government—this -is the greatest. The people of the State of New York are holding a -Constitutional Convention in 1894 to enlarge the garment of 1846 to -fit the growth of half a century. In that half-century the revolution -in society and industry which had been getting under headway ever -since the steam-engine and competition were invented has come to its -consummation. But the basic law of the Empire State has faced this -new world as changeless as the sphinx. Nearly half the other states -have made new constitutions, or amended the old ones to bring law into -line with life. Pennsylvania forbids the common carrier to become -the owner of coal-mines, or to consolidate with competing carriers, -or to give preference to any citizen. Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, -Colorado, and many other states have framed provisions to control -the abuse of industrial and highway power. The State of Washington -in its Constitution declares that "monopolies and trusts shall never -be allowed in this State," and it forbids any association "for the -purpose of fixing the price or limiting the production, or regulating -the transportation of any product or commodity." The manual of the -constitutions of the world prepared for the use of the New York -convention shows that fifteen of the states of the Union have in one -way or another recognized the revolution which has taken place in -the industrial economy of the people, and sought to meet it with the -necessary political safe-guards.</p> - -<p>When the delegates of the citizens of New York State meet in May, -1894, at Albany, in such a time to face such problems, the press -notes that a large proportion of them are corporation lawyers. The -place of president of the convention is secured by the chief counsel -of the oil trust. He is in Albany to resist the application to the -Attorney-General of the State to move for the forfeiture of the charter -of the principal corporation in the trust, and on his way he plucks the -presidency of the Constitutional Convention. "It is truly a momentous -event," he says in his opening speech, "when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> delegates of many -millions of people gather together after an interval of fifty years -almost, for the purpose of revising and amending the fundamental law of -the State." The delegates thus momentously assembled, when they came to -choose the officer who was to wield over them a power as great as that -of the Speaker over the Federal House of Representatives, momentously -selected the most conspicuous attorney of the most conspicuous -embodiment of the forces with which the people are in conflict. The -president found words of kindly reference for many great questions—of -education, suffrage, city government, and the like—but for the great -questions of social power which fifteen states have found serious -enough for constitutional cognizance he had not a syllable. No plan or -even suggestion, great or little, for the new Constitution can reach -the convention direct. All must go to the appropriate committee, to be -smothered or reported, as the case may be. There are thirty of these -committees, and they are made up by the president of the convention, -who also designates their chairmen. Each committee has its subject, and -the subjects cover the bill of rights, the regulation of suffrage, the -control of corporations, the election of judges, future amendments of -the Constitution, and every other part of the organic law. Practically -the work of the convention will be the work of the committees, and the -committees are the work of one who is not only the attorney of the -oil trust, but is a part of the trust, a member of the organization. -"I happen to own one hundred shares in the Standard Oil Trust," he -said in his argument in Albany before the Attorney-General in behalf -of the trust. The trust has given formal notice that out of deference -to public opinion and the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and -in pursuance of an agreement with the late Attorney-General of New -York,<a name="FNanchor_649_649" id="FNanchor_649_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_649_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a> it had dissolved itself. But this distinguished member -disregards the dissolution, for reasons of personal convenience, as he -tells the Attorney-General. "I have never gone forward and claimed my -aliquot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> share." The character of this trust, of which the president -and organizer of the Constitutional Convention persists in being a -member to the extent of refusing to be "dissolved" out of it, has been -adjudicated. It was, the Supreme Court of Ohio said,<a name="FNanchor_650_650" id="FNanchor_650_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_650_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a> "organized -for a purpose contrary to the policy of our laws. Its object was to -establish a virtual monopoly ... throughout the entire country, and -by which it might not merely control the production but the price -at its pleasure. All such associations are contrary to the policy -of our State and void." A similar judgment has been passed upon the -trust by the judiciary of the State of which this president of the -Constitutional Convention, besides being an officer of the courts, -is a citizen. It was entered into, the Supreme Court of New York has -said,<a name="FNanchor_651_651" id="FNanchor_651_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_651_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a> "for the purpose of forming a combination whose object was -to restrict production, control prices, and suppress competition, and -the agreement was therefore opposed to public policy and void." And a -higher court, the highest in the State, the Court of Appeals, decided -in the sugar-trust, case that a trust was in avoidance and disregard of -the laws of the State.</p> - -<p>To the monopoly of oil, which was the starting-point, are being -added by its proprietors, one after the other, as we have shown, a -progressive series of other monopolies, from natural gas to iron. To -these assets is now to be added our bill of rights. The long fingers -of this power of mortmain reincarnate are long enough to reach from -its counting-room to the Constitutional Convention. The new Magna -Charta, to which the people look for help against void and unlawful -combinations, is to be drafted by committees made up by the attorney of -the chief of these void and unlawful combinations. The instrument which -is to protect the people against monopoly will come to them only after -every section has been exposed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> to the moulding touch of the greatest -monopoly in history. "This business belongs to us," and theirs is the -first and the last hand on the reins of the convention. The people can -vote on the Constitution after it is made, but the trust will see it -made. If the new Constitution is made so obnoxious that it is rejected, -as that of 1867 was, the old Constitution will do for the next fifty -years as for the last fifty. It is not monopoly that needs the revision.</p> - -<p>Is this the end? When before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the -head of the combination was asked:</p> - -<p>"The properties included in your trust are distributed all over the -United States, are they not?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, not all over the United States. They are distributed."</p> - -<p>"Are they not distributed, and are they not sufficiently numerous -to meet the requirements of your business from the Atlantic to the -Pacific, and from the Gulf to the northern boundary?"</p> - -<p>"Not yet."<a name="FNanchor_652_652" id="FNanchor_652_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_652_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a></p> - -<p>The reply came in a tone and with a smile so significant that it was -answered by a comprehending laugh from the whole room—judges, lawyers, -reporters, spectators, and all.</p> - -<p>"Not yet!"</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a></p> - -<p class="center">"NOT BUSINESS"</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">This</span> "business success" is the greatest commercial and financial -achievement of history. Its broad foundation was laid in the years -from 1872 to 1879, the severest time of panic for others the world -has known. A universal jaundice of ill-fortune has given its sallow -complexion to every one else. From the Alleghanies to the Caucasus -thousands of men have been somehow thrown out of work because so much -new work has come to the world. "At the flash of a telegraphic message -from Cleveland, Ohio," said the people of the oil regions in their -appeal to the Governor of Pennsylvania in 1878, "hundreds of men have -been thrown out of employment at a few hours' notice, and kept for -weeks in a state of semi-starvation." These men filled up many of the -insurrectionary ranks of the great railway strike of 1877, as the -employés of the Pennsylvania Railway declared in a public communication -at that time. The eight oil-producing counties of Pennsylvania were -said by the general council of the petroleum producers, in a public -address in 1879, to be "fast sinking beneath such financial distress -that resistance to threatened bankruptcy or servitude could not long -be made." They grew too poor to pay the counsel they employed to -help them in the courts, the legislatures, and before the executive -of Pennsylvania and Congress. "The universal complaint we find is -the poverty of the people, not their unwillingness to give." "I am -ashamed," said one of them in court, "to see our counsel every day on -account of the beggarly amounts I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> have paid them. A large number of -producers have subscribed that have not paid."<a name="FNanchor_653_653" id="FNanchor_653_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_653_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a></p> - -<p>Men who were "frozen out" of their occupation in transporting or -refining oil took to digging wells. "That is the only thing they have -been allowed to do. They went on in a wild way, hunting new oil, and -when they found it they would develop it rapidly." This made oil fall -in price, and the more they produced the more they had to produce. The -wages of labor kept going down. They were lower in 1888 than they were -twenty-four years before. "A well-digger that I paid $6 a day and his -expenses twenty-four years ago is now working for $40 a month. That -is true of every department of the oil business so far as the wages -of workmen are concerned." "We were $10,000,000 poorer at the end of -1887 than at the beginning," said the association of oil producers of -Pennsylvania. Their executive committee the next year said the people -were on "the verge of bankruptcy."<a name="FNanchor_654_654" id="FNanchor_654_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_654_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a></p> - -<p>The railroads were no happier than the laborers, the producers, the -manufacturers, or the merchants. As early as 1879 Vanderbilt II. -declared that the oil business of the railroads—worth $30,000,000 a -year—had been destroyed.</p> - -<p>"I think the business is gone."<a name="FNanchor_655_655" id="FNanchor_655_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_655_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a></p> - -<p>In 1892 a number of refiners and producers of Pennsylvania, in a formal -appeal to Governor Pattison, asked him to investigate the causes -which were working "to the injurious depression if not the ultimate -destruction of a great industry." In the same year mutterings of a -turbulent discontent and threats of violence and the destruction of -property, repeating those of 1872, were heard again in Pennsylvania -and in Ohio, which had become an oil-producing State. "Many of the oil -producers," a member of their protective association in Ohio said, in -the spring of 1892, "are in a bad way. They are at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> that point that -they don't know just where their next sack of flour is coming from, and -I am not surprised at anything they may do."</p> - -<p>This area of low pressure, following the habit of American storms, made -itself felt abroad in bankruptcies and falling wages from Scotland -to Baku and beyond. Meanwhile the little nest-egg of nothing of the -group which came into the field in 1862 grew to $1,000,000 in 1870; to -$2,500,000 in 1872; to $3,500,000 in 1875; to $70,000,000 in 1882; and -in 1887 to a capital of $90,000,000, which the New York Legislature -reported in 1888, "according to the testimony of the trust's -president," to be worth "not less than $148,000,000."<a name="FNanchor_656_656" id="FNanchor_656_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_656_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> Before -the trust was dissolved in name, in 1892, and the "trustees" betook -themselves to the greater seclusion of separate corporations, acting in -concert, its stock sold as high as 185, a valuation of $166,500,000 for -the whole.</p> - -<p>Its dividends had been $10,800,000 a year for several years. These -ducal incomes and the vaster sums accumulated as undivided profits -made themselves visible in the progressive <i>embonpoint</i> of the -capitalization. In the six years (1876-81) preceding their taking the -veil as trustees their net earnings added up the total of $55,000,000. -In the next six years (to 1888) the dividends alone—not the net -earnings—were more than $50,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_657_657" id="FNanchor_657_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_657_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a> These did not absorb their -profits. In one year they spent $8,000,000 out of their profits for -construction, besides making the regular payments to stockholders.<a name="FNanchor_658_658" id="FNanchor_658_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_658_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a></p> - -<p>"All this vast wealth," the New York Legislature said, "is the growth -of about twenty years; this property has more than doubled in value -in six years, and with this increase the trust has made aggregate -dividends during that period of over $50,000,000. It is one of the -most active," the report continued, "and possibly the most formidable -moneyed power on this continent."<a name="FNanchor_659_659" id="FNanchor_659_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_659_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span></p> - -<p> -"This is an immense property," says the Interstate Commerce Commission," -... and it gives an immense power which is capable of being so -employed as to put all competitors at a great and perhaps ruinous -disadvantage."<a name="FNanchor_660_660" id="FNanchor_660_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_660_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a> -</p> -<p>For the first time the New York investigation of 1888 revealed that it -was only the beginning of the truth that these hundreds of millions -were controlled by "trustees." It now became known that some one or -more of the trustees owned personally more than half of every concern -in the trust, and of the best ones owned all.</p> - -<p>"These eight trustees control all these ninety millions of property -scattered over the United States?" the president of the trust was asked.</p> - -<p>"They have as trustees, and they have as individual owners both."<a name="FNanchor_661_661" id="FNanchor_661_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_661_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a></p> - -<p>In corroboration of this testimony the trust furnished the New York -Senate Committee of 1888 a "list of corporations, the stocks of which -are wholly or partially held by the trustees of the Standard Oil -Trust." In this list, under the head of "New York State," appears -this: "Capital stock, $5,000,000. Standard Oil Company of New York, -manufacturers of petroleum products. Standard Oil Trust ownership, -entire."<a name="FNanchor_662_662" id="FNanchor_662_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_662_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> But when the company was threatened with the forfeiture -of its charter by the proceedings before the Attorney-General in May, -1894, its president made oath as follows: "The Standard Oil Company of -New York never permitted its stock to be transferred to trustees."<a name="FNanchor_663_663" id="FNanchor_663_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_663_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a></p> - -<p>Even this ownership by eight men is not the whole of the truth. The -eight trustees have a ruling power within themselves. An examination of -the personnel of the board at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> beginning, middle, and end of its -career as a board shows four men always there. This agrees with the -remark reported in the press to have been made by the solicitor of the -trust upon its ostensible dissolution in 1892: "A majority of the stock -being held by four men."</p> - -<p>A friendly journal, the New York <i>Sun</i>, of April 25, 1889, in an -editorial paragraph concerning the wealth of one of the trustees, said: -"His regular income is twenty millions of dollars a year. That makes -him the richest man in the United States—perhaps the very richest in -the world." This is nearly three times the dividends paid in 1892 to -all its stockholders by the Bank of England. The Bank of England has -built up this earning power by two hundred years' work at the head of -the finances of the greatest empire of history. This American wins -thrice its dividend capability in less than a generation by contriving -and managing an institution which he says does not do any business. -Another entirely friendly paper, with sources of information of the -very best, put his income two years later at $30,000,000 a year.<a name="FNanchor_664_664" id="FNanchor_664_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_664_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a> -No denial of the <i>Sun's</i> statement was attempted, and the <i>Sun</i> never -withdrew or modified its figures. Shortly after the secretary of the -trust gave, in a public interview, a statement of the income of its -principal members. That of one of them he put at $9,000,000 a year; his -own at $3,000,000.</p> - -<p>This wealth is as much too vast for the average arithmetical -comprehension as the size of the dog-star, 400 times larger than the -sun. These incomes are sums which their fortunate owners could not -count as they received them. If they did nothing but stand all day at -the printing-presses of the Treasury Department while the millions -came uncrinkled out in crisp one-dollar greenbacks, or worked only at -catching the new dollars as they rolled out from the dies of the Mint, -they could not count them. If they worked eight hours a day, and six -days a week, and fifty-two weeks in the year, they could not count -their money. The dollars would come faster than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> their fingers could -catch them; the dollars would slip out of their clutch and fall to the -floor, and, piling up and up, would reach their knees, their middle, -their arms, their mouth, and Midas would be snuffed out in his own gold.</p> - -<p>Commodore Vanderbilt, Parton tells us, was forty-four years old before -he was worth $400,000. In the next thirty years he increased this to -over $100,000,000—perhaps twice that; no one knows. Vanderbilt had -to multiply this nest-egg of his forty-fourth year 250 times, but one -of these "trustees" will be a billionaire when he has turned himself -over only ten times. Poor's <i>Railroad Manual</i> shows these men and their -associates to be presidents or directors in thousands of miles of -railroads, valued at hundreds of millions. Their names were prominent -in the railroad "deal" of 1892 and 1893, which had for its end to put -the whole of New England under one hand, controlling both its land -and water connections with the rest of the country. They stand at the -receipt of custom at the railroad gates to the oil regions; to the -coal-fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Illinois; -the copper, gold, and silver mines of the West; the iron mines of the -West and South; the turpentine forests and the lumber regions and -cotton fields; the food-producing areas of the Mississippi basin; the -grazing lands of the plains. They are owners in the principal steamship -line between America and Europe, and in the "whalebacks," which appear -destined to drive other models out of the freight traffic of the lakes, -and have begun to appear on the Eastern and Western oceans, to capture -the carrying business of the world. Every dollar for the construction -of a State building at the World's Fair was advanced by one of them, as -the principal journal of the State announced, and it referred to him as -"the man who breathes life into its East coast towns, and the lifting -of his pen by his hand is like turning upsidedown the horn of plenty." -They are "in" the best things—telegraphs, the gas supply of our large -cities, street-railways, steel mills, ship-yards, Canadian and American -iron mines, town sites. Ore dug out of their own iron mines at the -head of Lake Supe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>rior is carried over their own railroad to their own -furnaces and mills. It rolls along until that which began to move as -ore lies at the docks of their ship-yards as a finished vessel, cut -out of the mountains, as it were, at one cheap stroke, or is loaded in -the cars in some perfected shape of steel, as steam radiators or what -not. They feed entire mountain ranges into their mills with one hand, -and with the other despatch the product in their own cars and ships to -all markets. Betrayal, bankruptcy, broken hearts, and death have kept -quick step with the march of the conquerors in iron as in oil. They -are in the combination in anthracite coal, with which the acquisition -by an American syndicate of the Nova Scotia coal deposits is closely -connected. Theirs is the largest share in the natural-gas business -in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Indiana, Illinois. They are in the -combination which controls lead, from pig to white lead, and turpentine -and linseed-oil and paints.</p> - -<p>"Its members," it was said in the application to the Attorney-General -of New York, in 1894, for a forfeiture of one of their charters, "are -now presidents and directors in 33,000 miles of road, one-fifth of the -total mileage in the United States. Its surplus is invested in banking, -in natural and manufacturing gas companies, in iron ore beds and coal -beds and crude-oil production, in lead and zinc, in turpentine and -cotton-seed oil, in steel, in jute manufacture, in ocean steamships, in -palatial hotels, in street-railroads."</p> - -<p>Most of their interests are in public functions, railroads, pipe lines, -telegraphs, postal contracts, steamers, municipal franchises, and the -like; but it is impossible to know their full extent with our present -crude means for enforcing the truth that property is power and that -civilization endures no irresponsible anonymous power. The corporation -is an agency by which the capitalist can do business in ambuscade. -"They are all in our company," said the manager of a very important -public agency, "but their names do not appear." It is not out of -deference to the obsolete idea that such matters are private business -that all the details of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> possessions are not given, but only -because they are not known.</p> - -<p>"There is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition," Daniel Webster -said; but he spoke of eloquence, not of the perfected modern commerce. -Selligue, the French genius to whose discoveries nothing of equal -importance has been added, is not dignified with an entry in the -encyclopædias or biographical dictionaries. For "Colonel" Drake, who -struck oil, a pension had to be provided by his friends in the regions -which he had filled with fountains of wealth. Mr. Van Syckel, who first -proved the pipe line to be practicable, died in Buffalo, paralytic, -helpless, and poor.</p> - -<p>The "age of oil" could not have come without the oil well and the drill -and derrick, and these in America are the lineal descendants of the -first salt well, drilled and whittled out of the rocks by the Ruffner -brothers, in 1806, in the "Great Buffalo Lick" of the Kanawha. Their -first "drill" was a great sycamore-tree, four feet through, hollowed -out, set on end on the ground in the lick, and gradually lowered as -the earth and stone within were dug away by a man inside. When they -came to the rock, which they could not blast because it was under -water, they hung a roughly-made iron drill by a rope to a spring pole -and went inch by inch through the rock, "kicking down" the well. Metal -tubes were not to be had, but the Yankee whittler solved the problem -of tubing the well. Two slender strips of wood were whittled into two -long, thin, half tubes, and tied together. This is the genesis of the -bored "well" and the "drill and derrick."<a name="FNanchor_665_665" id="FNanchor_665_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_665_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a> It took eighteen months -to accomplish this, but the wonder is that it was done at all "without -preliminary study, previous experience or training, without precedent, -in a newly-settled country without steam-power, machine-shop, skilled -mechanics, suitable tools or materials."</p> - -<p>These almost-forgotten men, shrewd, patient, undauntable,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> were the -pioneers of the skilful well-borers who have gone forth from the -Kanawha wells all over the country to bore wells for irrigation on -the Western plains, for cities, factories, and private use, for salt, -for gas, for geological and mineralogical explorations, and for -oil. "Billy Morris," of the Kanawha borings, invented a tool simple -enough, but not so simple as to be described here, called the "slips" -or "jars," which has done more for deep boring than anything except -the steam-engine, and for which, considering the part played in the -life of man by oil, gas, water, brine, and other wells, we are told -he "deserves to be ranked with the inventors of the sewing-machine, -reaper, and cotton-gin."<a name="FNanchor_666_666" id="FNanchor_666_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_666_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a> But "Uncle Billy" made a free gift to the -well-diggers of the world of his invaluable "slips," and slipped into -poverty and an unknown grave. To Joshua Merrill, more than to any one -else, belongs the honor of bringing the manufacture of oil in America -to its perfection.<a name="FNanchor_667_667" id="FNanchor_667_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_667_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a> He made better oil than any one else, and he -loved his work. "I was thirty-two years in the oil business. It was -the business of my life."<a name="FNanchor_668_668" id="FNanchor_668_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_668_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> But he had to dismantle his refinery, -and join the melancholy procession of two thousand years of scouts, -inventors, pioneers, capitalists, and toilers who march behind the -successful men.</p> - -<p>Yet, strange to say, these successful men did not discover the oil, -nor how to "strike" it. They were not the lucky owners of oil lands. -As late as 1888 they produced only 200 barrels a day—about 1 in every -3000—"an infinitesimal amount," their president said.<a name="FNanchor_669_669" id="FNanchor_669_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_669_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a> They did -not invent any of the processes of refining. They did not devise the -pipe line, and they did all they could to prevent the building<a name="FNanchor_670_670" id="FNanchor_670_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_670_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a> -of the first pipe line to the seaboard, and to cripple the successful -experiment of piping refined oil.<a name="FNanchor_671_671" id="FNanchor_671_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_671_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> They own all the important -re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span>fineries, and yet they have built very few. They did not project -the tank-car system, which came before them,<a name="FNanchor_672_672" id="FNanchor_672_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_672_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> and have used their -irresistible power to prevent its general use on the railroads, and -successfully.<a name="FNanchor_673_673" id="FNanchor_673_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_673_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a> They were not the first to enter the field in any -department. They did not have as great capital or skill as their -competitors.<a name="FNanchor_674_674" id="FNanchor_674_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_674_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a> They began their career in the wrong place—at -Cleveland—out of the way of the wells and the principal markets, -necessitating several hundred miles more of transportation for all of -their product that was marketed in the East or Europe.<a name="FNanchor_675_675" id="FNanchor_675_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_675_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a> They had -no process of refining oil which others had not, and no legitimate -advantages over others.<a name="FNanchor_676_676" id="FNanchor_676_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_676_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> They did not even invent the rebate. They -made oil poor<a name="FNanchor_677_677" id="FNanchor_677_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_677_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> and scarce<a name="FNanchor_678_678" id="FNanchor_678_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_678_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a> and dear.<a name="FNanchor_679_679" id="FNanchor_679_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_679_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a></p> - -<p>The power to chalk down daily on the black-board of the New York -Produce Exchange the price at which people in two hemispheres shall buy -their light has followed these strokes of "cheapness":</p> - -<p>1. Freight rates to the general public have been increased, often to -double and more what is paid by a favored few.<a name="FNanchor_680_680" id="FNanchor_680_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_680_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a></p> - -<p>2. The construction has been resisted of new lines of transportation by -rail,<a name="FNanchor_681_681" id="FNanchor_681_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_681_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a></p> - -<p>3. And pipe.<a name="FNanchor_682_682" id="FNanchor_682_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_682_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> This has been done by litigation,<a name="FNanchor_683_683" id="FNanchor_683_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_683_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> by influence, -by violence,<a name="FNanchor_684_684" id="FNanchor_684_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_684_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> even to the threatened use of cannon,<a name="FNanchor_685_685" id="FNanchor_685_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_685_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a> and by -legislation, as in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to prevent the right of -eminent domain from being given by "free pipe-line bills" to the people -generally.</p> - -<p>4. The cost of pipeage has been raised.<a name="FNanchor_686_686" id="FNanchor_686_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_686_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a></p> - -<p>5. Rivers and canals have been closed.<a name="FNanchor_687_687" id="FNanchor_687_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_687_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p> - -<p>6. Oil has been made to run to waste on the ground.<a name="FNanchor_688_688" id="FNanchor_688_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_688_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a></p> - -<p>7. The outflow of oil from the earth has been shut down.<a name="FNanchor_689_689" id="FNanchor_689_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_689_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a></p> - -<p>8. The outflow of human energy that sought to turn it to human use has -been shut down by restricting the manufacture by the combination and by -others, by contract,<a name="FNanchor_690_690" id="FNanchor_690_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_690_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a> dismantling,<a name="FNanchor_691_691" id="FNanchor_691_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_691_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> and explosion.<a name="FNanchor_692_692" id="FNanchor_692_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_692_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a></p> - -<p>9. High fees have been maintained for inspection,<a name="FNanchor_693_693" id="FNanchor_693_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_693_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a> and the -inspectors have been brought into equivocal relations with the -monopoly.<a name="FNanchor_694_694" id="FNanchor_694_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_694_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a></p> - -<p>10. The general use of tank-cars and tank-steamers has been -prevented.<a name="FNanchor_695_695" id="FNanchor_695_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_695_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a></p> - -<p>11. The people have been excluded from the free and equal use of the -docks, storehouses, and other terminal facilities of the railroads in -the great harbors of export.<a name="FNanchor_696_696" id="FNanchor_696_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_696_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a></p> - -<p>12. Inventors and their better processes have been smothered.<a name="FNanchor_697_697" id="FNanchor_697_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_697_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a></p> - -<p>13. Men have been paid more for spying than they could earn by -working.<a name="FNanchor_698_698" id="FNanchor_698_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_698_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a></p> - -<p>14. "Killing delay" has been created in the administration of -justice.<a name="FNanchor_699_699" id="FNanchor_699_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_699_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a></p> - -<p>All are poorer—oil-producers, land-owners, all labor, all the -railroads, all the refiners, merchants, all the consumers of oil—the -whole people. Less oil has flowed, less light shone, and there has -been less happiness and virtue. In every one of the few intervals, -says Hudson, during which oil could flow freely to Pittsburg, all the -businesses connected with it were active and expanding.<a name="FNanchor_700_700" id="FNanchor_700_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_700_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a></p> - -<p>When the trust's secretary was asked for the proper name of the -combination, his reply was: "The Lord only knows; I don't." "An -indescribable thing," he said again.<a name="FNanchor_701_701" id="FNanchor_701_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_701_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a></p> - -<p>"Do you understand the practical work of refining as a refiner?" he was -asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I do not.... I have not been inside a refinery in ten years."<a name="FNanchor_702_702" id="FNanchor_702_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_702_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a></p> - -<p>"Two mills a ton a mile for five hundred miles would be a dollar a ton?"</p> - -<p>"I am not able to demonstrate that proposition."</p> - -<p>"You have some arithmetical knowledge?"</p> - -<p>"I cannot answer that question."<a name="FNanchor_703_703" id="FNanchor_703_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_703_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a></p> - -<p>He could not state what proportion of the oil trade is now controlled -by the trust. He had never looked into that question. He did not know -who knows these things.<a name="FNanchor_704_704" id="FNanchor_704_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_704_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a></p> - -<p>"You own the pipe line to New York?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir."</p> - -<p>"What does it cost you to do business on that pipe line?"</p> - -<p>"I do not know anything about it.... I have never been in the oil -regions but once in my life.... I am not a practical oil man.... For -perhaps eight years I have given absolutely no attention to the details -of our business."<a name="FNanchor_705_705" id="FNanchor_705_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_705_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a></p> - -<p>Asked upon another occasion, before the Pennsylvania Legislature, about -the accounts of the company when he was its secretary, he said:</p> - -<p>"I am not familiar with the accounts."<a name="FNanchor_706_706" id="FNanchor_706_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_706_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a></p> - -<p>"I am a clamorer for dividends. That is the only function I have," said -another trustee.<a name="FNanchor_707_707" id="FNanchor_707_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_707_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a></p> - -<p>"When was your last rate given you, the rate at which you are now being -carried (on the New York Central)?"</p> - -<p>"I could not tell."<a name="FNanchor_708_708" id="FNanchor_708_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_708_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a></p> - -<p>The secretary had testified that this associate attended to getting the -rates of freight; but the latter avowed that he could not remember "any -rate" that he had paid "at any time." But a little later he who could -not remember any rate he had ever paid was able to tell the committee, -off-hand, the exact rate of freight on oil by steamer from Batoum in -Russia to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> Liverpool, and knew the rate from the wells at Baku by rail -to the sea at Batoum!<a name="FNanchor_709_709" id="FNanchor_709_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_709_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a></p> - -<p>"Had you ever been interested in the refinery of oil in any manner when -you first became connected with the oil business?" another trustee was -asked.</p> - -<p>"Never."</p> - -<p>"Or the production of oil?"</p> - -<p>"Never."</p> - -<p>He was a railroad man, and had been taken into the combination for his -value as such; but when he was asked if he could tell any of the rates -of freight his company had paid, he said:</p> - -<p>"I cannot."<a name="FNanchor_710_710" id="FNanchor_710_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_710_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a></p> - -<p>"What is your business and where do you reside?" another of the -trustees was asked by the State of New York.</p> - -<p>"I decline to answer any question until I can consult counsel."<a name="FNanchor_711_711" id="FNanchor_711_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_711_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a></p> - -<p>"What is the capital stock?" was asked of another.</p> - -<p>"I do not know."</p> - -<p>"How much has the capital been increased since?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"Where are the meetings of the Standard Oil Company held?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"How many directors are there?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"Do they own any pipe lines?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"I don't know anything about the rates of transportation."<a name="FNanchor_712_712" id="FNanchor_712_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_712_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a></p> - -<p>"What quantity of oil was exported by the different concerns with which -you were connected from the port of New York in 1881?" the president -was asked.</p> - -<p>"I do not know."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span></p> - -<p>"How many millions of barrels of oil were refined by such concerns in -the vicinity of New York in 1881?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know how much was refined."</p> - -<p>"Did not the concern with which you were so connected purchase over -8,000,000 barrels of crude petroleum in 1881?"</p> - -<p>"I am unable to state."</p> - -<p>He was asked to give the name of one refinery in this country, running -at the time (1883), not owned or substantially controlled by his -concern. "I decline to answer."<a name="FNanchor_713_713" id="FNanchor_713_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_713_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a></p> - -<p>He was asked if he would say the total profits of his trust's companies -for the last year (1887) were not as much as $20,000,000.</p> - -<p>"I haven't the least knowledge on that subject."<a name="FNanchor_714_714" id="FNanchor_714_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_714_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a></p> - -<p>Phrenologists are right. Memory is not to be ranked with the mental -attributes of the highest importance. The head of the New York Central -could not tell when a stock dividend of something like $46,000,000 had -been declared on one of his railroads—and a $46,000,000 dividend is -something worth remembering. "I don't know.... I don't remember."<a name="FNanchor_715_715" id="FNanchor_715_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_715_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a> -It is lucky for the rest of us that these great men forget something.</p> - -<p>One of the chiefs of the oil combination was a witness in Cleveland in -1887 in a suit by the State of Ohio against certain railroads.</p> - -<p>"What business in connection with the oil business is done in the -building in which the oil trust has its office in New York?"</p> - -<p>"I do not think I could state just what business is done in that -building, I am sure."</p> - -<p>Asked on the witness-stand in the Buffalo explosion case when it was he -formed the "trust" with $70,000,000 of capital, the president replied: -"I am unable to state," and he could not say where its articles of -agreement were, nor who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> has control of it. When questioned before the -Interstate Commission he could not tell within $25,000,000 how much -business they were doing a year.<a name="FNanchor_716_716" id="FNanchor_716_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_716_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a></p> - -<p>These men keep no books. The whole arrangement is just a happy family, -like Barnum's monkeys, birds, cats, dogs, and mice in the same -cage. "It is a business of faith," one of the ruling four puts it. -Another was asked about the by-laws under which he and his associates -transacted their business. "I don't know that I have seen a copy," he -replied, and as to where it was he was able only to "suppose."<a name="FNanchor_717_717" id="FNanchor_717_717"></a><a href="#Footnote_717_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a></p> - -<p>When the committee of the Legislature called for the books recording -the transactions of the trust and its attorneys and committees, there -were practically none to produce. All there was in the way of a record -of transactions of a magnitude beyond those of any other commercial -institution in this country or the world were a few pages of formal -entries from which nothing could be learned. The executive committee -received and passed upon the disbursements of money by the treasurer, -and the reports of sub-committees and of members, who had sweeping -powers of attorney, by which these countless millions were kept rolling -themselves up into more, but it never kept any records.</p> - -<p>"I have no knowledge of any formal record having been made," one of -them said. The reports were "either verbal or on pieces of paper.... -I think it was memorandums," he continued, and the memorandums were -"undoubtedly destroyed." They were transcribed into the records of the -trustees, he said, but the search of the committee showed that the -transcription was a "skeleton," consisting mainly of the mere phrase, -"Minutes of the executive committee approved." "The real minutes do not -appear upon the book," Senator Ives, of the committee, said.</p> - -<p>"There is no book to produce?"</p> - -<p>"There is no book."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span></p> - -<p>"And there is no memorandum?"</p> - -<p>"There is no memorandum."<a name="FNanchor_718_718" id="FNanchor_718_718"></a><a href="#Footnote_718_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a></p> - -<p>"Does the trust keep books?" the "president" was asked by Congress.</p> - -<p>"No, we have no system of book-keeping."</p> - -<p>On further pressure he said that the treasurer had "a record to know -what money comes in."</p> - -<p>"You have never seen those books?"</p> - -<p>"I do not think I have ever seen those books."</p> - -<p>"Has any member of the nine" (trustees) "ever seen those books?"</p> - -<p>"I do not know that they have."<a name="FNanchor_719_719" id="FNanchor_719_719"></a><a href="#Footnote_719_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a></p> - -<p>Simplicity is said to be always a characteristic of greatness. What -could be simpler, and so greater, than this? The elements of success -are only—</p> - -<p>1. Not to know anything about the business.</p> - -<p>2. To keep no books.</p> - -<p>3. To have "a record to know what money comes in," and</p> - -<p>4. Never to look at it.</p> - -<p>Finally, the operations of these men have, in their own language, not -been "business." Its secretary told Congress that the "trust" was "not -a business corporation,"<a name="FNanchor_720_720" id="FNanchor_720_720"></a><a href="#Footnote_720_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a> and an associate declared in court that -it "cannot do business." The report of the New York Legislature shows -that on October 3, 1883, the president had by a formal instrument been -made the attorney of the trust to sign and execute all the contracts -made by it. The same instrument in express terms confirmed the -execution of contracts heretofore signed by him, showing that he had -been making contracts.<a name="FNanchor_721_721" id="FNanchor_721_721"></a><a href="#Footnote_721_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a></p> - -<p>"Those gentlemen" (the members of the trust who hold its power of -attorney) "do actually execute contracts involving pretty large -amounts, sometimes without a formal resolution of the Board of -Trustees, do they not?" one of them was asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Undoubtedly they do."<a name="FNanchor_722_722" id="FNanchor_722_722"></a><a href="#Footnote_722_722" class="fnanchor">[722]</a></p> - -<p>Following their employers, the lawyers in the Pennsylvania Tax case for -the oil combination argued that its operations were not business within -the meaning of the tax law. If the "no money" of 1862 has become the -control, in one industry alone, of $160,000,000 in 1892 by methods that -are not "business," what are they?</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—The principal members of the oil combination were -heard at great length in its defence before the committee of Congress -investigating trusts in 1888.<a name="FNanchor_723_723" id="FNanchor_723_723"></a><a href="#Footnote_723_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a> Their testimony has been frequently -used in our pages. But they felt that their case needed further -elucidation, and asked the committee to hear them again. The committee -declined to hear them again "explain or contradict," as they offered -to do, but by printing their communication gave them the benefit of -their denials and explanations.<a name="FNanchor_724_724" id="FNanchor_724_724"></a><a href="#Footnote_724_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a> Their offer was mainly to go -again over the ground that the "South Improvement Company never did -any business," that the combination "obtained no preferences" on the -railroads, that they had cheapened transportation, improved machinery, -made better oil at less cost, and so on. The chief officers and owners -had been heard on all these points to the extent of hundreds of pages -of testimony. But though it did not recall them to the witness-stand, -the committee, in addition to printing their communication, printed -most of the documentary evidence they desired to submit. This covered -nearly two hundred pages more.<a name="FNanchor_725_725" id="FNanchor_725_725"></a><a href="#Footnote_725_725" class="fnanchor">[725]</a></p> - -<p>The examination, which any one can make, of this record discloses an -interesting fact concerning the proof, and the trust's offer to prove, -which can best be shown in parallel columns:</p> - -</blockquote> -<table summary="proof" width="98%"> -<tr><td align="center">TRUST'S OFFER TO PROVE.</td> <td align="center">THE PROOF.</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tda">It offered the evidence of the third -vice-president of the Pennsylvania -Railroad to "show the South -Improvement Company never did any -business, and its charter was -repealed in 1872." </td> - -<td class="tdr">But the testimony of this witness -states that his connection with -the oil business of the Pennsylvania -that scheme—did not begin until -1873.<a name="FNanchor_726_726" id="FNanchor_726_726"></a> -<a href="#Footnote_726_726" class="fnanchor">[726]</a></td></tr> -<tr> -<td class="tda">It offered the same evidence to -prove that the same rebates granted -it by the contract of October 17, -1877, "were also granted to every -shipper who contracted to do <i>all</i> -his business over the Pennsylvania -Railroad."</td> - -<td>But this witness stated that his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> -road would give other shippers as -low rates as to the oil combination, -"if they would guarantee the same -quantity—not otherwise—under that -contract";<a name="FNanchor_727_727" id="FNanchor_727_727"></a><a href="#Footnote_727_727" class="fnanchor">[727]</a> -and the contract itself -states that no other shipper should -have the same rebate—"commission," -it is called—unless his business -gave the road "the same amount of -profit you realized from our trade."<a name="FNanchor_728_728" id="FNanchor_728_728"></a><a href="#Footnote_728_728" class="fnanchor">[728]</a> -No shipper could get the same rates -by giving "all his business." He -must give "the same quantity"—a -totally different proposition.</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tda">It offered the evidence taken in the -Buffalo Explosion case, to show that -"C.B. Matthews testified falsely" -in testifying that it was sworn to -that the members of the oil -combination on trial employed -detectives in Matthews' refineries, -and that the detective was some time -in Matthews' employ, and made his -report to the lawyer of the trust, -and he got his pay from this lawyer.</td> - -<td>The evidence shows that this was -what was sworn to: "I have now a -detective agency here" (Buffalo). "I -employed L—— B——. At the time -he was in my employ he was employed -at the works of the Buffalo -Lubricating Company" (Matthews' -company). "He made reports to me.... -I forwarded copies—one to New -York, one to Rochester.... The one -forwarded to New York was addressed -to" (the lawyer of the oil -trust). "I met" (this lawyer, naming -him) "at New York City, at No. 44 -Broadway, which is the office of the" -(oil trust). "I received my pay from" -(him). "My instructions from" (him) -"were in writing."<a name="FNanchor_729_729" id="FNanchor_729_729"></a><a href="#Footnote_729_729" class="fnanchor">[729]</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tda"> It offered "to prove that C.B. -Matthews testified falsely in saying -that it was proved by a witness" -that the Rochester representative of -the oil combination said that the -principal company in it "would sue -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span>Matthews once a month, or once a -week, if necessary, to squeeze him -out."</td> - - -<td>This was what "was proved by a -witness," and referred to by Matthews. -"He" (the Rochester representative -of the oil combination) -"said he thought they" (Matthews' -company) "would not survive.... By -the time they got through with all -the suits that they" (the oil combination) -"would bring, the Buffalo Lubricating -Company would be pretty -much used up.... He didn't know -as they would gain anything really, -but they would embarrass them by -bringing these suits, and if it was -necessary they would bring them -once a month—yes, they would bring -them once a week."<a name="FNanchor_730_730" id="FNanchor_730_730"></a><a href="#Footnote_730_730" class="fnanchor">[730]</a> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<p>Similarly, throughout, the trust's offer to prove falls when -confronted with its own proof. Many more instances could be given, but -more than one instance is not needed.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</a></p> - -<p class="center">THE SMOKELESS REBATE</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">With</span> searching intelligence, indomitable will, and a conscience which -makes religion, patriotism, and the domestic virtues but subordinate -paragraphs in a ritual of money worship, the mercantile mind flies -its air-line to business supremacy. That entirely modern social -arrangement—the private ownership of public highways—has introduced a -new weapon into business warfare which means universal dominion to him -who will use it with an iron hand.</p> - -<p>This weapon is the rebate, smokeless, noiseless, invisible, of -extraordinary range, and the deadliest gun known to commercial warfare. -It is not a lawful weapon. Like the explosive bullet, it is not -recognized by the laws of war. It has to be used secretly. All the -rates he got were a secret between himself and the railroads. "It has -never been otherwise," testified one of the oil combination.<a name="FNanchor_731_731" id="FNanchor_731_731"></a><a href="#Footnote_731_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a> The -Chevalier Bayard declared proudly, as he lay on his death-bed, that he -had never given quarter to any one so degraded and unknightly as to -use gunpowder. Every one would close in at once to destroy a market -combatant who avowed that he employed this wicked projectile.</p> - -<p>The apparatus of the rebate is so simple that it looks less like a -destroying angel than any weapon of offence ever known. The whole -battery consists only of a pen and ink and some paper. The discharge is -but the making of an entry—but the signing of a check. But when the -man who commands this simple enginery directs it against a business<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> -competitor you can follow the track of wreckage like the path of a -cyclone, by the ruins which lie bleaching in the air for years. The -gentlemen who employ it give no evidence of being otherwise engaged -than in their ordinary pursuits. They go about sedate and smiling, with -seemingly friendly hands empty of all tools of death. But all about -them as they will, as if it were only by wish of theirs which attendant -spirits hastened to execute, rivals are blown out of the highways, busy -mills and refineries turn to dust, hearts break, and strong men go mad -or commit suicide or surrender their persons and their property to the -skilful artillerists.</p> - -<p>"And in the actual practice of daily life," says Ruskin, "you will find -that wherever there is secrecy, there is either guilt or danger." "When -did you discover the fact that these rebates had been paid?" one of the -victims was asked.</p> - -<p>"We never discovered it as a fact until the testimony was taken in -1879.... We always suspected it; but we never knew of it of our -personal knowledge, and never would really have known it of our -personal knowledge.... I had no idea of the iniquity that was going -on."<a name="FNanchor_732_732" id="FNanchor_732_732"></a><a href="#Footnote_732_732" class="fnanchor">[732]</a></p> - -<p>Nothing so demolishing was ever so delicate and intangible as this, for -its essence is but a union of the minds of a railroad official and some -business friend, perhaps a silent partner, bent on business empire. The -model merchant, fortunate in having a friend willing so to use a power -sovereigns would not dare to use, walks the public way, strong in his -secret, and smiles with triumph as all at whom he levels his invisible -wand sicken and disappear. "He has the receipt of fern-seed. He walks -invisible."</p> - -<p>Men who hunt their fellow-men with this concealed weapon always deny -it, as they must. To use it has always been a sin, and has been made a -crime in every civilized State. Under United States law it is, since -1887, an offence punishable with imprisonment in the penitentiary.<a name="FNanchor_733_733" id="FNanchor_733_733"></a><a href="#Footnote_733_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a> -Moral ideals are not born in legislatures. When an act attains by a -law the distinction of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> being made a crime, it is already well on its -way to extinction. It is made infamous by law, because it has already -become infamous before the conscience and honor of men. It was not the -prohibition of highway privilege by the Constitution of Pennsylvania or -the laws of the United States which made the rebate an iniquity. This -legal volley is but a salute to the established conscience.</p> - -<p>The question most often pressed before all the many legislative and -judicial inquests held upon the dead bodies which strew every field of -the oil industry has been whether the extraordinary powers which the -invention of the locomotive and the transformation of public highways -into private property had given railways over the livelihoods of the -people had been used to make it impossible for any but a preferred few -to live.</p> - -<p>One of the successful men disposed of the evidence that these powers -had been so used by styling it before the committee of Congress of -1888 as the "worst balderdash," and before the New York Legislative -Committee of 1888 as "irresponsible newspaper statements," "a malignity -and mendacity that is little short of devilishness." The secretary of -the oil trust waved it away as "all this newspaper talk and flurry." -The president knows nothing about the existence of such privileges, -except that he has "heard much of it in the papers." And yet another of -the trust in the <i>North American Review</i> of February, 1883, similarly -describes the accusation as "uncontradicted calumny," to which, he -regrets to say, "several respectable journals and magazines lent -themselves."</p> - -<p>After taking 3700 pages of evidence and sitting for months, the -committee of 1879 of the New York Legislature said in their report: -"The history of this corporation is a unique illustration of the -possible outgrowth of the present system of railroad management in -giving preferential rates, and also showing the colossal proportions to -which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>monopoly can grow under the laws of this country.<a name="FNanchor_734_734" id="FNanchor_734_734"></a><a href="#Footnote_734_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a> ... The -parties whom they have driven to the wall have had ample capital and -equal ability in the prosecution of their business in all things save -their ability to acquire facilities for transportation."<a name="FNanchor_735_735" id="FNanchor_735_735"></a><a href="#Footnote_735_735" class="fnanchor">[735]</a></p> - -<p>The committee of the Ohio Legislature which took the evidence of the -treatment of the Marietta independents by the railroads<a name="FNanchor_736_736" id="FNanchor_736_736"></a><a href="#Footnote_736_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a> is, so far -as the author knows, the only body of all the legislative and judicial -tribunals that have been investigating for the past thirty years which -has found the relations of the railroads and the oil combination to -be proper. It used the words "public," "uniform," "in accordance -with law," "equitable," "no special discriminations or privileges" -to describe the conduct of the common carriers in that case. But in -doing so it had to except from these exculpations the railroad which -originated the attack on the independent refiners, and the rates of -which controlled the others, as it was the initial road. It had also -to admit that the oil combination had received "better rates," but -defended them on the ground that its shipments were larger. These two -exceptions are doors wide enough to admit every possibility of the -rebate. The Secretary of State for Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania -made an investigation in 1878 on the complaint of citizens. He reported -to the Attorney-General that no case had been made out "beyond the -ordinary province of individual redress." He was hung in effigy by -the citizens, and the evidence he took remains, like that of the Ohio -Committee of 1879, a valuable repository of facts from which students -can draw their own conclusions.</p> - -<p>More than any others the wrongs of the oil industry provoked the -investigations by Congress from 1872 to 1887, and caused the -establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and more than -any others they have claimed the attention of the new law and the -new court. The cases brought before it cover the oil business on -practically every road of any importance in the United States—in -New England, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> Middle States, the West, the South, the Pacific -coast; on the great East and West trunk roads—the Pennsylvania, the -Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central, and all their -allied lines; on the transcontinental lines—the Union Pacific, -the Central Pacific, the Southern Pacific; on the steamship and -railroad association controlling the South and Southwest. They show -that from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the -Gulf of Mexico, wherever the American citizen seeks an opening in -this industry, he finds it, like the deer forests and grouse moors -of the old country, protected by game-keepers against him and the -common herd. The terms in which the commission have described the -preferences given the oil combination are not ambiguous: "Great -difference in rates," "unjust discrimination," "intentional disregard -of rights," "unexcused," "a vast discrepancy," "enormous," "illegal," -"excessive,"<a name="FNanchor_737_737" id="FNanchor_737_737"></a><a href="#Footnote_737_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a> "extraordinary," "forbidden by the act to regulate -commerce,"<a name="FNanchor_738_738" id="FNanchor_738_738"></a><a href="#Footnote_738_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a> "so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no -discussion of it is necessary," "wholly indefensible," "patent and -provoking discriminations for which no rational excuse is suggested," -"obnoxious," "disparity ... absurd and inexcusable," "gross -disproportions and inequalities,"<a name="FNanchor_739_739" id="FNanchor_739_739"></a><a href="#Footnote_739_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a> "long practised," "the most -unjust and injurious discrimination ... and this discrimination inured -mostly to the benefit of one powerful combination."<a name="FNanchor_740_740" id="FNanchor_740_740"></a><a href="#Footnote_740_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a></p> - -<p>This was what the Interstate Commerce Commission found all along the -record from 1887 to 1893. When one of those who got the benefits so -characterized was before the New York Legislature in 1888, he said:</p> - -<p>"I know of no discrimination in the oil traffic of any kind since the -passage of the Interstate Commerce Act."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Do you use any means for the purpose of avoiding the effect of that -new law?"</p> - -<p>"None whatever."<a name="FNanchor_741_741" id="FNanchor_741_741"></a><a href="#Footnote_741_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a></p> - -<p>But the people have found that the explicit prohibitions of the -Interstate Commerce law were of no more protection to them than -the equally explicit prohibitions given long before by the State -constitutions and laws, the common law of the court, and by the still -older common law of right, which the statute was created to enforce. -The "unjust," "enormous," "illegal" differences in freights by which -the public was excluded were got from the railroads after, as before, -Congress, obedient to an aroused and universal demand, had passed a -special statute and created a special tribunal to prevent and punish -this special sort of crime. This is the adjudicated fact.</p> - -<p>This "uncontradicted calumny," "worst balderdash," "malignity -and mendacity," "irresponsible newspaper statements" proves upon -examination to be:</p> - -<p>1. Testimony of unimpeached and in many cases uncontradicted witnesses, -given under oath in legislative investigations and in court, subject to -examination and cross-examination and rebuttal.</p> - -<p>2. Reports of State legislative committees.</p> - -<p>3. Copies of the contracts.<a name="FNanchor_742_742" id="FNanchor_742_742"></a><a href="#Footnote_742_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a></p> - -<p>4. Decision of courts, State and national.<a name="FNanchor_743_743" id="FNanchor_743_743"></a><a href="#Footnote_743_743" class="fnanchor">[743]</a></p> - -<p>The South Improvement plan of 1872 is still in unrelenting operation, -according to the latest news. A case is now pending before the -Interstate Commerce Commission,<a name="FNanchor_744_744" id="FNanchor_744_744"></a><a href="#Footnote_744_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a> in which charges of highway abuse -even more sensational than any of those we have seen judicially proved -are made against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> thirty railroads by which the oil of Ohio, -Pennsylvania, and New York reaches the Pacific coast. A San Francisco -oil dealer is the petitioner for relief. He recites the discriminations -given the oil combination on the Pacific coast before the Interstate -Commerce law was enacted. These were admitted by the officials of -the roads before the United States Pacific Railway Commission of -1887. The traffic managers of the Southern Pacific testified that -the oil combination, "from the time it acquired the oil business on -this coast, had lower rates than the general tariff provided, or than -other shippers paid on coal oil."<a name="FNanchor_745_745" id="FNanchor_745_745"></a><a href="#Footnote_745_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a> The general freight agent of -the Central Pacific Railroad admitted that his road had the same -arrangement, and had accepted the business "at rates dictated" by the -oil combination.<a name="FNanchor_746_746" id="FNanchor_746_746"></a><a href="#Footnote_746_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a> The general traffic manager of the Union Pacific -Railroad said:</p> - -<p>"We have paid them a good deal in rebates." It was a "pretty large" -preference.</p> - -<p>"What was the effect on the small dealer?"</p> - -<p>"I should think it would be embarrassing to the small shipper!"<a name="FNanchor_747_747" id="FNanchor_747_747"></a><a href="#Footnote_747_747" class="fnanchor">[747]</a></p> - -<p>When the Interstate Commerce law went into force the oil combination -introduced a patented car for the transcontinental trade, which -it claimed the sole right to use. Though the new car was to the -disadvantage of the railroads, as it cost more to haul, the managers -gave it lower rates than any other car and carried it back free, while -they punished the shippers who gave them a lighter and better car by -charging them $105 for carrying that back.</p> - -<p>The San Francisco complainant goes on to charge that a plan was -concocted and put in operation by which rates were lowered whenever the -combination wanted to fill its warehouses on the Pacific coast, and as -soon as they were full were put back again. This lowering and raising -of rates was "to the public sudden and unexpected."<a name="FNanchor_748_748" id="FNanchor_748_748"></a><a href="#Footnote_748_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a> It was known -in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> advance only to the ring and the railroads. Before other shippers -could take advantage of the low rates they would be raised again. The -complaint recites that in pursuance of this plan, after the combination -had transferred to the Pacific coast at the end of 1888 from its -Eastern refineries all it needed for the next season's business, the -railroads advanced the rates from 82½ cents a hundred pounds to -$1.25. The next May the railroads made a similar seesaw, and, he says, -in December, 1892, "are still making ... such arbitrary and sudden -reductions ... to the undue advantage" of the oil combination "and to -the detriment and injury of all other shippers." The San Francisco -merchant also charges that in the interest of the Eastern refineries -of the combination rates are made to prevent the large product of the -oil-fields and independent refineries of Colorado and Wyoming from -reaching the Pacific coast, "which needs them to furnish fuel for its -manufactories, as well as for light for its residents." Similarly we -find the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad charging $105 for a car-load -of cattle from Wyoming to Chicago, while for a car of 75 barrels of -oil the freight would be $348. In connection with these charges the -press published the telegrams, filling columns, which were said to have -passed between the officials of the railroads and the oil combination -in the negotiation of this arrangement. In one of these telegrams the -freight agent of the Southern Pacific explains the new deal. "He" (the -agent of the oil combination) "would stock up at the low rate, then -notify the association of railroads when to advance." The advance or -decline was to be "made at certain seasons of the year in accordance -with this supply on hand." When the negotiation was finished and the -plan was agreed to, a San Francisco agent of the oil combination is -said to have telegraphed to its officers in New York: "I think we have -managed this freight business pretty well from this long distance, -especially when you think that we have secured the 90-cent rate with -which to stock up from time to time." His telegram also discloses -that the arrangement extended to lead and linseed-oil, showing, what -is well known,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> that the combinations in these articles belong to the -members of that in oil. These charges are, it is to be remembered, -still unadjudicated, this published evidence is not yet substantiated. -But the arrangement which is charged is in exact pursuance of that -part of the South Improvement Company contract which bound the -railroads to "lower or raise the gross rates of transportation ... -for such times and to such extent as may be necessary to overcome -... competition."<a name="FNanchor_749_749" id="FNanchor_749_749"></a><a href="#Footnote_749_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a> And Attorney-General Olney has been publicly -informed<a name="FNanchor_750_750" id="FNanchor_750_750"></a><a href="#Footnote_750_750" class="fnanchor">[750]</a> that during the summer of 1894 oil rates between -Pennsylvania and Colorado were put down from 75 cents a hundred to 25 -cents, and a few weeks later raised again to the old rate. Another -increase made the rates to Denver higher, for oil, than to the Pacific -coast. He has been asked to ascertain, judicially, if this shuffling -of rates was not made, like that complained of before the Interstate -Commerce Commission, to allow the oil trust "to stock up at the old -rate." His informants suggest that the same powers with which he has -brought railway employés to trial for infractions of the Interstate -Commerce law can be used against the railways.</p> - -<p>This is not all of the story. This patented car spoken of was a mere -aggregation of old elements, as the courts held, and the patent was -void. Advised by their lawyer that this would be the view the courts -would have to take, competitors of the combination in the business of -the Pacific coast, where they had been at the head until these new -tricks of trade came in, introduced a car of their own of the same -class. They thus became entitled to the same low rates and the same -free return of the car as their powerful rival. This put them again -on an equality in transportation. They had not been using these new -cars long before two of them, shipped as usual from the East, failed -to arrive. Their search for the missing cars put them in possession of -the interesting information that a litigation, of which they had had -no notice or knowledge whatever, had for some time been in progress,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> -and was at that moment at the point of decision. As their interests -had been entirely unrepresented, this decision would certainly have -been against them, and would have forever made impossible the use of -their cars on any railroad of the United States. This had been done -by an apparently hostile litigation by the oil combination against -the Southern Pacific Railroad. The former sued in the United States -courts for an injunction to forbid the railroad from hauling the -cars of the competitor, on the ground that they were an infringement -on its own patented cars. No notice was given the persons most -interested—the owners of the cars in question—whose business life -was involved, and they were not at first made parties to the suit. -The dummy defendant—the railroad—made no valid opposition, but with -great condescension admitted that all the averments of its antagonist -were true. The case was sent through the courts on a gallop to get -a decision. After that the merchants whose cars were the object of -the attack, as they had not been parties to the case, could not have -it reopened, and it would stand against them without possibility of -reversal. The firm found that a temporary injunction had been applied -for and had been granted; that this had been followed by proceedings -to make the injunction perpetual; that subpœnas had been issued, -served, and returned, and an order had been obtained from the court -for taking testimony. In place of the regular examiner of the court, -a special examiner had been appointed; he had begun taking evidence -the same day, and taking it privately. The testimony so taken had been -sealed and filed. The railroad had made its answer December 2d, the -testimony already taken was filed in court December 3d, making the -case complete for decision by the judges. December 4th the firm heard -for the first time of what was being done, and December 5th applied -for the right to take part, which saved them. To get such cases ready -for a hearing in the United States Circuit Court, where this was done, -usually requires a year. But in this instance it was done in two weeks! -Only just as the door of the court was closing irrevocably, as far as -their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> rights were concerned, did the firm get inside, and secure leave -to have their side represented. The whole fabric of the litigation -fell at the first touch. The temporary injunction against the use of -their car was dissolved, the permanent injunction was refused, the -patent of the oil trust's car was declared worthless, and this decision -was upheld by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in February, -1893.<a name="FNanchor_751_751" id="FNanchor_751_751"></a><a href="#Footnote_751_751" class="fnanchor">[751]</a></p> - -<p>Meanwhile their oil, side-tracked in the Mojave Desert and elsewhere, -was being cooked to death, their customers were going elsewhere, and -they were being put to loss and damages which they are now suing to -have made good to them. "There are some equivocal circumstances in -the case," said Judge Hoffman, dissolving the injunctions in 1890. He -pointed out that the railroad made no objection to the injunction which -deprived it of business. This "tends to corroborate suspicions," he -said, suggested by other features of the case. The railroad persisted -in remaining in the case to the end, after the real parties in interest -came in, and, although codefendants with these parties, the road -manœuvred for the benefit of the other side in a way which the Court -again said "had an equivocal appearance." The counsel for the firm, -in his brief for the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, pointed -out more causes for "suspicion." He showed the Court that the records -of the case had been mutilated in many places. All the mutilations -were in favor of the other side of the case. Who was the author of -the mutilations was not shown, but it was shown that the record had -been intrusted by the lower court to a representative of one of the -oil trust, to be printed and delivered to the Court of Appeals. "It -would be a very easy matter for a vicious attorney," said the lawyer -of the independents, "under such circumstances, to make changes -and alterations in the record that might not be noticed, but would -nevertheless greatly prejudice the case."</p> - -<p>When the victims of the smokeless rebate used the only prop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>erty many -of them had left—their right of appeal to courts or Legislature -or executive officials—they were showered with abuse, as people -with "private grievances,"<a name="FNanchor_752_752" id="FNanchor_752_752"></a><a href="#Footnote_752_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a> "strikers and sore-heads," -"black-mailers,"<a name="FNanchor_753_753" id="FNanchor_753_753"></a><a href="#Footnote_753_753" class="fnanchor">[753]</a> "moss-backs," ... "naturally left in the lurch" -... "people who came forward with envy and jealousy of the success" -of the oil combination,<a name="FNanchor_754_754" id="FNanchor_754_754"></a><a href="#Footnote_754_754" class="fnanchor">[754]</a> "throttlers," "ravenous wolves," "hoary -old reprobate," "senile old liar," "public till-tapper," "plunderers," -"pestilence."<a name="FNanchor_755_755" id="FNanchor_755_755"></a><a href="#Footnote_755_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a> Such are a few of the blossoms of rhetoric -with which those who sought their rights in courts or before the -Legislature have been crowned. These witnesses have come forward all -through the period between 1872 and 1892, and from every point of -importance in the industry—New York, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Oil City, -San Francisco, Titusville, Philadelphia, Marietta, Buffalo, Boston, -Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans. They have come from every -province of the industry—the refineries, the oil fields, the pipe -lines, railroads, the wholesale and retail markets. Bound together -by no common tie of organization or partnership, they have, each and -all, exactly the same kind of story to tell. The substance of their -complaint—that one selected knot of men, members of one organization, -were given, unlawfully, the control of the highways, to the exclusion -and ruin of the people—has been sustained by the evidence taken by -every official investigation, and by the decision of every court to -which the facts have been submitted.</p> - -<p>As the counsel of the New York Chamber of Commerce before the New York -Legislative Committee of 1879 said: "Such a power makes it possible to -the freight agents of the railways to constitute themselves special -partners in every line of business in the United States, contributing -as their share of capital to the business the ability to crush out -rivals." Men who can choose which merchants, manufactur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>ers, producers -shall go to market and which stay at home, have a key that will unlock -the door of every business house on the line; they know the combination -of every safe.</p> - -<p>In their appeal to the executive of Pennsylvania, the Petroleum -Producers' Union refer to the conduct of the railroad officials as -"inexplicable upon any ordinary hypothesis, or under any known theory -of railroad politics."<a name="FNanchor_756_756" id="FNanchor_756_756"></a><a href="#Footnote_756_756" class="fnanchor">[756]</a> What the railroad managers did, we know; -why they did it, has never been judicially demonstrated. One of the -earliest intimations of the kind of lubricant used was given by the -anti-monopoly leader of the people in the Constitutional Convention -of Pennsylvania of 1872, who is now the legal leader of the oil -combination. He said: "I am told that discriminations are now made to -so great an extent as to be ruinous to certain companies unless the -railroad companies' officers are given a bonus. That is the evil under -which we labor. I do not know how to cure it, but it must be cured -somehow." Again he said: "It is charged—I do not make the charge -myself—but it is charged upon a railroad company running through the -oil regions that it will not, without delay, transport oil delivered to -the railroad station by the various pipe lines unless it is interested -in the pipe line.... It is said that whenever a new pipe line is -built, it is necessary that somebody connected with the particular -railroad company shall be presented with stock in the pipe line; -otherwise, it (the railroad company) will not furnish cars without -tedious and unnecessary delay. This is a discrimination which should be -stopped."<a name="FNanchor_757_757" id="FNanchor_757_757"></a><a href="#Footnote_757_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a></p> - -<p>It is plain that the purpose of the discrimination was something -more than to shunt the control of the trade—more than "to maintain -the business" of the favorite. Ten cents a barrel difference would -have done that, for, as the Supreme Court of Ohio pointed out, that -alone amounted to a tax of 21 per cent. a year on the capital of the -"outsiders."<a name="FNanchor_758_758" id="FNanchor_758_758"></a><a href="#Footnote_758_758" class="fnanchor">[758]</a> When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> 10 cents was enough, why was the tax made -22½ cents, 25 cents, 64½ cents up to $1.10?</p> - -<p>Some railroad men are known to have been stockholders in the oil -combination. "I think I owned—I guess I had $100,000 in it.... I don't -know anything at all about it"—the company—the head of the New York -Central admitted.<a name="FNanchor_759_759" id="FNanchor_759_759"></a><a href="#Footnote_759_759" class="fnanchor">[759]</a> Who were the owners of certain shares of their -capital stock these men have always refused to divulge. In giving in -court a list of stockholders of one of their corporations one of the -officers uncovered only three-quarters of the stock. Who held the other -fourth he avowed he could not say, although the stock-book was in his -custody.<a name="FNanchor_760_760" id="FNanchor_760_760"></a><a href="#Footnote_760_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a> The dividends were paid to the vice-president, and by -him handed over to these veiled prophets. There was a similar mystery -about the owners of about $2,000,000 of the National Transit stock, the -concern which owns and manages the pipe lines. Asked for the names of -the owners of this portion, the "secretary" said:</p> - -<p>"It is a private matter.... I decline to answer."<a name="FNanchor_761_761" id="FNanchor_761_761"></a><a href="#Footnote_761_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a></p> - -<p>The president of this pipe-line branch also refused to give Congress -this information.<a name="FNanchor_762_762" id="FNanchor_762_762"></a><a href="#Footnote_762_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a> This secrecy will couple itself at once in the -mind of the investigator with the charges just quoted, that railroad -officials had to be given backsheesh of pipe-line stock before their -roads would carry the oil of the pipe lines.</p> - -<p>The United States Senate Committee which investigated the cattle and -meat monopolies had a similar experience. Their report says: "The -secretary of the Union Stockyards testified at Chicago that when the -company was established the stock was subscribed by the railroads; but -when asked to show his stock-books he declined, after consultation with -the company's attorneys, and persisted in this refusal at Washington -City. For the purposes of our investigation it was not considered -necessary to ascertain in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> whose names the stock now stands, for we -were satisfied that whatever the ownership it would not appear in the -names of the railroad presidents, directors, and stockholders, who -are the real owners.... The refusal of the secretary, under direction -of his employers, to make public the list of stockholders must have -been because of the fact that the same men own the stockyards and the -railroads running to them, and they do not propose to submit their -books to scrutiny because they dread the truth.... This extraordinary -conduct on the part of the stockyards company is not alone in the chain -of evidence which shows complicity between the stockyards and the -railroads."<a name="FNanchor_763_763" id="FNanchor_763_763"></a><a href="#Footnote_763_763" class="fnanchor">[763]</a></p> - -<p>The smokeless rebate makes the secret of success in business to -be not manufacture, but manufracture—breaking down with a strong -hand the true makers of things. To those who can get the rebate it -makes no difference who does the digging, building, mining, making, -producing the million forms of the wealth they covet for themselves. -They need only get control of the roads. All that they want of the -wealth of others can be switched off the highways into their hands. -To succeed, ambitious men must make themselves refiners of freight -rates, distillers of discriminations, owners, not of lands, mines, and -forests—not in the first place, at least—but of the railway officials -through whose hands the produce must go to market; builders, not of -manufactories, but of privileges; inventors only of schemes to keep for -themselves the middle of the road and both sides of it; contrivers, not -of competition, but of ways to tax the property of their competitors -into their pockets. They need not make money; they can take it from -those who have made it.</p> - -<p>In the United States the processes of business feudalization are moving -more rapidly to the end than in any other country. In Chicago, the -youngest of the great cities of the youngest of the great nations, -there are fewer wholesale dry-goods stores in 1894 for a population of -1,600,000 than there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> were in 1860 for 112,172. In almost every one of -the meteoric careers by which a few men in each trade are rising to -supreme wealth, it will generally be found that to some privilege on -the railed highways, accomplished by the rebate, is due the part of -their rise which is extraordinary. A few cases of great wealth from -the increased value of land, a few from remarkable inventions like the -sewing-machine, are only exceptions.</p> - -<p>From using railroad power to give better rates to the larger man, it -was an easy step to using it to make a favorite first a larger man, -then the largest man, and finally the only man in the business. In -meat and cattle we see men rising from poverty to great wealth. From -being competitors, like other men, in the scramble, they get into the -comfortable seat of control of the prices at which the farmer must sell -cattle, and at which the people must buy meat.<a name="FNanchor_764_764" id="FNanchor_764_764"></a><a href="#Footnote_764_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a> Many other men -had thrift, sobriety, industry, but only these had the rebate, and so -only these are the "fittest in the struggle for existence." We find a -merchant prince of the last generation in New York gathering into his -hands a share of the dry-goods business of the country which appears -entirely disproportionate to his ability and energy, great though these -be. Is his secret a brain so much larger than his competitors' brains -as his business is greater than theirs? The freight agent of the New -York Central testified that he gave this man a special rate "to build -up and develop their business."</p> - -<p>"They were languishing and suffering?"</p> - -<p>"To a great extent."<a name="FNanchor_765_765" id="FNanchor_765_765"></a><a href="#Footnote_765_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a></p> - -<p>"This," said the counsel for the Chamber of Commerce of New York before -the committee, "is deliberately making the rich richer and the poor -poorer, by taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich through the -instrumentality of the freight charge."<a name="FNanchor_766_766" id="FNanchor_766_766"></a><a href="#Footnote_766_766" class="fnanchor">[766]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span></p> - -<p>The officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad, by the use of rebates, -handed over the State of Pennsylvania to three coal-dealers, each of -whom had his territory, and was supreme in it, as would-be competitors -found out when they undertook to ship coal into his market. They made -a similar division of the iron and steel business. The rebate is the -golden-rule of the "gospel of wealth." We have already seen that the -secret of the few corporations which have become the owners of almost -every acre of the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania was the rebate.<a name="FNanchor_767_767" id="FNanchor_767_767"></a><a href="#Footnote_767_767" class="fnanchor">[767]</a></p> - -<p>Along one of the most important lines out of Chicago grain dealers who -had been buying and selling in an open market, building elevators, -investing capital and life, found five years ago market and railroad -and livelihood suddenly closed to them, and the work of thirty years -brought to an untimely end. The United States Interstate Commerce -Commission, and the United States District Attorneys co-operating with -it, broke down in the attempt to compel the railroad men who gave these -privileges of transportation, or the business men who received them, -to testify or to produce their books. The United States grand-jury in -Chicago, in December, 1890, proceeded against the shippers and the -railroad men. All of them refused to tell the rates given or received, -or to produce their books.</p> - -<p>Why do you refuse to answer? they were asked.</p> - -<p>Because to do so would incriminate us.</p> - -<p>Here, too, would-be successful men have gone gunning with the smokeless -rebate for control of the wheat and corn and all the produce of the -American farmer. Grain is fated to go the way that oil, hard coal, -cattle, and meat have already gone. The farmer may remain the nominal -owner of his farm under these circumstances, but he will be real owner -of nothing but the piece of paper title.</p> - -<p>First the product of the farm; then the farm. In America rises the -shadow of a coming land-ownership more concen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span>trated, more cruel, with -the impersonal cruelty of corporate anonymity, than any the world has -yet seen.</p> - -<p>The grain broker who becomes, by favor of the general freight agent, -the sole shipper and warehouseman of grain along a line of railroad, -becomes thereby the sole buyer, and in the sole buyer of the produce we -have the fast-growing germ of the future sole buyer of the land.</p> - -<p>"Petroleum is the victim to-day," said the address, in 1872, of the -Petroleum Producers' Union "to all newspapers and boards of trade -opposing monopoly.... Coal, iron, cotton, breadstuffs, or live-stock -may be in the grasp of the monopoly to-morrow." The prediction is more -than half fulfilled.</p> - -<p>"I ran away from home, and went to California," said a prominent grain -merchant to the writer, "to escape being compelled to testify as to -the freight rates I was paying. But these decisions that we cannot be -forced to incriminate ourselves give me safe-conduct, and I am going -home to take all the rebates I can get."</p> - -<p>This is what is going on to-day in the "division of property" in -America. Our society is woven together by the steam shuttle that -moves between its farms and dinner-tables, its cotton-fields and -factories, thousands of miles apart, and the shuttle is crooked. -Out of $800,000,000 paid yearly in this country for the carriage of -freight, it was estimated in 1888, by one who knew, that $50,000,000 -to $100,000,000 goes to favored shippers.<a name="FNanchor_768_768" id="FNanchor_768_768"></a><a href="#Footnote_768_768" class="fnanchor">[768]</a> As the result of -personal examination made as an expert for stockholders, he declared -that one of the great trunk lines had in the last twenty years thus -diverted to favorites of the managers $100,000,000 of the money of -the stockholders. Besides his yachts and trotters, every Captain of -Industry worth talking about keeps his stud of railway presidents and -general freight agents.</p> - -<p>Public opinion, as yet only in the gristle in these new questions, -turns upon first one and then another as the author of its -troubles—the soulless corporation, the combination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> of corporations, -railroad oppression, or what not. But the corporation is merely a -cover, the combination of corporations an advantage, the private -ownership of public highways an opportunity, and the rebate its perfect -tool. The real actors are men; the real instrument, the control of -their fellows by wealth, and the mainspring of the evil is the morals -and economics which cipher that brothers produce wealth when they are -only cheating each other out of birthrights.</p> - -<p>The success of the same men in Europe shows that railroad -discrimination is not the essence of their power, though it has -in America been the chief instrument. By their wealth and their -willingness to use it in their way they have become supreme. Supreme -even where, as in England and Germany, they had no such unjust and -crushing preference on the highways as in America. Back of highway -privilege, back of money power, back of trade supremacy gained by -these two means must be reckoned, as the essence of this phenomenon, -the morality—our morality—which not only allows but encourages men -to do each other to death, provided only the weapon be a bargain and -the arena a market. "Everything shall not go to market," says Emerson; -but everything does go to market. The millionaire is the modern hero, -says the New York <i>Evening Post</i>. The men who have found in the rebate -the secret of business success—and there are more of them than the -public guesses—have only extended a fiercer hand to the results all -were aiming at. They have used the smokeless rebate because it was the -best gun. But if that had not been ready to their hand, they would have -taken the next best. The course of conquest might have been slower, -but, unless checked by moral interventions, it would have reached the -same end. If society is founded on the idea that property belongs to -the strongest, these will sooner or later get all the property, by -bargains or by battles according to "the spirit of the age."</p> - -<p>The highest State and national courts and the Interstate Commerce -Commission of the United States have sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> the people in the -assertion of their rights, under the law, to come and go with free -and equal rights on the highways. The judges have solemnly warned -the guilty men that they must give up their "abhorrent" attempt to -drive citizens out of the industries of their choice, and to add the -property of the people to their vast estates. Although thus declared -in the right by the highest judges of the law and the fact, the people -are poor, defeated, and unsuccessful. Though thus warned by the -authoritative voice of the ministers of right and justice that their -purposes and practices are iniquitous and intolerable, the men who have -determined that whole provinces of American industry shall be theirs, -and theirs only, continue their warfare of extermination upon poor men -with methods practically unchanged. They evade or defy the laws of -the States and of the nation, and the decisions of the courts, State -and national. Guided by the advice of the skilfullest lawyers, they -persist in open violation, or make such changes in their procedure as -will nullify statute and decision without danger to them. For thirty -years the independents in the oil regions have had this reinforcement -of the law, and for thirty years, in spite of it, their rights have -been defiantly, continuously violated to the common ruin. The people -spend their lives passing about from field or factory, or shop or -office, to market, from market to court, from court to Legislature, -from Legislature to printing-office. They are the type of the time, -disturbed by the demand of the new tyranny of wealth for tribute from -their daily labors, and forbidden to rest until out of their suffering -a new liberty has been won—the industrial liberty, for which political -and religious liberty wait for their full realization.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</a></p> - -<p class="center">THE OLD SELF-INTEREST</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> corn of the coming harvest is growing so fast that, like the farmer -standing at night in his fields, we can hear it snap and crackle. -We have been fighting fire on the well-worn lines of old-fashioned -politics and political economy, regulating corporations, and leaving -competition to regulate itself. But the flames of a new economic -evolution run around us, and we turn to find that competition has -killed competition, that corporations are grown greater than the -State and have bred individuals greater than themselves, and that the -naked issue of our time is with property becoming master instead of -servant, property in many necessaries of life becoming monopoly of the -necessaries of life.</p> - -<p>We are still, in part, as Emerson says, in the quadruped state. Our -industry is a fight of every man for himself. The prize we give the -fittest is monopoly of the necessaries of life, and we leave these -winners of the powers of life and death to wield them over us by the -same "self-interest" with which they took them from us. In all this -we see at work a "principle" which will go into the records as one of -the historic mistakes of humanity. Institutions stand or fall by their -philosophy, and the main doctrine of industry since Adam Smith has been -the fallacy that the self-interest of the individual was a sufficient -guide to the welfare of the individual and society. Heralded as a final -truth of "science" this proves to have been nothing higher than a -temporary formula for a passing problem. It was a reflection in words -of the policy of the day.</p> - -<p>When the Middle Ages landed on the shores of the six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>teenth century -they broke ranks, and for three hundred years every one has been -scurrying about to get what he could. Society was not highly developed -enough to organize the exploration and subjugation of worlds of new -things and ideas on any broader basis than private enterprise, personal -adventure. People had to run away from each other and from the old -ideas, nativities, guilds, to seize the prizes of the new sciences, the -new land, the new liberties which make modern times. They did not go -because the philosophers told them to. The philosophers saw them going -and wrote it down in a book, and have believed themselves ever since to -be the inventors of the division of labor and the discoverers of a new -world of social science. But now we are touching elbows again, and the -dream of these picnic centuries that the social can be made secondary -to the individual is being chased out of our minds by the hard light of -the crisis into which we are waking.</p> - -<p>"It is a law of business for each proprietor to pursue his own -interest," said the committee of Congress which in 1893 investigated -the coal combinations. "There is no hope for any of us, but the -weakest must go first," is the golden rule of business.<a name="FNanchor_769_769" id="FNanchor_769_769"></a><a href="#Footnote_769_769" class="fnanchor">[769]</a> There is -no other field of human associations in which any such rule of action -is allowed. The man who should apply in his family or his citizenship -this "survival of the fittest" theory as it is practically professed -and operated in business would be a monster, and would be speedily -made extinct, as we do with monsters. To divide the supply of food -between himself and his children according to their relative powers of -calculation, to follow his conception of his own self-interest in any -matter which the self-interest of all has taken charge of, to deal as -he thinks best for himself with foreigners with whom his country is at -war, would be a short road to the penitentiary or the gallows. In trade -men have not yet risen to the level of the family life of the animals. -The true law of business is that all must pursue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> the interest of all. -In the law, the highest product of civilization, this has long been a -commonplace. The safety of the people is the supreme law. We are in -travail to bring industry up to this. Our century of the caprice of the -individual as the law-giver of the common toil, to employ or disemploy, -to start or stop, to open or close, to compete or combine, has been -the disorder of the school while the master slept. The happiness, -self-interest, or individuality of the whole is not more sacred than -that of each, but it is greater. They are equal in quality, but in -quantity they are greater. In the ultimate which the mathematician, the -poet, the reformer projects the two will coincide.</p> - -<p>Our world, operated by individual motive, is the country of the -Chinese fable, in which the inhabitants went on one leg. Yes, but an -"enlightened self-interest"? The perfect self-interest of the perfect -individual is an admirable conception, but it is still individual, -and the world is social. The music of the spheres is not to be played -on one string. Nature does nothing individually. All forces are -paired like the sexes, and every particle of matter in the universe -has to obey every other particle. When the individual has progressed -to a perfect self-interest, there will be over against it, acting -and reacting with it, a correspondingly perfect self-interest of the -community. Meanwhile, we who are the creators of society have got -the times out of joint, because, less experienced than the Creator -of the balanced matter of earth, we have given the precedence to the -powers on one side. As gods we are but half-grown. For a hundred -years or so our economic theory has been one of industrial government -by the self-interest of the individual. Political government by the -self-interest of the individual we call anarchy. It is one of the -paradoxes of public opinion that the people of America, least tolerant -of this theory of anarchy in political government, lead in practising -it in industry. Politically, we are civilized; industrially, not yet. -Our century, given to this <i>laissez-faire</i>—"leave the individual -alone; he will do what is best for himself, and what is best for him is -best for all"—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span>has done one good: it has put society at the mercy of -its own ideals, and has produced an actual anarchy in industry which is -horrifying us into a change of doctrines.</p> - -<p>We have not been able to see the people for the persons in it. But -there is a people, and it is as different from a mere juxtaposition -of persons as a globe of glass from the handful of sand out of which -it was melted. It is becoming, socially, known to itself, with that -self-consciousness which distinguishes the quick from the dead and the -unborn. Every community, said Pascal, is a man, and every man, said -Plato, is a community. There is a new self-interest—that of the "man -called million," as Mazzini named him—and with this social motive the -other, which has so long had its own way, has now to reckon. Mankind -has gone astray following a truth seen only partially, but coronated -as a whole truth. Many civilizations must worship good men as gods -and follow the divinity of one and another before civilization sees -that these are only single stars in a firmament of humanity. Our -civilization has followed the self-interest of the individual to learn -that it was but one of the complex forces of self-interest.</p> - -<p>The true <i>laissez-faire</i> is, let the individual do what the individual -can do best, and let the community do what the community can do best. -The <i>laissez-faire</i> of social self-interest, if true, cannot conflict -with the individual self-interest, if true, but it must outrank it -always. What we have called "free competition" has not been free, only -freer than what went before. The free is still to come. The pressure -we feel is notice to prepare for it. Civilization—the process of -making men citizens in their relations to each other, by exacting of -each that he give to all that which he receives from all—has reached -only those forms of common effort which, because most general and most -vital, first demanded its harmonizing touch. Men joining in the labors -of the family, the mutual sacrifices of the club or the church in the -union of forces for self-defence and for the gains of co-operation on -the largest scale in labors of universal concern, like letter-carrying, -have come to be so far civilized.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p> - -<p>History is condensed in the catchwords of the people. In the phrases of -individual self-interest which have been the shibboleths of the main -activities of our last hundred years were prophesied: the filling up of -the Mississippi by the forest-destroying, self-seeking lumber companies -of the North; the disintegration of the American family—among the rich -by too little poverty, and among the poor by too much; the embezzlement -of public highways and public franchises into private property; the -devolution of the American merchants and manufacturers into the -business dependants—and social and political dependants, therefore—of -a few men in each great department of trade, from dry-goods to whiskey; -the devolution of the free farmer into a tenant, and of the working-man -into a fixture of the locomotive or the factory, forbidden to leave -except by permission of his employer or the public; and that mêlée of -injunctions, bayonets, idle men and idle machinery, rich man's fear of -poor man and poor man's fear of starvation, we call trade and industry.</p> - -<p>Where the self-interest of the individual is allowed to be the rule -both of social and personal action, the level of all is forced down -to that of the lowest. Business excuses itself for the things it -does—cuts in wages, exactions in hours, tricks of competition—on -the plea that the merciful are compelled to follow the cruel. "It is -pleaded as an excuse by those" (common carriers) "who desire to obey -the" (Interstate Commerce) "law that self-preservation drives them to -violate it because other carriers persist in doing so," says Senator -Cullom. When the self-interest of society is made the standard the -lowest must rise to the average. The one pulls down, the other up. That -men's hearts are bad and that bad men will do bad things has a truth -in it. But whatever the general average of morals, the anarchy which -gives such individuals their head and leaves them to set the pace for -all will produce infinitely worse results than a policy which applies -mutual checks and inspirations. Bad kings make bad reigns, but monarchy -is bad because it is arbitrary power, and that, whether it be political -or industrial, makes even good men bad.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span></p> - -<p>A partial truth universally applied as this of self-interest has been -is a universal error. Everything goes to defeat. Highways are used to -prevent travel and traffic. Ownership of the means of production is -sought in order to "shut down" production, and the means of plenty -make famine. All follow self-interest to find that though they have -created marvellous wealth it is not theirs. We pledge "our lives, our -fortunes, and our sacred honor" to establish the rule of the majority, -and end by finding that the minority—a minority in morals, money, and -men—are our masters whichever way we turn. We agonize over "economy," -but sell all our grain and pork and oil and cotton at exchanges where -we pay brokerage on a hundred or a thousand barrels or bushels or bales -of wind to get one real one sold. These intolerabilities—sweat-shops -where model merchants buy and sell the cast-off scarlet-fever skins -of the poor, factory and mine where childhood is forbidden to become -manhood and manhood is forbidden to die a natural death, mausoleums in -which we bury the dead rich, slums in which we bury the living poor, -coal pools with their manufacture of artificial winter—all these are -the rule of private self-interest arrived at its destination.</p> - -<p>A really human life is impossible in our cities, but they cannot be -reconstructed under the old self-interest. Chicago was rebuilt wrong -after the fire. Able men pointed out the avenues to a wider and better -municipal life, but they could not be opened through the private -interpositions that blocked the way. The slaughter of railway men -coupling cars was shown, in a debate in the United States Senate, to be -twice as great as it would be if the men were in active service in war. -But under the scramble for private gain our society on its railway side -cannot develop the energy to introduce the improved appliances ready to -hand which would save these lives, all young and vigorous. The cost of -the change would be repaid in 100-per-cent. dividends every year by the -money value alone to us of the men now killed and wounded. But we shall -have to wait for a nobler arithmetic to give us investments so good as -that. The lean kine of self-interest devour the fat kine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> The railroad -stockholder, idolater of self-interest, lets himself be robbed—like -the stockholder of all the railroads in this story—either because he -is too rich to mind, too feeble to make himself heard, or too much -implicated elsewhere as principal in the same kind of depredation to -care or dare to stir what he knows to be a universal scandal. He has -become within himself the battle-ground of a troop of warring devils of -selfishness; his selfishness as a stockholder clutched at the throat by -his selfishness as a parasite, in some "inside deal," feeding on the -stockholder; some rebate arrangement, fast-freight line, sleeping-car -company, or what not. And, as like as not, upon this one's back is -another devil of depredation from some inner ring within a ring. Torn -at the vitals, the enlightened swinishness of our <i>leit-motif</i> is -hastening to throw itself into the sea.</p> - -<p>We are very poor. The striking feature of our economic condition is -our poverty, not our wealth. We make ourselves "rich" by appropriating -the property of others by methods which lessen the total property of -all. Spain took such riches from America and grew poor. Modern wealth -more and more resembles the winnings of speculators in bread during -famine—worse, for to make the money it makes the famine. What we -call cheapness shows itself to be unnatural fortunes for a very few, -monstrous luxury for them and proportionate deprivation for the people, -judges debauched, trustees dishonored, Congress and State legislatures -insulted and defied, when not seduced, multitudes of honest men ruined -and driven to despair, the common carrier made a mere instrument for -the creation of a new baronage, an example set to hundreds of would-be -commercial Cæsars to repeat this rapine in other industries and call it -"business," a process set in operation all over the United States for -the progressive extinction of the independence of laboring men, and all -business men except the very rich, and their reduction to a state of -vassalage to lords or squires in each department of trade and industry. -All these—tears, ruin, dishonor, and treason—are the unmarked -additions to the "price marked on the goods."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span></p> - -<p>Shall we buy cheap of Captain Kidd, and shut our ears to the agony -that rustles in his silks? Shall we believe that Captain Kidd, who -kills commerce by the act which enables him to sell at half-price, is -a cheapener? Shall we preach and practise doctrines which make the -Black Flag the emblem of success on the high seas of human interchange -of service, and complain when we see mankind's argosies of hope and -plenty shrink into private hoards of treasure, buried in selfish sands -to be lost forever, even to cupidity? If this be cheapness, it comes -by the grace of the seller, and that is the first shape of dearness, -as security in society by the grace of the ruler is the first form of -insecurity.</p> - -<p>The new wealth now administers estates of fabulous extent from -metropolitan bureaus, and all the profits flow to men who know -nothing of the real business out of which they are made. Red tape, -complication, the hired man, conspiracy have taken the place of the -watchful eye of the owner, the old-fashioned hand at the plough that -must "hold or drive." We now have Captains of Industry, with a few -aids, rearranging from office-chairs this or that industry, by mere -contrivances of wit compelling the fruits of the labor of tens of -thousands of their fellows, who never saw them, never heard of them, -to be every day deposited unwilling and unwitting to their own credit -at the bank; setting, as by necromancy, hundreds of properties, large -and small, in a score of communities, to flying through invisible -ways into their hands; sitting calm through all the hubbub raised in -courts, legislatures, and public places, and by dictating letters -and whispering words remaining the master magicians of the scene; -defying, though private citizens, all the forces and authorities of a -whole people; by the mere mastery of compelling brain, without putting -hand to anything, opening or closing the earth's treasures of oil or -coal or gas or copper or what not; pulling down or putting up great -buildings, factories, towns themselves; moving men and their money this -way and that; inserting their will as part of the law of life of the -people—American, European, and Asiatic—and, against the protest of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> -a whole civilization, making themselves, their methods and principles, -its emblematic figures.</p> - -<p>Syndicates, by one stroke, get the power of selling dear on one side, -and producing cheap on the other. Thus they keep themselves happy, -prices high, and the people hungry. What model merchant could ask -more? The dream of the king who wished that all his people had but one -neck that he might decapitate them at one blow is realized to-day in -this industrial garrote. The syndicate has but to turn its screw, and -every neck begins to break. Prices paid to such intercepters are not -an exchange of service; they are ransom paid by the people for their -lives. The ability of the citizen to pay may fluctuate; what he must -pay remains fixed, or advances like the rent of the Irish tenant to the -absentee landlord until the community interfered. Those who have this -power to draw the money from the people—from every railroad station, -every street-car, every fireplace, every salt-cellar, every bread-pan, -wash-board, and coal-scuttle—to their own safes have the further -incentive to make this money worth the most possible. By contracting -the issue of currency and contracting it again by hoarding it in their -banks, safe-deposit vaults, and the government treasury, they can -depress the prices of all that belongs to the people. Their own prices -are fixed. These are "regular prices," established by price-lists. -Given, as a ruling motive, the principles of business—to get the -most and give the least; given the legal and economic, physical and -mechanical control, possible under our present social arrangements, to -the few over the many, and the certain end of all this, if unarrested, -unreversed, can be nothing less than a return to chattel slavery. There -may be some finer name, but the fact will not be finer. Between our -present tolerance and our completed subjection the distance is not so -far as that from the equality and simplicity of our Pilgrim Fathers to -ourselves.</p> - -<p>Everything withers—even charity. Aristocratic benevolence spends -a shrunken stream in comparison with democratic benevolence. In an -address to the public, soliciting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> subscriptions, the Committee of the -United Hospitals Association of New York said, in December, 1893: "The -committee have found that, through the obliteration of old methods of -individual competition by the establishment of large corporations and -trusts in modern times, the income of such charitable institutions -as are supported by the individual gifts of the benevolent has been -seriously affected."</p> - -<p>Franklin pricked the bubble of the lottery by showing that to buy all -the tickets and win all the prizes was to be most surely the loser. Our -nascent common-sense begins to see that the many must always lose where -all spend their lives trying to get more than they give, and that all -lose when any lose. The welfare of all is more than the welfare of the -many, the few, or the one. If the few or the one are not fine enough -to accept this truth from sentiment or conscience, they can find other -reasons as convincing, though not as amiable. From the old régime of -France, the slave-holders of the South, the death-rate of tyrants, -the fear of their brothers which the rich and the great of to-day are -printing on their faces, in fugitive-slave treaties with Russia, and in -the frowning arsenals and armories building in our cities for "law and -order," they can learn how to spell self-interest.</p> - -<p>If all will sacrifice themselves, none need be sacrificed. But if one -may sacrifice another, all are sacrificed. That is the difference -between self-interest and other-self interest. In industry we have -been substituting all the mean passions that can set man against man -in place of the irresistible power of brotherhood. To tell us of the -progressive sway of brotherhood in all human affairs is the sole -message of history. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is not the phrase -of a ritual of sentiment for the unapplied emotion of pious hours; -it is the exact formula of the force to-day operating the greatest -institutions man has established. It is as secular as sacred. Only -by each neighbor giving the other every right of free thought, free -movement, free representation which he demands for himself; only by -calling every neighbor a friend,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> and literally laying down his life -for his friend against foreign invasion or domestic tumult; only by -the equalization which gives the vote to all and denies kingship to -all, however strong or "fittest"—only thus is man establishing the -community, the republic, which, with all its failings, is the highest -because the realest application of the spirit of human brotherhood. -Wonderful are the dividends of this investment. You are but one, and -can give only yourself to America. You give free speech, and 65,000,000 -of your countrymen will guard the freedom of your lips. Your single -offer of your right arm puts 65,000,000 of sheltering arms about you. -Does "business" pay such profits? Wealth will remain a secret unguessed -by business until it has reincorporated itself under the law which -reckons as the property of each one the total of all the possessions of -all his neighbors.</p> - -<p>Society could not live a day, the Bishop of Peterborough said, if -it put the principles of Christ into practice. There is no rarer -gift than that of eyes to see what we see. Society is society, and -lives its day solely by virtue of having put into actual routine and -matter-of-fact application the principles of Christ and other bringers -of the same message. Imperfect and faulty though the execution, it is -these principles which are the family, the tribe, the sect, the club, -the mutual-benefit society, the State, with their mutual services, -forbearance, and guarantees. The principles of Christ are the cause -and essence of society. They are not the ideal of which we dream; they -are the applied means with which we are working out our real life in -"the light of common day." They have not been so much revealed to us -by our inspired ones as best seen and best said by them. Insurance for -fire, accident, sickness, old age, death—the ills that flesh is heir -to—has the same co-operation for its innermost forces. Limited now by -the intervention of the selfishness of profit-seeking, it needs only to -be freed from this, and added, as in New Zealand, to the growing list -of the mutualities of the general welfare operated by the State to be -seen as what it is. The golden rule is the original of every political -constitution, written and un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span>written, and all our reforms are but the -pains with which we strive to improve the copy.</p> - -<p>In the worst governments and societies that have existed one good can -be seen—so good that the horrors of them fall back into secondary -places as extrinsic, accidental. That good is the ability of men to -lead the life together. The more perfect monopoly makes itself the more -does it bring into strong lights the greatest fact of our industry, of -far more permanent value than the greed which has for the moment made -itself the cynosure of all eyes. It makes this fair world more fair to -consider the loyalties, intelligences, docilities of the multitudes who -are guarding, developing, operating with the faithfulness of brothers -and the keen interest of owners properties and industries in which -brotherhood is not known and their title is not more than a tenancy at -will. One of the largest stones in the arch of "consolidation," perhaps -the key-stone, is that men have become so intelligent, so responsive -and responsible, so co-operative that they can be intrusted in great -masses with the care of vast properties owned entirely by others and -with the operation of complicated processes, although but a slender -cost of subsistence is awarded them out of fabulous profits. The -spectacle of the million and more employés of the railroads of this -country despatching trains, maintaining tracks, collecting fares and -freights, and turning over hundreds of millions of net profits to the -owners, not one in a thousand of whom would know how to do the simplest -of these things for himself, is possible only where civilization -has reached a high average of morals and culture. More and more the -mills and mines and stores, and even the farms and forests, are being -administered by others than the owners. The virtue of the people is -taking the place Poor Richard thought only the eye of the owner could -fill. If mankind, driven by their fears and the greed of others, can do -so well, what will be their productivity and cheer when the "interest -of all" sings them to their work?</p> - -<p>This new morality and new spring of wealth have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> seized first -by the appropriating ones among us. But, as has been in government, -their intervention of greed is but a passing phase. Mankind belongs -to itself, not to kings or monopolists, and will supersede the one as -surely as the other with the institutions of democracy. Yes, Callicles, -said Socrates, the greatest are usually the bad, for they have the -power. If power could continue paternal and benign, mankind would not -be rising through one emancipation after another into a progressive -communion of equalities. The individual and society will always be -wrestling with each other in a composition of forces. But to just -the extent to which civilization prevails, society will be held as -inviolable as the individual; not subordinate—indeed inaudible—as -now in the counting-room and corporation-office. We have overworked -the self-interest of the individual. The line of conflict between -individual and social is a progressive one of the discovery of point -after point in which the two are identical. Society thus passes from -conflict to harmony, and on to another conflict. Civilization is the -unceasing accretion of these social solutions. We fight out to an -equilibrium, as in the abolition of human slavery; then upon this new -level thus built up we enter upon the struggle for a new equilibrium, -as now in the labor movement. The man for himself destroys himself and -all men; only society can foster him and them.</p> - -<p>The greatest happiness of the greatest number is only the doctrine of -self-interest writ large and made more dangerous by multitude. It is -the self-interest of the majority, and this has written some of the -unloveliest chapters of history. There have never been slaves more -miserable than those of Sparta, where the State was the owner. American -democracy prepares to repeat these distresses of the selfishness of -the many, and gives notice to its railway employés of a new divine -right—"the convenience of the public"—to which they must forego every -right of manhood. No better definition of slave could be found than -one who must work at the convenience of another. This is the position -into which recent legal decisions and acts of the Federal executive -force railway men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> These speak in the name of Interstate Commerce, but -their logic can be as easily applied by State judges to State commerce, -and all working-men are manifestly as necessary, each in his function, -to the convenience of the public as the men of the rail. The greatest -happiness of all must be the formula. When Lamennais said, "I love my -family more than myself, my village more than my family, my country -more than my village, and mankind more than my country," he showed -himself not only a good lover, but the only good arithmetician.</p> - -<p>Children yet, we run everything we do—love or war, work or leisure, -religion or liberty—to excess. Every possibility of body and mind -must be played upon till it is torn to pieces, as toys by children. -Priests, voluptuaries, tyrants, knights, ascetics—in the long -procession of fanatics a new-comer takes his place; he is called -"the model merchant"—the cruelest fanatic in history. He is the -product of ages given to progressive devotion to "trading." He is the -high-priest of the latest idolatry, the self-worship of self-interest. -Whirling-dervish of the market, self, friends, and family, body and -soul, loves, hopes, and faith, all are sacrificed to seeing how many -"turns" he can make before he drops dead. Trade began, Sir Henry Sumner -Maine tells us, not within the family or community, but without. Its -first appearances are on the neutral borderland between hostile tribes. -There, in times of peace, they meet to trade, and think it no sin -that "the buyer must beware," since the buyer is an enemy. Trade has -spread thence, carrying with itself into family and State the poison of -enmity. From the fatherhood of the old patriarchal life, where father -and brother sold each other nothing, the world has chaffered along to -the anarchy of a "free" trade which sells everything. One thing after -another has passed out from under the régime of brotherhood and passed -in under that of bargainhood. The ground we move on, the bodies we -work with, and the necessaries we live by are all being "exchanged," -by "rules fetched with cupidity from heartless schools," into the -ownership of the Jacobs of mankind. By<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> these rules the cunning are -the good, and the weak and the tender the bad, and the good are to -have all the goods and the weak are to have nothing. These rules give -one the power to supply or deny work to thousands, and to use the -starvation terms of the men he disemploys as the measure of the cost -of subsistence of all workmen. This must be near the end. The very -churches have become mercantilized, and are markets in which "prophets" -are paid fancy prices—"always called of God," as Milton said, "but -always to a greater benefice"—and worshippers buy and sell knee-room.</p> - -<p>Conceptions of duty take on a correspondingly unnatural complexion. -The main exhortations the world gives beginners are how to "get -on"—the getting on so ardently inculcated being to get, like the -old-man-of-the-sea, on somebody's back. "If war fails you in the -country where you are, you must go where there is war," said one of the -successful men of the fourteenth century to a young knight who asked -him for the Laws of Life. "I shall be perfectly satisfied with you," I -heard one of the great business geniuses of America say to his son, "if -you will only always go to bed at night worth more than when you got up -in the morning." The system grows, as all systems do, more complicated, -and gets further away from its first purposes of barter of real things -and services. It goes more under the hands of men of apt selfishness, -who push it further away from general comprehension and the general -good. Tariffs, currencies, finances, freight-rate sheets, the laws, -become instruments of privilege, and just in proportion become puzzles -no people can decipher. "I have a right to buy my labor where I can buy -it cheapest"—beginning as a protest against the selfish exclusions of -antiquated trade-guilds outgrown by the new times—has at last come to -mean, "I have a right to do anything to cheapen the labor I want to -buy, even to destroying the family life of the people."</p> - -<p>When steaming kettles grew into beasts of burden and public highways -dwindled into private property administered by private motives for -private ends, all previous tendencies were intensified into a sudden -whirl redistributing wealth and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> labors. It appears to have been -the destiny of the railroad to begin and of oil to lubricate to its -finish the last stage of this crazy commercialism. Business colors the -modern world as war reddened the ancient world. Out of such delirium -monsters are bred, and their excesses destroy the system that brought -them forth. There is a strong suggestion of moral insanity in the -unrelieved sameness of mood and unvarying repetition of one act in the -life of the model merchant. Sane minds by an irresistible law alternate -one tension with another. Only a lunatic is always smiling or always -weeping or always clamoring for dividends. Eras show their last stages -by producing men who sum up individually the morbid characteristics -of the mass. When the crisis comes in which the gathering tendencies -of generations shoot forward in the avalanche, there is born some -group of men perfect for their function—good be it or bad. They need -to take time for no second thought, and will not delay the unhalting -reparations of nature by so much as the time given to one tear over the -battle-field or the bargain. With their birth their mission is given -them, whether it be the mission of Lucifer or Gabriel. This mission -becomes their conscience. The righteous indignation that other men feel -against sin these men feel against that which withstands them. Sincere -as rattlesnakes, they are selfish with the unconsciousness possible to -only the entirely commonplace, without the curiosity to question their -times or the imagination to conceive the pain they inflict, and their -every ideal is satisfied by the conventionalities of church, parlor, -and counting-room. These men are the touchstones to wither the cant of -an age.</p> - -<p>We preach "Do as you would be done by" in our churches, and "A fair -exchange no robbery" in our counting-rooms, and "All citizens are -equal as citizens" in courts and Congress. Just as we are in danger -of believing that to say these things is to do them and be them, -there come unto us these men, practical as granite and gravitation. -Taking their cue not from our lips, but from our lives, they better -the instruction, and, passing easily to the high seats at every table, -prove that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> we are liars and hypocrites. Their only secret is that they -do, better than we, the things we are all trying to do, but of which in -our morning and evening prayers, seen of all men, we are continually -making believe to pray: Good Lord, deliver us! When the hour strikes -for such leaders, they come and pass as by a law of nature to the -front. All follow them. It is their fate and ours that they must work -out to the end the destiny interwoven of their own insatiate ambition -and the false ideals of us who have created them and their opportunity.</p> - -<p>If our civilization is destroyed, as Macaulay predicted, it will not -be by his barbarians from below. Our barbarians come from above. Our -great money-makers have sprung in one generation into seats of power -kings do not know. The forces and the wealth are new, and have been -the opportunity of new men. Without restraints of culture, experience, -the pride, or even the inherited caution of class or rank, these men, -intoxicated, think they are the wave instead of the float, and that -they have created the business which has created them. To them science -is but a never-ending répertoire of investments stored up by nature for -the syndicates, government but a fountain of franchises, the nations -but customers in squads, and a million the unit of a new arithmetic of -wealth written for them. They claim a power without control, exercised -through forms which make it secret, anonymous, and perpetual. The -possibilities of its gratification have been widening before them -without interruption since they began, and even at a thousand millions -they will feel no satiation and will see no place to stop. They are -gluttons of luxury and power, rough, unsocialized, believing that -mankind must be kept terrorized. Powers of pity die out of them, -because they work through agents and die in their agents, because what -they do is not for themselves.</p> - -<p>Of gods, friends, learnings, of the uncomprehended civilization they -overrun, they ask but one question: How much? What is a good time -to sell? What is a good time to buy? The Church and the Capitol, -incarnating the sacrifices and triumphs of a procession of martyrs -and patriots since the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> dawn of freedom, are good enough for a -money-changer's shop for them, and a market and shambles. Their -heathen eyes see in the law and its consecrated officers nothing but -an intelligence-office and hired men to help them burglarize the -treasures accumulated for thousands of years at the altars of liberty -and justice, that they may burn their marbles for the lime of commerce.</p> - -<p>By their windfall of new power they have been forced into the position -of public enemies. Its new forms make them seem not to be within the -jurisdiction of the social restraints which many ages of suffering -have taught us to bind about the old powers of man over man. A fury -of rule or ruin has always in the history of human affairs been a -characteristic of the "strong men" whose fate it is to be in at the -death of an expiring principle. The leaders who, two hundred years ago, -would have been crazy with conquest, to-day are crazy with competition. -To a dying era some man is always born to enfranchise it by revealing -it to itself. Men repay such benefactors by turning to rend them. Most -unhappy is the fate of him whose destiny it is to lead mankind too -far in its own path. Such is the function of these men, such will be -their lot, as that of those for whom they are building up these wizard -wealths.</p> - -<p>Poor thinking means poor doing. In casting about for the cause of -our industrial evils, public opinion has successively found it in -"competition," "combination," the "corporations," "conspiracies," -"trusts." But competition has ended in combination, and our new wealth -takes as it chooses the form of corporation or trust, or corporation -again, and with every change grows greater and worse. Under these -kaleidoscopic masks we begin at last to see progressing to its terminus -a steady consolidation, the end of which is one-man power. The -conspiracy ends in one, and one cannot conspire with himself. When this -solidification of many into one has been reached, we shall be at last -face to face with the naked truth that it is not only the form but the -fact of arbitrary power, of control without consent, of rule without -representation that concerns us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span></p> - -<p>Business motived by the self-interest of the individual runs into -monopoly at every point it touches the social life—land monopoly, -transportation monopoly, trade monopoly, political monopoly in all -its forms, from contraction of the currency to corruption in office. -The society in which in half a lifetime a man without a penny can -become a hundred times a millionaire is as over-ripe, industrially, as -was, politically, the Rome in which the most popular bully could lift -himself from the ranks of the legion on to the throne of the Cæsars. -Our rising issue is with business. Monopoly is business at the end of -its journey. It has got there. The irrepressible conflict is now as -distinctly with business as the issue so lately met was with slavery. -Slavery went first only because it was the cruder form of business.</p> - -<p>Against the principles, and the men embodying them and pushing them -to extremes—by which the powers of government, given by all for all, -are used as franchises for personal aggrandizement; by which, in the -same line, the common toil of all and the common gifts of nature, -lands, forces, mines, sites, are turned from service to selfishness, -and are made by one and the same stroke to give gluts to a few and -impoverishment to the many—we must plan our campaign. The yacht of -the millionaire incorporates a million days' labor which might have -been given to abolishing the slums, and every day it runs the labor -of hundreds of men is withdrawn from the production of helpful things -for humanity, and each of us is equally guilty who directs to his own -pleasure the labor he should turn to the wants of others. Our fanatic -of wealth reverses the rule that serving mankind is the end and wealth -an incident, and has made wealth the end and the service an accident, -until he can finally justify crime itself if it is a means to the -end—wealth—which has come to be the supreme good; and we follow him.</p> - -<p>It is an adjudicated fact of the business and social life of America -that to receive the profits of crime and cherish the agents who -commit it does not disqualify for fellowship in the most "solid" -circles—financial, commercial, religious, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> social. It illustrates -what Ruskin calls the "morbid" character of modern business that -the history of its most brilliant episodes must be studied in the -vestibules of the penitentiary. The riches of the combinations are -the winnings of a policy which, we have seen, has certain constant -features. Property to the extent of uncounted millions has been changed -from the possession of the many who owned it to the few who hold it:</p> - -<p>1. Without the knowledge of the real owners.</p> - -<p>2. Without their consent.</p> - -<p>3. With no compensation to them for the value taken.</p> - -<p>4. By falsehood, often under oath.</p> - -<p>5. In violation of the law.</p> - -<p>Our civilization is builded on competition, and competition -evolves itself crime—to so acute an infatuation has the lunacy of -self-interest carried our dominant opinion. We are hurried far beyond -the point of not listening to the new conscience which, pioneering in -moral exploration, declares that conduct we think right because called -"trade" is really lying, stealing, murder. "The definite result," -Ruskin preaches, "of all our modern haste to be rich is assuredly and -constantly the murder of a certain number of persons by our hands every -year." To be unawakened by this new voice is bad enough, but we shut -our ears even against the old conscience.</p> - -<p>We cannot deal with this unless we cleanse our hearts of all -disordering rage. "The rarer action is in virtue rather than in -vengeance." Our tyrants are our ideals incarnating themselves in men -born to command. What these men are we have made them. All governments -are representative governments; none of them more so than our -government of industry. We go hopelessly astray if we seek the solution -of our problems in the belief that our business rulers are worse men in -kind than ourselves. Worse in degree; yes. It is a race to the bad, and -the winners are the worst. A system in which the prizes go to meanness -invariably marches with the meanest men at the head. But if any could -be meaner than the meanest it would be they who run and fail and rail.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span></p> - -<p>Every idea finds its especially susceptible souls. These men are -our most susceptible souls to the idea of individual self-interest. -They have believed implicitly what we have taught, and have been the -most faithful in trying to make the talent given them grow into ten -talents. They rise superior to our half-hearted social corrections: -publicity, private competition, all devices of market-opposition, -private litigation, public investigation, legislation, and criminal -prosecution—all. Their power is greater to-day than it was yesterday, -and will be greater to-morrow. The public does not withhold its favor, -but deals with them, protects them, refuses to treat their crimes as it -treats those of the poor, and admits them to the highest places. The -predominant mood is the more or less concealed regret of the citizens -that they have not been able to conceive and execute the same lucky -stroke or some other as profitable. The conclusion is irresistible that -men so given the lead are the representatives of the real "spirit of -the age," and that the protestants against them are not representative -of our times—are at the best but intimators of times which may be.</p> - -<p>Two social energies have been in conflict, and the energy of reform has -so far proved the weaker. We have chartered the self-interest of the -individual as the rightful sovereign of conduct; we have taught that -the scramble for profit is the best method of administering the riches -of earth and the exchange of services. Only those can attack this -system who attack its central principle, that strength gives the strong -in the market the right to destroy his neighbor. Only as we have denied -that right to the strong elsewhere have we made ourselves as civilized -as we are. And we cannot make a change as long as our songs, customs, -catchwords, and public opinions tell all to do the same thing if they -can. Society, in each person of its multitudes, must recognize that the -same principles of the interest of all being the rule of all, of the -strong serving the weak, of the first being the last—"I am among you -as one that serves"—which have given us the home where the weakest -is the one surest of his rights and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> the fullest service of the -strongest, and have given us the republic in which all join their labor -that the poorest may be fed, the weakest defended, and all educated -and prospered, must be applied where men associate in common toil as -wherever they associate. Not until then can the forces be reversed -which generate those obnoxious persons—our fittest.</p> - -<p>Our system, so fair in its theory and so fertile in its happiness and -prosperity in its first century, is now, following the fate of systems, -becoming artificial, technical, corrupt; and, as always happens in -human institutions, after noon, power is stealing from the many to the -few. Believing wealth to be good, the people believed the wealthy to -be good. But, again in history, power has intoxicated and hardened its -possessors, and Pharaohs are bred in counting-rooms as they were in -palaces. Their furniture must be banished to the world-garret, where -lie the out-worn trappings of the guilds and slavery and other old -lumber of human institutions.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph2"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV</a></p> - -<p class="center">AND THE NEW</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have given the prize of power to the strong, the cunning, the -arithmetical, and we must expect nothing else but that they will use it -cunningly and arithmetically. For what else can they suppose we gave -it to them? If the power really flows from the people, and should be -used for them; if its best administration can be got, as in government, -only by the participation in it of men of all views and interests; if -in the collision of all these, as in democracy, the better policy is -progressively preponderant; if this is a policy which, with whatever -defects, is better than that which can be evolved by narrower or more -selfish or less multitudinous influences of persons or classes, then -this power should be taken up by the people. "The mere conflict of -private interests will never produce a well-ordered commonwealth of -labor," says the author of the article on political economy in the -<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>. The failure of monarchy and feudalism and -the visibly impending failure of our business system all reveal a -law of nature. The harmony of things insists that that which is the -source of power, wealth, and delight shall also be the ruler of it. -That which is must also seem. It is the people from whom come the -forces with which kings and millionaires ride the world, and until -the people take their proper place in the seat of sovereignty, these -pseudo owners—mere claimants and usurpers—will, by the very falsity -and iniquity of their position, be pushed into deceit, tyranny, and -cruelty, ending in downfall.</p> - -<p>Thousands of years' experience has proved that government must begin -where it ends—with the people; that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> general welfare demands that -they who exercise the powers and they upon whom these are exercised -must be the same, and that higher political ideals can be realized -only through higher political forms. Myriads of experiments to get -the substance of liberty out of the forms of tyranny, to believe -in princes, to trust good men to do good as kings, have taught the -inexorable truth that, in the economy of nature, form and substance -must move together, and are as inextricably interdependent as are, -within our experience, what we call matter and spirit. Identical is the -lesson we are learning with regard to industrial power and property. We -are calling upon their owners, as mankind called upon kings in their -day, to be good and kind, wise and sweet, and we are calling in vain. -We are asking them not to be what we have made them to be. We put power -into their hands and ask them not to use it as power. If this power is -a trust for the people, the people betrayed it when they made private -estates out of it for individuals. If the spirit of power is to change, -institutions must change as much. Liberty recast the old forms of -government into the Republic, and it must remould our institutions of -wealth into the Commonwealth.</p> - -<p>The question is not whether monopoly is to continue. The sun sets every -night on a greater majority against it. We are face to face with the -practical issue: Is it to go through ruin or reform? Can we forestall -ruin by reform? If we wait to be forced by events we shall be astounded -to find how much more radical they are than our utopias. Louis XVI. -waited until 1793, and gave his head and all his investitures to the -people who in 1789 asked only to sit at his feet and speak their mind. -Unless we reform of our own free will, nature will reform us by force, -as nature does. Our evil courses have already gone too far in producing -misery, plagues, hatreds, national enervation. Already the leader is -unable to lead, and has begun to drive with judges armed with bayonets -and Gatling guns. History is the serial obituary of the men who thought -they could drive men.</p> - -<p>Reform is the science and conscience with which mankind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> in its manhood -overcomes temptations and escapes consequences by killing the germs. -Ruin is already hard at work among us. Our libraries are full of the -official inquiries and scientific interpretations which show how our -master-motive is working decay in all our parts. The family crumbles -into a competition between the father and the children whom he breeds -to take his place in the factory, to unfit themselves to be fathers in -their turn. A thorough, stalwart resimplification, a life governed by -simple needs and loves, is the imperative want of the world. It will be -accomplished: either self-conscious volition does it, or the slow wreck -and decay of superfluous and unwholesome men and matters. The latter -is the method of brutes and brute civilizations. The other is the -method of man, so far as he is divine. Has not man, who has in personal -reform risen above the brute method, come to the height at which he can -achieve social reform in masses and by nations? We must learn; we can -learn by reason. Why wait for the cruder teacher?</p> - -<p>We have a people like which none has ever existed before. We have -millions capable of conscious co-operation. The time must come in -social evolution when the people can organize the free-will to choose -salvation which the individual has been cultivating for 1900 years, -and can adopt a policy more dignified and more effective than leaving -themselves to be kicked along the path of reform by the recoil of their -own vices. We must bring the size of our morality up to the size of our -cities, corporations, and combinations, or these will be brought down -to fit our half-grown virtue.</p> - -<p>Industry and monopoly cannot live together. Our modern perfection of -exchange and division of labor cannot last without equal perfection of -morals and sympathy. Every one is living at the mercy of every one else -in a way entirely peculiar to our times. Nothing is any longer made by -a man; parts of things are made by parts of men, and become wholes by -the luck of a good-humor which so far keeps men from flying asunder. -It takes a whole company to make a match. A hundred men will easily -produce a hundred million matches,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> but not one of them could make one -match. No farm gets its plough from the cross-roads blacksmith, and -no one in the chilled-steel factory knows the whole of the plough. -The life of Boston hangs on a procession of reciprocities which must -move, as steadily and sweetly as the roll of the planets, between its -bakeries, the Falls of St. Anthony, and the valley of the Red River. -Never was there a social machinery so delicate. Only on terms of love -and justice can men endure contact so close.</p> - -<p>The break-down of all other civilizations has been a slow decay. It -took the Northerners hundreds of years to march to the Tiber. They -grew their way through the old society as the tree planting itself on -a grave is found to have sent its roots along every fibre and muscle -of the dead. Our world is not the simple thing theirs was, of little -groups sufficient to themselves, if need be. New York would begin to -die to-morrow if it were not for Illinois and Dakota. We cannot afford -a revulsion in the hearts by whose union locomotives run, mills grind, -factories make. Practical men are speculating to-day on the possibility -that our civilization may some afternoon be flashed away by the tick of -a telegraph. All these co-operations can be scattered by a word of hate -too many, and we left, with no one who knows how to make a plough or a -match, a civilization cut off as by the Roman curse from food and fire. -Less sensitive civilizations than ours have burst apart.</p> - -<p>Liberty and monopoly cannot live together. What chance have we against -the persistent coming and the easy coalescence of the confederated -cliques, which aspire to say of all business, "This belongs to us," -and whose members, though moving among us as brothers, are using -against us, through the corporate forms we have given them, powers -of invisibility, of entail and accumulation, unprecedented because -impersonal and immortal, and, most peculiar of all, power to act as -persons, as in the commission of crimes, with exemption from punishment -as persons? Two classes study and practise politics and government: -place hunters and privilege hunters. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> a world of relativities -like ours size of area has a great deal to do with the truth of -principles. America has grown so big—and the tickets to be voted, and -the powers of government, and the duties of citizens, and the profits -of personal use of public functions have all grown so big—that the -average citizen has broken down. No man can half understand or half -operate the fulness of this big citizenship, except by giving his whole -time to it. This the place hunter can do, and the privilege hunter. -Government, therefore—municipal, State, national—is passing into the -hands of these two classes, specialized for the functions of power by -their appetite for the fruits of power. The power of citizenship is -relinquished by those who do not and cannot know how to exercise it to -those who can and do—by those who have a livelihood to make to those -who make politics their livelihood.</p> - -<p>These specialists of the ward club, the primary, the campaign, the -election, and office unite, by a law as irresistible as that of the -sexes, with those who want all the goods of government—charters, -contracts, rulings, permits. From this marriage it is easy to imagine -that among some other people than ourselves, and in some other -century than this, the off-spring might be the most formidable, -elusive, unrestrained, impersonal, and cruel tyranny the world has -yet seen. There might come a time when the policeman and the railroad -president would equally show that they cared nothing for the citizen, -individually or collectively, because aware that they and not he were -the government. Certainly such an attempt to corner "the dear people" -and the earth and the fulness thereof will break down. It is for us -to decide whether we will let it go on till it breaks down of itself, -dragging down to die, as a savage dies of his vice, the civilization -it has gripped with its hundred hands; or whether, while we are still -young, still virtuous, we will break it down, self-consciously, as the -civilized man, reforming, crushes down the evil. If we cannot find a -remedy, all that we love in the word America must die. It will be an -awful price to pay if this attempt at government of the people, by the -people, for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> people must perish from off the face of the earth -to prove to mankind that political brotherhood cannot survive where -industrial brotherhood is denied. But the demonstration is worth even -that.</p> - -<p>Aristotle's lost books of the Republics told the story of two hundred -and fifty attempts at free government, and these were but some of -the many that had to be melted down in the crucible of fate to teach -Hamilton and Jefferson what they knew. Perhaps we must be melted by the -same fierce flames to be a light to the feet of those who come after -us. For as true as that a house divided against itself cannot stand, -and that a nation half slave and half free cannot permanently endure, -is it true that a people who are slaves to market-tyrants will surely -come to be their slaves in all else, that all liberty begins to be -lost when one liberty is lost, that a people half democratic and half -plutocratic cannot permanently endure.</p> - -<p>The secret of the history we are about to make is not that the world is -poorer or worse. It is richer and better. Its new wealth is too great -for the old forms. The success and beauties of our old mutualities -have made us ready for new mutualities. The wonder of to-day is the -modern multiplication of products by the union of forces; the marvel -of to-morrow will be the greater product which will follow when that -which is co-operatively produced is co-operatively enjoyed. It is the -spectacle of its concentration in the private fortunes of our day which -reveals this wealth to its real makers—the whole people—and summons -them to extend the manners and institutions of civilization to this new -tribal relation.</p> - -<p>Whether the great change comes with peace or sword, freely through -reform or by nature's involuntary forces, is a mere matter of detail, -a question of convenience—not of the essence of the thing. The change -will come. With reform, it may come to us. If with force, perhaps not -to us. But it will come. The world is too full of amateurs who can play -the golden rule as an aria with variations. All the runs and trills -and transpositions have been done to death. All the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> "sayings" have -been said. The only field for new effects is in epigrams of practice. -Titillation of our sympathies has become a dissipation. We shed a daily -tear over the misery of the slums as the toper takes his dram, and our -liver becomes torpid with the floods of indignation and sentiment we -have guzzled without converting them into their co-efficients of action.</p> - -<p>"Regenerate the individual" is a half-truth; the reorganization of the -society which he makes and which makes him is the other half. Man alone -cannot be a Christian. Institutions are applied beliefs. The love of -liberty became liberty in America by clothing itself in the complicated -group of structures known as the government of the United States. Love -is a half-truth, and kissing is a good deal less than half of that. -We need not kiss all our fellow-men, but we must do for them all we -ask them to do for us—nothing less than the fullest performance of -every power. To love our neighbor is to submit to the discipline and -arrangement which make his life reach its best, and so do we best love -ourselves.</p> - -<p>History has taught us nothing if not that men can continue to associate -only by the laws of association. The golden rule is the first and last -of these, but the first and last of the golden rule is that it can -be operated only through laws, habits, forms, and institutions. The -Constitution and laws of the United States are, however imperfectly, -the translation into the language of politics of doing as you would be -done by—the essence of equal rights and government by consent. To ask -individuals to-day to lead by their single sacrifices the life of the -brother in the world of business is as if the American colonist had -been asked to lead by his individual enterprise the life of the citizen -of a republic. That was made possible to him only by union with others. -The business world is full of men who yearn to abandon its methods and -live the love they feel; but to attempt to do so by themselves would be -martyrdom, and that is "caviare to the general." "We admire martyrdom," -Mazzini, the martyr, said, "but we do not recommend it." The change -must be social, and its martyrdoms have already begun.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span></p> - -<p>The new self-interest will remain unenforced in business until we -invent the forms by which the vast multitudes who have been gathered -together in modern production can organize themselves into a people -there as in government. Nothing but this institutionalization will save -them from being scattered away from each other again, and it can be -achieved only by such averaging and concessions and co-operations as -are the price of all union. These will be gains, not losses. Soldiers -become partners in invincibility by the discipline which adopts an -average rate of march instead of compelling all to keep step with the -fastest and stay with the strongest. Moralists tell men to love each -other and the right. How, by doing what things, by leaving what undone, -shall men love each other? What have the ethicals to say upon the -morality of putting public highways in private hands, and of allowing -these private hands to make a private and privileged use of them? If -bad, will a mere "change of heart," uninstitutionalized, change them?</p> - -<p>New freedoms cannot be operated through the old forms of slavery. The -ideals of Washington and Hamilton and Adams could not breathe under -kingly rule. Idle to say they might. Under the mutual dependence of -the inside and outside of things their change has all through history -always been dual. Change of heart is no more redemption than hunger -is dinner. We must have honesty, love, justice in the heart of the -business world, but for these we must also have the forms which will -fit them. These will be very different from those through which the -intercourse of man with man in the exchange of services now moves to -such ungracious ends. Forms of Asiatic and American government, of -early institutions and to-day's, are not more different. The cardinal -virtues cannot be established and kept at work in trade and on the -highways with the old apparatus. In order that the spirit that gave -rebates may go to stay, the rebate itself must go. If the private -use of private ownership of highways is to go, the private ownership -must go. There must be no private use of public power or public -property.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> These are created by the common sacrifices of all, and -can be rightfully used only for the common good of all—from all, by -all, for all. All the grants and franchises that have been given to -private hands for private profit are void in morals and void in that -higher law which sets the copy for the laggard pens of legislatures and -judges. "No private use of public powers" is but a threshold truth. The -universe, says Emerson, is the property of every creature in it.</p> - -<p>No home so low it may not hope that out of its fledglings one may grow -the hooked claw that will make him a millionaire. To any adventurer -of spirit and prowess in the Italy of the Renaissance might come -the possibility of butchering or poisoning his way to a castle or a -throne. Such prizes of power made the peninsula a menagerie of tyrants, -murderers, voluptuaries, and multitudes of misery. We got republican -liberty by agreeing each with the other never to seek to become kings -or lords or dukes. We can get industrial and economic liberty only by a -like covenant never to let ourselves or any one else be millionaires.</p> - -<p>There can be no public prosperity without public virtue, and no public -virtue without private virtue. But private cannot become public except -by organization. Our attempts at control, regulation, are but the -agitations of the Gracchi, evidencing the wrong, but not rising to the -cure. We are waiting for some genius of good who will generalize into -one body of doctrine our partial truths of reform, and will help us -live the generalization. Never was mankind, across all lines of race, -creed, and institutions, more nearly one in discontent and restless -consciousness of new powers and a new hope and purpose, never more -widely agitated by influences leading in one direction, never more -nearly a committee of the whole on the question of the day. Never -before were the means for flashing one thought into the minds of the -million, and flashing that thought into action, what they are to-day. -The good word or good deed of Chicago in the morning may be the -inspiration of Calcutta before nightfall. The crusades were but an eddy -in comparison with the universal tide waiting for an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>other Peter the -Hermit to lead us where the Man who is to rise again lies in the hands -of the infidel.</p> - -<p>Our problem can be read from its good side or its bad, and must be read -from both, as: Business has become a vice, and defeats us and itself; -or, Humanity quickens its step to add to its fellowships the new -brotherhood of labor. The next emancipation, like all emancipations, -must destroy and build. The most constructive thinker in history -said, Love one another; but he also drove the money-changers from the -temple, and denounced the scribes and Pharisees, and has been busy for -nineteen hundred years pulling down tenements unfit for the habitation -of the soul. We see something new and something old. Old principles -run into mania, a wicked old world bursting into suicidal explosion, -as Carlyle said of the French Revolution. New loves, new capabilities, -new institutions, created by the expansion of old ideals and new -opportunities of human contact. Our love of those to whom we have been -"introduced" is but unlocking a door through which all men will pass -into our hearts. What makes men lovable is not the accident of our -knowing them. It is that they are men. Before 1776 there were thirteen -patriotisms in America.</p> - -<p>The bishops of Boswell's day had no ear for the lamentations of the -victims of the slave-trade, but there came a new sympathy which rose -superior to their divine displeasure that this commerce of Christian -merchants should be attacked. We are coming to sympathize with the -animals, and Queen Victoria contributes money to a hospital for the -succor of decayed old gentlemen and lady cats. By-and-by royal hearts -may widen to include men and women evicted in Ireland, or—worse -fate—not evicted from Whitechapel. The spirit that defended the -slave-trade now finds its last ditch behind the text, The poor ye -have with you always. But a new sympathy rises again, like that which -declared that the poor should be free of the slave-trade and slavery, -and declares that the poor shall be freed from starvation of body, -mind, and soul. Slave-trade, slavery, poverty; the form varies, but -against them all runs the refusal of the human heart to be made happy -at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> the cost of the misery of others, and its mathematical knowledge -that its quotient of satisfactions will increase with the sum of the -happiness of all.</p> - -<p>The word of the day is that we are about to civilize industry. -Mankind is quivering with its purpose to make men fellow-citizens, -brothers, lovers in industry, as it has done with them in government -and family, which are also industry. We already have on our shelves -the sciences—hygienic, industrial, political, ethical—to free the -world almost at a stroke from war, accidents, disease, poverty, -and their flowing vices and insanities. The men of these sciences -are here at call praying for employment. The people, by the books -they read, show themselves to be praying to have them put at work. -If we who call ourselves civilization would for one average span -devote to life-dealing the moneys, armies, and genius we now give -to death-dealing, and would establish over the weaker peoples a -protectorate of the United States of Europe and America, we would take -a long step towards settling forever the vexed question of the site of -the Garden of Eden.</p> - -<p>"Human nature," "monotony," and "individuality" are the lions which -the reformer is always told will stop the way to a better world. "You -cannot change human nature." There are two human natures—the human -nature of Christ and of Judas; and Christ prevails. There is the human -nature which seeks anonymity, secrecy, the fruits of power without -its duties; and there is the human nature which rises against these -and, province by province, is abolishing them from human affairs. Men -have always been willing to die for their faith. The bad have died as -bravely as the good, Charles I. with as smooth a front as Sir Harry -Vane. In this readiness to die lies folded every loyalty of life.</p> - -<p>"You would make the world a dead level of monotony." Good society does -not think it monotonous that all its women should at the same time dust -the streets with long-tailed gowns, or that its men should meet every -night in funereal black and identical cut, but it shrinks from the -monotony of having all share in reforms which would equalize surfeit -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> starvation. "Good society" is still to come, and it will find some -better definition of "monotony" than a fair share for all—a better -definition of variety than too much for ourselves at the cost of too -little for all others. Shall we choose the monotony of sharing with -every one under George III. or Alexander II. the denial of all right to -participate in the supreme power, or shall we choose the monotony of -sharing with every fellow-citizen the right to become President?—the -monotony of being forbidden to enter all the great livelihoods, some -syndicate blocking each way with "This business belongs to us"? Or the -monotony of a democracy, where every laborer has equal rights with all -other citizens to decide upon the administration of the common toil for -the common welfare, and an equal right with every other to rise to be a -Captain of Industry? Such are the alternatives of "monotony." We have -made an historic choice in one; now for the other.</p> - -<p>And "individuality." "You are going to destroy individuality." We can -become individual only by submitting to be bound to others. We extend -our freedom only by finding new laws to obey. Life outside the law is -slavery on as many sides as there are disregarded laws. The locomotive -off its tracks is not free. The more relations, ties, duties, the -more "individual." The isolated man is the mere rudiment of an -individual. But he who has become citizen, neighbor, friend, brother, -son, husband, father, fellow-member, in one, is just by so many times -individualized. Men's expanding powers of co-operation bring them to -the conscious ability to unite for new benefits; but this extension of -individuality is forbidden in the name of individuality. There are two -individualities: that of the dullard, who submits to take his railroad -transportation, his light, his coal, his salt, his reaping-machine at -such prices and of such quality as arbitrary power forces upon him, and -that of the shrewder man who, by an alliance of the individualities of -all, supplies himself at his own price.</p> - -<p>Time carries us so easily we do not realize how fast we move. This -social debate has gone far beyond the question whether change there -must be. What shall the change be? is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> the subject all the world is -discussing. Exposure of abuses no longer excites more than a languid -interest. But every clear plan how things might be rearranged raises -the people. Before every revolution marches a book—the <i>Contrat -Social</i>, <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>. "Every man nowadays," says Emerson, -"carries a revolution in his vest-pocket." The book which sells more -copies than any other of our day abroad and at home, debated by all -down to the boot-blacks as they sit on the curb-stones, is one calling -men to draw from their success in insuring each other some of the -necessaries of life the courage to move on to insure each other all -the necessaries of life, bidding them abandon the self-defeating -anarchy which puts railroad-wreckers at the head of railroads and -famine-producers at the head of production, and inspiring them to share -the common toil and the fruits of the toil under the ideals which make -men Washingtons and Lincolns. You may question the importance of the -plan; you cannot question the importance of its welcome. It shows the -people gathering-points for the new constitution they know they must -make.</p> - -<p>In nothing has liberty justified itself more thoroughly than in the -resolute determination spreading among the American people to add -industrial to political independence. It is the hope of the world that -good has its effects as well as evil, and that on the whole, and in -the long-run, the seed of the good will overgrow the evil. "Heaven has -kindly given our blood a moral flow." Liberty breeds liberties, slavery -breeds slaveries, but the liberties will be the strongest stock. If -the political and religious liberties which the people of this country -aspired to set up had in them the real sap and fibre of a better life -than the world had yet known, it must certainly follow that they -would quicken and strengthen the people for discovery and obedience -in still higher realms. And just this has happened. Nowhere else has -the new claim to tax without representation been so quickly detected, -so intelligently scrutinized, and so bravely fought. Nowhere else has -this spreading plague of selfishness and false doctrine found a peo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span>ple -whose average and general life was pitched on so high a level that they -instantly took the alarm at its claims over their lives and liberties. -It has found a people so disciplined by the aspiration and achievement -of political and religious rights that they are already possessed of -a body of doctrine capable, by an easy extension, of refuting all the -pretensions of the new absolutism. At the very beginning of this new -democratic life among the nations it was understood that to be safe -liberty must be complete on its industrial as well as on its political -and religious sides. This is the American principle. "Give a man power -over my subsistence," said Alexander Hamilton, "and he has power over -the whole of my moral being." To submit to such a power gives only the -alternative of death or degradation, and the high spirit of America -preferred then, as it prefers now, the rule of right, which gives life.</p> - -<p>The mania of business has reached an acuter and extremer development -in America than elsewhere, because nowhere else have bounteous nature -and free institutions produced birthrights and pottages so well worth -"swapping." But the follies and wickedness of business have nowhere -been so sharply challenged as in free America. "Betake yourself to -America," said Carlyle to a friend beginning a literary career; "there -you can utter your freest thoughts in ways impossible here." It is to -this stern wakefulness of a free people that the world owes it that -more light has been thrown in America than in any other country on the -processes of modern money-making. A free press, organ of a free people, -has done invaluable service. The legislatures have pushed investigation -after investigation into the ways in which large masses of the people -have been deprived, for the benefit of single men or groups of men, -of rights of subsistence and government. Through the courts the free -people have pursued their depredators by civil and criminal process, by -public and private prosecutions. Imperfect and corrupt, these agencies -of press, courts, legislatures have often been; they have still done a -work which has either been left undone altogether in other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span> countries, -or has been done with but a fraction of our thoroughness.</p> - -<p>It is due to them that there exists in the reports of legislative -investigations, State and national, in the proceedings of lawsuits and -criminal trials, in the files of the newspapers, a mass of information -which cannot be found in any other community in the world. There is in -these archives an accumulation of the raw material of tragedy, comedy, -romance, ravellings of the vicissitudes of human life, and social -and personal fate, which will feed the fires of whole generations of -literary men when once they awake to the existence of these precious -rolls. In these pigeon-holes are to be found keys of the present and -clews to the future. As America has the newest and widest liberty, it -is the stage where play the newest and widest forces of evil as well as -good. America is at the front of the forward line of evolution. It has -taken the lead in developing competition to the extreme form in which -it destroys competition, and in superfining the processes of exchange -of services into those of the acquisition of the property of others -without service.</p> - -<p>The hope is that the old economic system we inherited has ripened so -much more rapidly than the society and government we have created that -the dead matter it deposits can be thrown off by our vigorous youth and -health. "It is high time our bad wealth came to an end," says Emerson. -It has grown into its monstrous forms so fast that the dullest eye can -separate it from the Commonwealth, and the slowest mind comprehend its -mischievousness. In making themselves free of arbitrary and corrupt -power in government the Americans prepared themselves to be free in all -else, and because foremost in political liberty they have the promise -of being the first to realize industrial liberty—the trunk of a tree -of which political liberty is the seed, and without which political -liberty shrinks back into nothingness.</p> - -<p>"The art of Italy will blossom over our graves," Mazzini said when, -with true insight, he saw that the first artistic, first literary task -before the Italians was to make their country<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> free. Art, literature, -culture, religion, in America, are already beginning to feel the -restrictive pressure which results from the domination of a selfish, -self-indulgent, luxurious, and anti-social power. This power, mastering -the markets of a civilization which gives its main energies to markets, -passes without difficulty to the mastery of all the other activities. -When churches, political campaigns, the expounding of the law, -maintenance of schools and colleges, and family life itself all depend -on money, they must become servile to the money power. Song, picture, -sermon, decrees of court, and the union of hearts must pass constantly -under stronger control of those who give their lives to trade and -encourage everybody else to trade, confident that the issue of it all -will be that they will hold as property, in exclusive possession, to be -doled out on their own terms, the matter by which alone man can live, -either materially or spiritually.</p> - -<p>In America, where the supreme political power and much of the -government of church and college have been taken out of traditional -hands and subjected to the changing determinations of popular will, it -has inevitably resulted that the State, church, and school have passed -under this mercantile aristocracy to a far greater extent than in -other countries where stiffer régimes under other and older influences -still stand. Our upper classes—elected, as always, by the equipoise -of effort and opinion between them and the lower classes—are, under -this commercial system, the men who trade best, who can control their -features and their consciences so that they can always get more than -they give, who can play with supply and demand so that at the end of -the game all their brethren are their tributaries for life. It is the -birthright-buying minds that, by the adoption of this ideal, we choose -for our rulers. The progressive races have altered their ideals of -kings with the indescribable advantage of being ruled by Washingtons -and Lincolns and Gladstones instead of Caligulas and Pharaohs. We -have now to make a similar step forward in another part of life. The -previous changes expressed outwardly an inner change of heart. The -reformer of to-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> is simply he who, with quicker ear, detecting that -another change of heart is going on, goes before.</p> - -<p>Another great change is working in the inner mind of man, and will -surely be followed by incorporation in institutions and morals and -manners. The social head and heart are both being persuaded that too -many are idle—rich and poor; too many are hurt in body and soul—rich -and poor; too many children are "exposed," as in the old Greek and -Roman market-places; too many are starving within reach of too much -fertile waste; too many passions of envy, greed, and hate are raging -among rich and poor. There is too much left undone that ought to be -done along the whole scale of life, from the lowest physical to the -highest spiritual needs, from better roads to sweeter music and nobler -worship. It cannot be long, historically speaking, before all this -new sense and sentiment will issue in acts. All will be as zealously -protected against the oppression of the cruel in their daily labor -as now against oppression from invader or rioter, and will be as -warmly cheered in liberty to grow to their fullest capabilities as -laborers—<i>i.e.</i>, users of matter for the purpose of the spirit—as -they are now welcomed to the liberty of the citizen and the worshipper. -Infinite is the fountain of our rights. We can have all the rights we -will create. All the rights we will give we can have. The American -people will save the liberties they have inherited by winning new ones -to bequeath.</p> - -<p>With this will come fruits of new faculty almost beyond calculation. -A new liberty will put an end to pauperism and millionairism and the -crimes and death-rate born of both wretchednesses, just as the liberty -of politics and religion put an end to martyrs and tyrants. The new -liberty is identical in principle and purpose with the other; it is -made inevitable by them. Those who love the liberties already won must -open the door to the new, unless they wish to see them all take flight -together. There can be no single liberty. Liberties go in clusters like -the Pleiades.</p> - -<p>We must either regulate, or own, or destroy, perishing by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> the sword -we take. The possibility of regulation is a dream. As long as this -control of the necessaries of life and this wealth remain private -with individuals, it is they who will regulate, not we. The policy -of regulation, disguise it as we may, is but moving to a compromise -and equilibrium within the evil all complain of. It is to accept the -principle of the sovereignty of the self-interest of the individual and -apply constitutional checks to it. The unprogressive nations palter -in this method with monarchy. But the wits of America are equal to -seeing that as with kingship and slavery so with poverty—the weeding -must be done at the roots. Sir Henry Sumner Maine says mankind moves -from status to contract; from society ruled by inherited customs to -one ruled by agreement, varied according to circumstances. Present -experience suggests the addition that the movement, like all in -nature, is pendulous, and that mankind moves progressively from status -to contract, and from this stage of contract to another status. We -march and rest and march again. If our society is settling down to an -interval of inertia, perhaps ages long, we must before night comes -establish all in as much equality and comfort as possible.</p> - -<p>The aspirations are not new. We have had them since Plato. The -knowledge of means for realizing them is not new. We have had it since -Aristotle, and the history of civilization is but the record of the -progressive embodiment of the ideals in institutions for the life -together—sexual, social, spiritual. What is new in our moment is that -mankind's accumulating forces are preparing for another step forward -in this long processional realization of its best possible. Nothing -so narrow as the mere governmentalizing of the means and processes of -production. It is only the morally nerveless who ask government to -do that which they will not rise to do. The conversion which is now -working itself out within us, and perhaps is more nearly born than we -suspect ("We shall not live to see slavery abolished," said Emerson, in -1859) is making itself felt on all sides of our life. In manners, in -literature, in marriage, in church, in all, we see at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> work the saving -ferment which is to make all things new by bringing them nearer to -the old ideals. George Sand was revolted by the servile accent of the -phrase of her day, "Madame est servie." Society has grown to the better -fellowship her finer ear found wanting in these words, and is now told -it is dinner, not madame or monsieur, that is served.</p> - -<p>We are to have, of course, great political changes. We are to apply -the co-operative methods of the post-office and the public school to -many other common toils, to all toils in which private sovereignty has -become through monopoly a despotism over the public, and to all in -which the association of the people and the organization of processes -have been so far developed that the profit-hunting Captain of Industry -may be replaced by the public-serving Captain of Industry. But we are -to have much more. We are to have a private life of a new beauty, of -which these are to be merely the mechanical exhibitions on the side -of politics. We are to move among each other, able, by the methodical -and agreed adherence of all, to do what the words of Lamennais mean, -instead of being able, as now, in most things, to afford only an -indulgence in feeling them. We are to be commoners, travellers to -Altruria.</p> - -<p>We are to become fathers, mothers, for the spirit of the father and -mother is not in us while we can say of any child it is not ours, and -leave it in the grime. We are to become men, women, for to all about -reinforcing us we shall insure full growth and thus insure it to -ourselves. We are to become gentlemen, ladies, for we will not accept -from another any service we are not willing to return in kind. We are -to become honest, giving when we get, and getting with the knowledge -and consent of all. We are to become rich, for we shall share in the -wealth now latent in idle men and idle land, and in the fertility of -work done by those who have ceased to withstand but stand with each -other. As we walk our parks we already see that by saying "thine" to -every neighbor we say "mine" of palaces, gardens, art, science, far -beyond any possible to selfishness, even the selfishness of kings. -We shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> become patriots, for the heart will know why it thrills to -the flag. Those folds wave the salute of a greater love than that of -the man who will lay down his life for his friend. There floats the -banner of the love of millions, who, though they do not know you and -have never seen you, will die for you and are living for you, doing -in a thousand services unto you as you would be done by. And the -little patriotism, which is the love of the humanity fenced within our -frontier will widen into the reciprocal service of all men. Generals -were, merchants are, brothers will be, humanity's representative men.</p> - -<p>There is to be a people in industry, as in government. The same rising -genius of democracy which discovered that mankind did not co-operate in -the State to provide a few with palaces and king's-evil, is disclosing -that men do not co-operate in trade for any other purpose than to -mobilize the labor of all for the benefit of all, and that the only -true guidance comes from those who are led, and the only valid titles -from those who create. Very wide must be the emancipation of this new -self-interest. If we free America we shall still be not free, for the -financial, commercial, possessory powers of modern industrial life are -organized internationally. If we rose to the full execution of the -first, simplest, and most pressing need of our times and put an end -to all private use of public powers, we should still be confronted by -monopolies existing simply as private property, as in coal-mines, oil -lands.</p> - -<p>It is not a verbal accident that science is the substance of the word -conscience. We must know the right before we can do the right. When it -comes to know the facts the human heart can no more endure monopoly -than American slavery or Roman empire. The first step to a remedy is -that the people care. If they know, they will care. To help them to -know and care; to stimulate new hatred of evil, new love of the good, -new sympathy for the victims of power, and, by enlarging its science, -to quicken the old into a new conscience, this compilation of fact -has been made. Democracy is not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> lie. There live in the body of the -commonalty the unexhausted virtue and the ever-refreshened strength -which can rise equal to any problems of progress. In the hope of -tapping some reserve of their powers of self-help this story is told to -the people.</p> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span></p> - -<p>PARTIAL LIST OF TRADE COMBINATIONS, OR TRUSTS, ACHIEVED OR ATTEMPTED, -AND OF THE COMMODITIES COVERED BY THEM<a name="FNanchor_770_770" id="FNanchor_770_770"></a><a href="#Footnote_770_770" class="fnanchor">[770]</a></p> - - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I.—LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boilers, for house heating.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Candle-makers, Great Britain, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coal: anthracite, bituminous.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coke.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Electric: carbon points, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">candles,1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">electric goods, national, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lighting, United States, Great Britain, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">light-fixtures, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gas: illuminating and fuel, local, sectional, national; fixtures, national; pipes, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">natural.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gasoline stoves, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Governors of steam-boilers.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hot-water heaters, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">House furnaces, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Kerosene, 1874.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Kindling wood, Boston, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Matches: United States; Great Britain;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Sweden;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paraffine.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Petroleum and its products, 1874.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Radiators, steam and hot-water, Western, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scotch mineral oil, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Steam and hot-water master fitters, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stearine.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stove-boards, zinc, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stoves and ranges, 1872.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stoves, vapor, national, 1884.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>II.—CHEMICALS</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Acids: acetic, citric, muriatic, nitric, sulphuric, American, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">oxalic, Great Britain, 1882.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Alkali Union, England, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Alkaloids, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Alum, sectional, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ammonia, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bismuth salts, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bleaching-powder, England, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boracic acid, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Borax: United States;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Great Britain, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chemical Union, England, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chloroform, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Drug manufacturers: United States;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Iodine, England, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Iodoform, United States, 1880.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lime, acetate of, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mercurials: as calomel, corrosive sublimate, etc., United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nitrates, Chili, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paris-green, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Potash: bichromate of, Great Britain;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bichloride of, United States;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">chlorate, prussiate, Great Britain, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Quinine, international, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rochelle salts, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Saltpetre.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Santonine, United States.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Soda, bichromate, United States; carbonate,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">caustic, England, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">nitrate of, Chili and England, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Strychnine.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sulphur, Italy.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ultramarine: United States; Germany, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Vitriol, 1889.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>III.—METALS</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Aluminum, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Barbed wire, 1881.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brass: sectional, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rolled and sheet, sheet German silver, copper rivets and burrs, copper and German-silver wire, kerosene-oil burners and lamp trimmings, and braised brass tubing.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Copper: cold, bolt, rolled, sheet, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">ore, Lake Superior, 1879;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bath-tubs, boilers, sinks, and general ware, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wire.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Iron: founders; galvanized, national, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">malleable, national, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manufacturers, Germany, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">nuts, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">ore, Germany, 1884, Atlantic coast, 1886, Michigan, 1882, Southern, 1884, Northwestern, 1887, Lake Superior, 1893;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pig, Eastern, Southern, 1883, national, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pipes, steam and gas, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wrought iron, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sheet, enamelled, Germany, 1893;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">structural, national, 1881;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">tubes, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wire-cloth, national, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Russian, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lead: pig, pipe;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sheet-lead, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">white, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mica, national, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nickel.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Quicksilver, California.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Silver and lead smelters.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Steel: armor-plate, Bessemer beams (in</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">existence nearly thirty years), castings, 1894;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">galvanized; rails (see traffic and travel);</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rods, United States and Germany, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rolling-mills.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tin: jobbers; American, national, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">English, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Zinc.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>IV.—SOME OTHER INSTRUMENTS AND MATERIALS OF INDUSTRY</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Alcohol.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Axes and axe-poles.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Belting, leather, rubber.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blankets (press), American Papermakers' Felt and Jacket Association.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bobbins, spools, and shuttles, 1886, for cotton, woollen, silk, and linen mills.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bolts, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boxes, wooden, local, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Western and Southern.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bridge-builders: Eastern, 1886;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Butchers' skewers and supplies, Western, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Carpet yarns, Eastern, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cash-registers, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Celluloid, lythoid, zylonite, Eastern, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chains, national, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Color trust, Great Britain, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cordage: rope, twine, United States, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">England, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Corks.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton duck, national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton-seed oil, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Creels, for cloth and woollen mills, national, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Damasks, Pennsylvania, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Emery wheels, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Felting.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fibre, indurated, pails, bowls, measures, water-coolers, filters, etc., national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Files, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fire-brick, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fish-oil, menhaden, New England, 1885.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Forge companies, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glass bottles: beer, United States, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">green glass, English bottle manufacturers, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glass: flint, Western, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">crown, cylinder, unpolished;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">plate, French, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">German, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">window, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sectional, national, international, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glass, plate, Underwriters, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glue.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gutta-percha.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hardware manufacturers, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Label printers.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Leather: belting, national; board, national, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">hides, Northwestern, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">morocco, Eastern, 1886;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">patent, national, 1888; sole, 1893;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Tanners' Association, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Oak Harness Leather Tanners, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Linen mills, Eastern, Western, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Linseed oil: local, 1877;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dealers, Canada, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Manilla, international, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oil: lubricating, 1874;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">for curing leather; menhaden;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">safety burning oil for miners.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Onyx, Mexican, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paper: local, sectional, national;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bags, Eastern and Western, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">book and newspaper; boxes, national, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">card-board, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">flour sacks, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">straw; tissue, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wrapping, Western, 1878, Eastern, 1881;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">writing, national, 1884. Papermakers' trust in Great Britain to check the operation of the Alkali trust, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Papermakers' Felt and Jacket Association, national;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rags, Eastern, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wood-pulp, Western, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York, Canada, Eastern, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pitch, national, 1887 or earlier.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Planes, carpenters'.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pumps, national, 1871.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rubber: belting, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">electric web goring (for shoes), national, 1893;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gossamers, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">hose, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">importers, national, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manufacturers, national, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Brazil producers, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">stamps and stencils, national, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sandpaper, emery and emery cloth, flint, garnet, ruby, sand cloth, national, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Saws, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scales.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Screws: machine, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wood, national, international.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Seed Crushers' Union, England, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sewer pipe, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sewing-machines, 1885.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sewing-machine supplies, New York and New England, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Spirits.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Straw braid.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Straw-board, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tacks, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Talc mills, New York, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tar, national, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Teasel, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Textile manufacturers, Pennsylvania, 1886—embracing dress goods, ginghams, upholstery goods, woollens, yarns, chintzes, worsteds, damasks.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tools, edge, American Axe and Edged Tool Company, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Turpentine, Southern, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Type founders, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Washers, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Watch-cases, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Well tools, for oil, gas, and artesian wells, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wood, excelsior, shavings for packing, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wooden-ware, 1883 or earlier.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Woodworking machines, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wool felt.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wrenches, 1875.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>V.—TRAFFIC AND TRAVEL</p> - -<p><i>The Road, Horse, and Wagon</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bicycles, United States, 1893. Board of Trade formed to regulate prices.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bicycle tires.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bridge-builders, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Buggy pails, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Carriage builders, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Carriage hardware, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Harness dealers, manufacturers, national, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Liverymen's Associations, local, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paving: asphalt, 1886;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">brick, Western, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pitch, national, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Road-making machines, Western, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Saddlery Association, national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Saddle-trees, Indiana, Missouri, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wagons, local, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wheels, Western, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whips, national, 1892.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Shipping</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ballast, Havana, 1882.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Canal-boats, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton duck, sail-cloth, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ferries, New York and Brooklyn.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lake carriers, Hull pool, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lake Dock Trust.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Marine insurance, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Naval stores.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ocean steamers: European, Asiatic, and American;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">German steamship companies, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pilotage, New York, San Francisco.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Steamboats: in the Cincinnati and New Orleans trade, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forwarding lines along the Hudson River, 1891.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Railroads</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Car-axles, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Car-springs, steel, national, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cars, freight and cattle.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Elevators, grain, local, Western, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Express companies.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Locomotives: national, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">boiler flues, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">tires, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Railroad: pools, freight and passenger, sectional, national;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Eastern Railroad Association, of 800 railroads, to fight patents.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Steel sleepers, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">steel rails, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Street railways, local, sectional.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>VI.—BUILDING</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Asbestos, for paints, roofing, steam-pipe and boiler coverings, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Beams and channels, iron and steel, national, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blinds: Northwestern, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brass, gas, plumbing, steam, water goods, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brick: local, sectional, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Washington (State);</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pressed brick, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cement: Mississippi valley, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Eastern, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Northwestern, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cornice-makers, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Doors: Northwestern, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fire engines, including hook and ladder trucks, hose-carriages, heaters, carts, stationary pumps, and other supplies, United States and Canada, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fire insurance.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glue, national, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gypsum stucco, Eastern, Northwestern, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hinges, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lime, Western, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lumber: California pine, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">California redwood, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Chicago; Mississippi valley;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Northwestern, 1880;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pacific coast, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">poplar, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Puget Sound, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">yellow pine, Southern, 1890, Eastern, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dealers, national, 1878.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nails: Pennsylvania, 1875;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Western Association, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Atlantic States Association, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paint.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Plaster, national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Roofing: felt;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">iron;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pitch, Vermont, national, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sanitary pottery.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sash, doors, and blinds, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sewer pipes, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stone: brown stone, Lake Superior, 1890, New York, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cut-stone quarry owners, Western, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">free-stone; granite, national, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">limestone, rubble, and flag, Illinois, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">marble, Western dealers, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Vermont marble quarries, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sandstone, New York, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Structural steel.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stucco, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Varnish dealers, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wall-paper: national, 1879; international, 1882.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>VII.—FARM AND PLANTATION</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Agricultural implements, manufacturers, dealers, 1891.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Binders, Harvester Trust, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Churns, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Corn-harvesters, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton bagging, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton presses, local, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Drain tile, Indiana, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fencing, barbed wire, national, 1881.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fertilizers: 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">guano;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">menhaden oil, New England, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">phosphate, South Carolina, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Florida, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Forks, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Harrow manufacturers, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Harvesting-machines, national, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hay-presses, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hay tools, Western and Northwestern, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hoes, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Horse-brushes, prison-made, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Jute grain bags, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mowers, national, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pails, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paris green.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ploughs, Northwestern, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rakes, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Reapers, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scythe-makers, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shovels, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Snath manufacturers, national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Threshing-machines, national, 1890, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Twine, binding, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Vehicles.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>VIII.—SCHOOL, LIBRARY, AND COUNTING-ROOM</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blank-books, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Envelopes, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lead-pencils, 1878.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lithographic printers, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Novels (paper-covered "libraries"), 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">School-books, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">School-furniture, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Slates and slate-pencils, national, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Subscription-books, local, sectional, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Type-founders, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Type-writers.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Writing-paper, national, 1884.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>IX.—"THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD"</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ammunition, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Arms, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cartridges, national, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dynamite, Germany.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fireworks, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gunpowder, national, 1875.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Guns, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shot-tower companies, national, 1873.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>X.—FOR THE PERSON</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Barbers, National Tonsorial Parlor Company, organized to establish barber-shops in all the large cities of the United States, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Buttons.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Calico, England, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clothes-brushes, prison-made, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coat and cloak manufacturers: New York, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Chicago, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Collars and cuffs, New York, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton: England, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Fall River; Southern mills, 1881;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">thread (spool-cotton), 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Diamonds: mines in South Africa;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dealers in Europe, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dress-goods, Pennsylvania, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Furs.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ginghams, Pennsylvania, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gloves, New York.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hats: fur, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">woollen, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Knit goods: New York, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Western, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Jewellers, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Laundries: Chicago;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Chinese Laundry Union, New York City, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">St. Louis, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pocket-knives, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ribbons, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rubber boots and shoes, national, 1882.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Seal-skin, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shirts: Troy, New York City, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shoe: manufacturers, national, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">retailers, New England, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Silk: manufacturers, international. France, England, Italy, Germany,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sewing, national, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">ribbon, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Trunks, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Umbrellas, Eastern, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Watch:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manufacturers, makers and jewellers, national, 1886;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">National Association of Jobbers of American Watches and Cases, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Woollens:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manufacturers, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">worsteds, yarns, Pennsylvania, 1886.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>XI.—SMOKING AND DRINKING</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Beer, United States Brewers' Association, 1861.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Champagne, New York City, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">France, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Meerschaum pipes, New Jersey, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Soda fountains, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Spittoons, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tobacco and cigars, local, sectional, national, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cigarettes, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Waters, mineral, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whiskey and "domestic"—or artificial—brandy, rum, gin, and cordials made in imitation of the genuine.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wine-growers, California, 1889.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>XII.—"HOME, SWEET HOME"</p> - -<p><i>In General</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Candles, coal, furnaces, gas, oil, matches, ranges, stoves, etc. (see Light, Heat, and Power).</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Carpets:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Eastern, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Brussels, in-grain, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chairs:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cane, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manufacturers, Western, 1880;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">seats, perforated, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Furniture:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Chicago manufacturers, 1886;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">retailers, New England, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hair-cloth, Rhode Island, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oil-cloth, table and stair, Oil-cloth Association, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pails, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Soap, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Upholsterers' felt.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Upholstery goods, textile manufacturers, Pennsylvania, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Window-shades, 1888.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>The Kitchen</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boilers.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bottles.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brooms, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brushes, scrubbing, prison-made, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chopping-bowls, wooden-ware, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Crockery, national, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fruit-jars, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glass-ware, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hollow-ware, prison-made, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Keelers, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Kettles, prison-made, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lamp-chimneys, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Measures, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pans and pots, prison-made, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Potato-mashers, wooden-ware, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pottery, yellow-ware, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sinks, copper.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stamped-ware, national, 1882.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tin-ware:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">English, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Water-coolers, filters, pails, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Water-pails, wooden-ware, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wooden-ware, national, 1884.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Laundry</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Borax.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clothes-pins, New York, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clothes-wringers.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Soap, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Soda, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Starch:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Western, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Washboards, New York, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wash-tubs, wooden-ware, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Washing-machines, national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Water-tubs, fibre trust, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Zinc, sheet, 1890.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Dining-room</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Butter-dishes, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">China, England, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glass table-ware, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Plated-ware.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Silver-plated ware.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Silver-ware, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Table cutlery, national, 1881.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Table oil-cloth, national, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tables, extension-tables, national, 1893.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Parlor</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For carpets, furniture, upholstery, etc., see under "In General," above.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mantel lambrequin, wool felt, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Music, books and instruments, Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Organs, local, sectional, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Parlor frame manufacturers.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Parlor furniture, Western Association, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pianos, local, sectional, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Piano-covers, wool felt, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Picture-frames, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rugs, Eastern, 1885.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Table-covers, wool felt, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tapestries, Eastern, 1885.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Bath-room</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bath-tubs (see "Copper").</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sanitary-ware, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sponges, Florida, New York, 1892.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p><i>Bedroom</i></p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chintzes, Pennsylvania, 1886.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Looking-glass:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">French silvered plate-glass, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">German, national, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Spring beds, national, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wire mattress:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Northwestern, 1886;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1890.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>XIII.—"OUR DAILY BREAD"</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bread, biscuit, crackers, local, sectional, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Butter, local, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Candy, local, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Canned goods:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Western, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">California canned fruit, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cider and vinegar, national, 1882.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coffee, Arbuckle trust, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Corn-meal, Western, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton-seed oil.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dairy Association, national, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Eggs, local, in United States and Canada.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fish:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">England, 1749 and before;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York and New England, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">salmon, Alaska, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">salmon canners of the Pacific coast, 1893;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sardines, Eastern, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, 1890;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sardine canneries, Canada, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Flour:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">United States, National Millers' Association, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">winter wheat mills, national, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">spring wheat mills of the United States;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">millers of northeast England, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rye flour, local, 1891;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">flour-mills of Utah and Colorado, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Food Manufacturers' Association, United States, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fruit:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bananas, Southern, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">California fruit-growers, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cranberries, Cape Cod, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">England, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Florida, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">foreign fruit, New York, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Fruit-trade Association, New York, 1882;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">fruit-growers of the Eastern and Middle States against commission-merchants, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">preserves and jellies, Western, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">American Preservers' Company, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prunes, California;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">strawberry-growers, Wisconsin, 1892;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">watermelons, Indiana, South Carolina, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Grape-growers, northern Ohio, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Grocers: wholesale, retail; local, sectional, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Honey, local, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ice:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">local, sectional, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">artificial, Southern, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lard-refiners, Eastern, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Meat and cattle:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">beef, mutton, pork;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Butchers' National Protective Association;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Chicago packers;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Inter-mountain Stock-growers' Association, Utah, 1893;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">International Cattle Range Association;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Live-stock Association, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Northwest Texas Live-stock Association, 1878;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Western Kansas Stock-growers' Association, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Wyoming Stock-growers' Association, 1874.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Milk:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">local, sectional, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">condensed milk, New York, Illinois, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oatmeal, 1885;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Olive-oil.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oysters, local, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pea-nuts, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pickles, national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Produce:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Produce Commission-merchants, eight large cities—North, South, East, West, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">West, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Raisins, California, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rice-mills, Southern, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Salt:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rock;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">English Salt Union, 1888;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, United States and Canada, 1889;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sugar:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Hawaii, 1876;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">United States, 1887.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Glucose, national, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">international, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wine, California, 1894.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>XIV.—LIFE AND DEATH</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Artificial teeth, United States, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Castor-oil, 1885.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cocoa-nut oil, American importers, 1881.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coffins, National Burial-case Association, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dental machines and supplies, United States, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Drugs:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">importers;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">druggists, retail, sectional, national, 1883;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">wholesale, sectional, national, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada, 1874;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manufacturers, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ergot, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Glycerine, New York, 1888.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Life insurance, 1883,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Patent medicines, national, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Peppermint, local, 1887.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Quinine, 1882.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tombstones, local, Brooklyn, Chicago, 1891.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Vaseline.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p>XV.—MISCELLANEOUS</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Athletic clubs, 1893, to reduce charges made by prize-fighters for exhibition.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Base-ball, national, 1876.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Billiard-tables and furniture, 1884.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bill-posters, United States, Canada, 1872.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dime museums, national, 1883.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Landlords' Union, London, England, 1890.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">News-dealers, 1884;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">newspapers, Associated Press, United Press;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sectional, national.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Photographers, national, 1889.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Playing-cards.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Printers, show and job, 1893.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Racing trust, jockey club, 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Retailers, 1891.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Small retail store-keepers of Kansas City protest against mammoth</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">department stores.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Safes, national, 1892.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Theatrical trust, Interstate Amusement Company, Springfield, Ill., 1894.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Warehouses:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Brooklyn, 1887;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">national, 1891.</span><br /> -</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Annual Report Attorney-General of the United States, 1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> People of the State of New York <i>vs.</i> The North River -Sugar Refining Company. Supreme Court of New York—at Circuit (January -9, 1889). New York Senate Trusts, 1889, p. 278.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Combinations</i>, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 19.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> References: -</p> -<p> -1. Investigation by the Senate of Pennsylvania into the Anthracite Coal -Difficulties, 1871. -</p> -<p> -2. Morris Run Coal Company <i>vs.</i> The Barclay Coal Company. Pennsylvania -State Reports, Vol. 68, p. 173. -</p> -<p> -3. Report on the Coal Combination. New York Assembly Committee on -Railroads, 1878. -</p> -<p> -4. Labor Troubles in Anthracite Regions, 1887-1888. House of -Representatives, 50th Congress, Second Session. Report No. 4147. -</p> -<p> -5. New York Senate Investigation of the Coal Combination, 1892. -</p> -<p> -6. Alleged Coal Combination. House of Representatives, 52d Congress, 2d -Session. Report No. 2278. January 18, 1893. -</p> -<p> -7. Coxe Brothers & Co. <i>vs.</i> The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, -before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Report and Opinion of the -Commission. -</p> -<p> -8. John C. Haddock <i>vs.</i> Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad -Company, before the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1890. -</p> -<p> -9. Hocking Valley Investigation. General Assembly of Ohio, 1885. -</p> -<p> -10. Trusts or Pools. Investigation by Legislature of Ohio, 1889. -</p> -<p> -11. Alleged Combinations in Manufactures, Trade, etc. Dominion House of -Commons, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Richardson <i>vs.</i> Buhl <i>et al.</i> Michigan State Reports, -vol. lxxvii., p. 632.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Page ii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Page xxii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Coal Combination, Congress, 1893. Testimony of John C. -Haddock, pp. 242-261.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Same, p. iv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Report, p. xlv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Coal Combination, Congress, 1893, pp. iii., iv., vi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Same, p. i.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Same. p. v.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Report, pp. xiv., xv., xlix.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Combinations, Canadian Parliament, 1888, pp. 5, 6, 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Report, p. lxx.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Investigation by the Senate of Pennsylvania into the -Anthracite Coal Difficulties, 1871.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Report, pp. lxx., and following.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Same, p. lxxvi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Same, p. lxxvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Report, pp. ix., xciv., and following.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Same, p. xlv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Same, p. xiii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Coxe case before Interstate Commerce Commission, Coal -Combination, Congress, 1893, p. 183.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Same, p. v.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Whiskey Trust Investigation. Committee on the -Judiciary Report, March 1, 1893. 52d Congress, 2d Session, House of -Representatives, Report No. 2601, p. 16 and following.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Same testimony, p. 28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Whiskey Trust Investigation, Congress, 1893, p. 62.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Whiskey Trust Investigation, Congress, 1893, pp. 14, 15.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Report of the Investigating Committee appointed by the -Legislature of Minnesota of 1891, to determine whether wheat was taken -without inspection from a public elevator in Duluth. April 7, 1892, p. -11.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1891, pp. 9, 11.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Meat Products, United States Senate, 51st Congress, 1st -Session, Report No. 829, 1890, p. 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> New York Assembly, "Hepburn Report," 1879, p. 70.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, p. 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, pp. 1, 2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, p. 6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, Testimony, pp. -464, 465.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1888. Combinations, Canadian -Parliament, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> F.H. Storer, <i>American Journal of Science</i>, vol. xxx., -1860.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 159.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 160.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Testimony of Simon Bernheimer, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3549 and following.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 93.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Same, p. 93.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 214.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Titusville <i>Morning Herald</i>, March 20, 1872.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Testimony, Erie Investigation, New York Assembly, 1873, -p. 418.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Testimony of Simon Bernheimer, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3548.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Testimony, Freight Discriminations, Ohio House of -Representatives, 1879, pp. 184-5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 304.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Testimony, Pennsylvania Tax Case, 1883, p. 486.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> This contract is printed in full in Exhibits, New -York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 418-51, and Trust Report, -Congress, 1888, pp. 357-61.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 353.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Art. 2, sec. 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Art. 2, sec. 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Art. 2, sec. 5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Art. 2, Sec. 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> The same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Art. 2, Sec. 8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Art. 2, Sec. 5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Art. 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Art. 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Exhibits, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, pp. 418-51.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 1566.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Testimony, Erie Investigation, New York Assembly, 1873, -p. 300.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 42.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, p. -418.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Report of the Executive Committee of the Petroleum -Producers' Union, 1872, p. 23.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Testimony, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, p. 237.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2525.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2527.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2525-35.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> See ch. xxxii. for "the state of the business" -"unproductive of profit."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Standard Oil Company <i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i> Court -of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, O. Affidavit of the President of the -Standard Oil Company.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> 11 Harris.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Debates of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, -1873, v. 3, pp. 522-3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2766.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Report of Executive Committee of the Petroleum Producers' -Union, 1872.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> See ch. xxxiii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 290.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 420.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 289.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad Company <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 707.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Exhibit A, Answer of Defendants, Case of Standard Oil -Company <i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i>, Cleveland, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 385.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Exhibit A, Answer of Defendants, Case of Standard Oil -Company <i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i>, Cleveland, 1880, Section 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Affidavits of the defendants.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Affidavits of the defendants.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Affidavits of the defendants.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 547.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Petition for Relief and Injunction, Standard Oil Company -<i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i>, etc.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Affidavits of the defendants.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <i>Combinations</i>, etc., S.C.T. Dodd, p. 25.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 422.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 772.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Affidavit of Levi T. Scofield.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Exhibit A, etc., Section 12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 388, 421.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Scofield <i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i> Lake Shore and Michigan Southern -Railway Company, 43 Ohio State Report, p. 571.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> See ch. xxvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> See ch. xxvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> See Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 800.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad -<i>et al.</i>, 1879, Testimony, p. 472.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1879, Testimony, p. 490.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> See ch. xxxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Glasgow <i>Herald</i>, June 16, 1892.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Affidavit, Oct. 18, 1880, Case of Standard Oil Company -<i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i>, Cleveland, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Affidavit, Nov. 17, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Affidavit, Nov. 30, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> Affidavit, May 1, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> See chapter "Not to Exceed Half."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Affidavit, May 1, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad -Company <i>et al.</i>, Testimony, p. 751.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Exhibit A, Affidavit, October 18, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> See ch. xxvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> See ch. xviii. and following.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1693.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Rutter Circular, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Rutter Circular, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1596.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Same, Report, p. 43.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Same, Testimony, p. 3429.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2792-95.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Same, p. 2795.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 445.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 670.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Testimony of A.J. Cassatt, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -<i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, pp. 666, 669, 671.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc., 1879, p. -665.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Appeal to the Executive of Pennsylvania, Trusts, -Congress, 1888, p. 354.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 735.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Same, p. 672.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Same, p. 460.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> See ch. vi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Standard Oil Company <i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i> -Affidavit of the treasurer of the Standard.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 771-72.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> For the full report of these remarkable interviews with -the President and Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad see -Testimony, Investigation Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, -1878, pp. 47 <i>et seq.</i>, 60 <i>et seq.</i>; Testimony, Commonwealth of -Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, pp. 160 <i>et -seq.</i>, 204 <i>et seq.</i>, 237 <i>et seq.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 225-26.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Testimony, Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of -Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. 49, 59; Testimony, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 710, 3548-56; Exhibits, same, p. 176; -Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et -al.</i>, 1879, p. 247.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, p. 712.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -720.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 445.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, pp. 725-26.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Exhibits, pp. 453-514.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Testimony, pp. 174-207.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 11.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Same, p. 352.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Same, p. 510.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 420.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 374.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Testimony, Discriminations in Freight Rates, Ohio House -of Representatives, 1879, pp. 181-85.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -800.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> Exhibits, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -238-45.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, pp. -479-514.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> This was always denied by the New York Central. "I never -heard of the American Transfer Company," Vanderbilt told the New York -Legislature. "I don't know that we ever paid the American Transfer -Company a dollar. If we did, I have no knowledge of it." New York -Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 1577.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, p. 702. Same, Exhibits Nos. 45-47, pp. -732-33.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad -<i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 691.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -3666-69.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> Same, p. 3959.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Same, p. 2664.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, pp. 656-57.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Art. 1, sec. 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 40-44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Speech of Simon Sterne, counsel of the New York Chamber -of Commerce, before New York Assembly "Hepburn" Committee, 1879, p. -3964.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Testimony, same, p. 2772.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> See ch. xi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, pp. 302, 314.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> Testimony, same, Pipe Line Appendix, pp. 36-37; -Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. -19, 29.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc., 1879, -Pipe Line Appendix, pp. 36-37; Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of -Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. 19, 29, 32, 42.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> A History, etc. Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 690, 697, -705, 706.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Testimony of B.B. Campbell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -<i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, pp. 298-99.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Same, p. 300.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Testimony of B.B. Campbell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -<i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, p. 300.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 78-79.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 295.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Same, p. 212.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 45.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> Franklin B. Gowen, before House Committee of Commerce, -Washington, Jan. 27, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -before Interstate Commerce Commission, pp. 299-300.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Same, pp. 521, 539.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> Same, p. 534.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> Franklin B. Gowen, before House Committee of Commerce, -Washington, Jan. 27, 1880.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Report, p. 45.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Franklin B. Gowen, before Pennsylvania House of -Representatives Committee on Railroads, Feb. 13, 1883.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> See ch. xiii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> See ch. xxvi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> Testimony of General Freight Agent of Pennsylvania -Railroad (Logan, Emery, and Weaver <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad), McKean -County Court of Common Pleas, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases -before the Interstate Commerce Commission, Deposition, pp. 531-34.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> Samuel Van Syckel <i>vs.</i> Acme Oil Company, Supreme Court -of New York, Buffalo, May, 1888, before Judge Childs; Deposition of -David McKelvey.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases; Interstate -Commerce Commission reports, vol. v., pp. 4, 5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 572.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Same, pp. 389-99.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 658.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 925.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> <i>Combinations</i>, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> New York <i>Independent</i>, March 17, 1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -Nos. 153, 154, 163, Interstate Commerce Commission; Deposition of -General Freight Agent Pennsylvania Railroad, pp. 531, 534.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 389.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 27.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Same, p. 28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Same, p. 27.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 17.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Answer of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Testimony, -Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, p. 365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 256.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Petition -and Complaint.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> Same, Testimony, p. 367.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 372.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Same, pp. 380, 382.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Same, p. 256.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> National Oil Company, Limited, to Interstate Commerce -Commission, March 30, 1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> <i>Combinations: Their Uses and Abuses</i>, by S.C.T. Dodd, -p. 26.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3688.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 71.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Same, p. 426.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> Same, p. 425.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> <i>The Railways and the Republic</i>, by J.F. Hudson, p. 83.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> See pp. 69-70.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Nos. 153, -154, 163. Petition and Complaint, p. 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Commission, "In the Matter of -Relative Tank and Barrel Rates on Oil," 1888. Letter of G.B. Roberts.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> See ch. v.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> See ch. viii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> See below, and ch. xvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> See ch. xxxiii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> Rice, Robinson & Witherop case, Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1890.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> In the matter of Relative Tank and Barrel Rates on Oil. -Letter of President Roberts, Interstate Commerce Commission reports, -vol. ii., p. 365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Exhibits, -pp. 6, 7, 10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> Same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 462.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 542, 543.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> Same, p. 542.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Petition -and Complaint.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 44, 110, 393, 396.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> Same, p. 401.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> Same, p. 335.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> See p. 145.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> See ch. xv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 283-84.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Same, p. 283.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Interstate -Commerce Commission Reports, vol v., p. 415.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> See chs. xv., xvi., xvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 268-336.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Same, p. 476.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 163, 461, 537.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Same, p. 267.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> Same, p. 296.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Same, Testimony of General Freight Manager of the Lehigh -Valley Railroad, pp. 161-62.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> Same, Testimony of General Freight Agent of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, pp. 523, 537.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> Testimony of General Freight Agent of the Pennsylvania -Railroad in Nicolai and Brady <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, -before Interstate Commerce Commission, Jan. 28, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> The new rates prohibited the traffic. Testimony, -Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, pp. 97, 110, 139, 141, -146-48, 383-84, 393, 396, 397, 400, 401, 402.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Decision in Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, -Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. 131.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 283.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 36.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Same, p. 270.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Same, p. 221.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> See ch. viii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -Mr. Confer, June 17, 1891, p. 12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 237-38.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> Same, Report and Opinion of the Commission.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> Same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 127-28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> Report of Senate Select Committee, Interstate Commerce, -49th Congress, 1st Session, 1886, p. 214.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 252.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 20, 45, 75, 128-29, 175-77.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 304-5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Same, p. 486.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. -131.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 188, 193, 446, 466, 467.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> See chs. xvi, and xvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 184, 185, 194. Interstate Commerce -Commission Reports, vol v., p. 193.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> Same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> George Rice <i>vs.</i> The St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. -<i>et al.</i>, and same <i>vs.</i> Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. -<i>et al.</i> Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. v., p. 660.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> See chap. ix.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 695.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> Same, p. 69.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 449.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 7, 19, 27, 28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> See ch. xviii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 64.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> New York <i>Tribune</i>, June 29, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> United States Department of the Interior. "Petroleum," -by Joseph D. Weeks, p. 300. Annual Oil Supplement to <i>Oil City -Derrick</i>, 1893 and 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 68.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 387.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> Same, p. 405.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> Same, p. 449.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> Annual Oil Supplement to <i>Oil City Derrick</i>, Jan. 2, -1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888. p. 52.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Same, p. 67.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> Same, p. 29.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> Same, p. 65.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> See ch. xi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> See ch. xxiii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3482.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 330.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> Testimony of P.M. Shannon, J.W. Lee, T.B. Westgate, in -the case of J.J. Carter <i>vs.</i> Producers and Refiners' Oil Co., Ld., -Court of Common Pleas, Crawford County, Pa., May, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> See ch. viii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, <i>ex rel.</i> Bolard and Dale -<i>vs.</i> National Transit Co., Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, -Pa., December, 1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> See ch. xxxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, p. 527.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania -Legislature on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883. Testimony of -Auditor-General Schell, p. 11 <i>et seq.</i>, pp. 394-95, and of Corporation -Clerk, same, p. 58 <i>et seq.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> Same, pp. 60, 61, 62.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Same, pp. 374, 383.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, pp. 68, 69, 70, 381.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, pp. 53, 70, 81-85.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> Appeal of Standard Oil Company to the Court of Common -Pleas of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, June 20, 1881.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1886, p. 707.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 143, 196, 476.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> Same, pp. 316-17.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 229, 478.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> Same, pp. 478-79.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> Same, pp. 228-29.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 163, 185.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> Same, p. 631.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 267-70, 762-63.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> Same, pp. 310, 789.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 640-43, 830.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> Same, p. 231.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 229-30, 284-95.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> Same, p. 498.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 343.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> Same, p. 500.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> Same, pp. 339-41.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 502-6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> Same, pp. 297, 310, 315, 327.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 467, 521.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 661.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> Same, F.B. Gowen, p. 650.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 713.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> Hudson's <i>Railways and Republic</i>, p. 465.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, Special -Agent, U.S. Census, 1885, p. 93.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> Samuel Van Syckel <i>vs.</i> Acme Oil Company. Tried in the -Supreme Court at Buffalo, N.Y., May 14, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> <i>The Early and Later History of Petroleum</i>, by J.G. -Henry, 1873, p. 186.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, Special -Agent, U.S. Census, 1885, p. 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, Testimony of Joshua Merrill, p. -566.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, Testimony of Joshua Merrill, pp. -567-69.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> Same, p. 568.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> Same, p. 568.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> Same, p. 570.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> Supreme Court of New York: Samuel Van Syckel <i>vs.</i> Acme -Oil Company. Tried at Buffalo, New York, May 14, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> Testimony, same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> Testimony, same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> Supreme Court of New York: Samuel Van Syckel <i>vs.</i> Acme -Oil Company. Tried at Buffalo, New York, May 14, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> Testimony, same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> See ch. xxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> Samuel Van Syckel died in Buffalo, March 3, 1894, aged -83.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 573.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> Testimony, same, pp. 5, 41, 42, 124, 141, 162, 166, 170.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> Testimony, same, p. 129.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 12, 34, 172.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> See ch. xviii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 129.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 579.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 33, 40-42.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 49, 51, 56.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> Same, pp. 159, 163.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 169.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> Same, pp. 249-50.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> Same, p. 250.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 260.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> Same, p. 116.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 574.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 577-78.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> See ch. viii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 578. Hardy and another <i>vs.</i> -Cleveland and Marietta Railroad <i>et al.</i>, Circuit Court, Ohio, E.D., -1887. <i>Federal Reporter</i>, vol. xxxi., pp. 689-93.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> 49th Congress, 1st Session, Report of the Senate Select -Committee on Interstate Commerce, p. 199.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 534, 535.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> Same, pp. 730-38.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 743.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> Same, p. 729.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> Same, p. 732.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 416-20.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 442-43.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 524-30.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> Same, p. 620.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> Same, pp. 534-36.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> Same, p. 533.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> Same, p. 536.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 729.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> Same, p. 534.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> Same, p. 730.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> Same, p. 733.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 735.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> Same, p. 535.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 578.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 579-80.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> Same, p. 584.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, p. 147.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 682-83.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -1887, Nos. 51-60, p. 57.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 529-32.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> Supreme Court of Ohio: the State, <i>ex rel.</i>, <i>vs.</i> The -Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway Company. The State, -<i>ex rel.</i>, <i>vs.</i> The Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railway -Company, 47 Ohio State Reports, p. 130.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, p. 384.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 397, 398, 615-17.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 622.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> Same, pp. 586, 676. Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate -Commerce Commission, Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 391-92.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> Same, pp. 676-77.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 119.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1880, p. 520.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1880, pp. 410-11.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 599.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 688-89.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> See ch. xi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 607.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> Same, p. 678.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> <i>Combinations</i>, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 29.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, U.S. -Census, 1885, p. 92.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 614.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> See ch. xxiv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 144.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 587, 675, 680. Rice cases, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 487-88. For similar preferences to the palace -cattle-car companies, see report on "Meat Products," United States -Senate, 1890, p. 18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 477.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 675, 679-87.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> Same, p. 682.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 47.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 675.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 108-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> Same, p. 120.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> See ch. xi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 674.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 480.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 674.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 531-33.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> Same, pp. 646-47.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> Same, pp. 668-85.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, p. 65.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> Same, p. 131.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> Same, pp. 128-29, 143-47, 239.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> Same, p. 109. Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 675-76.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 688.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 689.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 598-99. Testimony, Rice -cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 28.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 622.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> See p. 205.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> See p. 206.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> Brundred, <i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i> Rice, decided November 1, 1892, -49 Ohio State Reports.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> See p. 219.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> For the decisions in these Rice cases see Interstate -Commerce Commission Report, vol. i., p. 503; same, p. 722; vol. ii., p. -389; vol. iii., p. 186; vol. iv., p. 228; vol. v., p. 193, and same, p. -660.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> The State of Ohio <i>ex rel.</i> David K. Watson, -Attorney-General, <i>vs.</i> The Standard Oil Company, <i>N.E. Reporter</i>, vol. -xxx., p. 279; 49 Ohio State Reports, p. 317.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> Rice <i>vs.</i> Standard Oil Trust. New York Court of -Appeals—Case on Appeal, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York, 1888, pp. 385-87.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> People of the State of New York <i>vs.</i> Everest <i>et -al.</i> Court of Oyer and Terminer, Erie County, February, 1886, court -stenographer's report. This item is omitted in the transcript of -evidence furnished by the oil trust to the Committee of Congress -investigating trusts in 1888. See Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 801.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> See p. 52.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 814, 882, 883.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> Same, p. 815.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> Court Stenographer's Report, p. 1135.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 816.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> Same, p. 816.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 817, 872-74.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 818, 873.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 820.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> See p. 64.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 854.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 826.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 821-22.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 824-25.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 825-26.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> See ch. xxxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> History, etc., Petroleum Producers' Unions. Trusts, -Congress, 1888, pp. 690-716.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 942.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 814-15.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> Same, p. 834.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> Same, p. 847.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 842.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 821.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 842-43.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> Same, pp. 843-44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 823.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 844.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> Same, p. 825.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> Same, p. 845.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> Same, p. 844.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> Court Stenographer's Report, p. 2049. The last statement -is omitted in the transcript furnished by the trust for the Congress -Trust Report of 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 911.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> Court Stenographer's Report, pp. 454-55.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> Court Stenographer's Report, p. 2164.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, before Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1887, Nos. 51-60, p. 367. Testimony, Trusts, New York -Senate, 1888, pp. 571, 577, 578, 579, 658. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 295.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> Testimony, Alleged Discriminations in Railroad Freights, -Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, pp. 36-39.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 410.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> Court Stenographer's Report.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 871.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 456, 571.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> Court Stenographer's Report, p. 892.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 869.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> Same, p. 825.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 902.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> Same, pp. 905-41.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 939.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 932-33, 937.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 816.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> See chs. xxii. to xxvi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 847.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 424.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 849.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 847.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 429, 894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> Same, p. 894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> Testimony, Stenographic Report, p. 895. This passage -also is omitted in the transcript furnished the committee of Congress -by the counsel of the trust.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> See p. 214.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 533; see also p. -734.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> See ch. xxv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> Report of Citizens' Committee on City of Toledo and Its -Natural Gas Bonds, p. 5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 5.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> Chs. xiv and xxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> State, <i>ex rel.</i>, <i>vs.</i> City of Toledo, 48th Ohio State -Reports, p. 112.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> <i>Federal Court Reporter</i>, vol. xxxix., pp. 651-54.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> Report of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company, -January 7, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, pp. 36-37.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> See ch. xxix.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> See ch. xx.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> October 19, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, pp. 6-7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> Toledo Natural Gas Trustees' Report, 1890, p. 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> "Constitutional History as Seen in the Development of -American Law." Lecture by D.H. Chamberlain. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New -York.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> Report of the Toledo Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, pp. -8-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 659.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 428.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> See p. 99.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> See p. 206.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> Annual Report of Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> Toledo <i>Blade</i>, February 7 and 27, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> New York <i>Sun</i> of March 31, 1891.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> New York <i>Tribune</i>, April 23, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> From <i>Life of William Lloyd Garrison, Told by His -Children</i>, vol. iii., ch. i., p. 12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> Petition of the Isaac Harter Company <i>vs.</i> the -Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company, Court of Common Pleas, Seneca -County, Ohio, June 16, 1890.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> Annual Report of the Toledo Natural Gas Trustees, 1891, -p. 6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> See p. 250 and ch. xxxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> See p. 154.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> See p. 250.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> See p. 21.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees of Toledo, -1891, p. 4.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> Report to Stockholders, Northwestern Natural Gas -Company, January 7, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> Report to Stockholders, Toledo Natural Gas Company, -January, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> See ch. xxxii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> See p. 113.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> See chs. ix. and xxxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> See ch. xxx.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> <i>Railroad Transportation</i>, by Arthur T. Hadley. G.P. -Putnam's Sons, 1886.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> Speech of Simon Sterne, New York Assembly "Hepburn" -Report, 1879, pp. 98-118.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2723-24 and p. 3900.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> New York <i>Herald</i>, January 19, 1884.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> Appeal to the Executive of Pennsylvania by the Petroleum -Producers' Union, 1878. Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 354.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> New York <i>Herald</i>, January 19, 1884.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> See ch. vii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 1.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> Testimony, Appendix to the Journal of the House of -Representatives of the State of Ohio, 67th General Assembly, 1886, vol. -lxxxii., p. 499.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 60.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, pp. 77, 78.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 58.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> Same, pp. 37, 40, 66; Miscellaneous Document No. 106, -United States Senate, 49th Congress, 1886, pp. 32, 46, 214, and -<i>passim</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 50.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> Miscellaneous Document 106, United States Senate, 49th -Congress, 1886, p. 18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> Miscellaneous Document 106, United States Senate, 49th -Congress, 1886, pp. 81-82.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> <i>The Payne Bribery Case and the United States Senate</i>, -by Albert H. Walker.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> Minority Report of Senators Hoar and Frye, 49th -Congress, 1st Session, Senate, No. 1490, p. 34.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> Same, pp. 38, 39.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> Hudson's <i>Railways and the Republic</i>, p. 467.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> <i>Congressional Globe</i>, September 12, 1888, pp. -8520-8604.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 395.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> Speech of John M. Forbes, Boston, April 30, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> Congress Record, 51st Congress, 2d Session, p. 3651.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> Mr. John M. Forbes, in <i>Fossils, Free Ships, and -Reform</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> See p. 307.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> See p. 386.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> See chs. xviii.-xxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> Senate Report No. 485, 53d Congress, 2d Session, June -21, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> Supplemental Report of Senator W.V. Allen, of the -Senate Special Committee (ordered May 17, 1894) to Investigate Alleged -Attempts at Bribery by the Sugar Trust.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> United States <i>vs.</i> E.C. Knight & Co., <i>et al.</i> United -States Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, March 26, 1894, 60 -<i>Federal Reporter</i>, p. 34.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> Letter of President Cleveland to Hon. W.L. Wilson, -Chairman House Committee of Ways and Means, July 2, 1894, read to the -House of Representatives July 18, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> New York <i>Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin</i>, -Sept. 21, 1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> II. Coke, 84.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> See ch. viii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_589_589" id="Footnote_589_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_589"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, Exhibits, pp. -614-19.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_590_590" id="Footnote_590_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_590"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3678.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_591_591" id="Footnote_591_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_591"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> Same, p. 3683.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_592_592" id="Footnote_592_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_592"><span class="label">[592]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3684.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_593_593" id="Footnote_593_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_593"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> See ch. xiv., "I Want to Make Oil."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_594_594" id="Footnote_594_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_594"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, pp. -3683-94.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_595_595" id="Footnote_595_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_595"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Interstate -Commerce Commission Reports, vol. v., p. 415.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_596_596" id="Footnote_596_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_596"><span class="label">[596]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly, 1879, p. 3678.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_597_597" id="Footnote_597_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_597"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> See pp. 216, 320.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_598_598" id="Footnote_598_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_598"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> See p. 188.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_599_599" id="Footnote_599_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_599"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> Second Annual Report, Fire Marshal of Boston, May, 1888, -p. 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_600_600" id="Footnote_600_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_600"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> See p. 84.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_601_601" id="Footnote_601_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_601"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> See ch. xi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_602_602" id="Footnote_602_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_602"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> Journal of the Senate of Minnesota, March, 1891, p. 716.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_603_603" id="Footnote_603_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_603"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> Omaha <i>Daily Bee</i>, November 24, 27; December 5, 13, 21, -1891.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_604_604" id="Footnote_604_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_604"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> See p. 291.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_605_605" id="Footnote_605_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_605"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 670.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_606_606" id="Footnote_606_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_606"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 389.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_607_607" id="Footnote_607_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_607"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> Same, p. 317.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_608_608" id="Footnote_608_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_608"><span class="label">[608]</span></a> See p. 62.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_609_609" id="Footnote_609_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_609"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, pp. 369-85, 435, 534-35.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_610_610" id="Footnote_610_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_610"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company <i>vs.</i> Everest <i>et al.</i> -Supreme Court Erie Co., N.Y., 1886.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_611_611" id="Footnote_611_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_611"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 846-47.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_612_612" id="Footnote_612_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_612"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> Testimony in the case of George Rice <i>vs.</i> Trustees of -the Standard Oil Trust, New York Court of Appeals, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_613_613" id="Footnote_613_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_613"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> Testimony, Independent Refiners' Associations <i>vs.</i> -Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad Company <i>et al.</i>, p. 401.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_614_614" id="Footnote_614_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_614"><span class="label">[614]</span></a> Testimony, George Rice <i>vs.</i> Louisville and Nashville -Railroad <i>et al.</i>, cases 51-60, p. 425.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_615_615" id="Footnote_615_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_615"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 609-10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_616_616" id="Footnote_616_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_616"><span class="label">[616]</span></a> Same, p. 732.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_617_617" id="Footnote_617_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_617"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> Same, p. 735.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_618_618" id="Footnote_618_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_618"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> See chs. xii. and xxxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_619_619" id="Footnote_619_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_619"><span class="label">[619]</span></a> See ch. xxii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_620_620" id="Footnote_620_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_620"><span class="label">[620]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 734, 745.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_621_621" id="Footnote_621_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_621"><span class="label">[621]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 372.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_622_622" id="Footnote_622_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_622"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_623_623" id="Footnote_623_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_623"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> See ch. xi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_624_624" id="Footnote_624_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_624"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> President E. Benjamin Andrews, of Brown University, -"Trusts According to Official Investigation," <i>Quarterly Journal of -Economics</i>, January, 1889, p. 146.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_625_625" id="Footnote_625_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_625"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> See ch. xiv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_626_626" id="Footnote_626_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_626"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2623-40.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_627_627" id="Footnote_627_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_627"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> Same, Report, p. 44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_628_628" id="Footnote_628_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_628"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> Testimony, same, pp. 2615, 2696.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_629_629" id="Footnote_629_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_629"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> George Rice <i>vs.</i> Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad -<i>et al.</i> Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. 228.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_630_630" id="Footnote_630_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_630"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 528-29.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_631_631" id="Footnote_631_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_631"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 386, 425.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_632_632" id="Footnote_632_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_632"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> See pp. 56-57.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_633_633" id="Footnote_633_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_633"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> Before the Pennsylvania Legislature, Harrisburg, -February 19, 1891. Harrisburg <i>Daily Patriot</i>, February 25, 1891.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_634_634" id="Footnote_634_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_634"><span class="label">[634]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 422.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_635_635" id="Footnote_635_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_635"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> <i>Scotsman</i>, October 7, 1892.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_636_636" id="Footnote_636_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_636"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, January 27, 1892.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_637_637" id="Footnote_637_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_637"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> <i>Standard</i>, Shoe Lane, January 26, 1892.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_638_638" id="Footnote_638_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_638"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> See p. 408.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_639_639" id="Footnote_639_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_639"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> <i>Combinations</i>, by S.C.T. Dodd, 1888, p. 31.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_640_640" id="Footnote_640_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_640"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> <i>Die Monopolisirung des Petroleum Handels und der -Petroleum Industrie</i>, by E.F. Scemann. L. Simeon, Berlin.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_641_641" id="Footnote_641_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_641"><span class="label">[641]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 792.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_642_642" id="Footnote_642_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642_642"><span class="label">[642]</span></a> Harrisburg <i>Patriot</i>, February 25, 1891.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_643_643" id="Footnote_643_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643_643"><span class="label">[643]</span></a> Translation from the Berlin <i>Vossische Zeitung</i>, June -12, 1891. Report of Consul-General Edwards, of Berlin.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_644_644" id="Footnote_644_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644_644"><span class="label">[644]</span></a> See p. 106.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_645_645" id="Footnote_645_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645_645"><span class="label">[645]</span></a> See ch. xii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_646_646" id="Footnote_646_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646_646"><span class="label">[646]</span></a> See chs. xi. and xxx.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_647_647" id="Footnote_647_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647_647"><span class="label">[647]</span></a> Testimony of J.J. Carter in the case of J.J. Carter -<i>vs.</i> Producers and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited. Court of Common -Pleas, Crawford County, Pa., May Term, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_648_648" id="Footnote_648_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648_648"><span class="label">[648]</span></a> See pp. 111, 366.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_649_649" id="Footnote_649_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649_649"><span class="label">[649]</span></a> Affidavit of the President of the Standard Oil Company -of New York before the Attorney-General, May, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_650_650" id="Footnote_650_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650_650"><span class="label">[650]</span></a> State of Ohio <i>ex rel.</i> David K. Watson, -Attorney-General, <i>vs.</i> Standard Oil Company of Ohio. 49 Ohio State -Reports, p. 317.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_651_651" id="Footnote_651_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651_651"><span class="label">[651]</span></a> Rice <i>vs.</i> Trustees of the Standard Oil Trust. Supreme -Court, Special Term, Part I. Andrews, Judge. Reported in the New York -<i>Law Journal</i>, April 26, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_652_652" id="Footnote_652_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652_652"><span class="label">[652]</span></a> Testimony, Rice <i>vs.</i> Louisville and Nashville Railroad -<i>et al.</i>, before Interstate Commerce Committee, p. 366.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_653_653" id="Footnote_653_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653_653"><span class="label">[653]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 577.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_654_654" id="Footnote_654_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654_654"><span class="label">[654]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 18, 38, 65, 89, -111.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_655_655" id="Footnote_655_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655_655"><span class="label">[655]</span></a> W.H. Vanderbilt, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, -1879, pp. 1597, 1669. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 218.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_656_656" id="Footnote_656_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656_656"><span class="label">[656]</span></a> Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_657_657" id="Footnote_657_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657_657"><span class="label">[657]</span></a> Same, pp. 9, 10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_658_658" id="Footnote_658_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658_658"><span class="label">[658]</span></a> Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 679.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_659_659" id="Footnote_659_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659_659"><span class="label">[659]</span></a> Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 9, 10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_660_660" id="Footnote_660_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660_660"><span class="label">[660]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. i., p. 722.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_661_661" id="Footnote_661_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661_661"><span class="label">[661]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 398, 407, -411, 412, 415, 419-43, 594.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_662_662" id="Footnote_662_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662_662"><span class="label">[662]</span></a> Same, p. 571.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_663_663" id="Footnote_663_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663_663"><span class="label">[663]</span></a> Before the Attorney-General of New York. In the matter -of the application of the Central Labor Union and others to the -Attorney-General to have him apply to the Supreme Court for leave to -begin action against the Standard Oil Company of New York to vacate the -charter thereof. Affidavit, president Standard Oil Company, May, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_664_664" id="Footnote_664_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664_664"><span class="label">[664]</span></a> New York <i>Mail and Express</i>, November 12, 1890.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_665_665" id="Footnote_665_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665_665"><span class="label">[665]</span></a> Dr. J.P. Hale, of Charleston, West Virginia, in the -volume prepared by Prof. M.L. Maury, and issued by the State Centennial -Board, on the resources of the State. Quoted by S.F. Peckham, United -States Census, 1885, p. 6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_666_666" id="Footnote_666_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666_666"><span class="label">[666]</span></a> <i>Petroleum and Its Products</i>, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. -Census, 1885, p. 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_667_667" id="Footnote_667_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667_667"><span class="label">[667]</span></a> S. Dana Hayes, quoted in Henry's <i>Early and Later -History of Petroleum</i>, p. 186.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_668_668" id="Footnote_668_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668_668"><span class="label">[668]</span></a> Testimony, Joshua Merrill, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. -570.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_669_669" id="Footnote_669_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669_669"><span class="label">[669]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 386, 425.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_670_670" id="Footnote_670_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670_670"><span class="label">[670]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 82.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_671_671" id="Footnote_671_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671_671"><span class="label">[671]</span></a> See p. 165.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_672_672" id="Footnote_672_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672_672"><span class="label">[672]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 258.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_673_673" id="Footnote_673_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673_673"><span class="label">[673]</span></a> See chs. xi. and xvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_674_674" id="Footnote_674_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674_674"><span class="label">[674]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44. -Testimony, same, pp. 2623, 2645. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. -223-26, 542, 543, 548.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_675_675" id="Footnote_675_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675_675"><span class="label">[675]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 43. -Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 213.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_676_676" id="Footnote_676_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676_676"><span class="label">[676]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 712. -Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et -al.</i>, 1879, p. 302.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_677_677" id="Footnote_677_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677_677"><span class="label">[677]</span></a> See p. 405.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_678_678" id="Footnote_678_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678_678"><span class="label">[678]</span></a> See pp. 61, 153.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_679_679" id="Footnote_679_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679_679"><span class="label">[679]</span></a> See p. 420.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_680_680" id="Footnote_680_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680_680"><span class="label">[680]</span></a> See pp. 49, 217.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_681_681" id="Footnote_681_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681_681"><span class="label">[681]</span></a> See p. 306.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_682_682" id="Footnote_682_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682_682"><span class="label">[682]</span></a> See p. 108.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_683_683" id="Footnote_683_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683_683"><span class="label">[683]</span></a> See pp. 111, 291, 446.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_684_684" id="Footnote_684_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684_684"><span class="label">[684]</span></a> See p. 291.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_685_685" id="Footnote_685_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685_685"><span class="label">[685]</span></a> See p. 162.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_686_686" id="Footnote_686_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686_686"><span class="label">[686]</span></a> See pp. 118-27.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_687_687" id="Footnote_687_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687_687"><span class="label">[687]</span></a> See pp. 97, 224.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_688_688" id="Footnote_688_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688_688"><span class="label">[688]</span></a> See pp. 106, 164.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_689_689" id="Footnote_689_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689_689"><span class="label">[689]</span></a> See pp. 107, 154.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_690_690" id="Footnote_690_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690_690"><span class="label">[690]</span></a> See pp. 62, 79.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_691_691" id="Footnote_691_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691_691"><span class="label">[691]</span></a> See pp. 42, 72, 188.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_692_692" id="Footnote_692_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692_692"><span class="label">[692]</span></a> See p. 251.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_693_693" id="Footnote_693_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693_693"><span class="label">[693]</span></a> See p. 216.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_694_694" id="Footnote_694_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694_694"><span class="label">[694]</span></a> See pp. 216, 413.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_695_695" id="Footnote_695_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695_695"><span class="label">[695]</span></a> See pp. 189, 228, 437.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_696_696" id="Footnote_696_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696_696"><span class="label">[696]</span></a> See pp. 102, 140.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_697_697" id="Footnote_697_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697_697"><span class="label">[697]</span></a> See pp. 182-98.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_698_698" id="Footnote_698_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698_698"><span class="label">[698]</span></a> See p. 298.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_699_699" id="Footnote_699_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699_699"><span class="label">[699]</span></a> See pp. 149, 447.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_700_700" id="Footnote_700_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700_700"><span class="label">[700]</span></a> <i>Railways and the Republic</i>, by J.F. Hudson, p. 77.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_701_701" id="Footnote_701_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701_701"><span class="label">[701]</span></a> Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, pp. 637-42.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_702_702" id="Footnote_702_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702_702"><span class="label">[702]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 298.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_703_703" id="Footnote_703_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703_703"><span class="label">[703]</span></a> Same, p. 784.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_704_704" id="Footnote_704_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704_704"><span class="label">[704]</span></a> Same, p. 295.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_705_705" id="Footnote_705_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705_705"><span class="label">[705]</span></a> Same, pp. 295, 778-80.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_706_706" id="Footnote_706_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706_706"><span class="label">[706]</span></a> Investigation of Relations of Standard Oil Company to -the State, 1883, p. 473.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_707_707" id="Footnote_707_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707_707"><span class="label">[707]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2665.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_708_708" id="Footnote_708_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708_708"><span class="label">[708]</span></a> Same, p. 2667.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_709_709" id="Footnote_709_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709_709"><span class="label">[709]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 296, 322, 787, -788.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_710_710" id="Footnote_710_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710_710"><span class="label">[710]</span></a> Same, p. 365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_711_711" id="Footnote_711_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711_711"><span class="label">[711]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2603.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_712_712" id="Footnote_712_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712_712"><span class="label">[712]</span></a> Same, pp. 2604-14.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_713_713" id="Footnote_713_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713_713"><span class="label">[713]</span></a> Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, pp. 929, 931, -932.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_714_714" id="Footnote_714_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714_714"><span class="label">[714]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 417.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_715_715" id="Footnote_715_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715_715"><span class="label">[715]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1636.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_716_716" id="Footnote_716_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716_716"><span class="label">[716]</span></a> Testimony, Rice cases, 51-60, Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1887, pp. 366, 368.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_717_717" id="Footnote_717_717"></a><a href="#FNanchor_717_717"><span class="label">[717]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 455, 577.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_718_718" id="Footnote_718_718"></a><a href="#FNanchor_718_718"><span class="label">[718]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 576-89.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_719_719" id="Footnote_719_719"></a><a href="#FNanchor_719_719"><span class="label">[719]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 391, 392.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_720_720" id="Footnote_720_720"></a><a href="#FNanchor_720_720"><span class="label">[720]</span></a> Same, p. 294.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_721_721" id="Footnote_721_721"></a><a href="#FNanchor_721_721"><span class="label">[721]</span></a> Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 658.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_722_722" id="Footnote_722_722"></a><a href="#FNanchor_722_722"><span class="label">[722]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 580.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_723_723" id="Footnote_723_723"></a><a href="#FNanchor_723_723"><span class="label">[723]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 266, 287, 314, -365, 387, 395, 526, 537, 565, 627, 768, 790, 799.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_724_724" id="Footnote_724_724"></a><a href="#FNanchor_724_724"><span class="label">[724]</span></a> House of Representatives, 50th Congress, 2d Session. -Report No. 4165, Part II., Appendix C, p. 33.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_725_725" id="Footnote_725_725"></a><a href="#FNanchor_725_725"><span class="label">[725]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 174-210, 801-951.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_726_726" id="Footnote_726_726"></a><a href="#FNanchor_726_726"><span class="label">[726]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, printed in Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 195.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_727_727" id="Footnote_727_727"></a><a href="#FNanchor_727_727"><span class="label">[727]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, printed in Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 206.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_728_728" id="Footnote_728_728"></a><a href="#FNanchor_728_728"><span class="label">[728]</span></a> Same, p. 208.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_729_729" id="Footnote_729_729"></a><a href="#FNanchor_729_729"><span class="label">[729]</span></a> Testimony in Buffalo Explosion case, printed in Trusts, -Congress, 1888, p. 894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_730_730" id="Footnote_730_730"></a><a href="#FNanchor_730_730"><span class="label">[730]</span></a> Deposition of Albert N. Reynolds, Buffalo Lubricating -Oil Company, Limited, vs. Everest & Everest. Supreme Court, New York, -Erie County, City of Buffalo, August 29, 1884.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_731_731" id="Footnote_731_731"></a><a href="#FNanchor_731_731"><span class="label">[731]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2668.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_732_732" id="Footnote_732_732"></a><a href="#FNanchor_732_732"><span class="label">[732]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 215, 223, 226.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_733_733" id="Footnote_733_733"></a><a href="#FNanchor_733_733"><span class="label">[733]</span></a> Interstate Commerce Law, sec. 10.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_734_734" id="Footnote_734_734"></a><a href="#FNanchor_734_734"><span class="label">[734]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 40-41.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_735_735" id="Footnote_735_735"></a><a href="#FNanchor_735_735"><span class="label">[735]</span></a> New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_736_736" id="Footnote_736_736"></a><a href="#FNanchor_736_736"><span class="label">[736]</span></a> See p. 202.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_737_737" id="Footnote_737_737"></a><a href="#FNanchor_737_737"><span class="label">[737]</span></a> Rice <i>vs.</i> Louisville and Nashville Railroad <i>et al.</i> -Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. i., p. 722. Trusts, -Congress, 1888, pp. 675-84.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_738_738" id="Footnote_738_738"></a><a href="#FNanchor_738_738"><span class="label">[738]</span></a> Scofield <i>vs.</i> Lake Shore and Michigan Southern -Railroad. Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. ii., p. 90.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_739_739" id="Footnote_739_739"></a><a href="#FNanchor_739_739"><span class="label">[739]</span></a> Rice, Robinson and Witherop <i>vs.</i> Western New York and -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i> Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, -vol. iv., p. 131.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_740_740" id="Footnote_740_740"></a><a href="#FNanchor_740_740"><span class="label">[740]</span></a> Same.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_741_741" id="Footnote_741_741"></a><a href="#FNanchor_741_741"><span class="label">[741]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 597.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_742_742" id="Footnote_742_742"></a><a href="#FNanchor_742_742"><span class="label">[742]</span></a> South Improvement Company, p. 45; American Transfer -Company, p. 99; Rutter Circular, p. 85; Contract with Pennsylvania -Railroad in 1877, p. 89; Contract with New York Central and Lake Shore -and Michigan Central Railroads, 1875 and 1876; New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, p. 175; Contract with the Erie road, -same, p. 573; Contract in the "Agreement for an Adventure" case, p. 62.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_743_743" id="Footnote_743_743"></a><a href="#FNanchor_743_743"><span class="label">[743]</span></a> See pp. 69, 130, 146, 149, 151, 208, 219, 224, 239.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_744_744" id="Footnote_744_744"></a><a href="#FNanchor_744_744"><span class="label">[744]</span></a> Wm. C. Bissel <i>vs.</i> Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé -Railroad Company <i>et al.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_745_745" id="Footnote_745_745"></a><a href="#FNanchor_745_745"><span class="label">[745]</span></a> Testimony, United States Pacific Railway Commission -Report, 1887, p. 3301.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_746_746" id="Footnote_746_746"></a><a href="#FNanchor_746_746"><span class="label">[746]</span></a> Same, p. 3581.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_747_747" id="Footnote_747_747"></a><a href="#FNanchor_747_747"><span class="label">[747]</span></a> Same, pp. 1132-33.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_748_748" id="Footnote_748_748"></a><a href="#FNanchor_748_748"><span class="label">[748]</span></a> Sec pp. 49, 200, 218.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_749_749" id="Footnote_749_749"></a><a href="#FNanchor_749_749"><span class="label">[749]</span></a> See p. 48.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_750_750" id="Footnote_750_750"></a><a href="#FNanchor_750_750"><span class="label">[750]</span></a> Titusville <i>World</i>, July 12, 1894.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_751_751" id="Footnote_751_751"></a><a href="#FNanchor_751_751"><span class="label">[751]</span></a> Standard Oil Company <i>vs.</i> Southern Pacific Railroad and -Whittier, Fuller & Co., 48 <i>Federal Reporter</i>, p. 109.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_752_752" id="Footnote_752_752"></a><a href="#FNanchor_752_752"><span class="label">[752]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2753.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_753_753" id="Footnote_753_753"></a><a href="#FNanchor_753_753"><span class="label">[753]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 333, 534.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_754_754" id="Footnote_754_754"></a><a href="#FNanchor_754_754"><span class="label">[754]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2656-57.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_755_755" id="Footnote_755_755"></a><a href="#FNanchor_755_755"><span class="label">[755]</span></a> See pp. 145, 319, 320.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_756_756" id="Footnote_756_756"></a><a href="#FNanchor_756_756"><span class="label">[756]</span></a> Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 354.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_757_757" id="Footnote_757_757"></a><a href="#FNanchor_757_757"><span class="label">[757]</span></a> Debates, Constitutional Convention to amend the -Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1872, vol. viii., pp. 261, 262.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_758_758" id="Footnote_758_758"></a><a href="#FNanchor_758_758"><span class="label">[758]</span></a> See p. 69.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_759_759" id="Footnote_759_759"></a><a href="#FNanchor_759_759"><span class="label">[759]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -1314-15.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_760_760" id="Footnote_760_760"></a><a href="#FNanchor_760_760"><span class="label">[760]</span></a> Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i> -Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, p. 529.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_761_761" id="Footnote_761_761"></a><a href="#FNanchor_761_761"><span class="label">[761]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 367-68.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_762_762" id="Footnote_762_762"></a><a href="#FNanchor_762_762"><span class="label">[762]</span></a> Same, p. 396.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_763_763" id="Footnote_763_763"></a><a href="#FNanchor_763_763"><span class="label">[763]</span></a> Report of the United States Senate Committee on Meat -Products, 51st Congress, 1st Session, 1890, No. 829, p. 18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_764_764" id="Footnote_764_764"></a><a href="#FNanchor_764_764"><span class="label">[764]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -397, 781, 825, 924, 1383. United States Senate Report on Meat Products, -p. 23.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_765_765" id="Footnote_765_765"></a><a href="#FNanchor_765_765"><span class="label">[765]</span></a> Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -808-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_766_766" id="Footnote_766_766"></a><a href="#FNanchor_766_766"><span class="label">[766]</span></a> Same, speech of Simon Sterne, p. 3996.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_767_767" id="Footnote_767_767"></a><a href="#FNanchor_767_767"><span class="label">[767]</span></a> See pp. 13, 19.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_768_768" id="Footnote_768_768"></a><a href="#FNanchor_768_768"><span class="label">[768]</span></a> Franklin B. Gowen, before the United States Senate -Interstate Commerce Committee, March, 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_769_769" id="Footnote_769_769"></a><a href="#FNanchor_769_769"><span class="label">[769]</span></a> Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 215.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_770_770" id="Footnote_770_770"></a><a href="#FNanchor_770_770"><span class="label">[770]</span></a> See page 4.</p></div></div> - - - - -<p class="ph2"><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX">INDEX</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span></p> - - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Abusive language, use of, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Acme Oil Company, Samuel Van Syckel <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Adams, H.C., quoted on municipal monopolies, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Adulteration of liquors, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Advice of counsel, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Alcohol in industry and politics, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Allen, W.V., supplemental report on sugar-trust bribery, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">American, early, refiners of petroleum, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">American Transfer Company receives from 20 to 35 cents per barrel on all oil shipped by competitors, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">the South Improvement Company reappears in, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">false map of, before New York Legislature, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Andrews, E. Benjamin, on prices under monopoly, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on oil-trust prices, <a href="#Page_430">430</a> <i>n.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Anonymous circulars, in war against Toledo, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Artificial liquors, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad <i>et al.</i>, William C. Bissell <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Attorney-General, of Pennsylvania, management of tax-case against Standard Oil Company by, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>-81;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of United States, on monopoly, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">report for 1893, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cases against the sugar trust, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Austria, refineries of, consolidated, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bad oil, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>-19.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Baltimore and Ohio, and railroad war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">closes Baltimore to independent shippers, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">withdraws rates, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">freight agent escapes from Congress, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Baltimore closed to independent shippers by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sale of refineries at, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bank of England's income compared with an American millionaire's, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bankers indemnified for withdrawing bids on Toledo bonds, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bankruptcy of oil refineries in 1873, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">1879-92, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>-70.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Baptist</i>, the <i>National</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Barrel shipments better for railroads than tanks, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">destroyed by railroads, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Barrett, Judge, defines monopoly, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on sugar trust, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Batoum refuses Rothschild permission to lay pipe line, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Baxter, Judge, decision on rebates paid oil combination, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Bee</i>, Omaha <i>Daily</i>, investigates oil inspection of Nebraska, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Beef, combination of packers of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">price of, under combination, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Belgium, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bernheimer, Simon, testimony as to abundance of capital for early refiners, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">"Big Four" combination, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Binney, E.W., quoted, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Biscuit Association, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bissell, William C., <i>vs.</i> Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Black-mail, when competition is, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blind-billing, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shippers benefited by, deny, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blount, Representative, on subsidies and bribery, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bolard & Dale <i>vs.</i> National Transit Company, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bonds not to refine, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Books, natural-gas companies will not show, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil trust keeps none, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boston, South Improvement Company rates to, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">fire marshal on bad oil, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prices of oil reduced from 20 to 8 by competition, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boycott, of butchers by packers' combination, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">how working-men were punished for, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Boyle, P.C., Ohio <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bread Union in London, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bremen, Congress of Chambers of Commerce, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bribery of jurors, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of Congress by Pacific Mail Steamship Company, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">British government lowers test on oil, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brooklyn, consolidation of street-railways, <a href="#Page_5">5.</a></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Brundred <i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i> Rice, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Buffalo, explosion in Matthews' refinery, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pipe line to, destroyed, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prices reduced by competition, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Buhl, Richardson <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Bulletin</i>, New York <i>Daily Commercial</i>, on oil-trust prices, <a href="#Page_430">430</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on sugar trust, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Burdick bill, Pennsylvania Legislature, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Burial Case, National Association, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Business, politics of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"this belongs to us," <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">golden rule of, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">runs into monopoly, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Butchers, independent, refused cars by Erie Railroad, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">National Protective Association, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Butterworth, Benjamin, represents Ohio before the United States Senate in the Payne matter, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Buyer, the only, refuses to buy, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">only one, in Ohio, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Call</i>, San Francisco, on commercial treaty with China, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Campaign contributions from trusts, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Campbell, B.B., averts outbreak at Parker, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Canada oil interests attacked by American combination, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">retail coal-dealers' associations, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Grocers' Guild, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Parliamentary debate on American oil prices, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Parliament reduces tariff in 1894, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">finance minister favors American oil trust, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Canadian Copper Company, litigation among stockholders, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Canal, independent shippers escape by, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">tank-boats for, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroad war against, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cancer, hospital for, endowed, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Capital, of combinations, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">easy for early refiners to get, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oil combination, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Carlyle, Thomas, on literary freedom in America, <a href="#Page_529">529</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cars, refusal of, by railroads to independent shippers, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Carter, J.J., <i>vs.</i> Producers' and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cassatt, A.J., testimony concerning railroad war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on lower rates to Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on refusal of cars and rates, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on cheapness of oil, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cattle combination, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">traffic, railroad preferences in, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decline in prices of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shippers discriminated against by the railroads, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cattle Range Association, International, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Census, United States, on petroleum, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sugar trust refuses to answer questions, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Charity decreases under monopoly, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cheapness of oil, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">under the trusts, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">how produced, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>-65;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">analysis of, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, charges for oil and cattle compared, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Chicago, number of dry-goods stores in, in 1894, <a href="#Page_488">488</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Union Stock Yards, secrecy as to ownership of its stock, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">China, commercial treaty with, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Church and wealth, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway, Ohio <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"mistakes," <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railway, Ohio <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Circulars, anonymous, in war against Toledo, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clamorer for dividends, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clarion County, Pennsylvania, indictment of members of Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of Pennsylvania interferes, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clark, Horace F., on South Improvement Company contract, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cleveland, disadvantages of, for the oil business, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">starting-point of the founders of the oil combination, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">South Improvement Company rates to, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pipe line to, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pioneer refiner, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">crude oil carried to, free for oil combination, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, Handy <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>-8.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cleveland, President, on sugar tariff, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Clinton, De Witt, on petroleum, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coal, combination, capital of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Nova Scotia, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State, national, and judicial investigations, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bituminous lands bought by railroads, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">anthracite monopolized by railroads, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">freights on, higher in 1893 than in 1879, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent producers crushed by railroad discriminations, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">miners oppressed by coal companies, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">price of, advanced by combination, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">extortion -of anthracite monopoly, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">combination between American and Canadian dealers, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">retail associations of dealers, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dealers terrorized, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">miners, freedom under competition, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">miners' strike in Pennsylvania in 1871, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">policemen in Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coffin combination, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coke, Lord, on monopolies, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Collusion between oil trust and railroads, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>-4.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Colorado, oil war in, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prevented by railroads from shipping its oil to Pacific States, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Columbus, Miss., war on merchants of, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ohio, gas shut off, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Combinations, capital of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Communipaw, monopoly of terminals at, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Competition, impossible in the meat and cattle business, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil combination likes, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">when it is black-mail, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cuts price, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">power for evil, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Congress, investigation of South Improvement Company suppressed, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bribing by Pacific Mail Steamship Company, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Conspiracy, adoption of, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Constitutional amendments concerning trusts, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">convention of New York, 1894, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Contract to restrict refining, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to shut down oil flow, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">between dealers and the oil combination, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Corners, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cotton-seed oil, rates on, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Court records gone in Cleveland, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">mutilated transcript for Congress, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">records mutilated in California, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Coxe Brothers & Company <i>vs.</i> the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Cracker-bakers' meeting, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dayton, experience with natural-gas company, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Deaths from bad oil, in Michigan, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Great Britain from explosiveness of American oil, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Delay, before Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in legal procedure in New York, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of Pennsylvania Supreme Court in acting on appeal of independents, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Democratic party and sugar trust, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Detectives and coal-dealers, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroads as, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Wall Street, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Detroit <i>Times</i>, on reduction of oil test, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Tribune</i>, on reduction of oil test, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dewar, Thomas S., letter of United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue to, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Discrimination in favor of oil combination, "wanton and oppressive," <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of 333 per cent., <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">called "a vast discrepancy," <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of Ohio on, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">against Rice, Interstate Commerce Commission on, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">charges of, sustained by Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">by natural-gas company in rates for gas, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">no, by German railroads, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">inures to the benefit of one powerful combination, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(See Freight Rates, Railroads, Rebates.)</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dismantling of petroleum refineries, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Joshua Merrill's refinery, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Disorder, public, in oil regions, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Pennsylvania, 1878, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Pennsylvania and Ohio, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dividends of oil trust, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of sugar trust, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dodd, S.C.T., on "parent of trust system," <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1872, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on pipe lines, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on pipe-line rates, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on bonuses to railroad officials, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Drake, E.L., strikes oil, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pensioned, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dressed-beef men, railroad rates to, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dynamite, and the whiskey trust, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in the "shut-down" of 1887, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">threats of, against Toledo City pipe -line, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil that is as dangerous as, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Electricity, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Elevators, combination of Northwestern railroads with, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State erection and operation of, recommended by Minnesota Legislature, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Embargo on sales of oil, 1872, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Emery, Jr., Hon. Lewis, testifies as to "immediate shipment," <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Eminent domain, use of, by railroads, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Empire Transportation Company, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Engineers, Society of American Marine, protest against foreign engineers, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">England oil trade meets to protest against poor American oil, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Equality, railroad idea of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Erie Canal used by independent shippers, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Erie Railroad, refuses cars to independent butchers, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York Legislature investigates, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses rates to competitor of South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroad war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its oil-cars owned by oil combination, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">payments to American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract with Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">renews broken promises of equal rates, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">invites independent refiners to rebuild, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to ship independent oil to seaboard, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sends armed force against independent pipe line, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gives land to oil trust's pipe lines, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">destroys line by force, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">"Evening" pool of cattle-shippers, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Everest <i>et al.</i>, People of the State of N.Y. <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Examiner</i>, The, quoted, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Expert testifies about pipe-line pool, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">false maps of American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Explosions, in distillery, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">during "shut-down," <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Buffalo refinery, -<a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Louisville, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Rochester, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Explosiveness of petroleum gases, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of American oil compared with Scotch and Russian, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Extradition treaty between Russia and America, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">False accounts, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fellows <i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i> Toledo <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Field code of New York, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fires from bad oil, in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Boston, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Iowa, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Michigan, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in San Francisco, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">at Oil City and Titusville, June 5, 1892, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Bradford refinery, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fish, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Flour, dearer, wanted, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Forbes, John M., speech on free ships, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Foster, Charles, as Secretary of the Treasury favors retention of foreign captains, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">issues license to foreign engineers, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">his part in the war on Toledo, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fostoria, Ohio, Sunday raid on the flour-mill, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Foucon, Felix, in <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">France, manufactures coal-oil in 1845, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">government of, lowers oil tariff, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil refiners of, make terms with American oil trust, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Free breakfast-table, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Freight rates on coal, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">discriminations investigated by Ohio Legislature, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">8 cents a barrel less than nothing on oil, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rates advanced by pipe and rail, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rates increased at instance of oil combination, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rate 88 cents to oil combination, $1.68 to competitors, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">increased 333 per cent. to one shipper, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(See Rebates, Discriminations.)</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Freight-handlers strike, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fruit, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Frye, William P., on subsidy to International line, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Furnaces, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gas, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">natural, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Geologist, State, of Ohio, takes sides in Toledo contest, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Germany changes oil tariff, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">the German-American Oil Company, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decline in prices, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independents in, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gladden, Rev. Washington, on oil trust, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Good society, <a href="#Page_527">527</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gospel Cars, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Government and monopoly, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Governors, steam-boiler, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Gowen, Franklin B., on war against Tidewater, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">admits surrender of Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">severs connection with Tidewater, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">speech before Pennsylvania Legislature, 1883, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on yearly loss of railroad revenue by rebates, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Grand Trunk saves independent oil refiners, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Granger movement, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Great Britain, Railway Commission of 1873, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">government lowers test of oil, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Griffin, C.P., representative of Toledo in State Legislature, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Grocers' Guild, Canadian Parliament on, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Haddock, John C., testimony of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hadley, A.T., on British railroads, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hale, J.P., quoted, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hamilton, Alexander, on power over subsistence, <a href="#Page_529">529</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hancock, Erie stops independent pipe line, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Handy <i>vs.</i> Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Harter, the Isaac Harter Company <i>vs.</i> the Northwestern Ohio Natural-gas Company, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hatch, Edward, quoted, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Haul, long and short, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Heaters, hot-water and steam, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Herald</i>, Boston, on relations of oil combination and State inspectors, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hermann, Von, on Paris Exhibition of 1839, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Highway, ownership of, is ownership of all, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hoar, George F., on oil trust in the President's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Holland, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hopkins, Representative, moves for investigation of railroads by Congress, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Human nature, <a href="#Page_526">526</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Illinois Central Railroad, "mistakes," <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Immediate shipment, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Improvement companies of Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Income of members of oil trust, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Independent</i>, the New York, quoted, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Independents, rates withdrawn from, by Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania Railroad refuses cars to, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania Railroad increases rates to, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">crushed by oil combination's use of railroad terminals, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">promised equal rates again, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">invited to rebuild by the railroads, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">attacked by Pennsylvania Railroad after being invited to rebuild, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">survive attack by railroad and oil-trust pool, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">appeal to Interstate Commission, 1888, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">discrimination against, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">freight rates to, increased at suggestion of oil combination, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forced to close their works, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">saved by Grand Trunk Railroad, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lose trade of New England, 1888, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forced to sell oil to combination, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prevented by railroads from using tank-cars, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">exactions suffered by, at the seaboard, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">appeal to Interstate Commerce Commission against delay, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lose five years' business, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">get tank-cars and terminals, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">project pipe line to the seaboard in 1887, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in 1892, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pipe line stopped by Erie cannon at Hancock, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">survival -of, delays Russian-American division of world's oil market, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">delay of Pennsylvania Supreme Court in acting on appeal of, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Germany, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Indianapolis People's Trust, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Individuality, <a href="#Page_527">527</a></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Industry, new law of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Inspection, State, used to end competition, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Inspectors, State, also in employ of those they inspect, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oils in New York represent oil combination in Bremen congress, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Iowa, charged with allowing sellers to brand oil, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sued in Iowa for damages for passing bad oil, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Minnesota, investigated by State Senate, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Illinois, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Nebraska, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>-16.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">International steamship line subsidized, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-400.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Interstate Commerce Commission, on coal rates, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania independent coal-mine operators appeal to, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decision on coal rates disregarded by the Pennsylvania railroads, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on pool of oil combination with Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to require production of secret contract between railroad and pipe line, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bullied by counsel of Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">orders reduction of freight rate on barrels in South, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decision misapplied by Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">interview with Pennsylvania Railroad officials, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">correspondence with president of Pennsylvania railroad, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">orders discrimination stopped, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on monopoly of terminal facilities, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">chairman on collusive relations of oil trust and railroads, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">witnesses refuse to appear before, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refrains from decision in case of Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decision in Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, 1890, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">delays for two years decision against Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">grants Pennsylvania Railroad rehearings for two years, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroads disobey orders of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decision against Pennsylvania Railroad, 1892, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">brings independents no help, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">proceedings before, by railroads as only preliminary to litigation in the courts, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cannot decide after three years' hearings, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">grants Pennsylvania Railroad further delay, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">George Rice lets cases before, go by default, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">theatre for litigation and delay, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">calls discrimination "a vast discrepancy," <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decides refusal to give rates "illegal," <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on discriminations against Rice, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on "astonishingly low" rates, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on "mistakes" of railroads, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sustains charges of discrimination, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on control of industry by the oil combination, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on immense power of oil combination, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">describes preferences given to the oil combination, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Interstate Commerce law, only conviction under, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">disobeyed by railroad managers, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">opposed by Senator Payne, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Senator Cullom on railroads' excuses for violating, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Investigation, of South Improvement Company by Congress, in 1872, not continued, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of railroad discriminations by Congress, suspended, 1876, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testimony stolen, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Investors' Review</i>, of London, on English government jobbery, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Iowa, Governor of, refuses to investigate charges of violation of inspection law, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Iron, railroads buying iron lands, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">interests of members of oil combination, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Italy, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Jackson, Judge H.E., sustains Toledo, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Joy, Professor, on explosiveness of naphtha, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Judge, Federal, quashes indictment -against secretary of whiskey trust, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, charged with violating the law, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">fixes damages in Van Syckel's case at 6 cents, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">excludes evidence against oil trust members, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rules out evidence concerning oil trust, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">orders acquittal of members of oil trust, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">how made, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decides anti-trust law not applicable to sugar trust, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Jurors bribed to petition for mercy, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Justice, delay of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Kanawha salt-wells, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Karns, General S.D., suggests pipe-lines, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Keystone refinery, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">causes Oil City disaster, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">King's horses and king's men, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Knight, E.C., <i>et al.</i>, United States <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Laissez-faire</i>, true, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad and South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract with the oil combination, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Scofield <i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroad war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gives its oil traffic to competing pipe line, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lamennais quoted, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lands, ownership changes, of coal, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oil, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Laugh, the, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>-71.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Law, Anti-trust, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania Free Pipe-Line, worthless, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">delays of, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oil inspection, how changed in Nebraska, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(See Interstate Commerce).</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lawson, J.D., <i>Leading Cases Simplified</i>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lawsuits, threats of, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to cripple competition, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lawyers, officers of the court, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">relations of, to law-breakers, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pamphlet against Toledo issued by, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Leases, oil and gas, rights claimed under, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Leather, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, Coxe Brothers & Co., <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroad war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Little, John, represents Ohio before the United States Senate in the Payne matter, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Locomotives, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Louisville and Nashville Railroad turns another screw, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"mistakes" of, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Mail</i>, New York, on income of members of oil trust, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mails, slower under subsidy, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, on trade, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on contract and status, <a href="#Page_533">533</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Marcy, W.L., in Buffalo explosion case, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Marietta, freight rates raised against refiners at, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Market, for oil, becomes erratic, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manipulation by oil trust, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">only one buyer, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Matches, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">combination, Supreme Court of Michigan on, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mather, People <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Matthews, C.B., experiences of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>-98.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Matthews, Hon. Stanley, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on the rebates of the oil combination, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Maxim gun, English War Office opposition to, silenced, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">McClellan, Gen. G.B., on South Improvement Company contract, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Meat combination, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">at Chicago, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Medicine, adulterated liquors for, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Merrill, Joshua, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testimony before Congress, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">appeals to Railroad Commission of Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pioneer in oil, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Michigan State Board of Health on fires and deaths from bad oil, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mileage paid to preferred shippers, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Millers' national conventions, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Millionaires, abolition of, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Minnesota Legislature recommends State elevators, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Senate investigation of oil inspectors, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">"Mistakes," by railroads not corrected, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">always in favor of preferred shippers, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Monopoly, defined by Federal courts, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Judge Barrett defines, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">difference of definitions, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">defined by United States Attorney-General, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of Standard Oil Company, Supreme Court of Ohio on, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">ignorance of the public is the real capital of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">must control all, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and government, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Lord Coke on, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">E. Benjamin Andrews on price manipulation, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State, advocated by national economists in Germany, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oil in Germany, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ohio Supreme Court and New York Supreme Court pronounce Standard Oil Trust a, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and industry, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and liberty, <a href="#Page_519">519</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Monotony, <a href="#Page_527">527</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Monthly reports required by the oil combination, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">from producers in "shut-down," <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of competitors' shipments, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Morris, "Billy," inventor of the "slips," <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Municipal enterprise better and cheaper than private, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Mutilation of court records, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">National Transit Company, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">controls pipe-line business, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owned by oil combination, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">president of the oil combination denies connection with, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Bolard & Dale <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">secrecy as to ownership of its stock, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Natural-gas company owned by Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Navy, Secretary of, urges subsidy, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and nickel appropriation, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">relations to subsidy, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Netherlands, East India colonies, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nettleton, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, rules against retaining foreign captains, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">New England, trade in, lost by independent refiners, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Newport News and Mississippi Valley Railroad, "mistakes," <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Newspapers controlled by oil combination, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(See Press.)</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">New York Central Railroad, and South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses rates to competitors of South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil cars of, owned by oil combination, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">payments to American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">New York, People of, <i>vs.</i> North River Sugar Refining Company, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refiners do not dare to build large refineries, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">People of, <i>vs.</i> Everest <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">legal procedure, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Railway Commission of 1857, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in danger from refineries and tanks, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Senate committee on oil trust and prices, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Constitution of 1846 on railroads, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Constitutional Convention of 1894, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Hepburn" legislative investigation on rebates, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">New York and New England Railroad, oil trustee president of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">New Zealand Fire Insurance Company sues for losses by bad oil, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nickel appropriation, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">North River Sugar Refining Company, People of New York <i>vs.</i>,<a href="#Page_3"> 3</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Northwestern Natural-gas Company, the Isaac Harter Company <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Notice, freights raised without, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">"Not yet," president of the oil trust, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nova Scotia coal-mines, consolidation of, by American syndicate, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ohio, oil-field, oil combination the only buyer of oil in, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of, on discriminations, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State of, <i>vs.</i> Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State of, <i>vs.</i> Cincinnati, Washington, and Baltimore Railway, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">senatorial election of 1884, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Legislature demands investigation of the election of Senator Payne, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Legislature defeats free pipe-line bill, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State of, <i>vs.</i> City of Toledo, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State of, <i>vs.</i> P.C. Boyle, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">distress among oil producers in 1892, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Legislative report of 1879 on relations of railroads and oil combination, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ohio Oil Company <i>vs.</i> Toledo, Findlay and Springfield Railway, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oil, Canada, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Canada producers attacked by American combination, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oil City fire, June 5, 1892, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oil combination, parent of trust system, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">founders of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and South Improvement Company the same, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">president of, explains its origin, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contracts with competitors to limit production, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">requires monthly reports, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">insists on secrecy, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">use of spies by, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract in restraint of trade, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">profits of restraint of trade, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">restricts its capacity one-half, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rebates from the railroads, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>-87;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">scarcity the object of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">control of transportation, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">buys out its widow competitor, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">puts her under bonds not to refine, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">binds competitors not to refine, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">secret of success, testimony of president, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">value of the "works" of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">issues $90,000,000 of stock on $6,000,000 of works, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">buys oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns oil cars of New York Central and Erie railroads, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">member of, denies, then admits, rebates, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">receipts from American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns United Pipe Lines, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">controls railroads' oil terminal facilities, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">uses railroad terminals to crush opposition, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forces producers to sell below the market, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">will not pipe or buy oil, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shuts back Ohio oil wells, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">restricts production in Ohio, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">the only buyer of oil in Ohio oil-fields, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and railroads fight the Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cuts prices of pipeage, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">speculates on its "advance knowledge" of cut in freight rates, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">enters into pool with Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns National Transit Company, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">had no pipe line to seaboard, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">builds pipe line to seaboard, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">builds pipe lines from rebates given it by railroads, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and railroads advance rates, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">secret contract of 1885 with Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">guarantees Pennsylvania Railroad 26 per cent. of the oil traffic, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and Pennsylvania Railroad advance rates, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool with Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">advances pipe-line rates, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Interstate Commerce Commission, on discrimination in favor of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gets New England business of independents, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">controls seaboard terminals of railroads, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">keeps Oil City and Titusville refineries closed, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prompts railroad litigation before Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">makes contract with producers to shut down wells, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">compels subordinate companies to make monthly reports, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">opposes piping of refined oil, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns $40,000,000 in 1883 in Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania tax case, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Clarion County indictment, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">member of, admits rebates, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">president New York and New England Railroad is member of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prevents trial of Van Syckel's process of refining, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">member of, forecloses mortgage on Solar refinery, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"another way of getting rid" of competitors, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">makes money by closing its refineries, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">how its earnings are pooled, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its freight rates lowered -while competitors' rates are raised, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gets rebate of 25 cents out of 35 cents in freight, paid by competitor, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">not popular in the South, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">competes with grocers, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">relations to State inspectors, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies receipt of discriminating rates, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of Ohio oil monopoly of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies blind-billing, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies receipt of mileage, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies discriminations, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pleasant relations with competitors, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dividends of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">political power of, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>-404;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and press, in Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Buffalo, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Toledo, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">defeated in suits on patents, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">brings suits to embarrass competitors, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">buys from the court suits against itself, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to meet competitive prices, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">abandons suit against Toledo in United States Supreme Court, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">detectives of, in Wall Street, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">evangelical and explosive, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">natural-gas companies, profits of, at Toledo, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">spends money in elections, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">members of, interested in subsidy legislation, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">acts with both political parties, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">defence before Bremen congress, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its success explained by the president, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">has State inspectors in its pay, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">restricts production, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">buys Baltimore refineries, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">binds dealers not to buy of its competitors, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil made scarce by, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>-29;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">price of oil under, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>-29, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">drives out schooners, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">controls 90 per cent. of industry, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pushing into every part of the world, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns no oil lands in 1880, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">large buyer of oil lands, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">favored by Canadian government, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Germany, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sells refined oil in Europe cheaper than crude, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in France, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denial of negotiations with Russian oil-men, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">admits negotiations with Russian oil-men, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">reasons for war upon independents, -<a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and Extradition Treaty with Russia, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prosperous during panic, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">growth of capitalization of, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">produces "infinitesimal amount" of oil, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">not an inventor, producer, pioneer, or capitalist, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">produces poverty, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>-65;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">principals of, not practical oil-men, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">members of, deny rebates, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">secrecy as to ownership of certain shares, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oil, regions, early prosperity of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">public disorder in, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">producers refuse to sell to members of South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">running on the ground, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">European congress on poor quality of American, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">test of, lowered in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">financial distress in 1879-92, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>-56.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pacific Mail Steamship Company, report on bribery of Congress by, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pacific Railway officials admit rebates, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Packers' Combination at Chicago investigated by Congress, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Paint, to conceal numbers of tank-cars, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> on prices of refined and crude oil, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Panics in oil, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Parker district, on verge of civil war, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pastor, visit from the, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Payne, Henry B., objects to investigation of railroads, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">election of, to the Senate of the United States, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">candidate for President, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">votes against Interstate Commerce Commission bill, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">solicits Democratic votes in the Senate for confirmation of Republican nominee, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Peckham, S.F., United States Census report on petroleum, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on railroads and tank-cars, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pennsylvania, Constitution of 1873 disobeyed by the railroads, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Legislature nullifies Constitution in interest of railroads, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">uprising of 1872, -<a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Constitutional Convention, 1873, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Commonwealth of, <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, 1879, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Secretary of Internal Affairs hung in effigy, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Attorney-General brings tax suit against Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Legislature investigates Standard Oil Company tax case, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of, delays hearing on appeal of independents, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Constitution on railroads, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Secretary of Internal Affairs on relations of railroads and oil combination, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pennsylvania Railroad and South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and Improvement Company charters, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">put under bond not to refine, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">keeps faith "some months," <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">reaches out for control of oil trade, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">carries oil at eight cents a barrel less than nothing, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sells its refineries and pipe lines, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pledges not to compete with oil combination, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">withdraws rates from independent refiners, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials threaten independent pipe lines, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials recommend "fix-up" with the oil combination to independent shippers, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">increases rates, refuses cars, to independent shippers, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to haul cars owned by independent shippers, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses a business of ten thousand barrels of oil a day, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Commonwealth of Pennsylvania <i>vs.</i>, 1879, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pays American Transfer Company three months' back pay, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to furnish cars to oil producers, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials testify to war on Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">discriminations against refineries using the Tidewater, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Titusville and Oil City Independent Refiners' Associations <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">renews broken promises of equal rates, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">makes war on refiners it invited to rebuild, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">secret contract of 1885, with oil combination, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">guaranteed 26 per cent. of seaboard oil traffic by oil combination, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to produce contract with oil combination, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and oil combination advance rail and pipe rates, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil rates of, extortionate, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">counsel of, bullies Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">perverts decision of Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">increases rates to barrel shippers, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">ignores directions of Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>-34;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuses to haul tank-cars for independents, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Interstate Commerce Commission delays for two years to enforce law against, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gets another rehearing from Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">said to run Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">divides the coal business of Pennsylvania among three dealers, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Perth Amboy, independent shipments from, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Peru, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Petroleum, combination in, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>-493;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">De Witt Clinton's suggestion, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">early manufacture of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Reichenbach's prediction, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in exhibitions of 1839 and 1851, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">early American refiners, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">early American manufacturers ready for new supply of oil, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">price of, in 1862, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Petroleum Producers' Union, report of General Council of, on attempts to lessen production of oil, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Phantom Party, in McKean County, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Philadelphia, Sharpless <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Phillips, Wendell, on Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Piano-makers' combination, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pilots, Brotherhood of Steamboat, protest against foreign engineers, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pioneer refiner of Cleveland, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pipe lines, origin of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">first laid by Van Syckel, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania Free Pipe Line law worthless, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to Cleveland, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">number of, in 1874, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Eighty per cent. of, died in 1874-5, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool of 1874, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">frozen out, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bankrupt, bought up by oil trust, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Equitable Pipe Line proposed, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, threatened by Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">United Pipe Lines, owned by the oil combination, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">industry closed to the people, 1877, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse to carry oil unless sold to oil combination, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oil combination refuse to pipe, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Tidewater, first to seaboard, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rates cut by oil combination in war with Tidewater, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to seaboard not built first by the oil combination, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">competitors of the railway, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York <i>Sun</i> on, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool with railroads, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cost of service, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rates of, advanced by oil combination, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">profits of, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rates higher under the oil combination, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, to seaboard projected in 1887, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in 1892, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil combination lays, upon railroad right of way, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse to take oil, 1893, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, transport refined oil, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">built by George Rice, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, destroyed by Erie Railroad by force, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Toledo builds better than private company, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">bill for free, defeated by the Ohio Legislature, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, and Russian-American monopoly, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, consolidate in 1894, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent, cut, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(See Tidewater Pipe Line).</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Policemen, coal and iron, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Politics of business, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pool, steamship, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">for sale of oil, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Poor's <i>Railroad Manual</i>, railroad interests of members of oil combination, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pork, combination of packers of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Postal subsidy law, passed, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-400;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">payment under, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Postmaster-General makes subsidy contracts, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">his relations to those who receive postal subsidies, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Poverty, abolition of, <a href="#Page_526">526</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Premium on oil advanced, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">President of the oil combination denies contracts with railroads, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on "ways of making money you know nothing of," <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">the "only party that would buy," <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">offers 50 cents on the dollar, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">explains its origin, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies about Southern Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">member of South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies contracts to restrict competition, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies to "very small profit," <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">argues for restriction of production, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies that it gets cheaper freights, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies as to secret of success, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies that it likes competition, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">knew about freight rates, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cannot recall discriminating freight rates, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">frequents office of Erie Railroad, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies pool with the Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sole attorney of the trust, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies any connection with National Transit Company, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denies the "shut-down" of 1887, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">described by Van Syckel, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">interview about rebates on Rice's business, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on pleasant relations with competitors, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies the oil trust is not a manufacturing company, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies to reports by subordinate companies, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">does not know about monthly reports by subordinate companies, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">explains its success, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on its cheapness, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in the commission business, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on its ownership of oil lands, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its properties "not yet" sufficiently numerous, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies to shares in the trust owned by trustees individually, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"does not know," <a href="#Page_467">467</a>-68;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">made attorney of the trust, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">President of the Standard Oil Company denies ownership of company by Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Press, and oil combination, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">use of, to make subsidy popular, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Philadelphia, on Russian Extradition Treaty, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Price of oil advances under restraint of trade, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">under oil combination, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manipulated by oil combination, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Ohio, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in New York and Europe, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">higher for crude than for refined oil, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">manipulation of, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lowered by competition, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">advances after Baltimore consolidation, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">regulated by committee, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in New York, fixed by oil combination, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Texas, independent of competition, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">evidence gathered by Congress, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>-24;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">put higher after "wars" than before, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">fixation of, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">E. Benjamin Andrews on, <a href="#Page_430">430</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York <i>Daily Commercial Bulletin</i> on, <a href="#Page_430">430</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">under trusts, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decline in Germany, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refined oil lower than crude, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">under monopoly, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Private enterprise and public, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Producers of oil, and South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">organization in Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">embargo broken, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Union, report, 1872, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forced to sell oil to trust, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forced to sell below market price, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lose their land, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Producers and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited, Carter <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Production restricted, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Ohio, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">at Oil City and Titusville, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">by shut-down of 1887, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cheapness of, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Profits of natural-gas company, at Toledo, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Property, "is monopoly," <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of the combinations, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Prosperity, early, in oil regions, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Public powers and property, private use of, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Publication of railroad tariff, how evaded, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Punishment nominal, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Quality, deterioration of, under monopoly, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>-19;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of oil in Germany, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Quinby, District Attorney, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>-98.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Railroads, northwestern, combination with elevators, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">buying bituminous -coal lands, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">buying iron and timber lands, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse cars to independent coal shippers, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">crushing independent coal producers, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">monopolize anthracite coal, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">raise freights to prevent settlement of coal strike, 1871, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forbidden in Pennsylvania to own or operate coal-mines, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">disregard Interstate Commerce Commission's decision on coal rates, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and elevators combined in Minnesota, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">northwestern, coerce grain buyers, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">northwestern, fix the price of wheat, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">give discriminating rates to dressed-beef men, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract with South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract to overcome competition for preferred shippers, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">as detectives, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">advance freight rates on oil 100 per cent., <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">grant special privileges to railroad directors, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lobbying at Harrisburg, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rebates to oil combination, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">facilities controlled by oil combination, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">carry crude oil to Cleveland for preferred shippers without charge, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">force Cleveland refiners into unnatural equality, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">how they equalize persons and places, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make war on Pennsylvania Railroad for oil combination, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of New York received $40,000,000 of public cash, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">tribute paid by, to American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pay American Transfer Company on oil not handled by it, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials members of American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil terminal facilities transferred to oil combination, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">fight Tidewater Pipe Line for the oil combination, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lose $10,000,000 in war against Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">will not tell how low rates were made against Tidewater Pipe Line, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">give use of their lands to pipe lines of oil combination, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">give oil combination money to build pipe lines, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool with pipe lines of the oil trust, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials drive business from railroads to competing pipe line, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">broken pledges of, to independent refiners, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool with pipe lines, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make war on barrel-shippers, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">carry tank-cars free, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">increase freight rate on barrels, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">increase freight rates at instance of the oil combination, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">raise freights without legal notice, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">vary rates according to destination beyond their lines, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">mistakes not corrected, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">destroy barrel shipments, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">promises of reparation unfulfilled, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make rates that prohibit traffic, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">surrender terminals to oil combination, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">relations with oil trust collusive, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">litigation before Interstate Commerce Commission prompted by oil combination, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">disobey Interstate Commerce Commission's decision, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oppose new independent pipe line to seaboard, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">give use of lands to pipe lines of the oil trust, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials wasting stockholders' money in hopeless litigation, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">force Joshua Merrill out of business, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">consult with oil combination about raising rates against independents, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make rates that prohibit traffic at Marietta, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse rates to Marietta refiners, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials refuse to testify in Ohio in 1879, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">increase rates 333 per cent. to one shipper, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">deny discrimination, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make their favorites "sole people," <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">consult with preferred shippers as to freight rates to competitors, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse to answer letters of shippers, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">charge more for the shorter hauls, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"mistakes" for favored shippers, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials refuse to testify before Congress, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"illegal" refusal to give rates, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse to answer questions about tank-car rates, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make charges regardless of quantity for preferred -shippers, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">haul tank-cars free for preferred shippers, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">evasions of the law regarding publication of tariffs, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">misstate tank-car rates to shippers, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make rates to preferred shippers "astonishingly low," <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse to give rates, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pay preferred shippers mileage, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">conceal mileage from independent shippers, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">give Standard Oil Company 25 cents out of 35 cents freight paid by George Rice, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">allegiance to the company, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">construction aided by Toledo, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Commission of 1873, in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">regulation, Duke of Wellington on, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and Constitution of New York of 1846, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">British, A.T. Hadley on, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York Commission of 1857, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">procure abolition of New York Railway Commission of 1857, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">State commissions to regulate, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials refuse to answer questions of Congress, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prevent shipment of Colorado oil to Pacific states, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">no discrimination on German, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania Constitution on, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lose the oil business worth $30,000,000 a year, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">ownership of members of oil trust in, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rates to oil combination secret, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">preferences to oil combination described by the Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials admit rebates, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shut off shipments of Colorado and Wyoming oil, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">collusive litigation between Southern Pacific Railroad and oil combination, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials charged with receiving a bonus for giving rebates, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">officials owners of stock in Chicago Union Stockyards, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">tax the poor for the rich, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">give $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 rebates out of $800,000,000 freights yearly, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">excuses for violating Interstate Commerce law, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">accidents to employés, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rights of employés, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ramsdell, Homer, on South Improvement Company contract, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Reading Railroad and railroad war of 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rebates, to South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">equal to 21 per cent. a year on capital, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ohio Supreme Court decision on, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to the oil combination, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>-87;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denied by president of the oil combination, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">from railroads build pipe lines for oil combination, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to oil combination admitted, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">unknown to outside shippers, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">giving or receiving, a penitentiary offence, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">denied by members of the oil trust, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to oil combination, summary of evidence of, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">admitted by officials of the Pacific railways, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to A.T. Stewart & Co., <a href="#Page_489">489</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">given by Pennsylvania Railroad to three coal-dealers, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refusal of givers and takers to testify in Chicago, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">$50,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Refineries, petroleum, dismantling of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil, put under contract to limit production, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shut down and pulled down, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Refiners, compelled to sell to South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">put under bonds not to refine, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York, do not dare to build large refineries, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Refuse oil delivered to competitors, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Reichenbach on petroleum, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Reports by subordinate companies of oil trust, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Republican party and sugar trust, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Restriction, of competing refineries by oil combination, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of its capacity to one-half by the oil combination, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of production, by oil combination, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Scotland, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rice, George, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>-242;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lets Interstate Commerce Commission cases go by default, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> Brundred <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">cases before Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> trustees of Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, 1890, before Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Richardson <i>vs.</i> Buhl <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">River, interference with shipments by, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shipments stopped by oil combination, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">trade in Germany appropriated by oil trust, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rochester, explosion in Vacuum refinery, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rosebery, Lord, comments of <i>Investors' Review</i>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rothschilds, position in Russian oil industry, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ruffner Brothers, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Russia, American oil combination in, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">every producer allowed to enter international trust, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Minister of Finance organizes combination with American oil trust, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">why government of, favored American oil combination, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">treaty with, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rutter circular, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Salt, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sanford case, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scandinavia, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scarcity, the object of oil combination, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Oil City and Titusville refineries kept closed, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Schenck, U.P.</i>, libel against the, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scofield, Representative, resolution for investigation of South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">W.C., Standard Oil Company <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decision, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i> Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scotch refiners in 1850, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">make superior article, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">precluded from discussing poor quality of American oil, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool with Americans broken in 1892, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool with American combination, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">compelled to reduce production, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">shrinkage of capital, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Scott, Thomas, on South Improvement Company contract, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Screw, turn another, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Seaboard, Tidewater, first pipe line to, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Seamen, American, not employed by American subsidized steamers, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Secrecy, insisted on by oil combination, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in the increase of freights, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">as to ownership of oil-trust stock, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Secretary, of oil combination, testifies before Ohio Legislature, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies to "scarcely any profits," <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">testifies to purchase of oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">not a practical oil-man, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refused to give Congress names of owners of certain shares in its pipe lines, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Seemann, E.F., Die <i>Monopolisirung des Petroleum Handels und der Petroleum Industrie</i>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Selligue, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Senate, United States, the Payne scandal, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>-88.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sharpless <i>vs.</i> Philadelphia, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shrouds, combination, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">"Shut-down," of 1887, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">advances prices of kerosene, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Silliman, Professor Benjamin, analyzes petroleum, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on oil not monopolized, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Slave-trade, <a href="#Page_525">525</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Smith, Adam, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Socrates, the great are the bad, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">South Improvement Company, investigated by Congress, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">investigation suppressed, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract of railroads with, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rebates, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and oil combination, same, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">to have complete monopoly, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">compels refiners to sell to it, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contracts not cancelled, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">charter repealed, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">arrangement still exists "in reality," <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">President of Standard Oil Company on, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">plan of, reproduced, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">reappears in American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">espionage in operation in 1880, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">charged to be now in operation in California, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">South, oil combination not popular in the, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Southern Pacific Railroad Company and Whittier, Fuller & Co., Standard Oil Company <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Speculation, in sugar-trust stock, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in oil, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">by oil combination, on advance knowledge of freight reduction, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">follows "shut-down" of 1887, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Spies, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">watch shipments, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pay of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in war on Toledo, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Standard Oil Company, interview with president of, concerning South Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">president of, testifies about Southern Improvement Company, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> W.C. Scofield <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decision, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contract with Lake Shore road decided to be "unlawful," <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of Ohio on its monopoly, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and war of rates, 1877, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contracts for rebate of one-tenth of all oil freights, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lower rates by Pennsylvania Railroad to, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">freight rate of 38 cents to, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Erie contract with, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independents forced to sell to, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">tax investigation, by Pennsylvania Legislature, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">members of, indicted in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">saved from trial by Supreme Court, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">members of, object to taking witness-stand, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">People of Ohio <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">sued by Toledo for $1,000,000 damages, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">spends money in elections, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Senator Payne on the, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pays State inspectors, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owned by Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its president denies ownership by Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">application to Attorney-General of New York for forfeiture of charter of, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> Southern Pacific Railroad and Whittier, Fuller Co., <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Standard Oil Trust, purchase of works of widow competitor by three trustees of, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dissolution of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Rice <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and the Buffalo explosion, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-98;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">not a manufacturing company, -<a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">members of, ordered acquitted by the judge, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>-84;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">trustees personally own majority of each company in, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">controls every movement of subordinate companies, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">how it pools the control and profits of subordinate companies, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owns natural-gas companies, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">counsel of, is president of the New York Constitutional Convention, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">declared void by Supreme Court of New York, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">People of Ohio <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Rice <i>vs.</i> Trustees of, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Supreme Court of Ohio pronounces it a monopoly, and void, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">New York Legislature on formidable money power of, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dividends, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">capital of, worth $148,000,000 in 1888, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Interstate Commerce Commission on immense power of, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">keeps no books, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">operations not business, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">makes president its attorney, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">executes large contracts through attorneys, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">asks Congress to hear additional defence, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">discrepancy between the facts and its evidence, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">claims same rebates were granted to other shippers, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its offer to prove to Congress that C.B. Matthews testified falsely, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its employment of detectives admitted by latter, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">its threats of litigation against competitors, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">member of, denies rebates, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Steamship, discrimination in favor of meat combination, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">pool, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sterne, Simon, on oil terminals of Erie Railroad, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on railroads taxing poor for the rich, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stewart, A.T., & Co., rebate to, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">St. Louis, forty reductions in oil prices in three years, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stock watering in natural-gas companies at Toledo, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stock Yards, Chicago, Union, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Storage, ordinances for, used to overcome competition, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Storer, F.H., on Selligue, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Stoves, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Manufacturers, National Association, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Street-railways, Brooklyn, consolidation, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Strike of New York freight-handlers, 1882, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Subsidy, urged by Secretary of the Navy, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">voted by Congressmen of both parties, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">postal, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-400;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">press used to popularize, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">policy of limitations, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">got by bribery, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">advocated by United States Commissioner of Navigation, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sugar trust, Judge Barrett's decision, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">investigation by New York Legislature, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">capital and dividends, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">contributes to Republican and Democratic parties, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">president testifies about campaign contributions, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">securities and profits, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and government, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and anti-trust law, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">president admits it has increased price, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and tariff bill of 1894, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sumatra, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Sun</i>, New York, on income of members of oil trust, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Suppression, of congressional investigation, 1872, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">1876, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">evidence in Cleveland, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Supreme Court of Ohio, decision on rebates, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of Pennsylvania, interferes to save members of Standard Oil Company from trial, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">said to be run by Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of New York, on Standard Oil Trust, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Survival of the unfittest, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tank-boats for canal, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tank-cars, origin of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">carried free by railroads, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">less profitable to railroads than barrels, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">free carriage of 62 gallons in each, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">worse than powder, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prohibitory discrimination against competitors', <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">independent shippers cannot get rates, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of preferred shippers, hauled free by railroads, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">numbers painted out, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tank-steamers, German, refused oil, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tariff, changes in Germany, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">lowered in France, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and sugar trust, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and trusts, John De Witt Warner on, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Taxes, oil combination refuses to pay, in Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Terminal facilities, of railroads, controlled by oil combination, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">surrendered by railroads to oil combination, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Testimony, in Cleveland case disappears, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">mutilated transcript for Congress of Buffalo explosion case, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">taken in Congressional investigation of 1876 stolen, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Thurman, Allen G., on the election of Senator Payne, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tidewater Pipe Line, organized, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">rate of 10 cents per barrel made by railroads against, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">plugged, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">surrenders to the oil combination, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Timber lands, railroads buying, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Titusville fire, June 5, 1892, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Titusville and Oil City Independent Refiners' Associations <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania Railroad <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-65.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Toledo, Findlay and Springfield Railway <i>vs.</i> Ohio Oil Company, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Toledo, war upon, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>-68;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">undertakes municipal supply of natural gas, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">municipal aid to railroads, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">People of Ohio <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Fellows <i>et al.</i> <i>vs.</i>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">part of the oil combination in the war against, admitted, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">city natural-gas line, financial results, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>-68;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">public enterprise builds better pipe line than private, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gas shut off, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">brings suit against Standard Oil Company and others for $1,000,000 damages, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Treasurer, of oil combination, denies purchase of oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Treasury, Secretary of United States, business associate of oil combination, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">orders it paid drawbacks, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Commissioner of Navigation, advocates subsidies, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Truesdale, George, testimony of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Trust, anti, law, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">oil combination, parent of system of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in politics, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">all contribute to campaign expenses, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prices, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">prices of, superior to panic, <a href="#Page_431">431</a> <i>n.</i>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">and tariff, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Turpentine, rates on, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Undertakers combination, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">United Pipe Lines, buy bankrupt pipe lines, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">owned by oil combination, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">United States, <i>vs.</i> E.C. Knight & Co. <i>et al.</i>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">marshal libels river steamers, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">United States Pipe Line forced to abandon Hancock route, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">makes success of piping refined oil, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">opposition to extension beyond Wilkes-barre, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Uprising in the oil regions, 1872, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Vanderbilt, Commodore Cornelius, wealth of, at <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">William H., on South Improvement Company contract, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">surprised by ready cash of oil combination, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">never heard of American Transfer Company, <a href="#Page_99">99</a> <i>n.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Van Syckel, Samuel, lays first pipe line, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">history and inventions of, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>-98;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vs.</i> Acme Oil Company, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">gets United States patents for new process of refining, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">given 6 cents damages by the judge, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">dies in poverty, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wagons cheaper than railroads, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Warner, A.J., on bill to regulate river shipments, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Warner, John De Witt, on trusts and tariff, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Washington, Constitution concerning trusts, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wealth, concentrated, greatest sovereign, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of the combinations, certain features of, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Webster, Daniel, on extemporaneous acquisition, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Weehawken oil docks, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Well-drillers' Union and the "shut-down" of 1887, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wellington, Duke of, on State and railroads, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whalebacks, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whiskey, ring of 1874, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">trust, secretary of, arrested, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Widow, competitor of oil combination, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">forced to sell, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wilkes-barre railroads oppose independent pipe-line crossing, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wilson, William L., on sugar trust, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">President Cleveland to, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Witnesses, before United States Senate Committee investigating Chicago meat combination intimidated, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">before committee of Congress refuse to testify, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">refuse to appear before Interstate Commerce Commission, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroad officials refuse to testify in Ohio, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">railroad, refuse to testify before Congress, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">coached, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Woman refiner, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Working-men, thrown out of work, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">punished for boycott, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of Toledo support city natural-gas pipe line, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">in Toledo subscribe for city gas bonds, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">reduction of wages in Scotland, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">decline of wages in oil regions, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>World</i>, New York, on Russian Extradition Treaty, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wright, Henry C., discussion on slavery, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Wyoming oil, railroads prevent shipments of, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Young, T. Graham, on British oil test, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</span><br /> -</p> - - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - - - - -<p class="ph2" style="margin-top: 10em;"><a name="By_the_Same_Author" id="By_the_Same_Author"><i>By the Same Author</i></a></p> - -<p>A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES AGAINST MINERS</p> - -<p>OR, THE</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Story of Spring Valley</span></p> - -<p>AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MILLIONAIRES</p> - - -<p><i>Notices by the Press</i></p> - - -<p>The Springfield (Mass.) <i>Republican</i> (editorial).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Those who keep note of passing events will not have forgotten the -lock-out of coal miners at Spring Valley, Illinois, in the early -months of 1889, and the sufferings of the families of the workmen in -consequence.</p> - -<p>This sad story of corporate inhumanity has been effectively told by -Henry D. Lloyd in a book entitled <i>A Strike of Millionaires against -Miners</i>. It merits no less a volume than this. It is not an isolated -case—an industrial phenomenon springing from conditions rarely -repeated—but one of many similar cases, a part only of the whole -story of coal mining in the United States. More than this, it is an -aggravated illustration of the soullessness of the corporation in -general, through the agency of which the bulk of the producing powers -of the nation is working.</p> - -<p>Behind this legal fiction men hide and do deeds of grasping cruelty -that disgrace manhood, and are fast bringing the industrial organism -into contempt. In the case of Spring Valley, the directors and -stockholders of the Chicago and North-Western Railroad and the Spring -Valley Coal Company—controlled by the same men—are as responsible -for the sufferings and death from starvation of miners in Spring -Valley in 1889 as if they had all been personally present and assisted -in the business of bringing men from a distance to work in their mines -on assurance of steady employment, and then of locking them out -without warning, to starve them into submission to lower wages, for -the sake of higher profits on their stock. This is the conclusion of -Mr. Lloyd, and we see no escape from it.</p> - -<p>If the corporation is to be considered an impersonality without moral -responsibility, it will either have to go, or the industrial system -which makes it an essential part will have to go. All the power of -government, or wealth, or vested interests cannot maintain that -system which, resting as our present system must on the charitable -instincts of men, offers a way of escape from the responsibilities -imposed thereby to the most powerful factors of the society. Against -that system "the pulses of men will beat until they beat it down." -What must be the condition of that society which allows the wealthy -capitalists who starved these thousands of miners not only to go -unpunished, but to move in the very highest circles of business power -and social influence? And one of them in particular is to-day figuring -upon representing the Democratic party of Pennsylvania in the United -States Senate.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The New York <i>Commercial Advertiser</i> (editorial).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>It is to be remembered that Mr. Lloyd's book does not profess to be -a dispassionate review of the situation. It is an indictment. The -corporation's side should be given a fair hearing. But it must be -heard soon. Mr. Lloyd's charges are too important, his formulation -of them too worthy of respect to be treated with silent contempt. To -ignore them is to confess their truth. Should such a reply be made, -the readers of this column will be informed of it. <i>A Strike of -Millionaires against Miners</i> describes the poverty, the suffering, the -utter misery among the miners in Spring Valley, Illinois, during the -past year. In the simplicity and restraint of his style, and in the -massing of his facts, Mr. Lloyd shows genuine literary power. There is -no attempt at rhetoric in his narrative. He depends upon statements -of facts, many of them incontrovertible, to rouse the hot indignation -of his readers. If the story is true, and it bears every appearance -of truth, the Spring Valley mine owners have been guilty of damnable -treachery and cruelty to their fellow-men.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Chicago <i>Herald</i> (editorial).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>The <i>Herald</i> commends to the attention of its readers the open -letter in another column, from Henry D. Lloyd, addressed to various -millionaires of New York, Chicago, and St. Paul. It contains what the -<i>Herald</i> believes to be the truth as to the Spring Valley scandal, -and while in most respects it is a plain statement of facts, it is -nevertheless one of the most powerful appeals for justice, and one of -the most eloquent denunciations of wrong, which has come under the -public eye in many a day.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lloyd's high character, his superb attainments, and his well-known -philanthropy give force to the arraignment it might not otherwise -possess. His letter is a history of a crime—a crime resulting, no -doubt, from an infamous conspiracy—and the story leads naturally and -inevitably to the conclusion which Mr. Lloyd avows, that there must -be conspiracy laws for millionaires as well as for working-men.</p> - -<p>Civilization must be bottomed on justice, or it cannot endure. A -society which permits such inhuman outrages as that at Spring Valley -is either asleep or in an advanced stage of decay. The money god -cannot crush out the lives of human beings with impunity. Let its -devotees look well to the ground on which they stand. The wise and -humane will be warned in time. The foolish and insatiate must be left -to the stern judgment of their fellow-men, who must some day pass upon -their act.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Labor World</i>, London, England.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>What does Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who chants vulgar pæans to "Triumphant -Democracy" say to such a book as this of Mr. Lloyd? This story of the -robbery and betrayal of thousands of working miners in Illinois by -a great millionaire corporation is one of the worst things we have -read for a long time, and is a terribly scathing satire on American -"democracy."</p> - -<p>Let us hear no more trash about "free" America as compared with -down-trodden Europe. Both continents are down-trodden by the rich -men who own the raw material out of which wealth is created by human -labor. When the land of the United States is all absorbed by private -persons, as it will be in twenty years' time, there will not be a -pin to choose between America and Europe, so far as wage-workers are -concerned. Wages may be higher in America, but the increased cost of -living there will nearly equalize the condition of the two continents; -while for swindling, lying, and merciless oppression many American -capitalists leave their European brethren far behind. Mr. Lloyd's -book, which is the first of a new "Bad Wealth Series," ought to open -men's eyes to the fact that true freedom is impossible when a few men -have a right to appropriate to themselves the raw material of the -globe.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Chicago <i>Daily Inter-Ocean</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Mr. Lloyd's reputation as a writer on economic questions is -sustained in the manner of handling the usually dry statistical -matter which tells the story of strikes and lock-outs. He makes the -story interesting and often graphic, while he gives the facts and -figures relating to the intricacy of contracts in a way to be easily -understood by the ordinary reader. The book is a valuable compilation -of the facts gathered relating to this shameless abuse of corporative -power in Spring Valley.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>New Ideal</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Mr. Lloyd has been until recently on the editorial staff of the -Chicago <i>Tribune</i>, and is now devoting his time to first-hand -investigations into labor troubles. This book gives an account of a -lock-out in one of the mining districts of Illinois, and is the more -forcible and eloquent an arraignment of the "millionaires," as the -statements are throughout verifiable. As Mr. Lloyd in effect says, -professors of political economy do not come near enough to realities -to discover such details as he portrays, and the working-men do not -know how to bring them before public opinion. Hence the necessity of -a mediator, who shall thoroughly investigate the facts and at the -same time give them to the public, not in statistical reports, but in -a form that compels its attention. Mr. Lloyd is a practised writer; -no one can read this narrative without being profoundly moved, and -for the directors and stockholders of the Spring Valley Coal Company -(and, besides, of the Chicago and North-Western Railway, an aider -and abettor of the nefarious business) the effect must be to set -their blood on fire—so far as they are blessed (or unblessed) with -any moral sensitiveness. Every thoughtful citizen—whether man or -woman—should read this book, and have fully brought home to him or -her the problems it suggests. It belongs to the literature both of -fact and of power.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Religio-Philosophical Journal</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Mr. Lloyd admits that Spring Valley and its miseries and wrongs were, -at the beginning, but the conception and achievement of one or two -of the leading owners of railroad and other companies who did the -planning, secured the approval of the Board of Directors, and the -active influence of the railroads through whom, by special freights, -the business of competitors was stolen, coal land was bought, and -the scheme was invented by which fortunes were to be made from -working-men's necessities and the misuse of the powers of the common -carrier. But none of the directors, none of the stockholders, who -received the profits of the scheme, protested against it; on the -contrary, all accepted unprotestingly their "share of the guilt and -gilt." Mr. Lloyd gives a mass of facts and figures which prove, on -the part of corporations employing men at Spring Valley, an amount -of greed and heartlessness which seems incredible in an enlightened -country.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lloyd is a literary artist as well as a man of deep feeling, -and he combines felicity of diction with fervor and eloquence of -expression, and writes with effectiveness and power. The book should -be read by all who are interested in the labor question—the practical -issue of the hour.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Chicago <i>Times</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>It is a pitiful story, a heart-breaking story, and Mr. Lloyd tells it -with a great deal of force and earnestness.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Dawn</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Can it be possible in these happier days among men who share the -Christian civilization of the very eve of the twentieth century, -that there can exist any analogy to this relentless war of savagery, -this cruel and cowardly subjugation of a competitor, not in honest, -open combat, but by taking advantage of a position to deny him food, -shelter, and the very necessaries of life? For an answer, such as -would bring indignant emotion to every heart not indurated by avarice -of gold, and shame to every cheek not rendered incapable of blushing -by hardened selfishness, we refer to the terrible facts, so calmly -told with the severity of simple truth by Mr. Lloyd.</p> - -<p>Starved Rock and Spring Valley are not isolated instances. The malady -is constitutional, not local. "The whole head is sick and the whole -heart faint," may be said of our modern system of business.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Nationalist</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>In this age of strikes it is not always the workers who strike, as -is indicated by the title of Mr. Lloyd's book. That brilliant and -great-hearted journalist and publicist several months ago, in the -shape of an open letter of several columns, printed in the Chicago -<i>Herald</i>, told the story of the criminal and cold-blooded conspiracy -of a group of enormously rich men against a body of honest and -industrious workingmen. That letter he has made the basis of the -present volume, which deserves a wide circulation among patriotic -citizens of the United States. The strong and truthful words here -uttered ought to ring throughout the land and arouse the people to a -realizing sense of the greatest danger that has ever threatened our -republic—the danger of its conversion into the worst of despotisms, -that of rule by an irresponsible plutocracy.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The Burlington <i>Hawkeye</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Mr. Lloyd proves every charge he makes, the testimony he brings -forward being so presented as to leave no question as to its absolute -correctness. In all the dark record of tyranny, cruelty, and brutality -made by the coal barons of this country there is not a blacker chapter -than that which tells of their crimes against the miners of Spring -Valley in the year 1889. This is not the verdict of the "labor crank" -alone; the people of Chicago and the whole of northern Illinois, in -the press and pulpit and on the platform, have denounced the outrage, -and the cooler judgment of to-day, when the lock-out is about worn out -and the majority of the old miners are scattered all over the country, -is in accord with the denunciation made by Mr. Lloyd.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Rock Islander</i>, Rock Island, Ill.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><i>A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring -Valley.</i> The above is the title of a beautifully printed volume of -264 pages, by Henry D. Lloyd. Its prelude is the story of the starved -Indians of Starved Rock, and it proceeds to parallel that by the -starvation of labor by the millionaires. The story of Spring Valley -is given in detail, with official proof of its truthfulness, and is -graphically told by Mr. Lloyd. Its exposure of the oppressors of -labor is terrific. It shows who they are; who has done this thing; -how the town was boomed; how it was doomed; how the ghost of Starved -Rock walks abroad; and how people are bought and enslaved in this -boasted free country. It gives Governor Fifer a deserved slap for -not going in person to the scene of starvation, and it roasts his -military toady of the rich (Adjutant-General Vance) who was sent -there by the governor to investigate, and whose report is proven to -be a tissue of sneers at the poor, and falsehoods in regard to them -and their situation. He quotes freely and approvingly from the report -of Judge Gould and Mr. Wines, proving all that was claimed for the -suffering there. He shows (page 66) that the Chicago, Milwaukee and -St. Paul Railroad Company generously acknowledged the necessity for -help by hiring a physician for its miners at Braceville, and sending -supplies of necessaries for sick women and children to be given out by -its agent there. He shows up the campaign of slander against Spring -Valley, which was carried on through capitalistic newspapers and -corporation tools; says the Spring Valley case is only a preliminary -skirmish of capital against labor, and, after showing the first -fruits, asks what the last will be. He closes with a chapter giving -part of the moral. An appendix is added, showing what the millionaires -said of themselves, and the replies by the miners and the press. -Everybody should read this most remarkable and ably prepared story of -the crime of capital upon labor.</p></blockquote> - - -<p><i>Seed-Time</i> (London), the organ of the New Fellowship.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Perhaps the most striking of all the American object-lessons on the -tendencies of capitalism has been given us by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of -Chicago, who has recently published a book entitled, <i>A Strike of -Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring Valley</i>. A more -complete exposure of the tyranny and cruelty of capitalism has never -before been made. Its great importance for us, however, lies in the -fact that all the tyranny and wrong he witnessed and describes are but -the natural outcomes of the principles of commercialism when those -principles are carried to their logical conclusion, and capitalism has -unchecked sway. Such terrible scenes do not occur everywhere, simply -because capitalism is held in check by other social forces, and has -not everywhere attained that full and unfettered development which -discloses the evils which in its more undeveloped stage lie concealed.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Twentieth Century</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>It is a mind-agitating and heart-rending tale, and unless I am much -mistaken the publication of it will create an epoch in economic -thinking and social regeneration. What is the remedy for such crimes -as Mr. Lloyd has exposed? The remedy will be found if open-minded -persons will read such books as Mr. Lloyd's, and keep themselves -informed as to what is being done to reduce a people to servitude. -This single book ought to produce such a revulsion of feeling against -the monstrous millionaires who perpetrated this awful crime that they -would be looked upon by all decent people with abhorrence.</p> - -<p>If you will read Mr. Lloyd's book I think you will agree with me that -if before long, as many persons believe, this county is to be deluged -in the blood of revolution, the catastrophe will be brought on by -condoning such crimes as that at Spring Valley; it will be brought on -because you and I read such stories as this, and, knowing they are -true, straightway forget all about them; it will be brought on because -editors and preachers, and others who have the public ear, keep silent -through negligence or fear of the rich who misrule the land. If people -will not think, if they will not care, you may depend upon it that the -price of their indifference will be slavery or war.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>From a letter to the <i>Twentieth Century</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Your article, and the extracts from Mr. Lloyd's book in your issue of -June 12, portraying the outrageous injustice inflicted on the Spring -Valley coal miners by the railway and coal-mining barons, was read -before our club by Judge Frank T. Reid, of this city, a member of the -club, at its regular weekly meeting, Monday, June 23. A resolution -was unanimously passed and sent to the General Executive Board of the -Nationalist clubs at Boston, requesting it to get up a memorial to -the Government Bureau of Labor, petitioning that body to institute -a special inquiry into the outrages; that this be done with a view -of publishing these crimes to the whole country, under the proper -authority, and also with the view of memorializing Congress for the -government to work either all or part of the coal-mining industry on -the same principle that it works the postal service, the government -printing-office at Washington, and other industries, as the present -method of running the coal mines by corporations has resulted, and -will continue to result, in rioting and bloodshed, and imperils -the very existence of society. We would suggest that copies of the -memorial be sent to all the Nationalist clubs for signatures, and also -to the Federated trades, Knights of Labor, and other organized bodies -and to individuals. Might we also suggest that you kindly communicate -with the Executive Board of Boston, and with our worthy and earnest -brothers, Messrs. Bellamy, Bliss, and others?</p> - -<p> -Yours fraternally,<br /> -J.L. Johnson,<br /> -<i>Secretary Nationalist Club</i>.<br /> -</p> -</blockquote> -<blockquote> - -<p><span class="smcap">Tacoma</span>, Wash. #/</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Open Court</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>The story of Spring Valley will make every American citizen of healthy -morals uncomfortable and ashamed.... A story which must be read, and -the lesson of it heeded, or worse things come.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The St. Louis <i>Republic</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>A stirring account of the great mining strike, lock-out, and -consequent misery at Spring Valley, Illinois, in 1888-89, the main -features of which are still familiar to the reading public. Mr. Lloyd -lays the blame where it belongs, and shows how the whole transaction -worked to the profit of the plutocrats at the expense of their -dupes—the enterprising thousands who believed in the promises made -in booming the location. The booming of the town was followed by the -dooming, and, as the <i>Republic</i> and many other papers showed at the -time, the action of the mine operators all through was "a cruel abuse -of intellectual strength to use it to force weakness and ignorance -into such a condition of helplessness." The author gives facts and -figures, and his account of the matter is borne out by the news -columns of the times. It is a sad story, and its truthfulness is a -shameful comment upon the tendencies of our day.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The Pittsburg <i>Labor Tribune</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><i>A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring -Valley</i>, is a handsome edition of the important matter written by -Henry D. Lloyd when the notable strike was on at the mines located at -Spring Valley, Illinois. Our miner readers especially will read with -satisfaction the vim and ability with which Mr. Lloyd handles the -literary end of that eventful period, and will be pleased to know that -he has issued the matter in consecutive form.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Democrat</i> (London).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Bad as the social and industrial condition of Great Britain is, that -of the United States threatens to become as bad or even worse unless -the power of landlordism there is subjected to popular control. A -striking instance of the rapid growth of monopoly and its ruinous -effect on industry, as well as its atrocious tyranny over labor, is -recorded in a striking little book by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, -called <i>A Strike of Millionaires against Miners</i>.</p></blockquote> - - -<p><i>Rights of Labor</i> (Chicago).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>This narrative of the rapacity and greed of our coal barons we most -earnestly commend to all our readers as a plain, clear statement of -facts, admirably put; it deserves the widest circulation.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>New York <i>Herald</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>This is one of the saddest, most enraging stories ever put on paper; -of course the corporations protested, as corporations always do in -such cases, that they were not to blame, but the awful facts cannot be -denied or explained away. The <i>Herald</i> expressed its mind editorially -at the time. Now that the whole case is presented, the <i>Herald's</i> -readers can see how easily a scheming gang of heartless scoundrels -can quickly reduce thousands of families to a condition worse than -old-fashioned African slavery.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Tacoma (Washington) <i>Globe</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Among the many books recently published on the labor question and the -relations between the rich and the poor, none has excited a deeper -interest than <i>A Strike of Millionaires against Miners</i>. Before the -atrocities perpetrated in Spring Valley by the coal mining company, -composed of some of the wealthiest men in the United States, the -wrongs inflicted on the peasants in Ireland fade into insignificance. -This book should have a wide reading, that all may know whither the -nation is drifting.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Boston <i>Herald</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>The story of the labor disturbances at Spring Valley, Illinois, -caused by a shut-down of the mines in 1888, is told by H.D. Lloyd in -a thrilling presentation. In perusing the whole history, from the -first alluring advertisements of the mining companies to the editorial -comments in Chicago papers after the lock-out took place, a dweller in -happier laboring regions will hardly believe that so much injustice -could have been done in free America.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Worker</i> (Brisbane, Queensland).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>A simple but complete account of a terrible injustice.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The <i>Christian Union</i>.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Six or eight years ago there appeared in the <i>North American Review</i> -an article entitled "The Lords of Industry," by Henry D. Lloyd, which -set forth with such power the nature and extent of the combinations to -diminish production and increase prices that its author may be said -to have initiated the anti-trust agitation of the last few years. -Since that time he has gone on in the work thus begun, putting heart -and soul into it. The <i>Strike of Millionaires against Miners</i> carries -perhaps less weight with our intellects than Mr. Lloyd's earlier work, -but it appeals so strongly to our hearts that we are carried with him -through the volume, and share with him his indignation over the wrongs -he describes.</p></blockquote> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<blockquote> - -<p> - -<span class="smcap">Concord</span>, New Hampshire, <i>October 22, 1892</i>.<br /> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Lloyd</span>,—I am reading the <i>Study</i> you so kindly sent -me. I have read most of it, including the "Word to Coal Miners," and -what a "study!" What a lesson! What an apocalypse! Through it, "the -voice of our brothers' blood cries to us from the ground," literally, -and in tones scarcely ever heard before by human or heavenly ear!</p> - -<p>Would that you could peal out all the seven thunders of Patmos. I wish -your work might outsell in number <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>, and <i>Robert -Elsmere</i> combined, till its note filled the earth as the waters the -seas. Print the whole of this hasty testimony over my name, if it will -be of service to the working man and woman.</p> - -<p>Faithfully and fraternally yours, for every good thought, word, and -work,</p> - -<p> -<span class="smcap">Parker Pillsbury</span>.<br /> -</p></blockquote> - - - - -<p class="ph3">A BOOK FOR THE TIMES</p> - -<p>THE RAILWAYS AND THE REPUBLIC.</p> - -<p>By <span class="smcap">James F. Hudson</span>. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.</p> - - -<p>The author studies carefully the evils of the system, inquires into the -power of legislation to cure them, and describes the remedies which -will preserve the usefulness of the railways, and at the same time -protect legitimate investors.—<i>N.Y. Evening Post.</i></p> - -<p>It is seldom the public is given a work at once so timely, so brave, -and so able.... Mr. Hudson writes with the most exhaustive knowledge -of his subject, and with an unusual ability in setting forth his ideas -so that they are easily and clearly understood. There is hardly a more -vigorous chapter in modern literature than that in which he discusses -the rise and growth of the Standard Company.... The book is everywhere -marked by unusual ability, accuracy, and fearlessness, which make it -one of the most important contributions of the day to a subject which -of necessity engages more and more attention every day. The political -principles of the writer are thoroughly sound and practical.—<i>Boston -Courier.</i></p> - -<p>The subject is of such vital importance that no man or woman in the -country should be ignorant about it.—<i>N.Y. Times.</i></p> - -<p>Mr. Hudson writes in the interests of the people, calmly and without -passion, as one who thoroughly understands his subject, and in harmony -with many others who have dealt with the same problems.—<i>Critic</i>, N.Y.</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Published by</span> HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">New York</span></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><i>For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, -postage pre-paid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, -on receipt of price.</i></p></blockquote> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wealth against commonwealth, by -Henry Demarest Lloyd - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH *** - -***** This file should be named 60473-h.htm or 60473-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/7/60473/ - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Wealth against commonwealth - -Author: Henry Demarest Lloyd - -Release Date: October 12, 2019 [EBook #60473] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH *** - - - - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH - - - BY - - HENRY DEMAREST LLOYD - - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1894 - - - - - Copyright, 1894, by Henry Demarest Lloyd. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. "THERE ARE NONE"--"THEY ARE LEGION" 1 - - II. CUT OFF FROM FIRE 9 - - III. PROHIBITION THAT PROHIBITS 20 - - IV. "SQUARE EATERS" 30 - - V. STRIKING OIL 38 - - VI. "NOT TO EXCEED HALF" 61 - - VII. "YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE" 73 - - VIII. "NO!" 84 - - IX. WHO PIPED AND WHO DANCED 104 - - X. CHEAPENING TRANSPORTATION 118 - - XI. SONG OF THE BARREL 128 - - XII. UNFINISHED MARCH TO THE SEA 152 - - XIII. PURCHASE OF PEACE 166 - - XIV. "I WANT TO MAKE OIL" 182 - - XV. SYMPATHETICAL CO-OPERATION 199 - - XVI. "TURN ANOTHER SCREW" 212 - - XVII. IN THE INTEREST OF ALL 227 - - XVIII. ORDINARY SUPPLY AND DEMAND 243 - - XIX. THROUGH THE WOMAN'S EYES 257 - - XX. TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE 272 - - XXI. CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION 285 - - XXII. ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES 299 - - XXIII. FREEDOM OF THE CITY 313 - - XXIV. HIGH FINANCE 326 - - XXV. A SUNDAY IN JUNE 341 - - XXVI. TOLEDO VICTOR 352 - - XXVII. "YOU ARE A--SENATOR" 369 - - XXVIII. FOR "OLD GLORY" AND AN--APPROPRIATION 389 - - XXIX. "THE COMMODITY IS NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE"--_Coke_ 405 - - XXX. "TO GET ALL WE CAN" 420 - - XXXI. ALL THE WORLD UNDER ONE HAT 432 - - XXXII. "NOT BUSINESS" 455 - - XXXIII. THE SMOKELESS REBATE 474 - - XXXIV. THE OLD SELF-INTEREST 494 - - XXXV. AND THE NEW 516 - - APPENDIX--PARTIAL LIST OF TRADE COMBINATIONS, OR TRUSTS 537 - - INDEX 545 - - - - -WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH - - - - -CHAPTER I - -"THERE ARE NONE"--"THEY ARE LEGION" - - -Nature is rich; but everywhere man, the heir of nature, is poor. Never -in this happy country or elsewhere--except in the Land of Miracle, -where "they did all eat and were filled"--has there been enough of -anything for the people. Never since time began have all the sons -and daughters of men been all warm, and all filled, and all shod and -roofed. Never yet have all the virgins, wise or foolish, been able to -fill their lamps with oil. - -The world, enriched by thousands of generations of toilers and -thinkers, has reached a fertility which can give every human being -a plenty undreamed of even in the Utopias. But between this plenty -ripening on the boughs of our civilization and the people hungering for -it step the "cornerers," the syndicates, trusts, combinations, with -the cry of "over-production"--too much of everything. Holding back the -riches of earth, sea, and sky from their fellows who famish and freeze -in the dark, they declare to them that there is too much light and -warmth and food. They assert the right, for their private profit, to -regulate the consumption by the people of the necessaries of life, and -to control production, not by the needs of humanity, but by the desires -of a few for dividends. The coal syndicate thinks there is too much -coal. There is too much iron, too much lumber, too much flour--for this -or that syndicate. - -The majority have never been able to buy enough of anything; but this -minority have too much of everything to sell. - -Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty. "The splendid -empire of Charles V.," says Motley, "was erected upon the grave of -liberty." Our bignesses, cities, factories, monopolies, fortunes, -which are our empires, are the obesities of an age gluttonous beyond -its powers of digestion. Mankind are crowding upon each other in the -centres, and struggling to keep each other out of the feast set by the -new sciences and the new fellowships. Our size has got beyond both our -science and our conscience. The vision of the railroad stockholder is -not far-sighted enough to see into the office of the General Manager; -the people cannot reach across even a ward of a city to rule their -rulers; Captains of Industry "do not know" whether the men in the -ranks are dying from lack of food and shelter; we cannot clean our -cities nor our politics; the locomotive has more man-power than all the -ballot-boxes, and mill-wheels wear out the hearts of workers unable to -keep up beating time to their whirl. If mankind had gone on pursuing -the ideals of the fighter, the time would necessarily have come when -there would have been only a few, then only one, and then none left. -This is what we are witnessing in the world of livelihoods. Our ideals -of livelihood are ideals of mutual deglutition. We are rapidly reaching -the stage where in each province only a few are left; that is the -key to our times. Beyond the deep is another deep. This era is but a -passing phase in the evolution of industrial Caesars, and these Caesars -will be of a new type--corporate Caesars. - -For those who like the perpetual motion of a debate in which neither -of the disputants is looking at the same side of the shield, there are -infinite satisfactions in the current controversy as to whether there -is any such thing as "monopoly." "There are none," says one side. -"They are legion," says the other. "The idea that there can be such a -thing is absurd," says one, who with half a dozen associates controls -the source, the price, the quality, the quantity of nine-tenths of a -great necessary of life. But "There will soon be a trust for every -production, and a master to fix the price for every necessity of -life," said the Senator who framed the United States Anti-Trust Law. -This difference as to facts is due to a difference in the definitions -through which the facts are regarded. Those who say "there are none" -hold with the Attorney-General of the United States and the decision -he quotes from the highest Federal court which has yet passed on this -question[1] that no one has a monopoly unless there is a "disability" -or "restriction" imposed by law on all who would compete. A syndicate -that had succeeded in bottling for sale all the air of the earth -would not have a monopoly in this view, unless there were on the -statute-books a law forbidding every one else from selling air. No -others could get air to sell; the people could not get air to breathe, -but there would be no monopoly because there is no "legal restriction" -on breathing or selling the atmosphere. - -Excepting in the manufacture of postage-stamps, gold dollars, and a -few other such cases of a "legal restriction," there are no monopolies -according to this definition. It excludes the whole body of facts -which the people include in their definition, and dismisses a great -public question by a mere play on words. The other side of the shield -was described by Judge Barrett, of the Supreme Court of New York. A -monopoly he declared to be "any combination the tendency of which is -to prevent competition in its broad and general sense, and to control -and thus at will enhance prices to the detriment of the public.... Nor -need it be permanent or complete. It is enough that it may be even -temporarily and partially successful. The question in the end is, Does -it inevitably tend to public injury?"[2] - -Those who insist that "there are none" are the fortunate ones who came -up to the shield on its golden side. But common usage agrees with -the language of Judge Barrett, because it exactly fits a fact which -presses on common people heavily, and will grow heavier before it grows -lighter. - -The committee of Congress investigating trusts in 1889 did not report -any list of these combinations to control markets, "for the reason -that new ones are constantly forming, and that old ones are constantly -extending their relations so as to cover new branches of the business -and invade new territories." - -It is true that such a list, like a dictionary, would begin to be -wrong the moment it began to appear. But though only an instantaneous -photograph of the whirlwind, it would give an idea, to be gained -in no other way, of a movement shadowing two hemispheres. In an -incredible number of the necessaries and luxuries of life, from meat -to tombstones, some inner circle of the "fittest" has sought, and very -often obtained, the sweet power which Judge Barrett found the sugar -trust had: It "can close every refinery at will, close some and open -others, limit the purchases of raw material (thus jeopardizing, and in -a considerable degree controlling, its production), artificially limit -the production of refined sugar, enhance the price to enrich themselves -and their associates at the public expense, and depress the price when -necessary to crush out and impoverish a foolhardy rival." - -Corners are "acute" attacks of that which combinations exhibit as -chronic. First a corner, then a pool, then a trust, has often been -the genesis. The last stage, when the trust throws off the forms of -combination and returns to the simpler dress of corporations, is -already well along. Some of the "sympathetical co-operations" on record -have no doubt ceased to exist. But that they should have been attempted -is one of the signs of the time, and these attempts are repeated again -and again until success is reached. - -The line of development is from local to national, and from national -to international. The amount of capital changes continually with the -recrystallizations in progress. Not less than five hundred million -dollars is in the coal combination, which our evidence shows to have -flourished twenty-two years; that in oil has nearly if not quite two -hundred millions; and the other combinations in which its members are -leaders foot up hundreds of millions more. Hundreds of millions of -dollars are united in the railroads and elevators of the Northwest -against the wheat-growers. In cattle and meat there are not less than -one hundred millions; in whiskey, thirty-five millions; and in beer -a great deal more than that; in sugar, seventy-five millions; in -leather, over a hundred millions; in gas, hundreds of millions. At -this writing a union is being negotiated of all the piano-makers in -the United States, to have a capital of fifty millions. Quite beyond -ordinary comprehension is the magnitude of the syndicates, if there is -more than one, which are going from city to city, consolidating all -the gas-works, electric-lighting companies, street-railways in each -into single properties, and consolidating these into vast estates for -central corporations of capitalists, controlling from metropolitan -offices the transportation of the people of scores of cities. Such -a syndicate negotiating in December, 1892, for the control of the -street-railways of Brooklyn, was said by the New York _Times_, "on -absolute authority, to have subscribed $23,000,000 towards that end, -before a single move had been made or a price set on a single share -of stock." It was in the same hands as those busy later in gathering -together the coal-mines of Nova Scotia and putting them under American -control. There are in round numbers ten thousand millions of dollars -claiming dividends and interest in the railroads of the United -States. Every year they are more closely pooled. The public saw them -marshalled, as by one hand, in the maintenance of the high passenger -rates to the World's Fair in the summer of 1893. - -Many thousands of millions of dollars are represented in these -centralizations. It is a vast sum, and yet is but a minority of our -wealth. - -Laws against these combinations have been passed by Congress and by -many of the States. There have been prosecutions under them by the -State and Federal governments. The laws and the lawsuits have alike -been futile. - -In a few cases names and form of organization have been changed, in -consequence of legal pursuit. The whiskey, sugar, and oil trusts had -to hang out new signs. But the thing itself, the will and the power to -control markets, livelihoods, and liberties, and the toleration of this -by the public--this remains unimpaired; in truth, facilitated by the -greater secrecy and compactness which have been the only results of the -appeal to law. - -The Attorney-General of the national government gives a large part of -his annual report for 1893 to showing "what small basis there is for -the popular impression" "that the aim and effect of this statute" (the -Anti-Trust Law) "are to prohibit and prevent those aggregations of -capital which are so common at the present day, and which sometimes -are on so large a scale as to practically control all the branches -of an extensive industry." This executive says of the action of the -"co-ordinate" Legislature: "It would not be useful, even if it were -possible, to ascertain the precise purposes of the framers of the -statute." He is the officer charged with the duty of directing the -prosecutions to enforce the law; but he declares that since, among -other reasons, "all ownership of property is a monopoly, ... any -literal application of the provisions of the statute is out of the -question." Nothing has been accomplished by all these appeals to the -legislatures and the courts, except to prove that the evil lies deeper -than any public sentiment or public intelligence yet existent, and is -stronger than any public power yet at call. - -What we call Monopoly is Business at the end of its journey. The -concentration of wealth, the wiping out of the middle classes, are -other names for it. To get it is, in the world of affairs, the chief -end of man. - -There are no solitary truths, Goethe says, and monopoly--as the -greatest business fact of our civilization, which gives to business -what other ages gave to war and religion--is our greatest social, -political, and moral fact. - -The men and women who do the work of the world have the right to the -floor. Everywhere they are rising to "a point of information." They -want to know how our labor and the gifts of nature are being ordered -by those whom our ideals and consent have made Captains of Industry -over us; how it is that we, who profess the religion of the Golden Rule -and the political economy of service for service, come to divide our -produce into incalculable power and pleasure for a few, and partial -existence for the many who are the fountains of these powers and -pleasures. This book is an attempt to help the people answer these -questions. It has been quarried out of official records, and it is a -venture in realism in the world of realities. Decisions of courts and -of special tribunals like the Interstate Commerce Commission, verdicts -of juries in civil and criminal cases, reports of committees of the -State Legislatures and of Congress, oath-sworn testimony given in legal -proceedings and in official inquiries, corrected by rebutting testimony -and by cross-examination--such are the sources of information. - -One important exception is in the description of the operations of -a great international combination in England, Germany, Holland, and -elsewhere in Europe; this has had to be made from unofficial material. -The people there are neither economically nor politically developed -to the point we have reached in America, of using the legislative -investigation and the powers of the courts to defend livelihoods and -market rights, and enforce the social responsibilities of industrial -power. Full and exact references are given throughout for the guidance -of the investigator. The language of witnesses, judges, and official -reports has been repeated verbatim, except for the avoidance of the -surplusage and reduplication usual in such literature, and that, to -permit the use of the dialogue form, the construction has been changed -from the third person to the first in quotations from evidence. With -these qualifications, wherever quotation marks have been used, the -transcription is word for word. Evidence from such sources is more -exact, circumstantial, and accurate than that upon which the mass of -historical literature is founded. - -To give the full and official history of numbers of these -combinations, which are nearly identical in inspiration, method, and -result, would be repetition. Only one of them, therefore, has been -treated in full--the oil trust. It is the most successful of all the -attempts to put gifts of nature, entire industries, and world markets -under one hat. Its originators claim this precedence. It was, one of -its spokesmen says, "the parent of the trust system."[3] It is the best -illustration of a movement which is itself but an illustration of the -spirit of the age. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -CUT OFF FROM FIRE - - -Rome banished those who had been found to be public enemies by -forbidding every one to give them fire and water. That was done by -all to a few. In America it is done by a few to all. A small number -of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but themselves to supply -the people with fire in nearly every form known to modern life and -industry, from matches to locomotives and electricity. They control -our hard coal and much of the soft,[4] and stoves, furnaces, and steam -and hot-water heaters; the governors on steam-boilers and the boilers; -gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and gas-pipes; electric lighting, -and all the appurtenances. You cannot free yourself by changing from -electricity to gas, or from the gas of the city to the gas of the -fields. If you fly from kerosene to candles, you are still under the -ban. - -The report adopted by the National Association of Stove Manufacturers, -at the Thirteenth Annual Convention, 1884, said: "While it is true -that iron is a dollar or two lower than last year, and that the cost -of labor has also been reduced, your committee is confident that there -is not a manufacturer present who can truthfully say he can afford to -reduce the price of his goods." "It is a chronic case," the President -said in 1888, "of too many stoves, and not enough people to buy them." - -The match company, by whose consent all the fires in the United States -and Canada are lighted, was organized, as stated, by the Supreme Court -of Michigan, for the purpose of controlling the manufacture and trade. -Thirty-one manufacturers, owning substantially all the factories -where matches were made in the United States, either went into the -combination, or were purchased by the match company, and out of this -number all were closed except about thirteen. - -One of the company, who has been a conspicuous candidate for a -nomination to the presidency of the United States, testified that the -price of matches was kept up to pay the large sums of money expended -to exclude others from the match business, remove competition, buy up -machinery and patents, and purchase other match factories. This was -told in a suit between two stockholders on a question of their relative -rights; but the court, of its own motion, declared the combination -illegal, and took notice of the public interests involved.[5] - -"Such a vast combination is a menace to the public," said the court. -"It is no answer to say that this monopoly has, in fact, reduced the -price of friction-matches. That policy may have been necessary to -crush competition. The fact exists that it rests in the discretion of -this company at any time to raise the price to an exorbitant degree." -"Indeed, it is doubtful if free government can long exist in a country -where such enormous amounts of money are allowed to be accumulated in -the vaults of corporations, to be used at discretion in controlling the -property and business of the country against the interest of the public -and that of the people, for the personal gain and aggrandizement of a -few individuals." - -Within the last thirty years, 95 per cent. of the anthracite coal of -America--practically the entire supply, it was reported by Congress in -1893--has passed from the ownership of private citizens, many thousands -in number, into the possession of the railroads controlling the -highways of the coal-fields. - -These railroads have been undergoing a similar process of -consolidation, and are now the property of eight great corporations. -This surrender of their property by the individual coal-mine owners is -a continuing process, in operation at this moment, for the complete -extinction of the "individual" and the independents in this field. It -is destined, according to the report of Congress of 1893,[6] to end -"in the entire absorption ... of the entire anthracite coal-fields and -collieries by ... the common carriers." - -Anthracite coal is geographically a natural monopoly contained in three -contiguous fields which, if laid close together, would not cover more -than eight miles by sixty. But bituminous coal, although scattered -in exhaustless measures all over the continent, is being similarly -appropriated by the railroads, and its area is being similarly limited -artificially by their interference. - -"Railroad syndicates," says the investigation of 1888,[7] "are buying -all the best bituminous coal lands along their lines in Missouri, -Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, and other Western -States and Territories, no doubt with a view of levying tribute upon -the people's fuel and the industrial fires of the country." - -Canada remains unannexed politically, but its best coal deposits -have become a part of the United States. In 1892 a syndicate of -American capitalists obtained the control of the principal bituminous -coal-mines of Nova Scotia. Among them were men connected both with the -anthracite pool and with the combination which seeks control of the oil -market of Canada and of the United States. - -The process of consolidation is shown by official and judicial -investigations to have been in progress in the bituminous fields at -least as far back as 1871, with the same purposes, methods, and results -as in the anthracite fields, though more slowly, on account of the -greater number and vastness of the deposits. From Pennsylvania to the -Pacific coast these are narrowed to the territory along the railroads, -and narrowed there again to the mines owned or favored by the railroad -managers. - -The investigations by Congress in 1888 and 1893 both state that the -railroads of the country are similarly becoming the owners of our iron -and timber lands, and both call upon the people to save themselves. A -new law of industry is rising into view. Ownership of the highways ends -in ownership of everything and everybody that must use the highways. - -The railroads compel private owners to sell them their mines or all the -product by refusing to supply cars for their business, and by charging -rates for the transportation of coal so high that every one but -themselves loses money on every ton sent to market. When the railroads -elect to have the output large, they furnish many cars; when they elect -to have the output small, they furnish few cars; and when they elect -that there shall be no output whatever, they furnish no cars. - -One of the few surviving independent coal producers, who is losing -heavily on every ton he sends to market, but keeps on in the hope that -the law will give him redress, was asked by a committee of Congress why -he did not sell out and give up the business? He was willing, he said, -to abide the time when his rights on the railroad could be judicially -determined. There was another reason. "It might be considered a very -sentimental one. I have spent, sir, considerable time and a large -amount of energy and skill in building up my business, and I rather -like to continue it." - -"In other words, you don't want to be forced to sell out?" - -"No, sir; I don't want to be forced to sell my product, any more than I -want to be forced to sell my collieries."[8] - -Though coal is an article of commerce greater in volume than any other -natural product in the United States carried on railroads, amounting to -not less than 130,000,000 tons a year; and though the appliances for -its transportation have been improved, and the cost cheapened every -year, so that it can be handled with less cost and risk than almost any -other class of freight, the startling fact appears in the litigations -before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the investigations by -Congress, that anthracite freight rates have been advanced instead of -being decreased, are higher now than they were in 1879, and that coal -is made by these confederated railroads to pay rates vastly higher -than the average of all other high and low class freight, nearly -double the rate on wheat or cotton. These high freight rates serve -the double purpose of seeming to justify the high price of coal, and -of killing off year by year the independent coal-producers. What the -railroad coal-miner pays for freight returns to its other self, the -railroad. What the independent coal-producer pays goes also to the -railroad, his competitor. "This excess over just and reasonable rates -of transportation constitutes an available fund by which they (the -railroads) are enabled to crush out the competition of independent -coal-producers."[9] - -By these means, as Congress found in 1888,[10] the railroad managers -have forced the independent miners to sell to them or their friends -at the price they chose to pay. They were the only possible buyers, -because only they were sure of a supply of cars, and of freight rates -at which they could live. - -The private operators thus being frozen out are able, as the -investigation by the New York Legislature in 1878 showed, to produce -coal more economically than the great companies, because not burdened -with extravagant salaries, royalties, and leases, interest on -fictitious bonded debts, and dividends on false capitalization of -watered stock. By the laws of supply and demand they would compete out -the unwieldy corporations, but these administer a superior political -economy in their supply and demand of cars and freight rates. The -unfittest, economically, survives. - -"The railroad companies engaged in mining and transporting coal -are practically in a combination to control the output and fix the -price.... They have a practical monopoly of the production, the -transportation, and sale of anthracite coal."[11] This has been the -finding in all the investigations for twenty years. "More than one, if -not all, of the anthracite monopolies," Congress reported in 1888, "run -several of their mines in the name of private operators to quiet the -general clamor against carrying companies having a monopoly of mining -also." - -The anthracite collieries of Pennsylvania could now produce 50,000,000 -tons a year. The railroads restrict them to 40,000,000 or 41,000,000 -tons,[12] nine or ten million tons less than they could furnish to ward -off the frosts of winter and to speed the wheels of the world, and this -creation of artificial winter has been in progress from the beginning -of the combination. - -In the ten months between February and November, 1892, the price of -coal in the East, as investigated by Congress in 1893,[13] was advanced -by the coal railroads as much as $1.25 and $1.35 a ton on the kinds -used by house-keepers, and the combinations, the report of Congress -says, "exercise even a more baleful influence on the production and -transportation of coal for the Western market." The extortion in the -price fixed by the coal railroads was found by Congress, in 1888, to -be an average of one dollar a ton--"considerably more than a dollar -a ton"--on all consumed in the United States, or $39,000,000 in that -year, and now $40,000,000 to $41,000,000 a year. The same investigation -found that between 1873 and 1886 $200,000,000 more than a fair market -price was taken from the public by this combination.[14] - -This in anthracite alone. How many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of -millions more have been taken by the railroads which control the -bituminous coal-fields from Pennsylvania to the Pacific, there are no -adjudicated means of estimating. - -By the same power which has crushed out the independent coal-miner, -the retailer in the cities has been reduced from a free man to -an instrument to despoil his neighbors--with whom he is often a -fellow-victim--for the benefit of absentee capitalists; he is hounded -by detectives; by threats of cutting off his supply, is made a -compulsory member of a secret oath-bound society to "maintain prices." -"Combinations exist," says the Canadian report, "among coal-dealers -in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and London. Detectives are employed -and the dealers placed under surveillance.... Oaths of fidelity to -the constitution and rules are required not only of the members, but -also of their salesmen, and the oaths in the cases of these employes -are made in some instances retroactive as well as prospective. All -violations of oaths are adjudicated upon by the executive committee -referred to, the penalties being heavy fines or expulsion.... In -accordance with arrangements made with the American coal-dealers, those -who were in default in membership, either from inability to pay fines -or from other causes, were prevented from purchasing coal in the United -States."[15] - -The retailer dare not tell his wrongs even in the committee-rooms -of Congress. "Your committee," says the report of 1893 to Congress, -"experienced great difficulty in obtaining testimony from retail -coal-dealers, who apparently labor under fears of injury to their -business in case they should appear and give evidence." - -"During the first forty years," Congress reported in 1888, "the -mines were worked by individuals, just as are farms. The hundreds of -employers were in active competition with each other for labor. The -fundamental law of supply and demand alike governed all parties. As to -engagement, employer and employe stood upon a common level of equality -and manhood. Skill and industry upon the part of the miner assured to -him steady work, fair wages, honest measurement, and humane treatment. -Should these be denied by one employer many other employers were ready -to give them. The miner had the same freedom as to engagement, the same -reward for faithful service, and protection against injustice that -the farm-hand possesses because of the competition between farmers -employing hands.... This virtual combination of all employers into one -syndicate has practically abolished competition between them as to -wages; and gradually, but inexorably, the workmen have found themselves -encoiled as by an anaconda until now they are powerless."[16] - -There was an investigation of the coal combination by the Pennsylvania -Legislature in 1871, the testimony taken in which showed that when, -after a thirty days' strike by the men, a number of private coal-mine -owners acceded to their terms, and wished to reopen their mines and -send coal again to market, the railroads, by which alone they could get -to market, raised their freights, as their men were still on strike, -to three times the previous figures. These great corporations had -determined not to yield to their men, and as they were mine-owners and -coal-sellers as well as carriers, they refused to take coal for their -competitors.... The result was that the price of coal was doubled, -rising to $12 a ton; the resumption by the private mine-owners was -stopped; and they, the workmen, and the consumer were all delivered -over to the tender mercies of the six great companies.[17] - -The coal companies in the anthracite regions keep thousands of -surplus laborers on hand to underbid each other for employment and -for submission to all exactions; hold them purposely ignorant when -the mines are to be worked and when closed, so that they cannot -seek employment elsewhere; bind them as tenants by compulsion in the -companies' houses, so that rent shall run against them, whether wages -run on or not, and under leases by which they can be turned out with -their wives and children on the mountain-side in midwinter if they -strike; compel them to fill cars of larger capacity than agreed upon; -make them buy their powder and other working outfit of the companies at -an enormous advance on the cost; compel them to buy coal of the company -at the company's price, and in many cases to buy a fixed quantity, -more than they need; compel them to employ the doctor named by the -company, and to pay him whether sick or well; "pluck" them at the -company's stores, so that when pay-day comes around the company owes -the men nothing, there being authentic cases where "sober, hard-working -miners toiled for years or even a lifetime without having been able to -draw a single dollar, or but a few dollars, in actual cash," in "debt -until the day they died;" refuse to fix the wages in advance, but pay -them upon some hocus-pocus sliding scale, varying with the selling -price in New York, which the railroad slides to suit itself; and, most -extraordinary of all, refuse to let the miners know the prices on which -their living slides--a fraud, says the report of Congress, "on its -face."[18] - -The companies dock the miners' output arbitrarily for slate and other -impurities, and so can take from their men five to fifty tons more in -every hundred than they pay for.[19] - -In order to keep the miners disciplined and the coal-market -under-supplied, the railroads restrict work so that the miners often -have to live for a month on what they can earn in six or eight days; -and these restrictions are enforced upon their miners by withholding -cars from them to fill, as upon competitors by withholding cars to go -to market.[20] - -Labor organizations are forbidden, and the men intentionally provoked -to strike, to affect the coal-market. - -The laboring population of the coal regions, finally, is kept -"down" by special policemen enrolled under special laws, and often -in violation of law, by the railroads and coal and iron companies -practically when and in what numbers these companies choose. These -coal and iron policemen are practically without responsibility to any -one but their employers, are armed as the corporations see fit with -army revolvers, or Winchester rifles, or both, are made detectives -by statute, and not required to wear their shields. They provoke the -people to riot, and then shoot them legally.[21] - -"By the percentage of wages," says the report of Congress, "by false -measurements, by rents, stores, and other methods, the workman is -virtually a chattel of the operator." It says, to summarize: "The -carrier drives out both operator and owner, obtains the property, works -the mine, 'disciplines' the miner, lowers wages by the importation of -Huns and Italians, restricts the output, and advances the price of coal -to the public. It is enabled to commit such wrongs upon individuals -and the public by virtue of exercising absolute control of a public -highway."[22] - -The people of Pennsylvania, in 1873, adopted a new Constitution. To -put an end to the consolidation of all the anthracite coal lands into -the hands of the railroads, this Constitution forbade common carriers -to mine or manufacture articles for transportation over their lines, -or to buy land except for carrying purposes. These provisions of the -Constitution have been disobeyed "defiantly." "The railroads have -defiantly gone on acquiring title to hundreds of thousands of acres of -coal, as well as of neighboring agricultural lands." They have been -"aggressively pursuing the joint business of carrying and mining coal." -So far from quitting it, they "have increased their mining operations -by extracting bituminous as well as anthracite."[23] - -Instead of enacting "appropriate legislation," as commanded by the -new Constitution, to effectuate its prohibitions, the Legislature has -passed laws to nullify the Constitution by preventing forever any -escheat to the State of the immense area of lands unlawfully held by -the railroads. Every effort breaking down to meet the evil by State -action, failure was finally confessed by the passage in 1878, by the -Pennsylvania Legislature, of a joint resolution asking Congress to -legislate "for equity in the rates of freight." - -In 1887 Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Law, and established -the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce justice on the railway -highways. The independent mine-owners of Pennsylvania appealed to -it. Two years and a half were consumed in the proceedings. The -Commission decided that the rates the railroad charged were unjust -and unreasonable, and ordered them reduced.[24] But the decision has -remained unenforced, and cannot be enforced. The railroads treat the -Commission with the same contumely they visit on the Constitution of -Pennsylvania, and two years after the decision Congress in 1893 found -their rates to be 50 cents a ton higher than what the Commission had -declared to be just and equitable.[25] The Interstate Commerce Law -provides for the imprisonment in the penitentiary of those guilty of -the crimes it covers. But the only conviction had under it has been of -a shipper for discriminating against a railroad. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -PROHIBITION THAT PROHIBITS - - -That which governments have not yet been equal to has been accomplished -by the private co-operation of a few citizens. They decree at their -pleasure that in this town or that State no one shall manufacture -alcohol, and they enforce the decree. Theirs is the only prohibition -that prohibits. - -From the famous whiskey ring of 1874 to the pool of 1881 and the -trust of 1887, and from the abandonment of that "trust" dress and -the reorganization into one corporation in 1890 down to the present, -this private regulation of the liquor traffic has gone on. It is -a regulation of a good deal more than the liquor traffic. Through -its control of alcohol it is a power over the arts and sciences, -the manufacture and the preparation of medicines, and a power -over politics. More than one chapter of our history exhibits the -government itself holding to these rectifiers relations suggestive -of anything but rectification. The report of the investigation by -Congress in 1893 notes the fact that on the strength of a rumor that -the internal-revenue tax was to be increased by Congress, the Trust -raised its prices 25 cents a gallon. This would amount to a profit of -$12,500,000 on its yearly output. - -By February, 1888, all the important distilleries in the Northern -States--nearly eighty--were in the Trust, excepting two, the larger of -which was in Chicago. The cases of these irreconcilable competitors -were set for consideration, according to the _Chicago Tribune's_ -report, at a private meeting of the trustees February 3d. In April -the Chicago distillery firm published the fact that they had caught a -spy of the Trust in their works. He had given them a confession in -writing. In September it was discovered that the valve of a vat in this -distillery had been tampered with in such a way as to have caused an -explosion had it not been found out in time. The next month its owners -made known that they had been offered and refused $1,000,000 from the -Trust for their works. In December the country was startled by the -news that this distillery had been the scene of an awful explosion of -dynamite. All the buildings in the neighborhood were shaken and many -panes of glass were broken. A jagged hole about three feet square was -torn in the roof. There were 15,000 barrels of whiskey stored under -the roof that was torn open, and if these had been ignited a terrible -fire would have been added to the effect of the explosion. A package of -dynamite which had failed to explode, though the fuse had been lighted, -was found on the premises by the Chicago police. - -The Chicago representative of the whiskey combination ridiculed the -idea that the Trust had had anything to do with this. "Such a thing," -he said, "is contrary to the genius of a trust." - -The wholesale liquor-dealers threatened, at a conference in 1890 -with the president of the Trust, to manufacture for themselves, to -escape the advance which had been made in the price of high-wines. The -president said, as reported in the _Wine and Spirit Gazette_: - -"I do not believe there is a spirits distillery in the country that you -can buy. We own nearly all of them, and have at present seventy-eight -idle distilleries." - -February 11, 1891, the explosion of December, 1888, was recalled by -the unexpected arrest of the secretary of the combination in Chicago -by the United States authorities. The Grand Jury of Cook County found -an indictment, February 17th, against the prisoner. April 20th he was -indicted by the Federal Grand Jury. The crime of which he was charged -was attempting to bribe a government gauger to blow up the troublesome -distillery. The gauger whom the secretary endeavored to enlist had -been loyal to his trust, the government, and had made known to his -superiors the offer and purpose of the bribe. - -If the explosion had been carried out 150 men at work in the distillery -would have been destroyed. The evidence given Congress afterwards -tended to show that part of the plan was that the bribed gauger who -was to set and explode the infernal-machine was not to be allowed to -survive to claim his reward and perhaps repent and tell. The fuse was -fixed so that the explosion would be instantaneous instead of giving -the time promised him to get out of the way. - -In a statement to the press, February 15th, the president of the Trust -said, as the result of a conference of the trustees: - -"We have unanimously agreed to stand by the secretary." - -Early in June rumors were in circulation in New York that the Chicago -independent had sold out; and soon after the confirmation of the -report, with full details, was authoritatively published. - -June 8th the judge of the United States Court in Chicago quashed the -Federal indictment, on the ground that it is not a crime under any of -the United States laws for an internal-revenue officer to set fire to -a distillery of his own volition and impulse, and that it is not a -crime against the United States for another person to bribe him to do -such an act. He held that the offender could be punished only through -the State courts. The United States had property in the distillery -to the extent of $800,000 due for taxes, which was a legal lien on -the property; but the United States District Attorney and the judge -could find no Federal law under which, for the gauger to destroy this -property of the United States, or for the Whiskey Trust to bribe him -to do so, it was a crime. When the indictments framed by the State -Attorney of Chicago came before the State courts, three of the four -were found defective and were quashed. The Chicago correspondent of -the New York _World_ telegraphed that he had been told by the State -Attorney, at the time the Federal proceedings were quashed, that of his -four indictments he relied most upon that for conspiracy; "but in court -yesterday the State Attorney let the charge of conspiracy fall to the -ground because, as he said, there was not evidence enough to secure a -conviction." - -"We haven't the evidence of the gauger; I don't know where he is," the -State Attorney said. - -But this witness declared in a public letter in February, 1893, "Myself -and others with positive evidence were always ready to testify, and I -have the facts to-day." - -The judge of the State court held the motion to quash until July, and -then announced that he would make no decision until August. He withheld -his ruling until October. Then he held the secretary for trial on -two counts, charging conspiracy to bribe the gauger and destroy the -independent distillery; but remarked "informally," the newspapers said, -that conviction would be difficult. - -When the case was called March 22, 1892, a delay was granted "until -next Monday," to enable the prisoner's counsel to read the "bill of -particulars" to find out what he was charged with. The secretary did -not trouble himself to attend court. His case was not heard of again -until June 24th, when he was released on a nolle prosequi entered by -the State Attorney because the evidence was insufficient, and became a -free man. That was the end. - -Owing to this success of State and United States attorneys in being -unsuccessful, the people have never had an opportunity of hearing in -court the evidence on which the Government acted in making the arrest, -and on which the grand juries found the indictments. But the gauger -through whom the secretary of the Trust had attempted to execute his -plans was called as a witness before the Committee of Congress which -investigated the Trust in 1893, and he told again the story of the -infernal-machine. It was as follows, in his own words, omitting names -and unnecessary details: - -"I was United States internal-revenue gauger from 1879 until after -Mr. Cleveland's election, and I was reappointed in 1889, and have -been continuously since that time. Late in December, 1890, I received -a letter from the secretary of the whiskey combination at Peoria, -telling me that he would like to meet me at the Grand Pacific Hotel on -New-year's Day. I met him. He said, 'You may be able to do considerable -good here; not only for us, but of considerable advantage to yourself. -Your $1500 a year is nothing to what you would get by helping us. You -can get $10,000 by assisting us in this thing; in fact, to make matters -right, you could get in three months $25,000.'" The gauger reported -this to his superiors, who told him to go on. "Be particular, and -after every interview with him make a note of everything that passes -between you while it is fresh in your mind." "I did that," the witness -continued, "and I have the original notes in my pocket. There are the -original notes," exhibiting them to the committee. "They have never -left my possession. I have kept them on my person right along." After -some correspondence and another interview, he met the secretary again -January 25th. "Now," said the latter, "I can give you something which, -if put under a cistern, will in three or four hours go off, and no -person know what it was or who did it, and all the trouble that has -been caused us will be stopped at once, the sufferings of many people -stopped, and no loss to those folks, as they are well insured." "When I -recovered from my surprise I asked if it was an explosive. He replied, -'No; a simple but effective thing which would shoot a ball into a tub -through the bottom. You will have $10,000 for your work of placing -this under a cistern of high-proof, either alcohol or spirits, or what -is better than cash, 200 shares of stock.' I asked at what they sold. -He said, 'Forty-seven, but it would be up ten points at once,' and I -could profit by the raise. 'This will raise a big row.' 'Yes,' he said, -'one cistern well caught, all would go, and it would be right into the -warehouse and stop everything at once. It is the most effective way to -help us and make a clean job, and you having access to all parts of the -distillery and unsuspected is why you could do it so easily.' He had -then, in room 35, powder and four steel elongated balls, solid, turned, -and with long points. The principal article, however, was a kind of -yellowish liquid, which when exposed to sixty-five degrees temperature -would produce a flame caused by evaporation. I remarked that there -was probably no hurry about this thing, and he said, 'The sooner the -better; you may be ordered away from here, and I am come all prepared; -everything is ready to load, and that can be done quickly.'" - -The gauger reported all this to his superior and told him that "I -proposed to take the infernal apparatus." His superior said, "Of -course." "I then returned to Grand Pacific, room 35; found loading just -completed and much material scattered about, oakum in can saturated -slightly with kerosene and alcohol to give good start. The secretary -said that three fuses were attached to the gun, one of which would go -off under water. He had one steel shell which had been shot through -three inches of wood in experimenting. He showed me particularly -how to place can; to feel underneath for timbers; put it where ball -will enter tub. Also, that in stopping over to meet the president -of the combination to-morrow he would have a chance to buy up stock -reasonably before our work caused the raise. He expected to buy 1000 -shares. Friday, the 30th of January, I rather anticipated a visit from -the secretary at my hotel, but I received a letter from him instead -of a visit, and Judge Hart, the solicitor of the Internal-Revenue -Department, who was there in Chicago, when he read the letter thought -that the evidence was certainly conclusive." On Sunday, the 8th, the -gauger surrendered the box containing the infernal-machine, which was -sealed, to a high official who had come on from New York. "The reason -why he came on is that the authorities would not believe my testimony. -They did not think it was possible a gentleman in the secretary's -position would undertake so heinous a crime, and they did not know -but what I was a crank. On Monday, the 9th, I was instructed to write -a letter. The thing was to arrest in a proper way. The next day I -received a despatch: 'Will be at Pacific to-morrow (Wednesday) morning.' - -"Wednesday morning the secretary was arrested, as he was about to enter -the hotel, by a deputy marshal, and conducted to the Marshal's office -in the Government building. There was a bottle of this composition -found in his grip. He had told me it would go off in three or four -hours. I was in the anteroom of the city grand jury after the chemist -had given his testimony. The chemist said that it was his opinion -it would have or might have gone off in three seconds. Fire would -cause the shooting of the ball, and the ball making a hole in the -tub--alcohol or high-proof spirits--coming down, of course all would -have gone up. It could not have helped it, and the explosion would -have followed at once, not from the machine, but from the contents of -the cistern. They are very explosive indeed, alcohol and high-proof -spirits."[26] - -What the Government authorities thought of all this is shown in a -letter which is spread upon the records of the Treasury Department. It -is addressed by the Commissioner of Internal-Revenue to the gauger. -After thanking him for his "highly commendable" conduct in relation to -the bribe the Commissioner says to Mr. Thomas S. Dewar: - - "While your rejection of the offer was just what was expected - from you, considering your official and personal standing, yet I - realize that you have done more than simply reject the offer. You so - conducted the affair as to place the guilty party, it is hoped, in a - position in which he will be punished for this violation of law. The - proposition was not only to attempt to corrupt an honest officer of - the Government, but was to induce you, by the offer of a large sum of - money, to commit a most heinous and inhuman act." - -No attempt was made by the representatives of the Trust before -the committee to deny this testimony. They simply disclaimed any -responsibility for what their associate and employe had done. "Whatever -there was in that," testified the president of the Whiskey Trust, "was -with the former secretary of this company, if there be anything of -it."[27] - -The Trust increased the number of plants under its control from -"nearly eighty" to eighty-one or eighty-two, the number reported by -the investigation of Congress in 1893. Its annual production was then -50,000,000 gallons; about 7,500,000 gallons of it alcohol, 42,500,000 -spirits. It is evident, says the report, that the company will soon -have within its grasp the entire trade, and be able to dictate prices -to consumers at pleasure. - -"How do you account for spirits going up and corn going down at the -same time in two or three instances?" the treasurer was asked. - -"Simply because the distillers were getting in a position whereby they -ran less than their capacity."[28] - -The experience of mankind has always found, as Lord Coke pointed out, -that monopoly adulterates. - -The report of Congress states that unquestionably the largest part of -the product of the combination finds its way into the open markets in -the form of "compounded"--or artificial--bourbon and rye whiskeys, -brandies, rums, gins, cordials. The testimony establishes the fact -that about one half of the whiskey consumed in the country is of -this compound product. These compounded liquors are supplied from -the drug-stores to the sick as medicine. One of the expert witnesses -summoned to explain the process of this adulteration appeared before -the committee with two demijohns, one containing pure alcohol and the -other spirits, and a number of bottles containing essential oils, -essences, etc., with which he proposed to make some experiments. "The -basis here, this white product, is what is known as 'spirits' in the -trade. With the use of these essential oils and essences now before -you any kind of imitation liquor can be produced at almost a moment's -notice. My first experiment will be with Jamaica rum. I put a drop of -Jamaica-rum essence into this white spirits, a few drops of coloring -matter, and some sugar syrup. Try of it and smell of it. Does it -smell like rum and taste like it? If they want to make it cheaper, -they reduce it with water. I will reduce it with water, and you will -now notice that the bead has disappeared from it. I will reproduce -the bead by the use of bead oil. I put one drop in, and here is the -result. Now, using rye-whiskey essence instead of Jamaica-rum essence, -I will flavor this spirits. I will now put some prune juice into it to -tone it. I will put some raisin oil in it to age it, and I will now -commence to color it. This first exhibit" (holding it up before the -committee) "is about the color of one-year-old whiskey that has been -properly bonded. I will now color it so it will imitate a two-year-old -whiskey. This is about the three-year-old now" (exhibiting it). "I will -now give this the color of 'velvet whiskey,' which is sold as high as -$4 a gallon" (exhibiting it). "The present price of spirits, to-day, -I think, is $1.30 a gallon. The utilization of any of these essential -oils and essences and coloring matter to make the transfer does not -exceed a cost of one and a half cents a gallon. I am prepared to make -imitations of any of these liquors at any time with this spirits -basis--all the different whiskeys, Scotch and Irish whiskeys, the -foreign gins and rums and brandies, after-dinner cordials and liqueurs. -These materials as you have them exhibited before you of essential oils -and essences are part and parcel of the stock in trade of every man -in the United States of America who has got a rectifying license as a -wholesale liquor dealer.... They are very generally and extensively in -use throughout our entire country, in every hamlet and village, in all -the branches of trade, the wholesale liquor dealer, the grocer having -a liquor dealer's license, and retail druggists.... When a doctor -prescribes French brandy, he expects to get a production which is a -distillation of wine made from the grape. In that imitation brandy made -from spirits and cognac oil he gets a crude product of corn, defeating -entirely his purpose in the prescription. The same applies to gin, rum, -and other articles wherever the imitations are found."[29] - -Some of the substances named by witnesses as occurring in the oils and -essences used for this adulteration are sulphuric acid, prussic acid, -fusel oil, creosote, nitro-benzol--all poisons, and some of them so -virulent that a teaspoonful would kill. - -"I have been warned when in the employ of these people not to take -the crude material into my mouth," said one of the witnesses. Another -witness denied that there was any danger in the infinitesimal portions -used of the flavoring matter. - -"The only result," said one of the members of the committee, "of the -testimony and hearing of the committee will be to educate the public to -the Trust methods. It will have no effect on the Trust." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -"SQUARE EATERS" - -"By Heaven, square eaters, more meat I say!" - - --_Beaumont and Fletcher._ - - -A delegate to one of the millers' national conventions said, "We want -cheaper wheat and dearer flour." - -The Canadian Parliament reports that "the Biscuit Association," -which had been in existence six years, had kept up the prices of its -products, "although the prices of the ingredients used have in that -time very materially decreased." - -An Associated Press despatch from Chicago announced that at "a joint -meeting of all the cracker bakers between Pittsburg and the Rocky -Mountains, held this morning, it was unanimously agreed to advance the -price of crackers." - -A "Bread Union" has been formed in London for the amalgamation of -concerns controlling hundreds of shops. Its chairman instructed the -stockholders that by concentrating a large number of shops under one -management in any district it could "quickly stifle the opposition of -any small unprincipled trader bent on reducing prices for competition -purposes." The Dominion Parliament, in condemning the Grocers' Guild as -"obnoxious to the public interest in limiting competition, in enhancing -prices," pointed out that "no reasonable excuse exists for many of its -arbitrary acts and agreements. The wholesale grocery trade had been for -many years in a flourishing condition; failures were almost unknown." - -But though prosperous the grocers formed this guild, admitting some, -proscribing others, and established by private legislation the profits -they desired. The profits were "afterwards increased, and in no -instance lowered, though values generally had fallen." - -At Minneapolis, the seat of the greatest flour-manufacturing industry -in the world, the elevators and railroads have united against the -wheat-growers in a way which does much to realize the dream of the -miller, of "cheaper wheat and dearer flour." A committee of the -Minnesota legislature investigated this combination in 1892. The -majority stopped short of reporting that it fixed the prices of wheat, -but admitted that some of the testimony tended that way, and that -the evidence "would seem to establish" that one of the most powerful -railroads had done so, and "had attempted to coerce compliance with -its requirements in the matter of prices by threats to embarrass the -business of local buyers."[30] A report from a minority of the same -committee was more outspoken. It summarizes the evidence, which shows -that the railroads and the elevator companies united to enforce a -uniform price for wheat. This price was six and a quarter cents below -what it should be. All the railroads adjusted their freight rates to -the artificial "list-price," and though rivals, they all charged the -same rates. The elevator companies, owning an aggregate of fifteen -hundred elevators, had a common agent who sent word daily, by telegram -and letter, to all wheat-buyers as to the price to be paid the farmers. -The report calculates the amount thereby taken from the wheat-growers -by the elevators at from four to five millions of dollars a year. - -The findings of this report were ratified by the adoption of its -suggestions for a remedy. "There is," it said, "no agency but the State -itself adequate to protect, now, the producer of wheat in Minnesota -and the Northwest from the influence of this combine." It therefore -recommended the erection and operation of elevators by the State. This -was approved by the Legislature and by the Governor, appropriations -were made, and the officials of the State went forward with the plan -until the Supreme Court of the State stopped them on the ground of -"unconstitutionality." - -That which we see the national associations of winter-wheat millers and -spring-wheat millers, and the fish, and the egg, and the fruit, and the -salt, and the preserves, and other combinations reaching out to do for -a "free breakfast table," to put the "square meal" out of the reach of -the "square eater," has been achieved to the last detail in sugar and -meat. Every half-cent up or down in the price of sugar makes a loss or -gain to the sugar combination at the rate of $20,000,000 a year. When -it was capitalized for $50,000,000 it paid dividends of $5,000,000 a -year. The value of the refineries in the combination was put by the New -York Legislative Investigation of 1891 at $7,000,000. - -The Hon. Wm. Wilson, of the committee of Congress investigating trusts -in 1888, and the framer of the tariff bill of 1893, in a public -communication quoted figures showing that this Trust had a surplus of -$10,000,000 at the end of 1888, after paying its 10 per cent. dividend. -The profits for the next five and a half months were $13,000,000. This -surplus of one year and net profits of less than half a year together -amount to $23,000,000, nearly half the then nominal capital, and -several times more than the real value of all the concerns, as given -above. These profits so conservative a paper as the New York _Daily -Commercial Bulletin_ called "plunder," and it reaffirmed that epithet -when called to account. Stock was issued for this "fabulous valuation" -of $50,000,000, put on this $7,000,000 of original value, and was made -one of the specialties of the stock market. - -"There has been an enormous and widespread speculation in the -certificates of the trust," says the report of the New York Senate. "It -was plainly one of the chief purposes of the trust to provide for the -issue of these certificates, affording thereby an opportunity for great -speculation in them, obviously to the advantage of the persons managing -the trust. The issue of $50,000,000 certificates was amply sufficient -for a speculation of many hundreds of millions of dollars."[31] - -Since this investigation by the New York Legislature, the Sugar Trust -has been reorganized into a single corporation. The capital of this -is $75,000,000, all "water," since the value of the plants is fully -covered by the bonds to the amount of $10,000,000. The actual value of -the refineries in the Trust, excluding those which have been closed or -dismantled, was investigated by the New York _World_, January 8, 1894, -and put at $7,740,000. On this actual value of $7,740,000 in operation -the Trust paid in regular and extra dividends in 1893 no less than -$10,875,000, and acknowledged that there was in addition a surplus of -$5,000,000 in the treasury. This was in addition to the interest on the -$10,000,000 of bonds. - -When a farmer sells a steer, a lamb, or a hog, and the house-keeper -buys a chop or roast, they enter a market which for the whole -continent, and for all kinds of cattle and meats, is controlled by the -combination of packers at Chicago known as "the Big Four."[32] This had -its origin in the "evening" arrangement, made in 1873 by the railroads -with preferred shippers, on the ostensible ground that these shippers -could equalize or even the cattle traffic of the roads. They received -$15 as "a commission" on every car-load of cattle shipped from the West -to New York, no matter by whom shipped, whether they shipped it or had -anything to do with it or not. The commission was later reduced to -$10. They soon became large shippers of cattle; and with these margins -in their favor "evening" was not difficult business.[33] By 1878 the -dressed-beef business had become important. As the Evener Combine had -concentrated the cattle trade at Chicago, the dressed-beef interest -necessarily had its home at the same place. It is a curious fact that -the Evener Combine ceased about the time the dressed-beef interest -began its phenomenal career.[34] - -The committee appointed by the United States Senate to investigate -the condition of the meat and cattle markets fixed upon St. Louis, -Mo., and November 20, 1888, as the time and place of meeting, because -the International Cattle Range Association and the Butchers' National -Protective Association assembled at the same time and place. It was -supposed that prominent members of these associations would avail -themselves of the opportunity to appear before the committee. Some of -them did testify frankly, but the presence of antagonistic influences, -especially in the International Cattle Range Association, immediately -became apparent, and industrious efforts were made to prevent the -inquiries of the committee from affecting injuriously the dressed-beef -interest at Chicago. The committee found that under the influence -of the combination the price of cattle had gone down heavily. For -instance: In January, 1884, the best grade of beef cattle sold at -Chicago for $7.15 per hundred pounds, and in January, 1889, for $5.40; -Northwestern range and Texas cattle sold in January, 1884, at $5.60, -and in January, 1889, at $3.75; Texas and Indian cattle sold in 1884 at -$4.75, the price declining to $2.50 in December, 1889. These are the -highest Chicago prices for the months named. - -"So far has the centralizing process continued that for all practical -purposes," the report says, "the market of that city dominates -absolutely the price of beef cattle in the whole country. Kansas -City, St. Louis, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg are subsidiary to -the Chicago market, and their prices are regulated and fixed by the -great market on the lake."[35] This great business is practically in -the hands of four establishments at Chicago. The largest houses have -a capacity for slaughtering 3,500 cattle, 3,000 sheep, and 12,000 -hogs every ten hours. When the Senate committee visited Chicago, -it was found impossible to obtain the frank and full testimony of -either the commission men doing business at the Union Stock Yards, or -of the employes of the packing and dressed-beef houses. The former -testified reluctantly, and were unquestionably under some sort of -constraint as to their public declarations. In private they stated -to the members of the committee that a combination certainly existed -between the "Big Four;" but when put on the stand as witnesses they -shuffled and prevaricated to such a degree as, in many cases, to excite -commiseration. The committee reported that the overwhelming weight of -testimony from witnesses of the highest character, and from all parts -of the West, is to the effect that cattle-owners going with their -cattle to the Chicago and Kansas City markets find no competition among -buyers, and if they refuse to take the first bid are generally forced -to accept a lower one. - -As to the effect upon retailers, local butchers, and consumers, it was -admitted by the biggest of the Big Four "that they combined to fix -the price of beef to the purchaser and consumer, so as to keep up the -cost in their own interest."[36] They combined in opening shops and -underselling the butchers of cattle at places all over the country, in -order to force them to buy dressed meat. They combined in refusing to -sell any meat to butchers at Washington, D.C., because the butchers -had bid against them for contracts to supply with meats the Government -institutions in the District of Columbia. - -The compulsion put upon local butchers is illustrated in the S---- -case. The following telegram was sent from the office of one of the -combination at Chicago to an agent in Pennsylvania: "Cannot allow -S---- to continue killing live cattle. If he will not stop, make other -arrangements, and make prices so can get his trade." - -S---- was a local butcher. He testified that he was approached by -the agent with a proposition that he should sell dressed-beef. He -refused, and was then informed that he would be broken up in business. -Notwithstanding this threat, he continued to butcher, and made his -purchases of cattle at Buffalo. From the time of his refusal to sell -dressed-beef as proposed, he could not buy any meat from Chicago, -and could not get any cars from the Erie Railroad to ship his cattle -from Buffalo. He was boycotted for his refusal to discontinue killing -cattle.[37] One of the combination, when testifying to this matter, -disclaimed responsibility for the despatch, but stated that he did not -think a butcher should be permitted to kill cattle and at the same time -sell dressed-beef. "He could not serve both interests." "We have no -hesitation in stating as our conclusion, from all the facts," says the -report, "that a combination exists at Chicago between the principal -dressed-beef and packing houses, which controls the market and fixes -the price of beef cattle in their own interest." - -When pork is cheap, less beef is eaten. Beef monopoly must therefore -widen into pork monopoly. This has happened. There is a combination -between the pork-packers at Chicago and the large beef-packers. It -began in 1886. The existence of such an arrangement was admitted by its -most important member; and it is found to have seriously affected the -prices of beef cattle, both to the producer and consumer. It was shown -that one of the companies of the Big Four made in 1889 profits equal -to 29 per cent. on its capital stock--which may, or may not, have been -paid in--and this was not the largest of the companies. As to the idea -that other capitalists might enter into competition with those now in -possession, the report says: "The enormous capital of the great houses -now dominating the market, which each year becomes larger, enables them -to buy off all rivals." - -The favoritism on the highways, in which this power had its origin in -1873, has continued throughout to be its main stay. The railroads give -rates to the dressed-beef men which they refuse to shippers of cattle, -even though they ship by the train-load--"an unjust and indefensible -discrimination by the railroads against the shipper of live cattle." -The report says: "This is the spirit and controlling idea of the great -monopolies which dominate the country.... No one factor has been more -potent and active in effecting an entire revolution in the methods -of marketing the meat supply of the United States than the railway -transportation."[38] There have been discriminations by the common -carriers of the ocean as well as by the railroads. The steamship -companies exclude all other shippers, by selling all their capacity to -the members of the beef combine, sometimes for months in advance. It is -useless for any other shipper to apply. - -Property is monopoly, the Attorney-General of the United States says. -Those who own the bread, meat, sugar, salt, can fix the price at which -they will sell. They can refuse to sell. It is to these fellow-men we -must pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." And when we have broken -bread for the last time, we can get entrance to our "long home" only -by paying "exorbitant" toll for our shrouds and our coffins to the -"Undertakers'" and the "National Burial Case" associations.[39] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -STRIKING OIL - - -It was an American idea to "strike oil." Those who knew it as the -"slime" of Genesis, or used it to stick together the bricks of the -Tower of Babel, or knelt to it in the fire temples, were content to -take it as it rose, the easy gift of nature, oozing forth on brook or -spring. But the American struck it. - -The world, going into partial eclipse on account of the failing supply -of whale oil, had its lamps all ready for the new light, and industries -beyond number needed only an expansion of the supply. - -De Witt Clinton, with the same genius that gave us the Erie Canal, -suggested as early as 1814 the use of petroleum for light. Reichenbach, -the great German chemist, predicted in 1830 that petroleum would yield -an illuminating oil equal to the finest. Inventors and money-makers -kept up close with scientific investigators in France, Great Britain, -and America. - -As early as 1845 the manufacture of coal-oil, both for light and -other purposes, had become important in France. Selligue had made -himself master of the secrets of petroleum. His name, says one of his -chroniclers, "must forever remain inseparably connected with that of -the manufacture of light from oil, and to his researches few have been -able to add."[40] - -The name of this genius and benefactor of humanity has remained almost -unknown, except within a small scientific world. He was a member of the -French Academy, and almost every year between 1834 and 1848 he came to -it with some new discovery. On one occasion he reminds his associates -that he holds a patent, granted in 1832, for making illuminating oil -from coal, and declares that the business can be developed to any -extent which commerce or the arts may require. By 1845 he had unlocked -nearly every one of the hidden places in which this extraordinary -product has stored its wonders. He found out how to make illuminating -oil, illuminating gas, lubricating oil, colors, paraffine for candles, -fertilizers, solvents for resin for painters, healing washes, -chemicals. He had three refineries in operation in the Department -Saone-et-Loire, as described in the report of a committee of the French -Academy in 1840. He exhibited his oils in the London Exhibition of -1851, and twelve years before, in the Parisian Industrial Exhibition of -1839, he had crude and refined oils and paraffine to show. "Among the -most important objects of the exhibition," said its German historian, -Von Hermann, "if they can be prepared economically." This Selligue -accomplished. Between 1837 and 1843 he refined more than 4,000,000 -pounds of oil, and 50 per cent. of his product was good illuminating -oil. - -Before 1850, the Scotch had succeeded in getting petroleum, called -shale oil, out of bituminous coal, had found how to refine it, and had -perfected lamps in which it would burn. Joshua Merrill, the pioneer of -oil refining in this country, with his partners, successfully refined -petroleum at Waltham, Mass., where they established themselves in 1853. -The American manufacturers were making kerosene as early as 1856 from -Scotch coal,[41] imported at a cost of $20 to $25 a ton, and getting -experts like Silliman to analyze petroleum, in the hope that somehow -a supply of it might be got. By 1860 there were sixty-four of these -manufactories in the United States. "A crowd of obscure inventors," -says Felix Foucon, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, "with unremitting -labors perfected the lamp--when it was premature to dream that -illumination by mineral oil should become universal." All was ready, -as the eminent English geologist, Binney, said, "for the start of the -vast American petroleum trade." It was not a lack of knowledge, but -a lack of petroleum, that hampered the American manufacturer before -1860.[42] The market, the capital, the consumer, the skilled labor, the -inventions, and science were all waiting for "Colonel" Drake. - -With Drake's success in "striking oil" came to an end the period, -lasting thousands of years, of fire temples, sweep and bucket, Seneca -oil; and came to an end, also, the Arcadian simplicity of the old -times--old though so recent--in which Professor Silliman could say, "It -is not monopolized by any one, but is carried away freely by all who -care to collect it." - -The oil age begins characteristically. As soon as Drake's well had -made known its precious contents, horses began running, and telegrams -flying, and money passing to get possession of the oil lands for the -few who knew from those who did not know. The primitive days when "it -was not monopolized by any one" were over. Thousands of derricks rose -all over the territory, and oil scouts pushed with their compasses -through the forests of the wilderness in all directions. Wells were -bored all over Europe, as well as America, wherever traces of oil -showed themselves, sometimes so close together that when one was pumped -it would suck air from the other. - -As soon as the petroleum began to flow out of the ground, refineries -started up at every available place. They were built near the wells, -as at Titusville and Oil City, and near the centres of transportation, -such as Pittsburg and Buffalo, and near the points of export, as -Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York. Numbers of little establishments -appeared on the Jersey flats opposite New York. - -There was plenty of oil for every one; at one time in 1862 it was only -ten cents a barrel. The means of refining it had long before been -found by science and were open to all; and even poor men building -little stills could year by year add on to their works, increase their -capital, and acquire the self-confidence and independence of successful -men. The business was one of the most attractive possible to capital. -"There is no handsomer business than this is," said one of the great -merchants of New York. "You can buy the (crude) oil one week, and sell -it the next week refined, and you can imagine the quantity of business -that can be done." Men who understood the business, he said, "if they -had not the capital could get all of the money they wanted."[43] - -Whatever new processes and contrivances were needed the fertile -American mind set about supplying. To carry the oil in bulk on the -railroads tubs on flat cars were first used; but it was not long before -the tub was made of iron instead of wood, and, laid on its side instead -of bottom, became the tank of the cylinder car now so familiar. - -The fluid which lubricates so many other things on their way through -the world is easily made to slip itself along to market. General S.D. -Karns was the author,[44] in 1860, of the first suggestion of a pipe -line. He planned only for oil to run down hill. Then Hutchinson, the -inventor of the Hutchinson rotary pump, saw that oil could be forced -through by pressure, and the idea of the pipe line was complete. -The first successful pipe line, put down by Samuel Van Syckel,[45] -of Titusville, in 1865, from Pithole to Miller's Farm, four miles, -has grown into a net-work of thousands of miles, running through the -streets of towns, across fields and door-yards, under and over and -beside roads, with trunk lines which extend from the oil regions to -Pittsburg, Cleveland, Buffalo, Baltimore, New York, Williamsport, -Chicago, and the Ohio River. - -There was a free market for the oil as it came out of the wells -and out of the refineries, and free competition between buyers and -sellers, producers and consumers, manufacturers and traders. Industries -auxiliary to the main ones flourished. Everywhere the scene was of -expanding prosperity, with, of course, the inevitable percentage of -ill-luck and miscalculation; but with the balance, on the whole, of -such happy growth as freedom and the bounty of nature have always -yielded when in partnership. The valleys of Pennsylvania changed into -busy towns and oil fields. The highways were crowded, labor was well -employed at good wages, new industries were starting up on all sides, -and everything betokened the permanent creation of a new prosperity for -the whole community, like that which came to California and the world -with the discovery of gold. - -But shadows of sunset began to creep over the field in its morning -time, and the strange spectacle came of widespread ruin in an industry -prospering by great leaps. Wherever men moved to discover oil lands, to -dig wells, to build refineries or pipe lines, to buy and sell the oil, -or to move it to market, a blight fell upon them. - -The oil age began in 1860. As early as 1865 strange perturbations were -felt, showing that some undiscovered body was pulling the others out of -their regular orbits. - -Before the panic of 1873--days of buoyant general prosperity, with -no commercial revulsion for a cause--the citizens of this industry -began to suffer a wholesale loss of property and business among the -refineries in New York, Pittsburg, Cleveland, and elsewhere, the wells -of the oil valleys, and the markets at home and abroad. - -To the building of refineries succeeded the spectacle--a strange one -for so new a business--of the abandonment and dismantling of refineries -by the score. The market for oil, crude and refined, which had been a -natural one, began to move erratically, by incalculable influences. It -went down when it should have gone up according to all the known facts -of the situation, and went up when it should have gone down. This sort -of experience, defying ordinary calculations and virtues, made business -men gamblers. - -"We began speculating in the hope that there would be a change some -time or other for the better," testified one who had gone into the -business among the first, and with ample capital and expert skill.[46] - -The fright among the people was proportionate to the work they had -done and the value of what they were losing. Since the first well was -sunk the wilderness had become a busy region, teeming with activity -and endowed with wealth. In ten years the business had sprung up from -nothing to a net product of 6,000,000 barrels of oil a year, using a -capital of $200,000,000 and supporting a population of 60,000 people. -The people were drilling one hundred new wells per month, at an average -cost of $6000 each. They had devised the forms, and provided the -financial institutions needed in a new business. They invented many -new and ingenious mechanical contrivances. They had built up towns and -cities, with schools, churches, lyceums, theatres, libraries, boards of -trade. There were nine daily and eighteen weekly newspapers published -in the region and supported by it. All this had been created in ten -years, at a cost of untold millions in experiments and failures, and -the more precious cost of sacrifice, suffering, toil, and life. - -The ripe fruit of all this wonderful development the men of the oil -country saw being snatched away from them.[47] - -More than once during these lean years, as more than once later, the -public alarm went to the verge of violent outbreak. This ruinous -prosperity brought stolid Pennsylvania within sight of civil war -in 1872, which was the principal subject before the Pennsylvania -Legislature of that year, and forced Congress to make an official -investigation. - -The New York Legislature followed Congress and the Pennsylvania -Legislature with an investigation in 1873. - -"There was great popular excitement.... It raged like a violent fever," -was the description it heard of the state of things in Pennsylvania.[48] - -There were panics in oil speculation, bank failures, defalcations. -Many committed suicide. Hundreds were driven into bankruptcy and insane -asylums. - -Where every one else failed, out of this havoc and social disorder -one little group of half a dozen men were rising to the power and -wealth which have become the marvel of the world. The first of them -came tardily into the field about 1862. He started a little refinery -in Cleveland, hundreds of miles from the oil wells. The sixty and -more manufacturers who had been able to plant themselves before 1860, -when they had to distil coal into petroleum before they could refine -petroleum into kerosene, had been multiplied into hundreds by the -arrival of petroleum ready made from below. Some of the richest and -most successful business men of the country had preceded him and were -flourishing.[49] He had been a book-keeper, and then a partner, in a -very small country-produce store in Cleveland. As described by his -counsel some years later, he was a "man of brains and energy without -money." With him were his brother and an English mechanic. The mechanic -was bought out later, as all the expert skill needed could be got for -wages, which were cheaper than dividends.[50] Two or three years later -another partner was added, who began life as "a clerk in a country -store,"[51] and had been in salt and lumber in the West. A young -man, who had been in the oil region only eleven years, and for two -of the eleven had been errand-boy and book-keeper in a mixed oil and -merchandise business,[52] a lawyer, a railroad man, a cotton broker, -a farm laborer who had become refiner, were admitted at various times -into the ruling coterie. - -The revolution which revolved all the freemen of this industry down -a vortex had no sooner begun than the public began to show its -agitation through every organ. The spectacle of a few men at the -centre of things, in offices rich with plate glass and velvet plush, -singing a siren song which drew all their competitors to bankruptcy -or insanity or other forms of "co-operation," did not progress, as it -might have done a hundred years ago, unnoticed save by those who were -the immediate sufferers. The new democracy began questioning the new -wealth. Town meetings, organizations of trades and special interests, -grand juries, committees of State legislatures and of the United States -Senate and House of Representatives, the civil and criminal courts, -have been in almost constant action and inquiry since and because. - -It was before the Committee of Commerce of the National House of -Representatives in 1872 that the first authentic evidence was obtained -of the cause of the singular ruin which was overwhelming so fair a -field. This investigation in 1872 was suppressed after it had gone -a little way. Congress said, Investigate. Another power said, Don't -investigate. But it was not stopped until the people had found out that -they and the production, refining, and transportation of their oil--the -whole oil industry, not alone of the valleys where the petroleum was -found, but of the districts where it was manufactured, and the markets -where it was bought and sold, and the ports from which it was shipped -abroad--had been made the subject of a secret "contract"[53] between -certain citizens. The high contracting parties to this treaty for the -disposal of an industrial province were, on one side, all the great -railroad companies, without whose services the oil, crude or refined, -could not be moved to refineries, markets, or ports of shipment on -river, lake, or ocean. On the other side was a body of thirteen men, -"not one of whom lived in the oil regions, or was an owner of oil wells -or oil lands," who had associated themselves for the control of the oil -business under the winning name of the South Improvement Company.[54] - -By this contract the railroads had agreed with this company of citizens -as follows: - -1. To double freight rates. - -2. Not to charge them the increase. - -3. To give them the increase collected from all competitors. - -4. To make any other changes of rates necessary to guarantee their -success in business. - -5. To destroy their competitors by high freight rates. - -6. To spy out the details of their competitors' business. - -The increase in rates in some cases was to be more than double.[55] -These higher rates were to be ostensibly charged to all shippers, -including the thirteen members of the South Improvement Company; but -that fraternity only did not have to pay them really. All, or nearly -all, the increase it paid was to be paid back again--a "rebate."[56] -The increase paid by every one else--"on all transported by other -parties"--was not paid back. It was to be kept, but not by the -railroads. These were to hand that, too, over to the South Improvement -Company. - -This secret arrangement made the actual rate of the South Improvement -Company much lower--sometimes half, sometimes less than half, what all -others paid. The railroad officials were not to collect these enhanced -freight rates from the unsuspecting subjects of this "contract" to -turn them into the treasury of the railroads. They were to give -them over to the gentlemen who called themselves "South Improvement -Company." The "principle" was that the railroad was not to get the -benefit of the additional charge it made to the people. No matter how -high the railroads put the rates to the community, not the railroads, -but the Improvement Company, was to get the gain. The railroads -bound themselves to charge every one else the highest nominal rates -mentioned. "They shall not be less," was the stipulation. They might be -more up to any point; but less they must not be.[57] - -The rate for carrying petroleum to Cleveland to be refined was to be -advanced, for instance, to 80 cents a barrel. When paid by the South -Improvement Company, 40 cents of the 80 were to be refunded to it; when -paid by any one else, the 40 cents were not merely not to be refunded, -but to be paid over to his competitor, this aspiring self-improvement -company.[58] The charge on refined oil to Boston was increased to -$3.07; and, in the same way, the South Improvement Company was to get -back a rebate of $1.32 on every barrel it sent to Boston, and on every -barrel any one else sent. The South Improvement Company was to receive -sums ranging from 40 cents to $1.32, and averaging a dollar a barrel on -all shipments, whether made by itself or by others. This would give the -company an income of a dollar a day on every one of the 18,000 barrels -then being produced daily, whether its members drilled for it, or piped -it, or stored it, or refined it, or not. - -To pay money to the railroads for them to pay back was seen to be a -waste of time, and it was agreed that the South Improvement Company -for its members should deduct from the ostensible rate the amount to -be refunded, and pay the railroads only the difference. Simplification -could not go further. The South Improvement Company was not even to be -put to the inconvenience of waiting for the railroads to collect and -render to it the tribute exacted for its benefit from all the other -shippers. It was given the right to figure out for its members what the -tribute would amount to, and pay it to them out of the money they owed -the railroads for freight, and then pay the railroad what was left, -if there was any left.[59] The railroads agreed to supply them with -all the information needed for thus figuring out the amount of this -tribute, and to spy out for them besides other important details of -their competitors' business. They agreed to make reports every day to -the South Improvement Company of all the shipments by other persons, -with full particulars as to how much was shipped, who shipped, and to -whom, and so on.[60] - -The detective agency thus established by the railroads to spy out -the business of a whole trade was to send its reports "daily to -the principal office" of the thirteen gentlemen. If the railroads, -forgetting their obligations to the thirteen disciples, made any -reduction in any manner to anybody else, the company, as soon as it was -found out, could deduct the same amount from its secret rate.[61] If -the open rate to the public went down, the secret rate was to go down -as much. For the looks of things, it was stipulated that any one else -who could furnish an equal amount of transportation should have the -same rates;[62] but the possibility that any one should ever be able to -furnish an equal amount of transportation was fully taken care of in -another section clinching it all. - -The railway managers, made kings of the road by the grant to them of -the sovereign powers of the State, covenanted, in order to make their -friends kings of light, that they would "maintain the business" of the -South Improvement Company "against loss or injury by competition," so -that it should be "a remunerative" and "a full and regular business," -and pledged themselves to put the rates of freight up or down, as -might be "necessary to overcome such competition."[63] Contracts to -this effect, giving the South Improvement Company the sole right for -five years to do business between the oil wells and the rest of the -world, were made with it by the Erie, the New York Central, the Lake -Shore and Michigan Southern, the Pennsylvania, the Atlantic and Great -Western, and their connections, thus controlling the industry north, -south, east, west, and abroad. The contracts in every case bound all -the roads owned or leased by the railroads concerned.[64] The contracts -were duly signed, sealed, and delivered. On the oil business of that -year, as one of the members of the committee of Congress figured out -from the testimony, the railroad managers could collect an increase of -$7,500,000 in freights, of which they were to hand over to the South -Improvement Company $6,000,000, and pay into the treasury of their -employers--the railways--only $1,500,000. - -The contract was signed for the New York Central and Hudson River -Railroad by its vice-president, but this agreement to kill off a whole -trade was too little or too usual to make any impression on his mind. -When publicly interrogated about it he could not remember having seen -or signed it.[65] - -"The effect of this contract," the vice-president of the Erie Railway -Company was asked, "would have been a complete monopoly in the -oil-carrying trade?" - -"Yes, sir; a complete monopoly."[66] - -Of the thirteen members of the South Improvement Company which was to -be given this "complete monopoly," ten were found later to be active -members of the oil trust. They were then seeking that control of the -light of the world which it has obtained. Among these ten were the -president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, and a majority of -the directors of the oil trust into which the improvement company -afterwards passed by transmigration. Any closer connection there could -not be. One was the other. - -The ablest and most painstaking investigation which has ever been -had in this country into the management of the railroads found and -officially reported to the same effect: - -"The controlling spirits of both organizations being the same."[67] - -The freight rates were raised as agreed and without notice. Rumors had -been heard of what was coming. The public would not believe anything so -incredible. But the oil regions were electrified by the news, February -26, that telegrams had been sent from railroad headquarters to their -freight agents advising them of new rates, to take effect immediately, -making the cost of shipping oil as much again as it had been. The -popular excitement which broke out on the same day and "raged like a -violent fever" became a national sensation. The Titusville _Morning -Herald_ of March 20, 1872, announces that "the railroads to the oil -regions have already put up their New York freight from $1.25 to -$2.84, an advance of over one hundred per cent." Asked what reason -the railroads gave for increasing their rates, a shipper said, "They -gave no reason; they telegraphed the local roads to put up the rates -immediately." This advance, the superintendents of the railroads told -complaining shippers, had been made under the direction of the South -Improvement Company, and they had been instructed to make their monthly -collections of oil freights from that concern. - -The evidence even seems to show that the South Improvement Company was -so anxious for the dance of death to begin that it got the freight -agents by personal influence to order the increased rates before the -time agreed upon with the higher officials. Strenuous efforts were -made to have the public believe that the contracts, though sealed, -signed, delivered, and put into effect, as the advance in rates most -practically demonstrated, had really not been put into effect. The -quibbles with which the president of the South Improvement Company -sought to give that impossible color to the affair before the committee -of Congress drew upon him more than one stinging rebuke from the -chairman of the committee. - -"During your whole examination there has not been a direct answer given -to a question." "I wish to say to you," said the chairman, "that such -equivocation is unworthy of you." - -The plea needs no answer, but if it did, the language of the -railroad men themselves supplies one that cannot be bettered. To the -representatives of the people, who had telegraphed them for information -"at once, as the excitement is intense, and we fear violence and -destruction of property," General McClellan, of the Atlantic and Great -Western, replied that the contract was "cancelled;" President Clark, -of the Lake Shore, that it was "formally abrogated and cancelled;" -Chairman Homer Ramsdell, of the Erie, that it was "abrogated;" -Vice-president Thomas Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, that it was -"terminated officially;"[68] Vice-president Vanderbilt, of the New York -Central and Hudson River Railroad, that it was "cancelled with all the -railroads." - -Contracts that were not complete and in force would not need to be -"cancelled" and "abrogated" and "terminated." These announcements were -backed up by a telegram from the future head of the oil trust then -incubating, in which he said of his company: "This company holds no -contracts with the railroad companies."[69] But in 1879 its secretary, -called upon by the Ohio Legislature to produce the contracts the -company had with the railroads, showed, among others, one covering the -very date of this denial in 1872.[70] - -Before Congress the South Improvement Company sought to shelter -themselves behind the plea that "their calculation was to get all the -refineries in the country into the company. There was no difference -made, as far as we were concerned, in favor of or against any refinery; -they were all to come in alike." - -How they "were all to be taken in" the contract itself showed. It bound -the South Improvement Company "to expend large sums of money in the -purchase of works for refining," and one of the reasons given by the -railroads for making the contract was "to encourage the outlay." Upon -what footing buyer and seller would meet in these purchases when the -buyer had a secret arrangement like this with the owners of the sole -way to and from wells, refineries, and markets, one does not need to -be "a business man" to see. The would-be owners had a power to pry the -property of the real owners out of their hands. - -One of the Cleveland manufacturers who had sold was asked why he did so -by the New York Legislature. They had been very prosperous, he said; -their profits had been $30,000 to $45,000 a year; but their prosperity -had come to a sudden stop.[71] - -"From the time that it was well understood in the trade that the South -Improvement Company had ... grappled the entire transportation of -oil from the West to the seaboard ... we were all kind of paralyzed, -perfectly paralyzed; we could not operate.... The South Improvement -Company, or some one representing them, had a drawback of a dollar, -sometimes seventy cents, sometimes more, sometimes less, and we were -working against that difference."[72] - -It was a difference, he said, which destroyed their business. - -He went to the officials of the Erie and of the New York Central to try -to get freight rates that would permit him to continue in business. -"I got no satisfaction at all," he said; "I am too good a friend of -yours," said the representative of the New York Central, "to advise you -to have anything further to do with this oil trade." - -"Do you pretend that you won't carry for me at as cheap a rate as you -will carry for anybody else?" - -"I am but human," the freight agent replied. - -He saw the man who was then busily organizing the South Improvement -Company. He was non-committal. "I got no satisfaction, except 'You -better sell, you better get clear.' Kind of _sub rosa_: 'Better sell -out, no help for it.'" - -His firm was outside the charmed circle, and had to choose between -selling and dying. Last of all, he had an interview with the president -of the all-conquering oil company, in relation to the purchase of their -works. "He was the only party that would buy. He offered me fifty cents -on the dollar, on the construction account, and we sold out.... He made -this expression, I remember: 'I have ways of making money that you know -nothing of.'" - -For the works, which were producing $30,000 to $45,000 a year profit, -and which they considered worth $150,000, they received $65,000. - -"Did you ascertain in the trade," he was asked, "what was the average -rate that was paid for refineries?" - -"That was about the figure.... Fifty cents on the dollar." - -"It was that or nothing, was it not?" - -"That or nothing." - -The freight rates had been raised in February. This sale followed in -three weeks. - -"I would not have sold out," he told the Legislature, "if I could have -got a fair show with the railways. My business, instead of being an -enterprise to buy and sell, became degraded into running after the -railways and getting an equal chance with others."[73] - -"The only party that would buy" gave his explanation a few years later -of the centralization of this business. - -"Some time in the year 1872," he swore, "when the refining business of -the city of Cleveland was in the hands of a number of small refiners, -and was unproductive of profit,[74] it was deemed advisable by many of -the persons engaged therein, for the sake of economy, to concentrate -the business, and associate their joint capital therein. The state -of the business was such at that time that it could not be retained -profitably at the city of Cleveland, by reason of the fact that points -nearer the oil regions were enjoying privileges not shared by refiners -at Cleveland, and could produce refined oil at a much less rate than -could be done at this point. It was a well-understood fact at that -time among refiners that some arrangement would have to be made to -economize and concentrate the business, or ruinous losses would not -only occur to the refiners themselves, but ultimately Cleveland, as a -point of refining oil, would have to be abandoned. At that time those -most prominently engaged in the business here consulted together, and -as a result thereof several of the refiners conveyed" to his company, -then as always the centre of the centralization, "their refineries, and -had the option, in pay therefor, to take stock" in this company, "at -par, or to take cash." This company, he continued, "had no agency in -creating this state of things which made that change in the refining -business necessary at that time, but the same was the natural result -of the trade, nor did it in the negotiations which followed use any -undue or unfair means, but in all cases, to the general satisfaction of -those whose refineries were acquired, the full value thereof, either in -stock or cash, was paid as the parties preferred."[75] - -The producers were not to fare any better than the refiners. The -president of the South Improvement Company said to a representative of -the oil regions substantially: "We want you producers to make out a -correct statement of the average production of each well, and the exact -cost per barrel to produce the oil. Then we propose to allow you a fair -price for the oil." - -Within forty-eight hours after the freight rates were raised, according -to programme, "the entire business of the oil regions," the Titusville -_Herald_, March 20, 1872, reported, "became paralyzed. Oil went down -to a point seventy cents below the cost of production. The boring of -new wells is suspended, existing wells were shut down. The business in -Cleveland stopped almost altogether. Thousands of men were thrown out -of work." - -The people rose. Their uprising and its justification were described -to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1873 by a brilliant -"anti-monopolist," "a rising lawyer" of Franklin, Venango Co. -The principal subject to which he called the attention of his -fellow-members was the South Improvement Company, and the light it -threw on the problems of livelihood and liberty. Quoting the decision -of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Sanford case,[76] he said: - - "That is the law in Pennsylvania to-day. But in spite of this - decision, and in spite of the law, we well know that almost every - railroad in this State has been in the habit, and is to-day in the - habit, of granting special privileges to individuals, to companies in - which the directors of such railroads are interested, to particular - business, and to particular localities. We well know that it is their - habit to break down certain localities, and build up others, to break - down certain men in business and to build up others, to monopolize - certain business themselves by means of the numerous corporations - which they own and control, and all this in spite of the law, in - defiance of the law. - - "The South Improvement Company's scheme would give that corporation - the monopoly of the entire oil business of this State, amounting to - $20,000,000 a year. That corporation was created by the Pennsylvania - Legislature along with at least twenty others, under the name - of improvement companies, within a few years past, all of which - corporations contain the names as original corporators of men who may - be found in and about the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, - in Philadelphia, when not lobbying at Harrisburg. The railroads - took but one of those charters which they got from the Legislature, - and by means of that struck a deadly blow at one of the greatest - interests of the State. Their scheme was contrary to law, but before - the legal remedy could have been applied, the oil business would - have lain prostrate at their feet, had it not been prevented by an - uprising of the people, by the threatenings of a mob, if you please, - by threatening to destroy property, and by actually commencing to - destroy the property of the railroad company, and had the companies - not cancelled the contract which Scott and Vanderbilt and others had - entered into, I venture to say there would not have been one mile of - railroad track left in the County of Venango--the people had come to - that pitch of desperation.... Unless we can give the people a remedy - for this evil of discriminations in freight, they will sooner or later - take the remedy into their own hands."[77] - -Soon after this attorney for the people was promoted from the poor -pay of patriotism to a salary equal to that of the President of the -United States, and to the place of counsel for the principal members of -the combination, whose inwardness he had descried with such hawk-eye -powers of vision. Later, as their counsel, he drafted the famous trust -agreement of 1882. - -The South Improvement Company was formed January 2d. The agreement -with the railroads was evidently already worked out in its principal -details, for the complicated contracts were formally signed, sealed, -and delivered January 18th. The agreed increase of freights went into -effect February 26th. The pacific insurrection of the people began -with an impromptu mass-meeting at Titusville the next day, February -27th. Influential delegations, or committees, on transportation, -legislation, conference with press, pipe lines, arresting of drilling, -etc., were set to work by the organization thus spontaneously formed -by the people. A complete embargo was placed on sales of oil at any -price to the men who had made the hateful bargain with the railroads. -The oil country was divided into sixteen districts, in each of which -the producers elected a local committee, and over all these was -an executive committee composed of representatives from the local -committees--one from each. No oil was sold to be used within any -district except to those buyers whom the local committee recommended; -no oil was sold to be exported or refined outside the district, except -to such buyers as the executive committee permitted. One cent a barrel -was paid by each producer into a general fund for the expenses of the -organization. - -Steps were taken to form a company with a capital of $1,000,000, -subscribed by the producers, to advance money, on the security of their -oil, to those producers who did not want to sell. - -Able lawyers were employed and sent with the committees to all the -important capitals--Harrisburg, Washington, the offices of the railway -companies. The flow of oil was checked, the activities of the oil world -brought near a stop. - -Monday, March 15th, by the influence of the Washington committee, -a resolution was introduced into the House of Representatives by -Representative Scofield, ordering an investigation of the South -Improvement Company. Immediately upon this the frightened participants -cancelled the contracts. By the 26th of March the representatives -of the people had secured a pledge in writing from the five great -railroads concerned of "perfect equality," and "no rebates, drawbacks, -or other arrangements," in favor of any one thereafter. March 30th, -Congress began the investigation which brought to light the evidence -of the contracts, and meanwhile the committees on legislation and pipe -lines were securing from the Pennsylvania Legislature the repeal of -the South Improvement Company charter, and the passage of a "so-called" -Free Pipe Line law, discovered afterwards to be worthless on account of -amendments shrewdly inserted by the enemy. - -It was an uprising of the people, passionate but intelligent and -irresistible, if the virtue of the members held good. Until April 9th -the non-intercourse policy was stiffly and successfully maintained. But -by that time one man had been found among the people who was willing -to betray the movement. This man, in consideration of an extra price, -violating his producer's pledge, sold to some of those concerned in -the South Improvement Company a large quantity of oil, as they at once -took pains to let the people know. The seller hoped to ship it quietly, -but, of course, the object in buying and paying this additional price -was to have it shipped openly, and the members of the South Improvement -Company insisted that it should be done so.[78] - -This treachery had the effect planned. Every one became suspicious -that his neighbor would be the next deserter, and would get the price -he would like to have for himself. To prevent a stampede, the leaders -called a mass-meeting. Reports were made to it of what had been done in -Congress, the Legislature, and the other railway offices; the telegrams -already referred to were read affirming the cancellation of the -contracts. Amid manifestations of tumultuous approbation and delight -the embargo on the sale of oil was declared raised. - -"We do what we must," says Emerson, "and call it by the best name -possible." The people, as every day since has shown, grasped the shell -of victory to find within the kernel of defeat. - -The committee of Congress noticed when the contracts were afterwards -shown to it, that though they had been so widely declared to be -"cancelled," they had not been cancelled, but were as fresh--seals, -stamps, signatures and all--as the day they were made. This little -circumstance is descriptive of the whole proceeding. Both parties -to this scheme to give the use of the highways as a privilege to a -few, and through this privilege to make the pursuit of livelihood a -privilege, theirs exclusively--the railroad officials on one side, and -their beneficiaries of the South Improvement Company on the other--were -resolute in their determination to carry out their purpose. All that -follows of this story is but the recital of the sleuth-like tenacity -with which this trail of fabulous wealth has been followed. - -The chorus of cancellation from the railroads came from those who -had meant never to cancel, really. In their negotiations with the -representatives of the people they had contested to the last the -abandonment of the scheme. "Their friendliness" to it "was so -apparent," the Committee of the Producers reported, "that we could -expect little consideration at their hands,"[79] and the committee -became satisfied that the railroads had made a new contract among -themselves like that of the South Improvement Company, and to take -its place. Its head frankly avowed before the Investigating Committee -of Congress their intention of going ahead with the plan. "They are -all convinced that, sooner or later, it will be necessary to organize -upon the basis on which the South Improvement Company was organized, -including both producers and refiners." - -This conviction has been faithfully lived up to. Under the name of the -South Improvement Company the arrangement was ostentatiously abandoned, -because to persist in it meant civil war in the oil country as the -rising young anti-monopolist lawyer pointed out in the Constitutional -Convention. Mark Twain, in describing the labors of the missionaries -in the Sandwich Islands, says they were so successful that the vices -of the natives no longer exist in name--only in reality. As every page -will show, this contract no longer exists in name--only in reality. -In the oil world, and in every other important department of our -industrial life--in food, fuel, shelter, clothing, transportation,[80] -this contract, in its various new shapes, has been kept steadily at -work gerrymandering the livelihoods of the people. - -The men who had organized the South Improvement Company paid the public -revolt the deference of denial, though not of desistance. The company -had got a charter, organized under it, collected twenty per cent. of -the subscription for stock, made contracts with the railroads, held -meetings of the directors, who approved of the contracts and had -received the benefits of the increase of freights made in pursuance of -the agreement. This was shown by the testimony of its own officers.[81] - -But "the company never did a dollar's worth of business," the Secretary -of the Light of the World told Congress,[82] and "there was never the -slightest connection between the South Improvement Company and the -Standard Oil Company," the president of the latter and the principal -member of both said in an interview in the New York _World_, of March -29, 1890. "The South Improvement Company died in embryo. It was never -completely organized, and never did any business. It was partly born, -died, and was buried in 1872," etc. - -Still later, before a committee of the Legislature of New York, in -1888, he was asked about "the Southern Improvement Company." - -"There was such a company?" - -"I have heard of such a company." - -"Were you not in it?" - -"I was not."[83] - -So help me God! - -At almost the moment of this denial in New York, an associate in this -and all his other kindred enterprises, asked before Congress who made -up the South Improvement Company, named as among them the principal -members of the great oil company, and most conspicuous of them all was -the name of this denier.[84] - -The efficiency with which this "partly born" innocent lived his little -hour, "not doing a dollar's worth of business," was told in a summary -phrase by one of the managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, describing -the condition of the oil business in 1873:[85] - -"All other of our largest customers had failed." - -When the people of the oil regions made peace after their uprising it -was, as they say, with "full assurance from the Washington committee -that the throwing off the restrictions from trade will not embarrass -their investigation (by Congress), but that the Sub-Committee of -Commerce will, nevertheless, continue, as the principle involved, and -not this particular case alone, is the object of the investigation."[86] - -The Committee of Commerce did not "continue." The principal witness, -who had negotiated the contracts by which the railroads gave over -the business of the oil regions to a few, refused in effect, beyond -producing copies of the contract, to be a witness. Permission was given -by the Committee of Congress during its first zeal to the Committee -of Producers from Pennsylvania to copy the testimony as it was taken, -but no official record of its discoveries exists. This transcript was -published by the producers, and copies are possessed by a few fortunate -collectors. The committee did not report, and in the archives of the -national Capitol no scrap of the evidence taken is to be found. All has -vanished into the bottomless darkness in which the monopoly of light -loves to dwell. - - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -"NOT TO EXCEED HALF" - - -Notwithstanding the ceremonial treaty of equal rights on the railroads -to all, which had been secured by the uprising of the people against -the South Improvement Company in 1872, the independents, one after the -other, continued to be side-tracked by an unseen power. Four years -later, on the 20th of July, 1876, their only two important survivors in -Cleveland, frightened by the high death-rate of the business, and by -a deepening pressure on themselves, answered a summons to come to the -palace of the President of the Light of the World. The contract which -was then made was afterwards produced in court.[87] It was called an -"Agreement for an Adventure," in something like "the merry sport" in -which the good Antonio gave a bond for a pound of his flesh. - -A few years after this "adventure" with his competitors and his efforts -to have them closed by the courts, the President was asked if his trust -had sought in any way to diminish the production of refineries in -competition with it. - -"Oh no, sir," he replied. - -"Nothing of the kind?" - -"Oh no, sir."[88] - -He was asked the question again, and again the denial was repeated. - -"Done nothing of the sort?" - -"Not at all." - -But now he said, You must bind yourselves for ten years to refine only -85,000 barrels of oil a year.[89] - -They had refined 120,000 barrels the year before, and could have done -180,000, and were growing up with the country. "The prospects were much -better for the future."[90] - -But they agreed. - -You must give me and my associates all the profits you make during this -period above $35,000 a year, until we too have got $35,000 a year out -of your business, and we will guarantee you $35,000 a year, if we let -you run. - -They had made $41,000 the year before, but they agreed. - -You must divide with "us," after each has got $35,000 a year, all the -additional profits. - -They had to put into this "adventure" all their buildings and -machinery, valued at $61,760.42, all their time and attention, and -$10,000 in cash, while their conquerors put in only $10,000 cash and no -plant and no time. But they agreed to this demand for "half." - -You must stop refining altogether, and let us take out our $10,000 -whenever we send you notice that through competition, or a decrease or -change in the production of petroleum, Cleveland can "barely compete" -with other places. You must sell the kerosene you manufacture, and buy -the petroleum you make it of at the prices we fix. - -The combination could make the business unprofitable whenever it chose, -and under the previous stipulation could close them up at its own -pleasure, until the ten years had rolled by. But they agreed. - -You must resume again after any such suspension, and let us take half -the profits whenever we give you notice. You must let us enter or -withdraw, throw our $10,000 in or out, suspend or resume, again and -again, as we choose! They agreed. - -You must make us monthly reports of all your transactions. You must not -enlarge nor contract your works without our consent. They agreed. - -You must not go into the manufacture of petroleum, nor any other new -business anywhere else in the world during this adventure! You must -ship your products by such routes as we direct! They agreed. - -You must keep this adventure secret. Our name must not appear, and even -if you all die, you must agree that we may continue the business in -your name, or any other name we choose. - -"The firm name," as their counsel pointed out, "was to be kept up even -when the members were mouldering in their graves. But the public were -to understand that the business of that firm, as it had been conducted -in the lifetime of those men, was still being carried on." - -You are to be thus tied up for ten years, limited at the best to half -the profit on half your capacity, with a right in us to close you up -altogether, or to close and resume whenever we choose, with no right in -you to start or stop or withdraw. But we are to be left free, in our -own refineries, to refine all the oil the market will take, and keep -all the profit, and enlarge our works and extend our business. - -And, finally, you must put your hand and seal to a statement that you -do this to "reconcile interests that have seemed to conflict" and -"equalize the business," and that this agreement gives you your "due -proportion thereof." - -This "free contract" two of the three men who were to make it knew -nothing of until their consent was demanded. - -One of the partners had secretly been won over. Through him all -preliminary negotiations had been conducted. - -"I was not consulted," testified one of the other two, until after the -contract was "all drawn and prepared," and at first he refused to sign -it. The plan was concocted "secretly and unknown to me." - -"I was at first opposed to the arrangement," declared the other.[91] - -But this was not all the contract. The President, who, as he -testified, "conducted most of the negotiations," and "had been familiar -with the dealings thereunder," supplemented the written documents with -oral instructions:[92] - -You must not seem to be prosperous. You must not put on style,[93] he -cautioned them; above all, you must not drive fast horses or have fine -rigs; you must not even let your wives know of this arrangement.[94] - -A false account was opened on the books to conceal the nature and -origin of this transaction from their own book-keepers. In the name of -that account false and fictitious checks were drawn, bills made out, -balances struck. A box was taken out at the Cleveland post-office--box -125--in the name of an imaginary "Mr. G.A. Mason," and through this -box the correspondence of the "adventure" was carried on. Each of the -three parties to the "adventure" continued to march and fight under -its own flag as before. All possible pains were taken to conceal the -fact that they had ceased competition with each other. They kept up -every appearance to the public of being actively engaged in competitive -business. The inevitable spy appears in this scene as in every other -in the play. The "reconciler," to enforce the provisions that the -"reconcilees" should not engage in business elsewhere, extended a -system of espionage over them, and followed their movements, and kept -watch what they did with their money, and made oath to the courts of -the results of these "inquiries and investigations." The espionage -continued after this. - -A year or two after this contract had been broken by the help of -the courts, the then secretary of the great oil company, through an -intermediary, approached the book-keeper of the firm which had been -freed from the trust. - -"Would you not like to make some money?" - -"He inclined to let him believe he did want to make some money," his -employer afterwards told Congress. "He came and told me about it. I -requested that he continue and find out what information they wanted. -He was to have had so much per year, but he was to have been paid a -down payment; he got $25." - -"What service was he to render for that?" - -"I have a memorandum. There were so many things he was to do that I -cannot carry it in my head." - -"One of the questions was, 'What was the result of last year's -business?' The other was, 'A transcript of the daily shipments, with -net prices received from the same; what is the cost for manufacturing -outside of the crude; the kind of gasoline and naphtha made, and -the net prices received for the same; what they do with tar and the -percentages of the same; what per cent. of water white and what per -cent. of Michigan water white; how much oil exported last year?' This -information, as fast as received, to be mailed to Box 164, Cleveland -post-office.... He (the book-keeper) made an affidavit of it, and I -took the money back myself personally."[95] - -When orders came in for more oil than the limit put upon them, the -"reconcilees," asserting their commercial manhood, went on refining -to supply the demands of the public instead of the commands of the -clique. They contended that they were not bound by the limitation, and -in this were afterwards upheld by the court; but, meanwhile, they were -called to account and frightened into another "reconciliation." He was -present, the chief reconciler told the court, at the interview in which -they "agreed to diminish their manufacture ... to bring the entire -amount within the terms" of the contract. - -But again they began to refine to supply the needs of the people -evidenced by the market demand. Then their supply of crude was shut -off. Their suzerain owned the pipe line to Cleveland. When its escaping -victims got around that difficulty, it took its "contract" to the -courts. - -To shut these competitors down to half their capacity, and to reconcile -and equalize interests by taking half of all they made on that was -merely an incident, collateral to the grander plan, the vaster -"adventure," of getting all the profits of that greater field out -of which these competitors were barred altogether. Such contracts as -these, its counsel said, were made with refiners all over the country. -The chief profit of the adventure lay, not in the divided profits of -the picayune business it let the vassals do, but in the undivided -profits of the empire kept for itself. Why should the reconciler hurry -with expensive lawyers into court for a summary injunction to prevent a -"reconcilee" from making more oil, when the reconciler, who toiled not -nor spun, was to get half of the gain of $2.05 on every barrel of it? -Why, but that every "co-operative" barrel so made would displace in the -markets a barrel, all the profits of which went to it. - -The "reconcilees" were called into court. A judge was asked to issue -an injunction forbidding them to depart from the strict letter of the -contract. - -They have been refining more than 85,000 barrels of oil a year, was the -complaint. - -They "threaten to distil crude petroleum without regard to -quantity."[96] They are "parties in rebellion," said the lawyers. The -judge said, No. This is a contract in restraint of trade, and released -those who were in its toils. - -The immediate effect of this "equalization" was an advance in the rates -of profit. The year before the independent refiners had made a profit -of only 34 cents a barrel.[97] - -The first year of the "adventure" the profits jumped up to $2.52 -a barrel. The dividends rose from $41,000 to $222,047, while the -production fell from 120,000 to 88,085 barrels. For the four years the -average profit was $2.05 a barrel, or 500 per cent. advance. The lowest -profit was $1.37. - -"Refined oil advanced to an average of $8 per barrel for that year" -(1876), says the counsel of the trust.[98] - -These great winnings were made in the depth of the depression following -the panic of 1873. - -While a world-compelling decline not only of prices but of profits, -was in progress, the authors of this arrangement kept up kerosene to a -point at which $630,691 was made in four years out of an investment of -$81,000, half of which went to those who put in $10,000 and their power -over freight agents. - -This "adventure," as was said by the Hon. Stanley Matthews, who -appeared as counsel for the victimized refiners, was better than a -gold-mine. It was a mint. Without giving any personal supervision or -any time, without any expenditure except the insignificant investment -of $10,000, made as a mere stalking-horse, these men took a share of -the profits of "the party of the second part," which is not to be -calculated by ordinary percentage, but by multiplications, over and -over again, every year, of the money they put in it. - -By reducing the volume of business one-half, by increasing the profit -from 34 cents a barrel to $2.05, the reconcilers pocketed $315,345.58 -in four years, on an investment of $10,000, with no work. This was the -fact. The theory with which the fact was hidden from the people is -given to the New York Legislature in 1888. The principle on which the -trust did business, its president said, was: - -"At a limited profit; a very small profit on an extremely large volume -of business."[99] - -When its secretary was before Congress, he was asked about the -operations of himself and his associates in these years, 1876, 1877, of -wonderful profits. He had been participating during that time in not -only this profit of $2.05 a barrel, but in divided profits rising to -$3,000,000 in a year on $3,000,000 of capital, and in undivided profits -which rolled up $3,500,000 of capital into $70,000,000 in five years. -But he said: - -"The business during those years was so very close as to leave scarcely -any margin of profit under the most advantageous circumstances."[100] - -The effect on the consumer appears from the statement in this case of -one of the best-known producers and refiners in the oil regions, one -intimately associated with the members of the combination. He showed -that oil which was selling at twenty cents a gallon retail could be -sold at a large profit at twelve cents a gallon. - -As to the effect on the working-man, the demand for labor declined, -wages went down, and the number of unemployed increased. - -When there was competition in Cleveland the great company could not -afford to have its skilled workmen idle, because they would seek -employment with the other refineries; but now, having the refining -business all in its own hands, when it was temporarily to its advantage -to refine oil in Pittsburg, Oil City, or other points, in preference -to Cleveland, it could with impunity let its hands remain idle in -Cleveland, knowing that when it wanted them it could easily secure -them, as there are no other refineries in Cleveland to employ them, and -"that has been a very serious injury to working-men."[101] - -There was no pretence that the design of this contract was not to make -oil scarce--_i.e._, dear. - -In the affidavit which was made in support of the injunction the -principal reconciler showed that his company had restricted itself -as much as it restricted these competitors. He urged as the reason -why the contract had been made and why the courts should sustain it, -that "the capacity of all the refineries in the United States is -more than sufficient to supply the markets of the world, and if all -the refineries were run to their full capacity they would refine at -least twice as much oil as the markets of the world require; that -this difference between the capacity of refineries and the demands of -the market has existed for at least seven years past, and during that -period the refineries" of his company "have not been run to ... exceed -one-half of their capacity." - -When these surviving independents of Cleveland were forced into this -adventure, in 1876, the source of the power which could compel "free" -citizens in this age of individualism to execute such a bond was not -known. The appalling mortality among the independents showed that -something was seriously wrong. There was something, however, in this -"Agreement for an Adventure" which pointed straight to it. That was -a clause which guaranteed those who became vassals that they should -have the same freight rates and get back the same rebates as the -monopoly.[102] "Had the monopoly the power," said the Hon. Stanley -Matthews, "to procure freights on better and more advantageous terms -than the rest of the public engaged in the same business?... And -if they had such power, how did it get it?... If this or any other -corporation is allowed to exalt itself in this way and by these means -above competition, it is also exalted above the law." - -The great lawyer, who soon afterwards became a justice of the Supreme -Court of the United States, could not answer the questions he raised. -The facts were hidden in secret contracts with the railroads. As -regards Cleveland, they did not come out until five years later, in -1885. It then became an adjudicated fact that in 1875, the year before -this "Agreement for an Adventure," the Lake Shore Railroad had made -a contract with the oil combination to drive these very competitors -and all others out of business, just as the same road had done for -the South Improvement Company in 1872. When they escaped from their -"reconciler," they brought this railroad and the contract into court. -The case was fought up to the Supreme Court. - -That tribunal found that the Lake Shore road had contracted with this -company to carry its products ten cents per barrel cheaper than for any -other customers. It showed that this made a difference to the victims -of the "Adventure" equal to more than 21 per cent. a year on their -capital. - -"The understanding," the court said, "was to keep the price _down_ for -the favored customers, but _up_ for all the others, and the inevitable -tendency and effect of this contract was to enable the Standard Oil -Company to establish and maintain an overshadowing monopoly, to ruin -all other operators, and drive them out of business." The course of the -railroad the court declared to be one of "active participation in the -unlawful purposes" of the oil company. The Lake Shore was to have all -its business out of Cleveland, but, a competing railroad being built, -the Lake Shore made a contract to give this new line a part of the -plum, to induce it to unite in the policy of keeping freights _down_ -for the favored customer, and _up_ for all others. When the President -of the trust was asked afterwards by the New York Legislature if there -had been no arrangement by which it got its transportation cheaper than -others could, he replied, "No, sir." And later he reiterated that in -their arrangements for freight there was "nothing peculiar."[103] - -But the Supreme Court of Ohio, in describing this arrangement, -diversify the staid rhetoric of their legal deliverance with the -unaffected exclamation: - -"How peculiar!" - -They declared the contract between the two railroads "void," and "not -only contrary to a sound public policy, but to the lax demands of -the commercial honesty and ordinary methods of business." They also -pronounced the contract between the railroad and the oil company as -"made to build up a monopoly," and as "unlawful."[104] - -The great lawyer, we have said, could not answer the questions he -asked. The facts, we have said, were hidden in a secret contract. And -yet the answers to the questions, the facts, had been all brought to -the verge of disclosure by the investigation by Congress early in the -same year, 1876. - -Although the investigation, in consequence of the "I object" of the -Hon. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland,[105] had been referred to the -Committee of Commerce, and though the railroad and oil clique men -would not answer, and the committee would not press them, there was a -volunteer witness from Cleveland, who began to upset all the plans to -smother. This willing witness was a Cleveland refiner, a shrewd man, -as would easily be believed by those who knew that he was the brother -of an organizer of the oil combination. He, too, had been a member of -it, but for some reasons was now "out," and was one of the swimmers -who felt themselves being drawn down. He betook himself for relief to -Congress. He dodged no subpoenas, but, going before the Committee of -Commerce, he began to tell more fully than any other witness had ever -done, or had ever been able to do, the story of the relations between -the combination and the railroads, which he knew of his personal -knowledge. When he began talking in this free way to the public -authorities, his former associates saw that they had underestimated -his abilities as a refiner. They began to feel that it might be well -to make some concessions to this particular brother, though not to the -Brotherhood of Man. - -The investigation was summarily suspended,[106] and his testimony -was spirited away. With the only power that could have interfered -thus silenced, the surviving independents were corralled as we have -described. This was done two short months after the first move was -made, May 16th, for the investigation which might have saved the -independents at Cleveland and elsewhere from the duress which drove men -to death or adventures of reconciliation. - -All over the oil regions the combination has followed this policy of -"not to exceed half."[107] - -Nineteen pages of the testimony of a member in the suit begun by the -Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are taken up with the operations of one -of its constituent companies in the purchase or leasing of competing -refineries, many of which were shut down or pulled down. - -This witness could name only one refinery out of the score of -independent concerns once flourishing in Pittsburg, which was not under -its control.[108] - -"Dismantled," was the monotonous refrain of many of his answers to the -questions as to what had been done with the refineries thus got under -control. Asked why these works had been thus dismantled or shut down, -he explained it variously as due to unfavorable location or worn-out -machinery or some such disadvantage. - -If these works were so badly situated and so illy fitted for the -business and so old, why did it purchase them? "Can you give good -commercial reasons why it would buy all unprofitable junk?" he was -asked.[109] - -"I cannot give any reason why they bought the works," was the helpless -answer. - -From the beginning to the end the language used by the founders of -the combination proves scarcity to have been their object. "There is -a large number of refineries in the country--a great deal larger than -is required for the manufacture of the oil produced in the country, or -for the wants of the consumers in Europe and America," said one of the -principal members in 1872.[110] - -This is almost identical with the language used in 1880 in the effort -to enjoin Cleveland refiners who "threatened to distil." - -In 1887 we will see the same power putting its hand and seal to an -agreement to enforce the doctrine that there was too much oil in the -earth. - -In 1872 there were more refineries than were needed for the oil; in -1887 there was too much oil. The progression is significant. And down -to the present pool with the Scotch refiners we will see the same men -enforcing abroad, year by year, the same gospel of want.[111] - -"The producers in America are quite alive to the wisdom of not -producing too much paraffine, and are already adopting measures to -restrict it," said the chairman at the annual meeting of one of the -principal Scotch companies.[112] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -"YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE" - - -In the obituary column of the Cleveland _Herald_, of June 6, 1874, was -given the news of the death of one of the pioneer manufacturers of -Cleveland. He began the refining of petroleum in that city in 1860, -several years before any of those who afterwards became the sovereigns -of the business had left their railroad platforms, book-keeping stools, -and lawyers' desks. He was married in the same year, and from that -time until his death, in 1874, gave his whole life to his refinery and -his family, and was successful with both. The _Herald_ said of him -editorially: - - "He was well known in Cleveland and elsewhere as a business man of - high character. He was a prominent member of the First Presbyterian - Church, was at one time President of the Young Men's Christian - Association, and was active in all enterprises of a religious and - benevolent character. He was about forty years of age, and leaves a - wife and three children." - -His enterprise had been "very profitable," his wife said afterwards -in court, in narrating how she and her children fared after the death -of the husband, father, and bread-winner. "My husband devoted his -entire energies and life to the business from about 1860 to the time -of his death, and had acquired through his name a large patronage. My -husband went into debt just before his death," she continued, "for the -first time in his life. For the interest of my fatherless children, as -well as myself, I thought it my duty to continue the business. I took -$75,000 of the $100,000 of stock, and continued from that time, 1874, -until November, 1878, making handsome profits, during perhaps the -hardest business years of the time since my husband had begun."[113] - -The business received from her the most thorough and faithful -attention, and she maintained the prosperity her husband had founded by -making a profit of about $25,000 a year. - -A representative of one of the oil combination came to her, she -continued, "with a proposition that I should sell to them." This -agent was "a brother manufacturer," who, but a short time before in -a conference with her, had agreed that in view of the dangers which -seemed to threaten them, he and she should mutually watch out for each -other, and that no arrangement should be made by either without letting -the other know. The next she saw of her ally he pounced upon her in her -office with the news that he was in the oil combination, that the head -of it had told him he meant to have control of the refining business -if it took him ten years, but he hoped to have it in two. He went on -to warm the woman's heart by the declaration that since he had become -acquainted with the secrets of the organization he wondered that he and -she had been able to hold out so long. After which preliminaries he -proposed that she, too, should sell to it. With sagacity and spirit she -declined point-blank to have any negotiation with him. - -She declined to deal with subordinates, and said she did not want to -sell. The principal then called upon her at her residence. This was -in 1878, and these were dark days for "outside" refiners. One by one -they were sinking out of sight, and slipping under the yoke like the -victims of the "reconciliation" and "equalization" described in the -last chapter. - -For six years word had been passing from one frightened lip to -another that they were all destined for the maw or the morgue, and -the fulfilment of the word had been appalling. He knew the members of -the oil combination, one of the best-known veterans of the oil region -testified in this case, naming them; "I have heard some of them say, in -substance, 'that they intended to wipe out all the refineries in the -country except their own, and to control the entire refining business -of the United States.'" - -"The big fish are going to eat the little fish," one of the big fish -told a neighbor and competitor. When one of the little fish said he -"would not sell and was not afraid," he was told, "You may not be -afraid to have your head cut off, but your body will suffer!" - -The woman was brave with love and enthusiasm for the memory of her -husband and the future of her children. She had had a great success, -but she knew the sea she was swimming. She saw strong men going down on -every side. She herself afterwards told in court of her great anxiety -as she would hear of one refinery after another surrendering, feeling -sure that that would eventually be the fate of her company. - -All that the witnesses just quoted had reported, all that was said -of the same tenor by the witnesses before Congress in 1876, and much -more, had been filling the hearts of the business men of Cleveland, -Pittsburg, Titusville, New York, with a reign of terror ever since -1872. It was with a full realization of all this that she went down -to her parlor to receive the great man of commerce, who passes the -contribution-box for widows' mites outside the church as well as -within. This gentleman was in her house in pursuance, practically, of -his own motion. She did not want to sell; the suggestion of a sale had -come from the other side. "I told him," the widow said to the judge, -"that I realized that my company was entirely in the power" of his -company. "All I can do," I said to him, "is to appeal to your honor -as a gentleman, and to your sympathy, to do the best with me that you -can. I beg of you to consider your wife in my position, left with this -business and with fatherless children, and with a large indebtedness -that my husband had just contracted for the first time in his life. I -felt that I could not do without the income arising from this business, -and I have taken it up and gone on, and been successful in the hardest -years since my husband commenced." "I am aware," he replied, "of what -you have done. My wife could never have accomplished so much." She had -become alarmed, the woman of business resumed, because his company was -"getting control of all the refineries in the country." - -He promised, with tears in his eyes, that he would stand by her. It -should never be said, he cried, that he had wronged the widow of his -fellow-refiner. "He agreed that I might retain whatever amount of stock -I desired. He seemed to want only the control. I thought his feelings -were such that I could trust him, and that he would deal honorably -with me." This was the last she saw of him. He promised to come to -see her during the negotiations, but did not do so. He promised to -assist and advise her, but did not do so. He declined to conduct the -negotiations with her in person as she requested, "stating to her," -he said, in giving his version of the affair to the court, "that I -knew nothing about her business or the mechanical appliances used in -the same, and that I could not pursue any negotiations with her with -reference to the same; but that if, after reflection, she desired to -do so, some of our people familiar with the lubricating-oil business -would take up the question with her.... When she responded, expressing -her fears about the future of the business, stating that she could -not get cars to transport sufficient oil, and other similar remarks, -I stated to her that though we were using our cars, and required them -in our own business, yet we would loan her any number she required, or -do anything else in reason to assist her, and I saw no reason why she -could not prosecute her business just as successfully in the future -as in the past." This assurance to his widow-competitor that he would -let her have cars was, of itself, enough to justify all her alarm, and -show that there was no hope for her but in making the best surrender -possible. It was proof positive that he did control the transportation, -that the well-defined report that no one but he and his could get -their business done by the railroad was true. Permission to go upon -the highways by the favor of a competitor is too thin a plank for even -a woman to be got to walk. Withdrawing from direct connection, but -managing the affair to the end as he testifies, he sent back to her the -agent she had refused to talk with. - -Negotiations were accordingly resumed perforce with this agent. He -submitted to his principals a statement in her behalf of the value of -the property, but did not waste time over the form of letting her see -it, or consulting with her before submitting it in her name. - -This statement she never authorized, never heard of, and never read -until it was produced in court against her.[114] - -One interesting feature of the contract which was the subject of the -"adventure" described in the chapter "Not to Exceed Half" was repeated -here. The representative who "took up this matter" with the widow -carried on his bargaining in great part with the minor stockholders, -one of whom claimed afterwards that all he had done was under her -directions, and "to her entire satisfaction." But she was entirely -unaware of either her "directions" or her "satisfaction." "He never -had the slightest authority from me to represent me in any way in the -sale."[115] - -Another of the minor stockholders also busied himself in representing -her without her knowledge. On behalf of the widow agents were making -figures, though she knew nothing of their agency or the figures. -By these combined efforts a sale was finally concluded at figures -which, though she owned seven-tenths of the property, she had never -authorized, and were far below the only figures she had given as those -she was willing to take. - -Compelled to deal with a subordinate against her will, fearing to -remain in so hazardous an occupation, and yet needing for her children -the income it brought her, this woman manufacturer's position was most -harassing. All through, as her cashier and treasurer told the court, -she was dissatisfied, felt that she was compelled to sell though she -wanted to retain her property. - -"In my hearing," her confidential clerk said, "she declared she sold -because she was compelled to do so." - -She told her fellow-stockholders that she had been informed by the -agent who was dealing with her, that if they did not sell out it would -only be a question of time before they would be forced to sell out, as -he intended to place oil like that made by her company in the hands of -all their agents, to undersell them and close them out. This decided -them to sell. - -"Inasmuch as the managers of the Standard Oil Company appeared to have -made up their minds to obtain this property, and not to give them the -chance they had before in competition," the stockholders, as one of -them testified, "concluded it better to sell the property at such price -as they could then get, rather than to run the risk of a still greater -loss in the future, not one of the stockholders desiring to part with -the property at all, but rather choosing with fair competition to -retain their interest in the property."[116] - -She had made 15 per cent. in the last six months, and, aside from -these threats, the business looked prosperous, for the orders were -becoming more numerous every day. But the widow could refuse to sell -only by braving threats which had broken more than two out of three -of all the men about her. She put upon the property a price warranted -by its income, $200,000, which was adopted by the directors of the -company in a formal motion authorizing a sale at that figure. But in -her name a proposition was made by the agent to sell for $71,000. "I -never heard of the figure of $71,000," she says, "and cannot imagine -where it originated. The only proposition that was ever made was that -of $200,000." What the stock was worth in her estimation and that -of her employes who had inside knowledge is seen in the evidence of -her confidential clerk. Though he was her nephew also, he had with -difficulty, he says, bought stock at par. - -She had refused to sell at par to others. Now the only offer she could -get was $60,000 for the works and good-will, the purchasers paying in -addition the cash value of the material in stock, and at that price she -had to let them go. She asked to be allowed to remain an owner to the -extent of $15,000 in the business into which she and her husband had -built their lives. "No outsider can have any interest in this concern," -was the reply. The combination "has dallied as long as it will over -this matter," its agent continued. "It must be settled up to-day or go." - -The power of this business to produce a profit of $25,000 a year was -worth almost $400,000, according to the valuations maintained for -the stock of the oil trust on the New York Stock Exchange by the men -who bought out the widow. One hundred dollars in oil trust stock -producing $12 a year has sold as high as $185. If $12 a year was -worth $185, $25,000 a year was worth nearly $400,000. It was part of -the agreement that the oil company should go on as before. "It was -particularly enjoined," testified the cashier and treasurer, "that the -sale should be kept a profound secret."[117] It was intended that the -company should go on as before as far as the public was concerned. The -purchasers agreed to continue to employ the hands already at work, but -stipulated that not a word should be said to any one of them to reveal -that the company was not as independent as it had been.[118] - -"And you are not to engage in the refining business," is the concluding -phrase of an agreement between the oil combination and a once -competitor whom it had forced to sell out in 1876.[119] - -"You are not to engage in refining," the same power said in 1877 to the -Pennsylvania Railroad, and now to this widow: You must sign this bond -not to go into business again for ten years. - -The bond is given in full in the record of the case. It put the widow -under a forfeit of five thousand dollars for ten years, that-- - - "I will not directly, or indirectly, in any way, either alone or in - company with any person, or as a share-holder in any corporation, - engage in or in any way concern myself or allow knowingly any capital - or moneys to be employed in the business or trade of refining, - manufacturing, producing, piping, or dealing in petroleum, or any of - its products, within the county of Cuyahoga, and State of Ohio, nor at - any other place whatsoever."[120] - -Their secret of success, the president swore in this very case, is "the -very large volume" of purchases, "long continuance in the business," -"experience," "knowledge of all the avenues of trade," "skill of -experienced employes," and so forth. But with all this they did not -dare leave this middle-aged woman free to challenge them again on -the field of competition. The purchase was made in the name of three -members of the great oil company, and it was paid for by the check of -that concern. - -Of these men one was among the "trustees" indicted and tried in 1885 -for complicity in the plot to blow up a rival refinery, but let go by -the judge. - -At the time the sale was concluded the widow refiner declared, "The -obtaining of her stock was no better than stealing." When the papers -were brought to her to sign she "hesitated," and said, "It is like -signing my death-warrant. I believe it will prove my death-warrant." -"The promises made by the president," she testifies, "were none of them -fulfilled." - -Being only a woman, and not understanding "business," for all her -brilliant success in stepping into her husband's place, and doing -the double work of home-maker and bread-winner, the widow could not -restrain herself from giving a most uncommercial piece of her mind -to those who had got possession of her property for a sum which they -would recover out of its profits in two or three years. She sent the -following letter: - - "November 11, 1878, Monday Morning. - - "SIR,--When you left me at the time of our interview the other - morning, after promising me so much, you said you had simply dropped - the remarks you had for my thought. I can assure you I have thought - much and long as I have waited and watched daily to see you fulfil - those promises, and it is impossible for me to tell you how utterly - astonished I am at the course you have pursued with me. Were it not - for the knowledge I have that there is a God in heaven, and that you - will be compelled to give an account for all the deeds done here, and - there, in the presence of my husband, will have to confess whether you - have wronged me and his fatherless children or not--were it not for - this knowledge I could not endure it for a moment, the fact that a - man, possessed of the millions that you are, will permit to be taken - from a widow a business that had been the hard life work and pride - of herself and husband, one that was paying the handsome profit of - nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, and give me in return - what a paltry sum, that will net me less than three thousand dollars; - and it is done in a manner that says, Take this or we will crush you - out. And when, on account of the sacred associations connected with - the business, and also the family name it bears, I plead that I may be - permitted to retain a slight interest (you having promised the same - at our interview), you then, in your cold, heartless manner, send - me word that no outsider can hold a dollar's worth of stock in that - concern. It seems strange to be called an outsider in a business that - has been almost entirely our own and built up at the _cost_ it has to - ourselves. It is impossible for us to find language to express our - perfect indignation at such proceedings. We do not envy you in the - least when this is made known in all its detail to the public. One of - your own number admits that it is a great _moral_ wrong, but says as - long as you can cover the points legally you think you are all right. - I doubt, myself, very much the legality of all these things. But do - not forget, my dear sir, that God will judge us morally, not legally, - and should you offer him your entire monopoly, it will not make it - any easier for you. I should not feel that I had done my entire duty - unless, before I close, I drop a remark for your thoughts. In my poor - way I have tried, by my life and example, with all those I have come - in contact with in a business way, to persuade them to a higher, - purer, and better life. I think there is no place in the world that - one has such opportunities to work for good or evil as in a business - life. I cannot tell you the sorrow it has caused me to have one of - those in whom I have had the greatest hopes tell me, within the last - few days, that it was enough to drive _honest_ men away from the - Church of God, when professing Christians do as you have done by me." - -In reply to this she received a letter in which her charge that her -business had been taken from her was repelled as "a most grievous -wrong," and "a great injustice." She was reminded that two years -before she had consulted with the writer and another member of the -oil combination "as to selling out your interest, at which time you -were desirous of selling at _considerably less price_, and upon time, -than you have now received in cash, and which sale you would have been -glad to have closed if you could have obtained satisfactory security -for the deferred payments. As to the price paid for the property, it -is certainly three times greater than the cost at which we could now -construct equal or better facilities." - -The letter concluded with an offer to return the works upon the return -of the money, or, if she preferred, to sell her one hundred, or two -hundred, or three hundred shares of the stock at the price that had -been paid her. These propositions were left open to her for three days. - -The "cost of the works" is not the standard of value in such -transactions. Six millions of dollars, according to a member of the -committee of Congress which investigated the oil trust in 1888, is the -value of the "works" on which they issued $90,000,000 of stock, which -sold in the stock market at a valuation of $160,000,000. - -The offer to sell back the refinery was like the offer to let her have -cars. To accept it was to pass openly and consciously into slavery. -Two years before, when she was weak with grief, inexperience, and the -fear that she might not succeed in her gallant task of paying her -husband's debts and saving the livelihood of the children, she had -thought of selling out at a sacrifice. They knew this because she had -asked their advice, and now cheapened her down by reference to the -valuation of that moment of despair. All the life energies of herself -and her husband, the various advantages of position, the benefit of -their pioneership since 1860, and of having established a place in so -lucrative a business, all the good-will of customers, all the elements -that contributed to the ability to earn the nearly $25,000 a year she -was making, were brushed out of the bargain by the mere assertion of -a figure at which it was alleged better works could be built. By the -time the offer was made she had, moreover, put the sum she had received -into such investments, she told the court, as she had been able to -find, and the money to accept the offer was no longer in her hands. -Indignant with these thoughts, and the massacred troop of hopes and -ambitions that her brave heart had given birth to, she threw the letter -into the fire, where it curled up into flames like those from which -a Dives once begged for a drop of water. She never reappeared in the -world of business, where she had found no chivalry to help a woman save -her home, her husband's life-work, and her children. But when the men -who had divided her property among them invoked the assistance of the -law to complete the "equalization" told of in the previous chapter, -she went into court and told her story to save her friends from ruin. -There, under the gathering dust of years, this incident has remained -buried in the document-room of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga -County, until now brought forth to give the people a glimpse into what -the real things are which our professors of market philosophy cover -with their glittering generalities about the cost of production and the -survival of the fittest. - -This episode and that of the "Agreement for an Adventure" in the -preceding chapter have been written up by the author from the original -papers on file in the Court of Common Pleas at Cleveland, which he -visited for that purpose in 1891. Certified copies of the documents -were procured from the clerk of the court. Lately, the astounding fact -was ascertained that all the documents except two or three formal -pleadings were gone from the records of the court. But for these -certified copies there would now be no authentic record of these cases. -This disappearance bears a strong likeness to the suppression of the -investigation by the Committee of Commerce of Congress in 1872, and the -theft of the testimony taken by the House Committee of Commerce[121] -in 1876, and the mutilation of the transcript submitted to Congress in -1888 of the evidence taken in the Buffalo Explosion Case.[122] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -"NO!" - - -There has never been any real break in the plans revealed, "partly -born," "and buried" in 1872. From then till now, in 1893, every fact -that has come to the surface has shown them in full career. If they -were buried, it was as seed is--for a larger crop of the same thing. - -The people had made peace, in 1872, on the pledge of "perfect equality" -on the highways. Hardly had they got back to their work when they -began to feel the pinch of privilege again. The Pennsylvania road -alone is credited with any attempt to keep faith, and that only "for -some months." "Gradually," as a committee of the people wrote to the -managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, "the persons constituting the -South Improvement Company were placed by the roads in as favorable -a position as to rates and facilities as had been stipulated in the -original contract with that company."[123] - -As soon as pipe lines were proved practicable they were built as -rapidly as pipes and men to put them in the ground could be had, but -there was some lubricant by which they kept constantly slipping into -bankruptcy. - -They were "frozen out," as one of their builders said, "summer as well -as winter." - -By 1874, twenty pipe lines had been laid in the oil country. Eighty per -cent. of them died off in that and the following year.[124] The mere -pipes did not die, they are there yet; but the ownership of the many -who had built them died. - -There were conservatives in the field to whom competition was as -distasteful as to the socialists. To "overcome such competition," and -to insure them "a full and regular" and "remunerative business" in -pipe lines, in the language of the South Improvement Company contract, -all that was needed was to put into operation the machinery of that -contract which no longer existed--in name. The decease of the name was -not an insuperable obstacle. - -In exact reproduction of the plan of 1872, the railroads, in October, -1874, advanced rates to the general ruin, but to the pool of lines -owned by their old friends of the South Improvement Company they paid -back a large rebate. That those who had such a railroad Lord Bountiful -to fill their pockets should grow rich fast was a matter of course.[125] - -Getting this refund they got all the business. Oil, like other things, -follows the line of least resistance, and will not flow through pipes -where it has to pay when it can run free and get something to boot. -Nobody could afford to buy oil except those who were in this deal. They -could go into the market, and out of these bonuses could bid higher -than any one else. They "could overbid in the producing regions, and -undersell in the markets of the world."[126] - -This was not all. In the circular which announced the bounty to the -pet pipes there was another surprise. It showed that the roads had -agreed to carry crude oil to their friends' refineries at Pittsburg and -Cleveland without charge from the wells, and to charge them no more for -carrying back refined oil to the seaboard for export than was charged -to refineries next door to the wells and hundreds of miles nearer the -market. "Outside" refiners who had put themselves near the wells and -the seaboard were to be denied the benefit of their business sagacity. -The Cleveland refiners, whose location was superior only for the -Western trade, were to be forced into a position of unnatural equality -in the foreign trade. In short, the railroads undertook to pay, instead -of being paid, for what they carried for these friends, and force them -into an equality with manufacturers who had builded better than they. - -Evidently they who had contrived all this had their despondent moments, -when they feared that its full beneficence would not be understood by a -public unfamiliar with the "science of transportation." - -To the new rules was attached an explanation which asserted the right -of the railroads to prevent persons and localities from enjoying the -advantage of any facility they may possess, no matter how "real." - -"You will observe that under this system the rate is even and fair to -all parties, preventing one locality taking advantage of its neighbor -by reason of some alleged or real facility it may possess."[127] - -Meanwhile good society was shuddering at its reformers, and declaring -that they meant to stop competition and "divide up property." - -"Do you do that in any business except oil?" the most distinguished -railroad man of that day was asked. "Do you carry a raw product to -a place 150 miles distant and back again to another point like that -without charge, so as to put them on an equality?" - -To which he replied--it was he who could not remember that he had ever -seen the South Improvement Company contract he signed in 1872--"I don't -know."[128] - -"Could any more flagrant violation of every principle of railroad -economy and natural justice be imagined than this?" the report of the -New York Legislature asks.[129] - -An expert introduced by the railroads defended this arrangement. He -insisted that all pipe lines had a chance to enter the pool and get the -same refund.[130] But a witness from the pipe-line country, who was -brought to New York to testify to the relations of the railroads and -the oil combination, let out the truth. - -"Why didn't they go into the pool?" he was asked, in reference to one -of the most important pipe lines. - -"Because they were not allowed to. They wanted to freeze them out. They -were shut out from the market practically."[131] - -For these enterprises, as they failed one after the other, there was -but one buyer--the group of gentlemen who called themselves the South -Improvement Company in 1872, but now in the field of pipe-line activity -had taken the name of United Pipe Line, since known as the National -Transit Company, and then and now a part of the oil trust. - -"The United Pipe Line bought up the pipes as they became bankrupt one -after another," testified the same friendly witness.[132] - -Then came a great railroad war in 1877. A fierce onslaught was made on -the Pennsylvania Railroad by all the other trunk lines. - -In this affair, as in all dynastic wars, the public knew really nothing -about what was being done or why. The newspapers were filled with the -smoke of the battles of the railroad kings; but the newspapers did not -tell, for they did not then know, that the railroads were but tools of -conquest in the hands of greater men. - -The cause of the trouble was that the managers of the Pennsylvania -Railroad had begun to reach out for the control of the oil trade. -They had joined in the agreement in 1872 to give it to the oil -combination, but now they wanted it for themselves. Through a mistletoe -corporation--the Empire Transportation Company--they set to work -building up a great business in oil cars, pipe lines, refineries. - -"We like competition; we like our competitors; we are neighbors and -friends, and have been all these years," the president of the oil -trust testified to the New York Legislature,[133] but he served notice -upon this competitor to abandon the field.[134] He and his associates -determined to do more than compel the great railroad to cease its -competition. They determined to possess themselves of its entire oil -outfit, though it was the greatest corporation then in America. This, -the boldest stroke yet attempted, could be done only with the help of -the other trunk lines, and that was got. - -The ruling officials of the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore -and Ohio, the Lehigh Valley, the Reading, the Atlantic and Great -Western, the Lake Shore railroads, and their connections, were made to -believe, or pretended to believe, that it was their duty to make an -attack upon the Pennsylvania Railroad to force it to surrender.[135] -"A demand," says the New York Legislative Committee of 1879, "which -they"--the railroads--"joined hands with the Standard Oil Company and -proceeded to enforce by a war of rates, which terminated successfully -in October of that year" (1877).[136] - -The war was very bitter. Oil was carried at eight cents a barrel less -than nothing by the Pennsylvania.[137] How low the rates were made by -the railroads on the other side is not known. The Pennsylvania was the -first to sue for peace. Twice its vice-president "went to Canossa," -which was Cleveland. It got peace and absolution only by selling its -refineries and pipe lines and mortgaging its oil cars to the oil -combination. It "was left without the control of a foot of pipe line to -gather, a tank to receive, or a still to refine a barrel of petroleum, -and without the ability to secure the transportation of one, except -at the will of men who live and whose interests lie in Ohio and New -York."[138] - -It was only seven years since the buyers had organized with a -capital of $1,000,000. Now they were able to give their check for -over $3,000,000 for this one purchase. "I was surprised," said Mr. -Vanderbilt to the New York Legislative Committee of 1878, speaking -of this transaction, "at the amount of ready cash they were able to -provide." They secured, in addition to the valuable pipe lines, oil -cars, and refineries in New York and Pennsylvania, the more valuable -pledge given by the Pennsylvania Railroad that it would never again -enter the field of competition in refining, and also a contract -giving the oil combination one-tenth of all the oil freights received -by the Pennsylvania Railroad, whether from the combination or its -competitors--an arrangement it succeeded in making as well with the New -York Central, Lake Shore, and other railroads.[139] - -One of the earliest members of the oil combination was present at the -meeting to consummate this purchase. Something over $3,000,000 of his -and his associates' cash changed hands. The meeting was important -enough to command the presence of a brigade of lawyers for the great -corporations, and of the president, vice-president, and several -directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, representing the Poor -Man's Light, the vice-president, the secretary, and five of the leading -members of the combination, besides himself.[140] - -But when asked in court about it he could not remember any such -meeting. Finally, he recalled "being at a meeting," but he could not -remember when it was, or who was there, or what it was for, or whether -any money was paid.[141] - -Three years later this transaction having been quoted against the -combination in a way likely to affect the decision of a case in -court,[142] the treasurer denied it likewise. "It is not true as stated -... directly or indirectly...."[143] - -Eight years later, when the exigencies of this suit of 1880, in -Cleveland, had passed away, and a new exigency demanded a "revised -version," the secretary of the combination told Congress that it was -true.[144] - -"The pleasures of memory" are evidently for poets, not for such -millionaires. That appears to be the only indulgence they cannot -afford. - -The managers of the Pennsylvania road went back with the zeal of -backsliders reconverted to their yoke in the service of the men who had -given them this terrific whipping. They sent word to the independent -refiners, whom they had secured as shippers by the pledge of 1872 of -equal treatment, that equal rates and facilities could be given no -longer. The producers and refiners did not sit down dumb under the -death sentence. They begged for audience of their masters, masters of -them because masters of the highway. - -The third vice-president, the official in charge of the freight -business, was sent to meet them. - -"As you know," they began by reminding him, "we have been for the past -year the largest shippers of petroleum the Pennsylvania Railroad has -had." - -He acknowledged it. - -"Shall we, after the 1st of May, have as low a rate of freight as -anybody else?" they then asked. - -"No," he said; "after the 1st of May we shall give the Standard Oil -Company lower rates than to you." - -"How much discrimination will we have to submit to?" the poor -"outsiders" asked. - -"I decline to tell you," was the reply. - -"How much business must we bring your road to get as good rates as the -combination?" they then asked, and again-- - -"I decline to tell you," was the only answer they got. - -"If we will ship as much, will you give us as low freight rates?" - -"No." - -"We have been shipping over the Pennsylvania Railroad a year," they -persisted, "why can we not continue?" - -"It would make them mad; they are the only people who can make peace -between the railroads." - -"I think," said he, "you ought to fix it up with them. I am going over -there this afternoon to talk with those people about this matter, and," -he continued, "you will all be happy, and everything will work along -very smoothly." - -"We gave him very distinctly to understand that we did not propose to -enter into any 'fix up' where we would lose our identity, or sell out, -or be under anybody else's thumb; we are willing to pay as high a rate -of freight as anybody, and we want it as low as anybody has it," they -told him. - -But the reply to all of it was, "You cannot have the same rate of -freight." - -As the magnate of the railroad seemed to be determined not to permit -them to move to market along his rails, one of the independents -referred to a plan for a new pipe line then under consideration by -them, the Equitable, as perhaps promising them the relief he refused. - -"Lay all the pipe lines you like," the vice-president retorted, with -feeling, "and we will buy them up for old iron." - -The independents appealed from the third vice-president to the -president; they had to beg repeatedly for a hearing before they got -it. They came together in the June following, the independents coming -on from New York for the purpose. Since their interview with the third -vice-president rates had been advanced upon them, and not only that, -but when they had oil ready to ship at those high freight rates, the -railroad on one pretext or another refused them cars. One of them had -contracts to deliver oil from his refinery in New York to go abroad. -When he ordered the cars that were needed to take the crude oil to New -York to be refined they were refused him. The ships lay idle at the -docks, charging him heavy damages for every day of delay; at the wells -his oil was running on the ground. - -"You had better go and arrange with the Standard Oil Company; I don't -want to get into any trouble with them," the president said. "If you -are business men, you will make an arrangement with them. I will do all -in my power to bring it about." - -"We will never take our freight rates from them," they replied; "we are -not willing to enter into any such arrangement." - -"Why don't you go to the other roads?" the president asked his -suppliants. - -"We have done so. It's of no use. On the New York Central the cars are -owned by the combination, and the Erie is in a like position. We have -been shippers on the Pennsylvania Railroad a long, long while, and -you ought to take care of us and give us all the cars we need. We are -suffering very greatly for the want of them. Can we have the same rate -that other shippers get?" - -"No." - -"If we ship the same amount of oil?" - -"No." - -"If you have not cars enough, will you, if we build cars, haul them?" - -"No. You will not have any peace or prosperity," continued the -president, "until you make terms with the combination." - -Like the third vice-president he offered to intercede with them to get -transportation over his own road for his own customers. Like men they -refused the offer. - -"We were, of course, very indignant," one of them said, in relating -this experience in court.[145] - -A little later a rich and expert refiner, who had sold out in 1876, -made up his mind to try again. The Pennsylvania road had a new -president by this time, but the old "no" was still in force. - -"When I was compelled to succumb I thought it was only temporarily, -that the time would come when I could go into the business I was -devoted to. I was in love with the business. I took a run across the -water; I was tired and discouraged and used up in 1878, and was gone -three or four months. I came back ready for work, and had the plan, -specifications and estimates made for a refinery that would handle -ten thousand barrels of oil in a day. I selected a site near three -railroads and a river; I would have spent about five hundred thousand -dollars, and probably a couple of hundred thousand more. I believed the -time had arrived when the Pennsylvania Railroad would see their true -interest as common carriers, and the interest of their stockholders, -and the business interest of the City of Philadelphia. I called on the -President of the Pennsylvania Railroad; I laid the plans before him, -and told him I wanted to build a refinery of ten thousand barrels' -capacity a day. I was almost on my knees begging him to allow me to do -that. - -"'What is it you want?' he said. - -"'Simply to be put upon an equality with everybody else--especially the -Standard Oil Company. I want you to agree with me that you will give me -transportation of crude oil as low as you give it to anybody else for -ten years, and then I will give you a written assurance that I will do -this refining of ten thousand barrels of oil a day for ten years. Is -not that an honest position for us to be in? I as a manufacturer, you -the president of a railroad.' - -"'I cannot go into any such agreement.' - -"I saw the third vice-president. He said, in his frank way, 'That is -not practicable, and you know the reason why.'"[146] - -After their interviews with the President and Vice-President of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, these outsiders went to the officials of the -other roads, only to hear the same "No!" from all.[147] - -At one time, to get oil to carry out their contracts and fill the -vessels which were waiting at the docks and charging them damages for -the delay, these refiners telegraphed to the oil regions offering the -producers there ten cents above the market price if they could get oil -to them over any of the roads to New York. They answered they could not -get the cars, and none of them accepted the offer.[148] - -All the roads--as in 1872--were in league to "overcome" them. - -Thus, at a time when the entire movement of oil was at the rate of -only 25,000 or 30,000 barrels a day, and the roads had cars enough to -move 60,000 barrels a day, these independent refiners found themselves -shut completely off from the highway.[149] The Pennsylvania Railroad, -the New York Central, the Erie, and their branches and connections in -and out of the oil regions, east and west, were as entirely closed to -them as if a foreign enemy had seized the country and laid an embargo -on their business--which was, indeed, just what had happened. The only -difference between that kind of invasion and what had really come -was, that "the dear people," as the president of the trust called -them,[150] would have known they were in the hands of an enemy if he -had come beating his drums loud enough, and firing off his two-thousand -pounders often enough, and pricking them deep enough with his bayonets; -but their wits are not yet up to knowing him when he comes among them -disguised as an American citizen, although they see property destroyed -and life lost and liberty thrown wherever he moves. - -There was enough virtue in Pennsylvania to begin a suit in the name -of the State against the men who were using its franchises for such -purposes, though there was not enough to push it to a decision. The -Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, when examined as a -witness in this suit, confirmed these statements about the interviews -with himself and the president of the road in every particular about -which he was questioned. - -"We stated to the outside refiners that we would make lower rates to -the Standard Oil Company than they got; we declined to allow them to -put cars of their own on the road."[151] - -His evidence fills seventy-six pages, closely printed, in the report of -testimony. It was clear, full, and candid; remarkably so, considering -that it supplied officially from the company's own records the facts, -item by item, which proved that the management of the Pennsylvania -Railroad had violated the Constitution of Pennsylvania and the common -law, and had taken many millions of dollars from the people and -from the corporation which employed them, and secretly, and for no -consideration, had given them to strangers. - -This testimony is so important that it was reprinted substantially -in full both by the "Hepburn" committee of the New York Legislature -in 1879[152] and the Trust Investigating Committee of Congress in -1888.[153] As instances, it showed that in one case where the rate to -the public was $1.15, this favored shipper was charged only 38 cents. -In another case the trade generally had to pay $1.40 a barrel on crude -petroleum, but the oil combination paid 88-1/2 cents. - -"And then the refined rate was 80 cents?" - -"80 cents net to the Standard." - -"And to all others?" - -"$1.44-1/2." - -"But there were no other outside shippers," he pleaded--how could there -be? - -There was only one important member in Pennsylvania of the oil -combination who could be caught with a subpoena. At his first -appearance in court, on the witness stand, he took lofty ground. - -"I decline to answer."[154] - -Put on the stand again, he was asked: - -"Were you allowed a rebate amounting to 64-1/2 cents per barrel?" - -"No, sir; not to my knowledge."[155] - -Put on the third time and compelled to produce his books, he had to -read aloud in court the entries showing the payment he had thus denied -under oath. - -"There was a total allowance of 64-1/2 cents per barrel."[156] - -And then he shut up again--but too late; and to all other questions -about his rebates said, gloomily, "I decline to answer." - -When the president of the oil trust was asked afterwards by the New -York Legislature if some company or companies embraced within it had -not enjoyed from railroads more favorable freight rates than outside -refineries, he replied: - -"I do not recall anything of that kind." - -"You have heard of such things?" - -"I have heard much in the papers about it."[157] - -But at the time these rates were being made, one of his principal -associates admitted that the president was the person who attended to -the freight rates.[158] This was also put beyond a doubt in the Ohio -investigation by the evidence of his first partner in the little oil -refinery at Cleveland which had grown so great, he who had furnished -the only mechanical and refining knowledge it had started with, and who -had, until within a year, been a fellow-stockholder and director. - -"Do these contracts contain anything of the nature that would -discriminate against the small refiners of the State?" - -"I think they did.... Up to the time I left the company the open rate -was $1.40 to the seaboard. They"--the oil combination--"ship for 80 -cents.... The president told me it was the rate at that time."[159] - -With every known avenue to the sea thus closed to them it certainly -looked as if all was up with the "outsiders." But the men, who had -too much American spunk to buy peace with dishonor by consenting to -a "fix-up" under compulsion, had the wit to find out a loop-hole -of temporary escape. They built tank boats for the canal, and thus -succeeded in getting 200,000 barrels of oil to New York that summer -before the canal closed.[160] - -Since then all chance of escape by the canal has been cut off. The -railroads made a war of freight rates against it, and the only canal -that connected the oil regions with the Erie canal route to the sea was -dried up, and turned into a way for a railroad by a special act of the -New York Legislature. The railroad so built has ever since been managed -as one of the most diligent promoters of the policy of excluding the -common people from the oil business. - -According to the funeral notices given out by the railroad officials -and the members of the South Improvement Company this concern was dead, -but in the quaint phrase of the producers it was really alive and hard -at work, but "with a new suit of clothes and no name." These interviews -between the independent refiners and the railroad officials of the -three trunk lines form one of the most extraordinary scenes which have -taken place between a government and its subjects since the era of -modern democratic liberty. - -The railway officials are, in the world of the highway, the government. -They hold their supreme power to tax commerce, and to open and close -the highways, solely and altogether by grant of the State, and under -the law of the common carrier. It is only by the exercise of the -sovereign power of eminent domain to take the property of a private -individual by force, without his consent, for public use--never for -any other than public use--and only by the grant of the right to cross -city streets and country roads that the railroads come into existence -at all. This says nothing of the actual cash given to the railroad -projectors by the government, which, in New York State alone, amounts -to upwards of $40,000,000.[161] - -The independent refiners represent the people, claiming of the highway -department of their government those equal rights which all citizens -have as a birthright, and the government informs these citizens that -their rights on the highways have been given as a private estate to -certain friends of the ruling administration, much as William the -Conqueror would give this rich abbey or that fertile manor to one of -his pets. - -"We have no franchise that is not open to all," say the "trustees." "It -is a free open market." "There is nothing peculiar to our companies." -"It is as free as air." - -In truth they have had no less a franchise than, as in 1872, the -excluding possession of all the great trunk-lines out of the oil -country, and all their connections east and west, and this franchise -has since widened until, in 1893, it reaches from ocean to ocean, and -from gulf to gulf. - -Their franchise was meant to be as exclusive as if they had had from -the government letters-patent in the old royal fashion of close -monopolies in East Indian trade, or salt, or tobacco at home, giving -them by name the sole right to use the roads, and forbidding all -others, under pain of business death, from setting their foot on the -highway. But with this difference: the exclusive franchise in the -latter case would exist by law; but in this case it was created in -defiance of law, exists in contempt of the law, and in its living the -law dies daily. - -The refiners and producers who were pleading in this way with the -railroads for a chance to live after May 1, never doubted but that, -as they were told, and as their arrangements with the Pennsylvania -road guaranteed, they were having and were to have at worst until that -date, equal and impartial rates and facilities. Under this safe-conduct -they parleyed for the future. But the Pennsylvania Railroad was at -that moment negotiating with the oil combination to collect from the -independents, under the guise of freight, 20 to 22-1/2 cents a barrel -on all they sent to market, and pay it over to the combination. The -payments were made to one of the rings within the oil ring, called the -American Transfer Company. "It is the same instrumentality under a -different name," said the counsel of the New York Chamber of Commerce -before the New York Legislature. The official of the Pennsylvania road -who issued the order to take this money out of the treasury pleaded -in excuse that proof had been given him that other roads were doing -the same thing.[162] Receipted bills were brought to him, showing that -the New York Central and the Erie had been "for many months" paying -these men who called themselves American Transfer Company for having -"protected" their oil business, sums ranging from 20 cents to 35 cents -a barrel on all the oil those roads transported.[163] So deeply was -the watch-dog of the Pennsylvania road's treasury affected by the -proof that his company was doing less than the other roads, that he -instructed the comptroller to give these men three months' back pay, -which was done. Twenty cents a barrel was sent them out of all the oil -freights collected by the Pennsylvania for the three months preceding, -and thereafter the tribute was paid them monthly. Then it was increased -to 22-1/2 cents a barrel. The same amount per barrel was refunded to -them out of their own freight. They received this on all oil shipped -by them, and also on all shipped by their competitors.[164] They who -received this tribute pretended to the railroad officials that they -"protected" the roads from losing business. The railroad men pretended -to believe it. - -The way in which this revenue was given and got shows what a simple -and easy thing modern business really is--not in any way the -brain-racker political economists have persuaded themselves and us. -The representative of the oil combination writes a bright, cheery -letter; the representative of the Pennsylvania answers it, and there -you are; 22-1/2 cents a barrel on millions of barrels flows out of -the cash-box of the railroad into the cash-box of the combination. -In one year, 1878, this tribute, at the rate of 22-1/2 cents on the -13,750,000 barrels of oil shipped by the three trunk-lines, must have -amounted to $3,093,750. The American Transfer Company had a little -capital of $100,000, and its receipts from this rebate in this one year -would amount to dividends of 3093 per cent. annually; the capital of -the oil combination which owned this Transfer Company was at this time -$3,500,000. - -There are reasons to believe that some of the very railroad men who -turned the money of the railroads over to the American Transfer Company -were among its members. But if all the profit went to the combination, -and none of it was for the railway officials through whom they got -it, their revenue from that source alone would have paid in 1878 a -dividend nearly equal to this capital of $3,500,000. In this device of -the American Transfer Company we again see reappear in 1878, in high -working vitality, the supposed corpse of the South Improvement Company -of 1872. The American Transfer Company was ostensibly a pipe line, and -the railroad officials met the exposure of their "nothing peculiar" -dealings with it by asserting that the payment to it of 22-1/2 cents a -barrel and more was for its service in collecting oil and delivering -it to them; but the Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad -admits that his road paid the money on oil which the American Transfer -Company never handled. - -"This 22-1/2 cents (a barrel) paid the American Transfer Company is not -restricted to oil that passed through their lines?" - -"No, sir; it is paid on all oil received and transported by us."[165] - -The American Transfer Company was not even a pipe line. By the -Pennsylvania laws all incorporated pipe lines must report their -operations and condition monthly to the State. But the publisher of the -petroleum trade reports, and organizer of a bureau of information about -petroleum, with offices in Oil City, London, and New York, issuing -daily reports, testified that the American Transfer Company was not -known in the oil regions at all as a pipe line. It published none of -the statements required by law. "They do not," he said, "make any runs -from the oil-wells." It had once been a pipe line, but "years ago it -was merged in with other lines," and consolidated into the United Pipe -Line, owned and operated by the combination.[166] - -When this arrangement was exposed to public view by the New York -legislative investigation, the "expert" who appeared to explain it away -in behalf of the railroads and their beneficiaries, paraded a false map -of the pipe-line system, drawn and colored to make it seem that the -American Transfer Company was a very important pipe-line.[167] This was -the same "expert" who, as we saw, defended the pipe-line holocaust of -1874 by asserting that "all were to be taken in alike." - -There are three kinds of liars, an eminent judge of New York is fond of -saying--liars, damned liars, and experts. - -When the assistant secretary of the oil combination was asked about -this "transfer" company, he replied, "I don't know anything about -the organization."[168] He had described himself to the committee as -"a clamorer for dividends"; but he declared he knew nothing about an -organization which was "transferring" him dividends at the rate of -$3,093,750 a year on $100,000 of capital. Almost at the very moment -of this denial, receipts were being produced in court in Pennsylvania -which had been given by the cashier of himself and his associates to -the railroads for this money.[169] - -Even if the independents succeeded in saving their oil from wasting on -the ground, and got it into pipe lines, and had it refined, and were -lucky enough to be given cars to carry it to the seaboard, they found -that in leaving the oil regions they had not left behind the "no." Up -to the very edge of the sea were the nets spread for them. - -Part of the bargain of 1872 had been that the brothers of the South -Improvement Company should provide the terminal facilities at the -seaboard.[170] Railroad companies are usually supposed to have their -own yards, storehouses, wharves, and the like, and, as a matter of -fact, the railroads had these. The agreement of 1872 that the South -Improvement Company should furnish the terminal facilities meant--it -was discovered by the New York Legislature in 1879--that such terminals -as the road already had should be turned over to that concern, and that -thereafter nobody should be allowed to build or use terminals except as -it permitted. - -The New York Legislature found, in 1879, that the oil combination -thus owned and controlled the oil terminal facilities of the four -trunk-lines at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. - -"They can use the power here given, and have used it to crush out -opposition."[171] - -"Of course, there is in the Erie contract a statement that every -shipper of oil over the road shall be treated with 'fairness' by the -Standard Oil Company, and our attention was drawn to that," the counsel -of the Chamber of Commerce said.... "In the first place, they have the -exclusive shipment of oil, and therefore nobody could ship oil, and -there was no oil handled for anybody else; but if the Erie Company -should send some for somebody else, why, the sloop could not get to the -dock, and the machinery at the dock would not and could not work by -any possibility so as to get that oil out of that dock and into a ship -(except at the end of a lawsuit)."[172] - -Evidently the "cancellation" of 1872 had not cancelled anything of -substance. Indeed, the "no" of 1878 was wider than the embargo of 1872, -for the fourth great trunk-line, the Baltimore and Ohio, was not one of -the signatories then; but by 1878 it had, like all the others, closed -its port to the people--farming it out as the old regime farmed out the -right to tax provinces. - -He used to meet the president of the oil combination "frequently in the -Erie office," a friend and subordinate has recalled.[173] Railroad -offices are pleasant places to visit when such plums are to be gathered -there as this of the sole right to the freedom of all ports and control -of the commerce of three continents. - -Down to this writing, when the little group of independents who remain -masters of their own refineries along Oil Creek seek to send their oil -in bulk abroad, or to transship it at any one of the principal ports -for other points on the coast, the same power still says the same "no" -as twenty years ago.[174] - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -WHO PIPED AND WHO DANCED - - -Thus, by 1878, the independent producers and refiners found themselves -caught in a battue like rabbits driven in for the sport of a Prince of -Wales. - -If the richest person then in America--that artificial but very real -person the Pennsylvania Railroad--could not keep its pipe lines, nobody -could. The war for the union, which ended with its surrender in 1877, -closed the pipe-line industry to the people. The unanimous "no" of all -the railroads which followed completed the corral. - -Oil, when it got to market, found that those who had become the owners -of the pipe lines were also the owners of most of the refineries, and -so the only large buyers.[175] "Practically to-day there is but one -buyer of crude oil for us.... We take our commodity to one buyer; we -take the price he chooses to give us without redress, with no right of -appeal."[176] - -Then the sole carrier--the pipe-line company--refused to take the oil -into its pipes--the oil as it came out of the wells--unless first sold -to its other self, the oil combination. This was called "immediate -shipment." Forced to waste or sell his oil, the producer, under this -compulsion, had to take what he could get.[177] The Hon. Lewis Emery, -Jr., a member of the State Senate of Pennsylvania, gave the authorities -of the State an account of the "immediate shipment" evolution of -American market liberty. "We go down," he said, "to the office and -stand in a line, sometimes half a day--people in a line reaching out -into the street--sixty and seventy of us. When our turn comes we go in -and ask them to buy, and they graciously will take it. I am an owner in -six different companies, and we all suffer the same." - -To educate the producer to sell "always below the market," the Pipe -Line let his oil spill itself on the ground for a few days. "We lost a -considerable amount of oil, probably several thousand barrels," another -producer said. - -"Will you state at what price as compared with the market price, -whether above or below, you sold that oil?" - -"It was always below." - -Asked why he sold it below the market, he said: - -"Because the line would not run it until it was sold."[178] - -The hills of Pennsylvania began to growl and redden as in 1872. - -The Secretary of Internal Affairs was hung in effigy. Mass meetings -were held--some tumultuous, others quiet; processions of masked men -marched the streets, and groaned and hooted in front of the newspaper -offices and the business places of the combination. In the morning the -streets and sidewalks were frequently found placarded with cabalistic -signs and letters, and occasionally printed proclamations and warnings. -Most of the lending newspapers of the region had been either absolutely -purchased by the oil combination or paid to keep silence. Others -occasionally broke forth in violent articles advising the use of -force.[179] - -In the McKean County field the people rose in rebellion. They got up a -Phantom Party, in its provocation and spirit much like a phantom party -which, contrary to law and order, boarded some ships in Boston harbor a -century before. One thousand men, wrapped in white sheets, marched by -night from Tarport to Bradford, the headquarters in that province of -the sole buyer. Not a word was spoken. - -It was not enough to make the people sell under compulsion. A day -came when the only buyer would not buy and the only piper would not -pipe. This brought the Parker district to the verge of civil war. The -citizens were in a state of terrible excitement; the pipe lines would -not run oil unless it was sold; the only buyers--viz., the agents of -the oil combination--would not buy oil, stating that they could not get -cars; hundreds of wells were stopped to their great injury. Thousands -more, whose owners were afraid to stop them for fear of damage by salt -water, were pumping the oil on the ground. The leaders used all the -influence they had to prevent an outbreak and destruction of railroad -and pipe lines. The most important of them went over to the Allegheny -Valley Railroad office and telegraphed to the president: "The refusal -to run oil unless sold upon immediate shipment and of the railroad to -furnish cars has created such a degree of excitement here that the -most conservative part of the citizens will not be able to control the -peace, and I fear that the scenes of last July will be repeated on an -aggravated scale."[180] - -Three of the highest officials of the road sought an immediate -interview with this leader of the producers. He warned them, and the -Pennsylvania road which controlled their oil business, that unless -immediate relief were furnished there would be an outbreak in the -oil regions, because, as he told them, "The idea of a scarcity of -cars on daily shipments of less than 30,000 barrels a day was such an -absurd, barefaced pretence, that he could not expect men of ordinary -intelligence to accept any excuses for the absence of cars, as the -preceding fall, when business required, the railroads could carry day -after day from 50,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil."[181] The warning was -heeded. Thousands of empty cars, which the combination and its railroad -allies had said couldn't be had anywhere, suddenly appeared hastening -to Parker, blocking up the tracks in all directions, deranging the -passenger business of the road. "They looked like mosquitoes coming -out of a swamp." The sole buyer began buying again, and for the whole -week, after having declared themselves unable to buy or move any, the -railroads moved 50,000 barrels a day.[182] Producers under such rule -saw their prices decrease and their land pass out of their possession, -as was inevitable. - -Ten years later in the Ohio oil-field all the substantial features -of the plan we saw culminate at Parker are to be found in full play. -There, also, the oil combination, Congress was told, is the only -purchaser, and it fixes the price to suit itself. The production of -the Ohio fields was between 18,000 and 20,000 barrels a day, but it -could easily produce between 30,000 and 32,000. Because the only buyer -refused to take care of the oil, wells have been shut back. Wells, -which if opened up would run 1000 or 2000 or even more, were shut in -four days out of the week.[183] - -This culmination of 1878 made the people act. The producers were being -ground to powder by the fact that an enemy had possession of their -local pipes, their tankage, and their railways. "I am the unfortunate -owner," said one of them, "of interests in nearly one hundred pumping -wells. I have produced over half a million barrels of oil."[184] Oil -was running out of the ground at the rate of 15,000,000 barrels a year, -but the New York refiners who were in command of plenty of capital, -said: - -"We don't dare build large refineries, for we don't know where we could -get the oil."[185] - -At last the people organized the Tidewater Pipe Line. This was the -first successful attempt to realize the idea often broached of a pipe -line to the seaboard. It was the last hope of the "outsiders"--the -"independents." "Nothing short of the ingenuity that is born of -necessity and desperation" produced that pipe line. It was well -contrived and well manned, and had plenty of money. It was organized in -1878, with a capital of $1,000,000, which increased in a few years to -$5,000,000. It built a pipe from the oil regions to Williamsport--105 -miles--on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, whence the oil -was carried in cars by that company and over the Jersey Central to -Philadelphia and New York. - -Unlimited capital and strategy did all that could be done against the -Tidewater. At one place, to head it off, a strip of land barring its -progress was bought entirely across a valley. It escaped by climbing -the hills. At another point it had to cross under a railroad. The -railroad officers forbade. Riding around, almost in despair, its -engineer saw a culvert where there was no watercourse. It was for a -right of passage which a farmer, whose land was cut in two by the -railroad, had reserved in perpetuity for driving his cattle in safety -to pasture. It did not take long to make a bargain with the farmer for -permission to lay the pipe there. - -The pipe line was finished and ready to move oil about the 1st of June, -1879. On June 5th a meeting was held at Saratoga of representatives -of the four trunk-line railroads and of members of the oil trust. The -meeting decided that the new competitor should be fought to the death. -The rate on oil, which had been $1.15 a barrel, was reduced to 80, -then to 30, to 20, to 15 cents by the railroads, to make the business -unprofitable enough to ruin this first attempt to pipe oil to the -seaboard. Finally the roads carried a barrel, weighing 390 pounds, 400 -miles for the combination for 10 cents or less.[186] The representative -of the Tidewater offered to prove to Congress, in 1880, if it would -order an investigation--which it would not--that "the announced and -ostensible object of the conference at Saratoga was to destroy the -credit of the Tidewater, and to enable the oil combination to buy up -the new pipe line, and that a time was fixed by the combination within -which it promised to secure the control of the pipe line--provided -the trunk-lines would make the rates for carrying oil so low that all -concerned in transportation would lose money.[187] There can be no -doubt," he continued, "that, taking the avowed and ostensible object of -the Saratoga meeting as the true one, it constituted, on the part of -the willing participants, a criminal conspiracy of the most dangerous -character." - -One of the chief officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad testified to -the competition which his road had carried on with the Tidewater. -"It certainly was fought," he said; "the rates were considerably -reduced."[188] Rates were put down to points so low that the railroad -men would never tell what they were. I have no knowledge--I have no -recollection--was all the president and general freight agent of the -Pennsylvania Railroad could be got to say, when before the Interstate -Commerce Commission.[189] "Not enough to pay for the wheel grease," -said the general freight agent.[190] The oil trust also cut the prices -of pipeage by its local lines from 20 cents to 5 cents a barrel, -turning cheapness into the enemy of cheapness. - -But the Tidewater was strong enough to withstand even so formidable -an assault as this. As its business was small, its losses were small; -but the railroads, making this war on it for the benefit of others, -suffered heavily. The trunk-lines, it has been calculated, wilfully -threw away profits equal to $10,000,000 a year for the sake of -inflicting a loss of $100,000 on the pipe lines.[191] Enough revenue -was lost to pay dividends of 2-1/2 to 5 per cent. on the total capital -of the roads. - -One effect that followed this reduction in rates was a corresponding -decline in the price of oil at New York, in which the cost of freight -is a constant element. The Committee of the New York Legislature found -in the testimony it heard reason to believe that the members of the oil -trust took advantage of their advance knowledge to sell at high prices, -to those who did not know, all they would buy for future delivery. - -The "Hepburn" report of the New York Legislature of 1879 gives special -prominence to the computations that $1,500,000 were the profits of this -speculative deal.[192] - -The customers of the Tidewater, the independent refiners in -Philadelphia, were charged by the Pennsylvania Railroad on oil -that came through the Tidewater 15 cents a barrel for one mile of -hauling. The utmost the law allowed them was half a cent a mile, and -they were carrying oil 500 miles to New York for the same charge of -15 cents a barrel, and less. Under such pressure these independent -refineries, which the Tidewater had been built to supply, sold out -one after another. The Tidewater was then in the position of a great -transporting company, that had spent a large amount of money to -bring a great product to its Philadelphia terminus, and found that -refining establishments which had been begging it to give them oil had -become the cohorts of its opponent. To meet this the Tidewater built -refineries of its own at Chester, and at Bayonne, New Jersey, on New -York waters. - -When asked for a rate to another point, the Pennsylvania gave one that -was three and four times as much as they would charge the oil trust, -but added, "we cannot make a rate on the empty cars returning." That -is, as it was interpreted, "we will carry the oil, but we will not -permit the empty cars to come over the roads to get the oil. They must -be taken on a wheelbarrow, or by canal, or by balloon."[193] The war -went on. Attempts were made to seduce the officials of the Tidewater. -A stockholder, who had been too poor to pay for his stock, received a -large sum from the oil combination and began a vexatious suit for a -receivership.[194] A minority forced their way into the offices of the -company, and took violent possession of it by a "farcical, fraudulent, -and void" election, as the court decided in annulling it. Its financial -credit was attacked in the money market and by injunctions against its -bonds. - -Affidavits were offered from members of the oil combination denying -that they had had anything to do with these proceedings. In reference -to these affidavits, the representative of the Tidewater reminded the -court that that combination was a multifarious body. "One-half of -them," he said, "do a thing, and the other half swear they know nothing -about it. In pursuance of this Machiavelian policy, they have eight or -ten gentlemen to conduct negotiations, and eight or ten to say they do -not know anything about them." - -Then, with no visible cause, the capacity of the pipe fell below the -demands upon it. This insufficient capacity was pleaded in court as -one of the reasons why the pipe should be taken out of the hands of -its owners. One day the cause was discovered--a plug of wood. Some -mysterious hand had been set to drive a square block of wood into the -pipe so as to cut down its capacity to one-third. The representative -of the Tidewater declared in court his belief that this plug had been -placed by "people on the other side who have made affidavits in this -case." A similar deed, but much worse, as it might have cost many -lives, was done during the contest with Toledo, nine years later.[195] - -The Tidewater was successful, but not successful enough. It owned 400 -miles of pipe, including the 105 miles of the trunk-line, and had -control of nearly 3,000,000 barrels of tankage. It did a great work -for the people. "It was," the Philadelphia _Press_ said, in 1883, -"the child of war. It has been a barrier between the producers and -the monopoly which would crush them if it dared." While these words -of exultation were being penned, a surrender was under negotiation. -The Tidewater's managers were nearly worn out. These tactics of -corrupting their officers, slandering their credit, buying up their -customers, stealing their elections, garroting them with lawsuits -founded on falsehoods, shutting them off the railroads, and plugging -up their pipe in the dark, were too much. They entered into a pool. -The two companies in the summer of 1883 "recognized" each other, as -the trunk lines do, and agreed to divide the business in proportions, -which would net the Tidewater $500,000 a year. The announcement that -this pool had been forced on the Tidewater fell like a death-blow -on the people of the oil regions. "The Tidewater," the Philadelphia -_Press_ said, editorially, "will probably retain a nominal identity -as a corporation, but its usefulness to the public and its claim to -popular confidence and encouragement were extinguished the instant it -consented to enter into alliance with the unscrupulous monopoly which -resorts to that means of conciliating and bribing what it had failed -to destroy." As was anticipated by the _Press_, the Tidewater retained -its nominal identity, but that was all. Its surrender was admitted by -its principal organizer, Mr. Franklin B. Gowen. The officials of the -Pennsylvania Railroad have testified to it. "They made an arrangement -of some kind, the conditions of which I never knew; one swallowed the -other or both swallowed the other, or something, and settled up their -difficulties,"[196] said the general freight agent. The president said: -"The competition between these pipe lines ceased."[197] - -The attorney of the Tidewater was asked if there were any negotiations -which resulted in a compromise of the differences with the oil -combination. - -"If by differences," he replied, "you mean competition in trade, I -answer the question, yes. That resulted in a written contract.... The -purpose of the contract was to settle the rivalry in business between -the two companies, each company to take a percentage of transportation -and gathering, and each to do with the oil as it saw fit."[198] - -The treasurer of the Tidewater, who had been in its service since 1880, -corroborated its attorney. A contract had been made between the two; -the date of it was October 9, 1883. Copies of the contracts are in the -author's possession. - -The Interstate Commerce Commission in 1892 judicially found the same -fact. It says: "About December, 1883, the pipe lines, with the view of -getting better rates, adjusted their differences, and the competition -between them ceased. The pipe-line business appears then to have passed -into the control of the National Transit Company."[199] All but 6 -per cent. of the National Transit Company is owned by the oil trust. -It formed practically one-third the imposing bulk of the $70,000,000 -of the trust of 1882.[200] If anything can be made certain by human -testimony this evidence proves that these pipe lines stopped competing -in 1883. The witnesses are the men who negotiated the contract, -and upon whose approval it depended. But when the president of the -trust was asked under oath, in 1888, if there were any pipe lines to -tide-water competing with it, he named, as "a competing company," "the -Tidewater Pipe Line." - -"The Tidewater Company? Does that compete with your company?" - -"It does." - -"It is in opposition to it?" - -"It is in opposition to it."[201] - -In the same spirit he denied, in 1883, that he had anything to do with -the company which had represented the oil trust in this "swallowing or -something" of the Tidewater. This, the National Transit Company, was -the most important member of the trust. Under its cover, by means like -those described, from New York to West Virginia and Ohio, almost all -the pipes for gathering and distributing oil have been brought into one -ownership. Millions yearly of the earnings of this company were pooled -with all the others in the trust, and the president was receiving -his share of them four times a year. He was the sole attorney[202] -authorized to sign contracts for the trustees, who thus held all the -combined companies in a common control. These trustees, of whom he was -the chief, not only controlled but owned as their personal property -more than half the stock of every company represented. But these facts -were not then known to the public. It was not intended that they should -be known, as the struggle to conceal them from the New York Legislature -five years later--in 1888--showed. - -"Have you any connection with the National Transit Company?" he was -asked, after taking the oath. - -"I have not."[203] - -When the Tidewater passed under this alien control, Mr. Franklin B. -Gowen severed all his connection with it. He did not hold himself -for sale to any man who had money to pay fees. He stood at a height -where the profession of law was immeasurably above prostitution in the -temples of justice--the odious aspect in which the sacrifice of purity -in the ancient temples of Aphrodite is reproduced in our courts. It -would have been impossible for him to combine the functions of a great -law reformer and procurer of judicial virtue for railroad corporation -wreckers. He never forgot what some successful lawyers seem never to -remember--that the lawyer is, as much as the judge, an officer of the -court and of justice. While he lived he was proud to be recognized -as the chief defender in the courts of the rights of those whom it -was sought to crush in this industry, although he thus allied himself -with the poor and heavy laden. He could have used his anti-monopoly -eloquence as an advertisement of his value to monopoly; but he would -not sell his soul to fill his stomach. His heart revolted against the -wicked cruelty with which he saw the strong misuse the weak, and his -penetrating vision saw clearly the ruin to which overgrown power and -conscienceless greed were hurrying the liberties of his country. In his -speech before the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1883, advocating a law to -prevent the use of railway power by railway officials to redistribute -the property of the people among their favorites, he said, speaking of -what had been done in the oil regions of Pennsylvania: "If such a state -of facts as I now call your attention to had been permitted by any -government in Europe or Asia for a six months, instead of the sixteen -years it has existed in this Commonwealth, the crown and sceptre of -its ruler would have been ground into the dust, and yet the good, -honest, patient, long-suffering people have submitted to it in this -Commonwealth until the time has come that if we hold our peace the very -stones will cry out. - -"I for one intend to submit to it no longer. You may say it is unwise -for me to attack this wrong, but I have attacked it before and I will -attack it again. If I could only throw off the other burdens that rest -upon my shoulders, I would feel it to be my duty to preach resistance -to this great wrong, as Peter the Hermit preached the crusade. I would -go through this State from Lake Erie to the Delaware; I would go into -every part of this Commonwealth and endeavor, by the plain recital -of the facts, to raise up such a feeling and such a power as would -make itself heard and felt, and by the fair, open, honest, and proper -enforcement of the law, right the wrong, and teach the guilty authors -of this infamous tyranny - - "'That truth remembered long: - When once their slumbering passions waked, - The peaceful are the strong.'" - -Mr. Gowen bravely fulfilled his pledge not to submit. His principal -occupation became the championship in the courts and the Interstate -Commerce Commission of those who were oppressed by this crushing -power. His incorruptible lance was always in place, until the morning -he was found dead in his room in Washington. - -The oil combination had, up to this time, sent all its oil east by -rail as it had no pipe line, and its faithful fools, the railroads, -therefore burned their fingers with joy to roast the Tidewater for so -good a customer. But while the railroad officials were wasting their -employers' property to destroy the combination's new competitor, its -astute managers, seeing how good a thing pipe lines were, quietly -built a system of their own to the seaboard. The railroads had helped -them get hold of the pipe lines--had in repeated cases, as the Erie, -the Atlantic and Great Western, the Pennsylvania, the Cleveland and -Marietta did, allowed them to lay their pipes on the lands of the -railroads--and were now to see the pipe lines used to replace the -railroads in the transportation of oil. These oil men saw what the -railroad men had not the wit to see--or else lacked the virtue to live -up to--that the pipe line is an oil railway. It requires no cars and -no locomotives; it moves oil without risk of fire or loss; it is very -much cheaper than the ordinary railway, for this freight moves itself -after being lifted up by pumps. The pipe line was the sure competitor -of the railway, fated to be either its servant or master, as the -railroad chose to use it or lose it. The railways sentimentally helped -the trust to gather these rival transportation lines into its hands; -then the trust, with the real genius of conquest, threw the railroads -to one side. A system of trunk-line pipes was at once pushed vigorously -to completion in all directions. While the members of the oil trust -were building these pipe lines to take away the oil business of the -railroads, the officials of the latter were giving them by rebates the -money to do it with. At the expense of their own employers, the owners -of the railroads, these freight agents and general managers presented -to the monopoly, out of the freight earnings of the oil business, the -money with which to build the pipe lines that would destroy that branch -of the business of the roads. - -It was the Tidewater that proved the feasibility of trunk pipe lines. -The trunk pipe lines the combination has built were in imitation. -Extraordinary pains have been taken to sophisticate public opinion -with regard to all these matters--for the ignorance of the public is -the real capital of monopoly--and with great success. The history we -have transcribed from the public records is refined by one of the -combination into the following illuminant: - -"About 1879 or 1880 it was discovered that railways were inadequate to -the task of getting oil to the seaboard as rapidly as needed. Combined -capital and energy were equal to the emergency. No need to detail how -it was done. To-day there reaches,"[204] etc., etc. It must have been -on some such authority that this, from one of our leading religious -journals, was founded: "Only by such union"--of the refiners--"could -pipe lines have been laid from the oil wells to the tide-water, -reducing to the smallest amount the cost of transportation."[205] An -account of the pipe-line system in the New York _Sun_, of December 14, -1887, describing the operations of the great pumps that force the oil -through the pipes, says: "Every time the piston of the engine passes -forward and back a barrel of oil is sent seaward. A barrel of oil is -forced on its way every seven seconds of every hour of the twenty-four. -Every pulsation of the gigantic pumps that are throbbing ceaselessly -day and night is known and numbered at headquarters in New York at the -close of each day's business." This heart of a machine, beating at the -headquarters in New York, and numbering its beats day and night, stands -for thousands of hearts whose throbs of hope have been transmuted into -this metallic substitute. This heart counts out a gold dollar for every -drop of blood that used to run through the living breasts of the men -who divined, projected, accomplished, and lost. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -CHEAPENING TRANSPORTATION - - -Through all the tangle of this piping and dancing one thread runs -clear. The oil combination had up to this time been dependent on the -railroads for transportation, but it emerged out of the fracas the -principal transporter of oil, made so by the railroads. It now had two -trunk pipe lines to the sea-coast--the one it had conquered and the one -it had built--and the railroads had made it a present of both of them. - -The Tidewater--the first seaboard pipe line--had been built only -because the Pennsylvania and other trunk lines had said "no" to every -entreaty and demand of the oil regions for a road to the sea. That line -the railroads had conquered for the combination, as they conquered for -it the pipe lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1877. The second -seaboard pipe line was built by the combination with the railroads' -money to take away the railroads' business, and best--or worst--of all, -while the railroads were hard at work driving the Tidewater into its -net. Such is the business genius of our "railroad kings." - -This campaign closed, the duty of the hour for the oil ring was to get -rates advanced by rail as well as pipe. - -"Then they"--the pipe lines--"were anxious to get good paying -rates,"[206] so that they could make a good thing out of the business -of their own pipe and of the Tidewater which they had guaranteed -$500,000 a year. The advent of the independent Tidewater had brought -rates down. The restoration of exclusive control by its capture put -rates up. But it was not enough for the oil combination to advance -their own rates. It must induce the railroads to do the same. The -railroads had furnished the means for the acquisition of both pipes, -and they must now be got to drive business away from themselves to -these competing oil railways. This would seem to be a delicate matter -to achieve, but there was no trouble about it. - -"It is our pleasure to try to make oil cheap,"[207] the president of -the oil trust told Congress, but it did not use its new facilities -to take in hand at reduced cost the carriage of all oil, and give -the industry the economic advantage of the pipe-line idea. Quite the -contrary. It united with the railroads to increase the cost. Under this -new blow the independent refiners and producers whom the Tidewater -had been built to keep afloat grounded again. Then the railroads--the -Pennsylvania especially--repented of what they had done to these their -oldest customers, and sent ambassadors to them to renew the broken -promises of 1872, that if they would rebuild they should forever -have equal rates and fair treatment. One of the highest officials of -the Pennsylvania was sent to them to say: We recognize our error in -permitting your refineries to be abandoned and the traffic destroyed. -We wish to build up and maintain independent refining in the oil -regions. We will give you every encouragement. We will insure you equal -rates, on which you can ship and live.[208] - -These invitations and guarantees were repeated and pressed. They were -renewed by the officials of the Erie also: "You need have no hesitation -in building up your business," said the officials of the Erie; "You -shall have living rates."[209] - -The independents listened and believed. They rebuilt their works and -prospered.[210] This meant the return of cheapness--cheapness of -transportation over the railroads, to enable the refiners they had -invited back to life to compete in the market--cheapness of light. -Thereupon, incredible as it seems, the Pennsylvania and the other -railroads were influenced to declare war again upon the men who had -reinvested their money and their life energy in response to these -solicitations. This new war began with a secret contract, in 1885, for -an advance in rates against the independent refiners, who, in trustful -reliance on the pledged faith of the railroads, had developed their -capacity to 2,000,000 barrels a year.[211] - -This campaign has lasted from 1885 until the present writing, 1894. In -it the pipe lines, the oil combination, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and -all the other great carriers between the independents and their markets -in New England, Europe, and Asia, have been mobilized into a fighting -corps for the annihilation of the independents. This case illustrates -nearly every phase of the story of our great monopoly: dearness instead -of cheapness; willingness of the managers of transportation to deny -transportation to whole trades and sections; administration of great -properties like the Pennsylvania Railroad in direct opposition to -the interests of the owners--to their great loss--for the benefit -of favorites of the officials; great wealth thereby procured by -destruction, as if by physical force, of wealth of others, not at -all by creation of new wealth to be added to the general store; -impossibility of survival in modern business of men who are merely -honest, hard-working, competent, even though they have skill, capital, -and customers; subjection of the majority of citizens and dollars to -a small minority in numbers and riches; subservience of rulers of the -people to a faction; last and most disheartening, the impotence of the -special tribunal created to enforce the rights of the people on their -highways. - -This secret contract of 1885 was thus described by the counsel of the -refiners before the Interstate Commerce Commission: "It is a contract," -he said, "so vicious and illegal that the Pennsylvania Railroad -refuses to bring it into court for fear a disclosure of its terms might -subject it to a criminal prosecution." - -The courts have never been allowed to see it, but its provisions are -known. Some of them were admitted before the Interstate Commerce -Commission to be what was charged, and others were described on the -trial by the counsel of the independents from personal knowledge. By -this contract the railroad and the oil combination bound themselves to -advance rates, and to keep them the same by pipe and rail. In return -for this pledge by the railroad not to compete it was guaranteed -one-quarter--26 per cent.--of the oil business to the seaboard. The -Pennsylvania Railroad made no attempt to deny that it had made this -contract. It admitted that it had an arrangement "substantially the -same as stated."[212] - -The combination was the largest shipper of oil, and yet it wanted -freight rates advanced. It had pipe lines which could easily take to -the seaboard all the oil that went thither, and yet it gave up a large -part of the business to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania -Railroad knew that the pipe line was a competitor for the carriage of -oil, and yet allowed it to dictate an arrangement by which the railroad -got only one-quarter of the business, and signed away its rights to win -a larger share if it could. - -The railroad had persuaded the independent refiners to settle along its -line by solemnly promising them fair and living rates, and yet now put -its corporate seal to an agreement to make those rates whatever their -enemy wanted them to be. Such was its honor. As for its shrewdness, -that had at last brought it to this humiliation in a business where -it had once been chief, of confining itself to this insignificant -quarter of a restricted traffic instead of a competitive share of a -traffic enlarged by freedom to the widest correspondence to the wants -of the people. The mastery of the railroad men by the oil people was -thorough. The latter did not agree to give the railroad one-quarter -of their business. Not at all. All the traffic that came of itself to -the railroad, or which its freight solicitors drummed up, must be put -to the credit of the guarantee. All that was promised the railroad was -that its total should amount to one-quarter of the whole traffic. All -the rest the oil combination kept for itself. - -The contract went at once into vigorous operation. Freight rates to -the seaboard, which had been 34 cents, and, as was proved before the -Interstate Commerce Commission, were profitable, were advanced to 52 -cents a barrel--an increase of one-half. The railroad and the pipe line -made the raise in concert, as had been agreed, and when the rates were -changed again it was to still higher figures. Why should the clique, -which had its principal refineries at the seaboard--to which it had -to transport large quantities of oil--scheme in this way to raise the -rates of transportation? Because it paid this excessive rate on only a -small part of its own shipments, and compelled its rivals to pay it on -all of theirs. The independents had no pipe line of their own, but the -combination sent its own oil east by its own pipe line, excepting only -the quantity it needed to add to the shipments over the Pennsylvania to -make good its guarantee to that railroad of one-quarter of the traffic. - -The cost of the pipe-line service to its owners is very small. When the -manager of the pipe lines was before the Interstate Commerce Commission -the lawyers of the railroads, as zealous for the oil combination, -though it was not a party in the case, as for their own clients, fought -through eleven pages of argument against having him compelled to tell -the cost of pumping oil through the pipe to the seaboard; and when -the Commission finally said, "Go on," all the general manager of the -pipe lines had to say was, "I do not believe that it is possible to -know."[213] - -Finally, he was cornered into an estimate that the cost of pumping was -6 or 7 cents a barrel. His questioner, who had been the organizer and -manager of a great pipe line--the Tidewater--knew that oil had been -pumped through for 4 cents a barrel, but he could not get his witness, -who, no doubt, had done it still cheaper, to admit anything of the kind. - -The net effect of this pool with the railroad was that the oil -combination succeeded in making its rivals pay 64 cents a barrel to -reach the East and the seaboard, while it paid only 16[214]--except on -the traffic guaranteed the Pennsylvania Railroad--a difference against -competition of 48 cents a barrel, a difference not for cheapness. "It -only costs the pipe line 7 cents," the independents explained to the -Interstate Commerce Commission, "and the published rate is 52. They are -willing to pay 52 or even 70 cents on some of their product if they can -make the other people pay 52 upon the whole of theirs." - -So much of the contract as we have referred to was admitted. Why was -it, then, the counsel for the railroad fought against showing it, even -to the point of pleading that it might incriminate his client?[215] -It was asserted, as of his personal knowledge, by the counsel of the -independents that this was because another part of the bargain gave the -proof that the rates which had been made under the agreement to put -them up and keep them up were extortionate; that by a bargain within -the bargain the oil combination carried oil for the railroad for the -280 miles for which they ran practically side by side, and for this -charged it only 8 cents a barrel. The public, shipping either by the -railroad or by the pipe line, had to pay 52 cents a barrel for 500 -miles; but by this arrangement between themselves the two carriers -would do business at 8 cents a barrel for 280 miles, at which rate the -charge to the public to the seaboard should have been not quite 15 -cents instead of 52 cents. - -The statement was also made that the oil combination, instead of -giving the railroads the business it has guaranteed them, makes its -obligation good by turning over to them periodically a check for the -profits they would have had on hauling that amount of traffic. As the -guarantee was made as a consideration for the maintenance of high -freight rates, such a payment by it would amount, in cold fact, to -paying those in charge of the highways a large bribe to deny the use of -them to the people. - -This declaration of the provisions of the bargain was made by the -counsel for the refiners seeking relief from the Interstate Commerce -Commission. In his argument demanding the production of the document -he said: "I have had it in my hand and read every word of it, and know -exactly what it contains."[216] - -The sharpest legal struggle of the case was made on the demand that -this paper be produced. The Commission decided that it was "wholly -immaterial," although the chairman had previously said: "It seems to us -that we cannot exclude this evidence." It was a document establishing -interstate rates, and these are required by law to be published, and -the Commission had always before this been liberal in compelling the -production of papers which related to the making of rates.[217] The -Commission had shortly before been threatened in this case by the -counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad with extinction if it insisted -upon evidence of the cost of piping oil which the oil combination -refused to give. - -"It is possible that the powers of this Commission may be tested,"[218] -bullied the counsel of the railroad. The members of the Commission -laughed ostentatiously, but, for whatever reason, they gave the -powerful corporations on trial no cause thereafter to "test their -powers," which have slept while justice tarried, and the victims of -this "contract" were kept under its harrow for three long years more, -where they still lie. - -The tax levied upon the consumers of oil by this agreement for high -freights amounts to millions a year. This agreement is at this writing -still in force. There is reason to believe that similar arrangements -exist with the other trunk-lines. The result is the surprising fact -that "oil rates are very much higher than they were twelve years ago, -and when there was no pipe-line competition!"[219] This is true also -in the field of local pipeage--the transportation of the oil from the -wells to refineries and railroads. Under the caption of "cheapening -transportation" the counsel of the oil trust said, before the New York -Legislature in 1888: "In 1872 the pipe-line system was in its infancy. -A number of local lines existed. Their service was inefficient and -expensive. There was no uniform rate. The united refiners undertook to -unite and systemize this business. They purchased and consolidated the -various little companies into what was long known as the United Pipe -Line System. The first effect of this combination was a reduction of -price of all local transportation to a uniform rate of at first 30, and -soon after 20 cents per barrel."[220] - -"The united refiners" and "to unite and systemize" are smooth phrases, -full of the unction of good-fellowship and political economy. When -the "united refiners" took possession of the pipe lines which had -been forced into bankruptcy or "co-operation," they did not reduce -rates--they advanced them. "The uniform rate of 20 cents," for -instance, is an advance of 300 per cent. on the rate of 5 cents made -by the trust's pipe-line system during the war with the Tidewater, -and over the similar rates made during the earlier pipe-line -competition.[221] The nominal rate, Congress learned from one of the -oil-country men, was 30 cents for that service, but by competition the -actual rate was down to 5 or 10 cents. "They consolidated and placed it -at 20 cents, and it has remained at 20 cents, I think, since the year -1876.... The whole process of transportation has been cheapened. Pipe -that cost 45 cents a foot has in that time been got for 10 cents. The -quality of the pipe was improved, so that there is not the leakage or -the wastage. There are all those improvements and inventions that have -cheapened it. We pay the same now as we did fifteen years ago. We have -reduced the cost of our wells at least 50 per cent. They have reduced -nothing."[222] From other sources, once in a while, facts have come to -light showing how much less than cheap the local charge of 20 cents -a barrel is. For instance, it was shown before Congress that a line -which, with its feeders, had fifty miles of pipe, and cost $70,000, -made a clear profit in its first six months of $40,000, charging -sometimes less than this rate of 20 cents a barrel.[223] - -It is impossible to compute how much the defeat of legislation to -regulate charges, or to allow the construction of competing lines, has -cost the people. The Burdick Bill alone, to regulate prices of pipeage -and storage in Pennsylvania, it was calculated by conservative men, -would have saved at least $4,000,000 a year. The killing of it was in -the interest of keeping up the high prices of the pipe lines, which -finally rest in the price of oil. - -When the combination got possession of the pipe line to Buffalo, which -others had built in spite of every obstacle it could interpose, it -raised the rates of pipeage to 25 cents a barrel from 10 cents,[224] -and as happened in Pennsylvania in 1885, the railroads to Buffalo in -1882 raised their rates simultaneously with the pipe line. Pittsburg -had the same experience. When its independent pipe line was "united -and systemized" by being torn up and converted into "old iron," as the -Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad had told its projectors -it would be, the rates of transportation for oil went up.[225] The -same thing happened at Cleveland. At the rate at which the Lake Shore -road carries oil from Cleveland to Chicago--357 miles for 38 cents a -barrel--it should charge less than 15 cents for the 140 miles between -Oil City and Cleveland; but as late as 1888 it charged 25 cents. -Why? The effect of the railroad charge is that little oil comes by -rail to Cleveland from the oil regions; it goes by the pipe line of -those whom the Lake Shore has been "protecting" ever since the South -Improvement contract of 1872. There have been 3,000,000 barrels of -this business yearly. The railroad officials exercise their powers to -drive traffic from the railroad to a competing line. Why? We can see -why the combination, which, by the possession of this pipe line, is a -competitor of the Lake Shore, should desire such an arrangement; but -it exists by the act of the Lake Shore Railroad. Why? The theories of -self-interest would lead one to expect that the stockholders of the -road would find out why.[226] - -The pipe lines are the largest single item in the property of the oil -combination. Here its control has been the most complete; and here the -reduction of price has been least. This is a telltale fact, soon told -and soon understood. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -SONG OF THE BARREL - - -Genius could take so unspeakable a thing as a shirt and sing it -into an immortal song, but a barrel--and an oil-barrel, greasy and -ill-smelling--even genius could do nothing with that. But the barrel -plays a leading role in the drama of the great monopoly. Out of it -have flown shapes of evil that have infected private fortunes, the -prosperity of more than one industry, the fiduciary honor of great -men, the faithfulness of the Government to its citizens. Perhaps -a part of what genius could do for the shirt--force a hearing for -the wronged--may be done for this homely vessel of the struggling -independent by the kindly solicitude of the people to learn every -secret spring of the ruin of their brothers. - -The market--the barrel that went to market--the freight rate that -stopped the barrel that went to market--the railway king who made the -rate that stopped the barrel that went to market--the greater king who -whispered behind to the railway king to make the rate that stopped the -barrel that went to market--this is the house that Jack unbuilt. - -Such is the superiority of a simple business organization, where -"evolution" has not carried the details of the industry out of sight -of the owner, and where the master and man, buyer and seller, are in -touch, that the independent refiners could overcome the tax imposed -on them by this pooling of the pipe line and the railroads, and not -only survive but prosper moderately. During the three years--from -1885 to 1888--following the first attack upon them under the contract -just described, they state, in their appeal to the Interstate -Commerce Commission in 1888, they were "enabled by their advantages -in the local markets to keep up, maintain, and even increase their -business."[227] These "outsiders" shipped their oil largely in barrels -because the trunk-lines had made it as nearly impossible as they -could for them to ship in tank-cars. They, like all in the trade, -could not live without access to the European market. Out of every -hundred barrels of various kinds of products from the distillation -of petroleum, forty are of an illuminating oil not good enough to be -burned in this country. It must be sold in Europe or not sold at all; -and a manufacturer who cannot get rid of 40 per cent. of his product -must give up manufacturing. To destroy the barrel method of shipment -would destroy those who could use no other; and to close their outlet -to Europe would make it impossible for them to continue to manufacture -for the home supply. The barrel was the only life-raft left to the -sinking independent. - -They who had planned the secret pool of 1885 between the pipe line -and the railroads, and the further advance of rates by both in 1888, -now called upon the railroads to deliver a final stroke against the -independents.[228] The railroads, when directed in previous years to -say "no" to applications for transportation, and "no" to those who -wanted the right to put their own tank-cars on the road, had obeyed; -they obeyed again. - -A pretext for the suppression of the barrel was easily found. It was -a poor one, but poor pretexts are better than none. When the future -"trustees" of the "light of the world" were doing a small fraction -of the business, they got the contract of 1872 from the railroads to -"overcome" all their competitors, on the pretext of "increasing the -trade."[229] When by this contract and those that followed it they had -secured nine-tenths of the trade, they got the railroads to say "no" -to the remaining one-tenth, on the pretext that they could not ship as -much.[230] When the Interstate Commerce law declared it to be a crime -for railroads to forbid persons the road because they could not ship as -much as others, the combination had the railroads shut out its rivals, -on the pretext that they did not use tank-cars,[231] although tank-cars -"are worse than powder." When regular tank-cars were offered by its -competitors for shipment--as to the Pacific coast--the combination -introduced an inferior tank-car, of which it claimed, without warrant, -as the courts afterwards held, that it owned the patent, and so -obtained the sole right of way across the continent, on the pretext -that other shippers did not use this poor car.[232] - -The pretext now used against the refiners of Pennsylvania was the -passing phrase, "He must pay freight on barrels," in a decision of -the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning Southern traffic. This -decision had no relevancy to the oil business of the North. Six months -went by after it was given with no intimation from any one that it -related in any way to the situation in Pennsylvania, and to be so -applied it had to be turned inside out and upside down. In the Rice -case the Commission had decided that freight rates must be reduced on -barrel shipments. This was, in the sharp language of the decision, to -put an end to "the most unjust and injurious discrimination against -barrel shippers in favor of tank shippers," a discrimination which the -Commission has elsewhere said "inured mostly to the benefit of one -powerful combination." - -In ordering this reduction it said: "Even then the shipper in barrels -is at some disadvantage, for he must pay freight on barrels as well as -on oil." - -By "must pay" the Commission meant "was paying." It was, as it -afterwards protested, "rather a statement of a prevailing practice -than a ruling."[233] And the remark furthermore concerned the trade in -the South and Southwest alone, where special circumstances existed not -found at the North. - -Six months after this decision the Pennsylvania and other Northern -roads made these words, "He must pay freight on the barrels," the -occasion of an increase of rates, which stopped the refineries of -the independents. They were carrying free the heavy tanks--"the -most undesirable business we do," in the language of their freight -agent. They had been carrying the barrels of the independents free -for twenty years. Now, continuing to carry the tank-cars free, they -levied a prohibitory transportation tax on the barrels. To cap it all, -they declared, in announcing the new rule, that it had been forced -upon them by the Interstate Commerce Commission. But the President -of the Pennsylvania Railroad is found admitting that it was the oil -combination that dictated the move--"the seaboard refiners insisted." -"Upon your decision" (in the Rice case) "being promulgated," he wrote -the Interstate Commerce Commission, "the seaboard refiners insisted -that we were bound to charge for packages," barrels, not tanks, "as -well as for the oil."[234] - -The seaboard refiners were the members of the oil trust; the others -at the seaboard had been wiped out years before by the help of the -railroads. Though the Pennsylvania Railroad was not a party to the case -before the Commission, though it had not been called upon to change -its practice, which was what it ought to be, it did now change it from -right to wrong. The Commission had ordered that discrimination between -the barrel and the tank should cease. The Pennsylvania, which had not, -strange to say, been practising that forbidden kind of discrimination, -immediately resorted to it, and, stranger still, gave as its reason the -order of the Commission against it. It must have been a keen eye that -could find in a "qualified and incidental remark," as the Interstate -Commerce Commission styles it, in such a decision, a command to charge -for the weight of the barrels and increase freight rates; but such -an eye there was--an eye that will never sleep as long as Naboth's -vineyard belongs to Naboth. - -All the trunk-line railroads to the East took part in the new -regulation--September 3, 1888--that freight must be paid thereafter -on the weight of the barrels as well as on the oil itself, and at the -same rate. This increased the cost of transportation to New York to -66 cents from 52 cents, and to other points proportionately. Freight -rates on the oil of "the seaboard refiners" who shipped in tanks were -left untouched. In the circulars announcing the change it was said to -be done "in accordance with the directions of the Interstate Commerce -Commission."[235] When the refiners whom this advance threatened -with ruin wrote to expostulate, they got the same reply from all the -railroad officials as from President Roberts of the Pennsylvania -Railroad: "The advance in rates ... has been forced upon us by the -Interstate Commerce Commission."[236] - -The Commission immediately called the responsible official of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, which was the leader in this move, "to a -personal interview," "expressed their surprise," and suggested the -withdrawal of the circular and of the increased rates. This was in -August.[237] No attention was paid to this by the road. The Commission -waited until October 10th, and then sent a formal communication to -the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was followed by -correspondence and personal conferences with him. The Commission -pointed out that the statement of the circular was "misleading," "not -true," "decidedly objectionable"; that the Commission had made no -decision with reference to the rates of the Pennsylvania Railroad or -the other Eastern lines; that its decision, applicable solely to the -roads of the South or Southwest, had been that rates on barrels must -be reduced, and that it was not right to use this as an excuse for -increasing the rates on barrels. Finally, the Commission said that -if it had made any ruling applicable to the Pennsylvania Railroad it -would have been compelled to hold that its practice, of twenty years' -standing, of carrying the barrels free, since it carried tanks free, -was "just and proper," and that there was nothing to show that an -advance in its rates was called for.[238] - -The Interstate Commerce Commission was the body specially created by -Congress to interpret the Interstate Commerce Law. The Pennsylvania -Railroad was one of the common carriers under the orders of the -Commission, and its managers were subjects of jurisdiction, not judges. -But its method of running the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as if it -were one of its limited trains, was now applied with equal confidence -to the Interstate Commerce Commission. It insisted that it was itself, -not the Commission, which was the judge of what the latter meant by -its own decisions. The road continued the rates against which the -Commission protested. The Commission demanded that the assertions that -the new rule of charging for the barrels and the advance of rates was -made "in accordance with the directions" of the Interstate Commerce -Commission be withdrawn. The Pennsylvania road responded with another -circular, in which it changed the form but repeated the substance. "The -action referred to was taken for the purpose of conforming the practice -of this company to the principles decided by the Interstate Commerce -Commission." The Commission protested that it was not laying down any -such "principles" but the corporation declared that that was what it -"understood," and held to the advance made on that understanding.[239] - -To the almost weeping expostulations of the Commission in interviews -and letters, to show that it had said nothing which could justify the -action of the roads, the officials made not the slightest concession. -"I did not consider it in that way," said one of them.[240] "That -was their (the Commission's) view of the case, but it was not shared -by us," said the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. "It was -considered best to continue the practice," he said.[241] - -"Why did you not rescind the order?" he was asked before the Interstate -Commerce Commission. - -"We understood their ruling to be a ruling for the whole country," he -incorrigibly replied. - -The railway president studiously withheld any assurance that he would -obey if the Commission issued a direct command, which it had not done, -though it had the authority. - -"We would then take the subject up," he said. - -Change the order to comply with the ruling of the Interstate Commerce -Commission the roads would not and did not.[242] - -All the roads to the seaboard and New England had made the order in -concert, and together they maintained it. It was one hand, evidently, -that moved them all, and though that hand moved them, for the benefit -of a carrier rival of theirs--the pipe line of the trust--against their -own customers, against their own employers, against the authority of -the United States Government, all these railroad presidents and freight -agents obeyed it with the docility of domestic animals. - -These officials were the loyal subjects of a higher power than that of -the United States, higher even than that of their railway corporations. -They serve the greatest sovereign of the modern world--the concentrated -wealth, in whose court the presidents of railways and republics, kings, -parliaments, and congresses are but lords in waiting. - -Thanks to the superior enterprise of their greater need, the -independents of Oil City and Titusville had been able to survive the -blows that had preceded, but this was too much. They had weathered -the surrender in 1883 of the Tidewater Pipe Line, which had promised -them freedom forever. Even the "contract" which made the allied pipe -lines and the railroads in 1885 one, to tax them half as much again -for transportation, had not broken them down. In spite of it they had -been able "to maintain and increase their business."[243] But now they -closed their works. The new attack had been shrewdly timed to spoil -for them in that year--1888--the season of greatest activity in the -export to Europe and Asia. They appealed to the Interstate Commerce -Commission. "The greater proportion of our refineries are idle."[244] -"I have not a customer in the entire New England States. I have not had -since the advance of last September." - -"How was it before the advance?" - -"I had a number of customers."[245] - -Labor, though, as always, the most silent, suffered the most. Three -hundred coopers were thrown out of work in Titusville alone within a -short time, and the loss of employment to the workmen in the refineries -was still more serious. This was not because trade was bad. Exports -were never greater than in 1889. Government statistics reveal as in a -mirror what was being done. - -The exports of refined petroleum increased 21 per cent. in 1889 over -1888. But Perth Amboy, from which the independents shipped for the -most part, showed a decrease of over 18-1/2 per cent. By the stroke of -a freight agent's pen the business of these men was being taken from -them, to be given to others. The general tide was rising, but their -feet were sinking in a quicksand. - -The export business of Boston in oil was given to the "seaboard -refiners" by the same stroke. Freights that had been $100 were now $174 -to Boston, and $188 to New York. These rates were so high as to stop -oil from going through. "The Nova Scotia trade," it was testified, -"goes to New York, and from there by water, whereas they used to buy -in Boston. Boston brokers will ship oil from New York and get it to -Nova Scotia cheaper than if it went from Boston, whereas when we had -the export rate we could compete in that market."[246] Two months -later most of what remained of the business of the independents in -New England was added to the gift of their foreign trade, which had -already been made to the "seaboard refiners." By an order of October -25, 1888, the railroads made it known to these "pestilences," as the -lawyers of the railroads called the independent refiners in court,[247] -that they would not be allowed to send any more through shipments into -New England. This was done, as in Ohio in 1879,[248] without the notice -required by law, though in the meantime a Federal law had been passed -requiring notice.[249] - -This order was the finishing touch in the task of using the freight -tariff to prevent freight shipment. It shut the independents--the -hunted shippers--out of over 150 towns in New Hampshire, Vermont, -Maine, Massachusetts, including Manchester, Burlington, Portland, -Salem, in which they had built up a good business, and it made -it impossible to reach these places except by paying high local -rates--from station to station--which were not required of their -competitor, who shipped on through rates. The railroads would take the -oil of the independents for shipment, but would not tell them what the -rates would be. In this, as in all the moves of this game, we see the -railroad managers of a score of different roads, at points thousands -of miles apart, taking the same step at the same time, like a hundred -electric clocks ticking all over a great city to the tune of the clock -at headquarters that makes and breaks their circuit. - -The independents were saved by a Canadian railroad from the destruction -which American railroads had planned for them. The Grand Trunk gave -them a rate by which they could still do some business in the upper -part of New England, though to do this they had to ship the oil into -Canada and back into the United States. The effect of this abolition of -through rates in "cheapening" oil was that the people of Vermont, for -instance, had to pay 2 cents a gallon more than any other place in New -England.[250] - -While all access for others to New England was cut off, the "seaboard -refiners," sending the oil in free tanks to the seaboard, transshipping -it there into vessels by the facilities of "which they have a -monopoly,"[251] easily made their own the business of their rivals in -the 150 towns from which the latter were thus cut off. No one has been -able to move all the railroads in this way, as one interlocking switch, -to obey a law or accommodate the public. But it was done easily enough -for this kind of work. Possession was got of the railway managers at -the initial points, as was done so successfully in another case,[252] -and all the other railway managers, as far as Boston, followed in their -trail. Reproducing the tactics in Ohio in 1879, it was only against oil -that this attack of the tariff was made. Other freight for export, of -which there was a vast variety, continued to be carried to Boston at -the same rate as before.[253] - -All the freight agent of the initial road had to do with the oil on its -way to Europe was to pass it along to the next line. Whether, after -leaving his road, it went by the way of Boston or that of New York made -no difference to his road, and was in no way his affair. But it made a -great deal of difference to those who wanted all the business of Europe -and America for themselves, and we consequently find him serving them, -and dis-serving his employer (the railroad), by charging 21 cents a -barrel if the oil was going to Boston after leaving his line, but only -15-56/100 cents if it was going to New York. When asked if he thought -he was justified as a railroad man under the law in making the charges -for what he did vary according to what was done by the business after -it left his hands, he refused to answer. - -"You will not answer?" - -"Not at present."[254] - -All the connecting and following roads are on record as having -protested against the measures in which they followed the lead of -the initial lines.[255] The freight agent of the West Shore Railroad -declared that the prohibition of through shipments to the towns of -Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine "occurred simply -through mistake;" but the mistake, he acknowledged, had never been -corrected.[256] This "mistake" and that of September, which preceded -it, put an end to a large business, amounting in 1888 to 900,000 -barrels. The men, whom the railroads began to massacre after having -pledged them full protection, saved a fraction of their trade in -New England, as we have seen, only by taking refuge with a foreign -railroad. The railroads against their will, as they swore, lost -business as well as honor, but the mistake was not corrected. - -It would tax the imagination of a Cervantes to dream out a more -fantastic tangle of sense and nonsense in quixotic combat than that -which these highwaymen spun out of the principles of "scientific -railroading." All that highway control could do to destroy the barrel -shippers for the benefit of the tank shippers was done; and yet the -barrel method is the safer and more profitable for the railroads.[257] -The cars that carry oil in barrels can return loaded; the railroads -have to haul the tank-cars back empty and pay mileage on them.[258] For -a series of years on the Pennsylvania Railroad the damage from carrying -oil in barrels was less than half the damage from the carrying of oil -in tanks.[259] The general freight agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad -Company tells the Interstate Commerce Commission that the carriage of -oil in tank-cars "is the most undesirable business we do." He described -a smash-up at New Brunswick where there was a collision with a line of -tank-cars. The oil got on fire; it ran two squares, got into a sewer, -overflowed the canal, which was then frozen over, and followed the ice -a square or two beyond. Besides having to pay nearly five hundred -thousand dollars damages for the destruction done, the railroad lost -its bridge, which cost two or three hundred thousand dollars. It lost -more money than it could make carrying oil for ten years. "I regard -it," he said, "as worse than powder to carry; I would rather carry -anything else than oil in tanks."[260] Barrel shipments being the best -for the railroads, these princes of topsy-turvydom move heaven and -earth to destroy them.[261] - -There was no end to the "mistakes" made by the railroads for the -"self-renunciation" of their business, though this was in favor of -those whose pipe line made them rivals. They charged more for kerosene -in barrels than for other articles of more value, contradicting -their own rule of charging what the traffic will bear. They let the -combination carry sixty-two gallons in every tank free on the theory -of leakage in transportation. "The practice," said the Commission, "is -so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no discussion of it is -necessary;" and they ordered it discontinued.[262] - -Though the railroads brought back the tanks free, for the return of -the empty barrels they never forgot to charge. This charge was made so -high that at one time it prohibited the return from all points.[263] -"The monopoly uses a large number of barrels in New York City," the -independents said to the Commission; "it is to its interest that empty -second-hand barrels should not be returned to the inland refiner." When -this was brought out the Pennsylvania and other railroads promised to -make reparation, but had not done so years later when the case was -still "hung up" in the Interstate Commerce Commission. - -It was not lack of capital or of diligence that made the independents -use barrels instead of tanks; tanks were useless to them. All the -oil terminal facilities of the railroads at the seaboard had been -surrendered to the combination for its exclusive use.[264] These were -the only places where tank-cars could be unloaded into steamers. "There -are no facilities to which we, as outside refiners, have access to load -bulk oil into vessels," and none where these refiners could send oil in -tank-cars to be barrelled for shipment abroad.[265] No matter how many -tank-cars and tank-vessels the independents might have provided, they -could not have got them together. Between the two were the docks in the -unrelenting grip which held solely for its private use the shipping -facilities of these public carriers. Not even oil in barrels could the -independents get through these oil docks. - -The Weehawken oil docks of the Erie road on New York harbor are the -best in the world. The Erie Railroad has $920,760 invested in them, but -only one shipper can use them either for tanks or barrels. - -The Western traffic manager of the Erie was asked: - -"Would you take a shipment there over the Erie road of independent oil -consigned to the New York docks?" - -"No, sir."[266] - -The Pennsylvania Railroad refuses to haul tank-cars for the -independents to any other point at New York than the terminals so -controlled by the combination. It will not haul them to other docks of -its own. It will not let oil be shipped over its line to the points -at which it connects with other roads for other harbors, though it -will take shipments of anything else than oil.[267] This amounts to a -refusal to allow the independents to use tank-cars or tank-steamers. -Practically the same policy is pursued by all the main trunk-lines. -These independents could get rid of their export oil only by selling -to the combination. Through its other self--the company which controls -the terminals--it has kept an agent in the oil regions for years to -buy for export this refined oil which its owners and makers could not -export themselves. This is the "immediate shipment" of 1878 in another -phase.[268] - -"You have to sell to the Standard Oil Company in order to get your oil -shipped in bulk from Communipaw?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"The independent cannot get his oil into a bulk vessel at Communipaw?" - -"No, sir."[269] - -To meet these disclosures the Pennsylvania presented two affidavits. -One was from its general freight agent that its tank-cars were offered -freely to all; but it did not deny, for it could not deny, any of -these facts about terminals, which explained why the flies did not -walk into its parlor. The other affidavit was from the secretary of -the corporation controlling the terminals for the oil combination, and -it similarly declared that its accommodations were furnished "upon -exactly the same terms to all." How long it had been doing so, or how -long it would continue to do so, it did not state, as the independents -pointed out to the Commission. If this were the truth instead of -being, as the independents hinted, "evidently a situation that has -been recently arranged for the purposes of this application"--to the -Interstate Commerce Commission for further delay--why had none of the -independents, dying for want of export facilities, resorted to it? This -was not explained, for it could not be. The independents explained the -situation to the Interstate Commerce Commission: "The inland refiner -who intrusts his oil to a storage company at the seaboard with a view -to exporting, puts himself completely into the power of such concern. -The exactions that may be unfairly imposed in individual cases for -'loss by leakage,' 'dumping and mixing for off-color or off-test,' -'cost of water white oil for mixing,' 'tares,' 'tares guarantee,' -'commissions on sales,' 'interest on goods until loaded and paid for,' -'incidental expenses,' and many other known matters of charge, may -amount to a partial confiscation of the cargo." - -The corporation which manages this monopoly of the terminals at -Communipaw is a mysterious concern. Who own its stock, and what its -relations with the railroad are, the Interstate Commerce Commission -could not find out. Its president and treasurer were summoned to -testify, but refused to attend. The manager of the oil combination's -pipe lines stated that he knew of stock in the company that was owned -by a member of the trust, though he afterwards qualified that he -did not know it "positively."[270] The charge that this company was -controlled by the monopoly was specifically made before the Interstate -Commerce Commission and was not denied, and the Commission found -that the oil combination "have a monopoly of those facilities to the -exclusion of complainants."[271] It thus reported the same state of -facts in 1892 as the New York Legislature in 1879. - -The barrel was therefore the fountain of life for the independent. -Without barrels he could not get his oil on board ship for export, and -without exporting he could not live and refine for the home market. -The oil combination ships in barrels also. According to the figures -given in this case by one of its "assistant managers" its shipments by -barrel are very large. This testimony was introduced to make it appear -cruel to insinuate that the difference between barrels and tanks was -made by the railroads to favor it, since it as well as the independents -used barrels. The Commission openly expressed its dissatisfaction with -this evidence, and dismissed the subject by the conclusive observation -that the combination gains more by the low tank-car rates than it -loses by the high barrel rates.[272] For the independent, however, the -difference in rates was almost all loss, for he at that time shipped -mostly in barrels. The high prices it made for oil and for freights at -Titusville and Oil City did not hurt the combination. It had only to -close its refineries there and transfer their business for the time to -its establishments elsewhere. This it did, keeping some of them idle -for years.[273] - -Such was the story told to the Interstate Commerce Commission, in many -hundred pages of testimony, by the refiners of Oil City and Titusville, -who appealed to it for the justice "without expense, without delay, and -without litigation" promised the people when the Interstate Commerce -Commission was created.[274] The game, of which you have perhaps -been able to get a dim idea from the printed page, the Commissioners -saw played before them like chess with living figures. For years -the principal subject of their official investigations had been the -manoeuvres of the oil ring. They had been compelled by the law and -the facts to condemn its relation with the railroads in language of -stinging severity, as every court has done before which it has been -brought. Better than any other men in the country, except the men in -the ring, the Commissioners knew what was being done. They comprehended -perfectly who the "seaboard refiners" were whose demand that their -competitors should be shut out of Europe and New England was better law -with the Pennsylvania Railroad than the decisions of the Commission. -They needed no enlightenment as to the purpose of the secret contract -between the members of the oil trust and the Pennsylvania, nor any -instruction that the "pool" between the pipe line and the railroad was -as hostile to the public interest as any pool between common carriers. - -The chairman of the Commission had openly hinted that the relations of -the oil trust and the railroads were collusive, and that the spring -from which they flowed was a secret contract.[275] It was shown to the -Commission that at the same time the railroads advanced their rates the -oil combination bid up the price of the raw material of the Titusville -and Oil City refineries. This is called "advancing the premium."[276] -The raise of the freight rate added 14 cents a barrel to the cost of -production, and the increased price of oil put on 12 cents more, either -item large enough to embarrass competition. The Interstate Commerce -Commission in its decision recognized the practical simultaneity of -the three movements to the disadvantage of the independent refiners: -(1) the bidding up of the price of crude oil against them; (2) the new -rule of charging for the weight of the barrel; and (3) the abrogation -of the through rates to New England. These three things occurred in a -period of about two months. This, the Commission says, lends color to -the charge that there was concert of action between the combination and -the railroad. - -The Commissioners in their sittings had seen that the counsel for the -railroads did not pretend to bring forward any evidence to prove that -their attack on the barrel shippers was just or proper. Although "the -seaboard refiners," for whose pecuniary profit these things had been -done, were not on trial, their witnesses, agents, and attorneys were -in constant attendance, and kept close watch of the testimony and -arguments. The Commission had its attention called specifically to the -fact that the defence of the railroads on trial was being directed by -the same "seaboard refiners" who had "insisted" that the railroads -should violate the law. The counsel for the Erie road was frank -enough to admit that it was they who had prompted that carrier in its -litigation before the Commission. When the Erie appeared before the -Commission to give "further testimony," its representative could not -tell at whose request its application therefor had been made, and said -he had known nothing about the matter until the day before. Three of -the six witnesses then examined were from the offices of the oil trust, -whose members had refused to come when summoned. The only subpoenas -they obey are those issued from their own headquarters. - -The president of the oil combination's pipe lines--who is also -the president of the steamship line in which its members are -interested--and the vice-president of the pipe lines, and the president -and the treasurer of the company which holds for the trust the monopoly -of the terminal facilities, and the President of the New York, Lake -Erie, and Western Railroad, and its vice-president, were all served -with official notice to come and testify. But these gentlemen refused -to appear. "It is for your honors," said the counsel for the refiners, -suggestively, "to determine what obedience shall be paid to your -subpoenas."[277] But the Commission did nothing. - -The defendant corporations, and their lawyers, officers, and witnesses, -made no pretence of treating the Interstate Commerce Commission with -anything more than a physical respect. The representatives of the -railroad companies practically told the Commission that its decisions -were subordinate to theirs, and that they knew better than it what -its rulings meant. Witnesses refused to answer questions they found -awkward, and the lawyers gave the court to understand that if it did -what they did not like they would snuff it out. The Commission heard -one of the refiners who was a petitioner before it assailed with -coarse vituperation, described in open court as a "pestilence,"[278] -because he had dared to write more than once to the railroads for the -reduction of rates which would save him from destruction, and which the -Commission had, not once, but half a dozen times, said the railroads -ought to give to all. - -The Commission had itself, outrunning the complainants, been the first -to "pointedly disapprove" the attempt to destroy the barrel shippers, -and to call upon the railroads to rescind their action. This protest -it had made repeatedly--first with the subalterns, then with the chief -of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in personal interviews, letters, and -finally in an official pamphlet, which was an appeal to the public to -judge between it and the corporation. It had reiterated its protest -in a formal decision rendered September 5, 1890, after deliberating -seven months on the evidence and arguments. In this "they recalled -the fact, now almost ancient history, that" the change was "pointedly -disapproved by the Commission" when first made, and with lamentations -noted that, though almost two years had passed, "the carriers have -failed to comply with the suggestions there made. In charging for -the weight of the barrels as well as the oil, the carriers that make -use of both modes of transportation have disregarded the principles -plainly and emphatically laid down by the Commission in the cases -cited, and have paid no attention to the subsequent official memorandum -explanatory of the decisions in those cases, but have persisted -in maintaining a discrimination against barrel shippers. An order -requiring the discontinuance of the discrimination has therefore become -necessary."[279] - -An order has therefore become necessary. The Commission then ordered -one road concerned in this separate case to "cease and desist" within -thirty days. Although several cases affecting a number of refiners and -a number of roads had been heard and submitted together, as practically -one in traffic, territory, circumstances, and the main question, it -confined its decision to the case which involved only one road, and -that a subordinate. There the Commission stopped; and there it stuck -for more than two years, from September 5, 1890, to November 14, 1892, -refraining from a decision in the case of the principal offender, the -Pennsylvania Railroad. - -The Pennsylvania Railroad is the representative carrier in the oil -traffic. It controls all the oil business that passes over its lines, -no matter how far away it originates. The initial road which led -the attack on the barrel shippers is subsidiary to the Pennsylvania -in the oil business, and the Pennsylvania controls its rates and -regulations.[280] The Pennsylvania has been the head and front of the -railroad attack on these men, and has been the open nullifier of the -law and the Commission in this matter. It was the principal defendant -on trial, and its case was identical with that of the others, except -that it was the most flagrant; but no order would the Commission issue -against it for two years. Wendell Phillips says: "There is no power -in one State to resist such a giant as the Pennsylvania road. We have -thirty-eight one-horse legislatures in this country; and we have a man -like Tom Scott with three hundred and fifty millions in his hands, and -if he walks through the States they have no power. Why, he need not -move at all; if he smokes, as Grant does, a puff of the waste smoke -out of his mouth upsets the legislatures." When the Commission had -ordered a change of rates on barrels in the South, the Pennsylvania did -the Commission the double disrespect of declaring that that order was -binding upon itself against the protest of the Commission, and of using -an order to reduce rates as an excuse for raising them. But now when -the Commission, September 5, 1890, made a decision on the same point in -a case arising in the territory and traffic in which the Pennsylvania -was the chief carrier--a case, too, of a bunch of cases in which the -Pennsylvania was a defendant--that road ignored it. The Commission, -in the Rice, Robinson and Witherop case, in 1890, promulgated the -very rule which the Pennsylvania Railroad established, which it had -been following for twenty years, and which its officers before the -Commission swore was the correct one, but the Pennsylvania refused -now to accept and follow it. The road which was now ordered to go -back to the correct practice, and which had perforce done so, was the -initial road. The Pennsylvania had followed its initiative in adopting -a "false" and "misleading" and "unwarranted" practice, but would not -follow it in changing to the good. - -The attitude in which the Pennsylvania road and the Commission were -thus placed towards each other was this: Shall the Pennsylvania -Railroad be allowed to make a charge which the Commission volunteered -to rebuke it for making, and which it had decided, in the parallel -case of another road in the same situation, was altogether unwarranted -and must cease? They stood thus facing each other more than two years. -There was apparently no excuse for delay the Commission would not -accept. At one time it granted postponement on the plea of a lawyer -that his father was sick. More than the lawyer's father were sick; a -whole community of business men were sick; the entire country was sick, -its industry, law, politics, morals--all. The administration of justice -was sick. If the facts had been uncertain, or the law undetermined, -the course of justice would still have seemed cruelly sluggish; but -here was a matter in which the facts and the law in question had been -settled, and by the Commission itself, over and over again. The only -thing remaining was that the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well as the road -which was its next neighbor, must obey the law. The railroad against -which the Interstate Commerce Commission decided in 1890 on this point -joined the Pennsylvania at Irvineton and Corry. The Commission put the -law into force on one side of those points, but for two years gave -the Pennsylvania Railroad and others "rehearings" and other means of -delay, and did not open its lips to say that the same law must reign on -the other. The conduct of this corporation meant that it intended to -respect neither the Interstate Commerce Commission nor the Interstate -Commerce law; that it recognized the will of cliqued wealth as the -supreme law; that the protestations of loyalty to the law and the -Commission with which it accompanied its defiance of both were not -offered as a disguise of respect, but were chosen as a method which -would most embarrass the people's tribunal in upholding itself and the -rights of the citizens. All that was needed by those who had contrived -and were continuing the wrong was time--they had everything else. Time -they got, and plenty of it. - -July 15, 1891, the refiners said to the Commission: "Two and one-half -years have elapsed since these complaints were filed, and the end -is not yet. We earnestly hoped that we had succeeded in convincing -this Commission that this respondent was inflicting on complainants a -great and unnecessary wrong, which merited the most speedy remedy and -redress possible. If we have failed in this we are unable to ascribe -the failure to a lack of evidence or promptness in presenting it. -It was not thought possible that all this great length of time would -be required to reach a conclusion in these matters, under all these -circumstances, especially after the decision in the Rice, Robinson, -and Witherop case (September 5, 1890). The enemies of the complainants -could scarcely have found or wished for any more effectual way of -injuring complainants than by a long delay of their cause. Further -delay simply means further injury to complainants." The two years -and a half have gone on to more than five years. A decision has been -made, but the end is not yet. The delay prevented the injured men from -going to any other tribunal with their complaint. They have succeeded -in keeping alive, though barely alive, because the price of their raw -material has declined a little, and given them a margin to cling to. -This delay has denied them justice in the special tribunal they were -invited to attend, and has also denied them the relief they could have -got from other courts. - -The Commission heard all this urged by eloquent counsel. It heard the -men who were being crushed tell how their refineries were being closed, -their customers lost, their business wrecked, their labor idle, while -the trade itself was growing larger than ever. It saw the statistics -which proved it. But no practical relief have the independents of -Oil City and Titusville been able to get from it. They have lost the -business, lost the hopes of five years, lost the growth they would have -made, lost five years of life. - -This delay of justice is awful, but it is not the end, for the -decision, though it came at last in November, 1892, has brought no -help. It required the roads to either carry the barrels free or -furnish tank-cars to all shippers, and for the past ordered a refund -of the freight charged on barrels to shippers who had been denied -the use of tank-cars. More than five months after it was rendered -the independents, in an appeal (April 20, 1893) to the Interstate -Commerce Commission, called its attention to the fact that "none of -the railroads in any one of the cases has as yet seen fit to obey -any of its orders save such and to such extent as they found them -advantageous to themselves, although the time for doing so has -expired." More appalling still, it appeared, in an application made -in March, 1893, by the Pennsylvania Railroad for a reopening of the -case, that these years of litigation were but preliminary to further -litigation. The counsel of the railroad, in the spirit in which it -had previously warned the Commission that its powers "may be tested," -now informed it that the road, if the application for further delay -were not granted, would "await proceedings in the Circuit Court for -enforcement of what it believed to be an erroneous order." And in -another passage it referred to the proceedings before the Commission as -being simply proceedings "in advance of any final determination of the -case on its merits." Four years and a half had been consumed when, as -the independents pleaded to the Commission, "it might reasonably have -been expected that as many months would have sufficed," and yet these -are only preliminary to "the final determination of the case on its -merits." - -"The delay suffered has been despairing--killing," was the agonized cry -of the independents in their plea to the Interstate Commerce Commission -not to grant this new delay. "We pray that no more be permitted." -But in November, 1893, more delay was permitted by granting another -application of the Pennsylvania Railroad for "rehearing." This was -limited to thirty days, but these have run into months, and "the end is -not yet." Five years have now passed in this will-o'-the-wisp pursuit -of justice "without delay." - -And another "outsider," who has been a suppliant since March, -1889,[281] before the Interstate Commerce Commission for the same -relief--the free carriage of barrels where tanks are carried free--is -still a suppliant in vain. The Commission consumed three years in -hearings and rehearings, only to report itself unable to decide this -and other important points raised by him. It was "a most perplexing -inquiry," "we are not prepared to hold," "we desire to be made -acquainted with the present situation," and "the results exhibited -by recent experience." "No such intimation is intended," said the -Commission, as that it is right for the roads to charge for barrels -when they carried tanks free--not at all. "We simply refrain" from -stopping the wrong, and "reserve further opinion for fuller information -and more satisfactory inquiry." Perhaps, however, by "voluntary -action"[282] the railroads which had contrived this wrong would be -good enough to stop it, though the Commission was not good enough to -order them to do so! The Commission held that the rates were "unlawful; -but, for want of sufficient data, we do not undertake to point out -the particular modifications and reductions which would satisfy the -demands of justice."[283] "We are not now prepared to determine," "we -feel unable to prescribe," "is not now decided," "reopened for further -evidence and argument," are the phrases with which the Commission -glided away from the settlement of other vital points as to which its -intervention had been invoked for more than three years. Even when it -directed the railroads to reduce their charge it added "to what extent -the Commission does not now determine, and the cases will be held open -for such further," etc. And there his case hangs even unto this day, -for since this "not-now-decided" decision the "outsider" has never -renewed his appeals to the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning -these cases or others,[284] but, hopeless of redress, has let them go -by default. - -The secret contract stands, but the barrel men survive, barely, despite -monopoly, by changing to tank-cars, and getting a pipe-line and some -terminals. They create seaboard facilities and persuade the Jersey -Central to haul their tanks. To meet this road they lay the pipe now to -be described, and, to escape railroads altogether, will build to New -York, if not ruined meanwhile. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -UNFINISHED MARCH TO THE SEA - - -Between May and December, Sherman made his march from Lookout Mountain -to the sea, cutting the Confederacy in two. For thirty years the people -of Pennsylvania have been trying to break a free way to the ocean -through the Alleghanies and the oil combination, and in vain. For ten -years the hope of independent outlet to the sea from the oil-fields -of Pennsylvania lay prostrate under the blow of the surrender of the -Tidewater. Twice the people have tried again, only each time to be -headed off. The first of these two rallies collapsed in the shut-down -of 1887; the second was stopped at the cannon's mouth by an armed force -at Hancock, New York, in the year of peace, 1892. - -By 1887 the people of the oil regions had recovered from the shock of -losing the independent Tidewater Pipe Line,[285] and began to make new -plans for getting to the sea. By some means the committee to whom they -had intrusted the management of the new enterprise was persuaded to go -to New York to confer with the officers of the oil combination, who had -measures of conciliation to propose that would make it unnecessary to -build the new pipe lines. This committee, and finally the constituency -it represented, were made to believe that the cause of the woes of the -oil country was simply and only that there was too much oil--not that -there were too many empty or half-filled lamps. They agreed to cut -down their business one-half, and were lured away from the project of -getting full prices on a full product. The outcome was the "shut-down" -of 1887. The producers were persuaded it would bring back oil to a -dollar a barrel--to stay there; but after a brief and unremunerative -spurt in values, a reaction, lasting to the present, carried prices to -a lower level than ever, and the producers found that the last state of -those who let such spirits enter them is always worse than the first. - -Several times before this the oil producers had tried to imitate the -policy of scarcity, which the most brilliant business successes are -teaching to be the royal road to wealth. It is stated by the report of -the General Council of the Petroleum Producers' Union[286] that the -producers had twice entered into arrangements with the oil combination -to lessen the product and regulate the price of crude petroleum, and -that in each case the arrangement had been violated by the latter -when it seemed about to become profitable to the producer. Hence, -when invited to confer for a third venture of this sort, the Council -declined to do so. But in 1887 the invitation, extended for the fourth -time, was a third time accepted. The producers succeeded in the -restriction, but they did not better their condition. These men gave -the world the spectacle of the producers flirting with the solitary and -supreme buyer of their product, in the belief that he would help them -to raise their price against himself. - -The agreement which was made with the producers was shown before -Congress.[287] The producers were bound for a year from November 1, -1887, "to produce at least 17,500 barrels of crude petroleum less per -day," and to make it, if possible, "30,000 barrels less per day." In -return for this the oil combination agreed to give the speculative -profits on 6,000,000 barrels of oil--the profits on 5,000,000 for -them, and on 1,000,000 for their laborers. This move of those who want -petroleum cheap to make it dear is one of the equivocations of policy -in which princes have always distinguished themselves. The need of -the hour was to stop the building of the competing pipe line. That -was accomplished by the scheme of the shut-down, which amused the -producers, and, as subsequent prices proved, did not hurt the buyer of -their oil; quite the contrary. - -Drills and pumps at once ceased their operations throughout the oil -regions. Working-men were thrown out of employment, stores were closed, -hundreds of families had to subsist on charity. One of the Broadway -producers who made this bargain for the shut-down admitted to the -committee of the New York Legislature that "the oil-producing interest -was abnormally depressed," and "that there was great distress."[288] -The agreement itself recites that the price of petroleum had been -during the preceding year "largely below the cost at which it was -produced." The people of the oil country went to work with desperation -to enforce the policy of oil famine. Committees were formed among the -well-drillers in each district, "whose duty," the formal papers of -organization stated, "shall be to keep a lookout for and endeavor to -prevent the drilling of wells." "We have no way of stopping those who -want to drill wells," one of the officers of the organization said, -"only by good, reasonable talk." The Well-drillers' Union appointed -and paid one of their members to reason with people who insisted upon -digging wells. It is not necessary to question the good faith of the -assurance their officials gave Congress that his duties did not require -the use of nitro-glycerine. But, "unofficially," nitro-glycerine was -freely used to enforce the shut-down. Men who failed to feel the -influence of the "good talk," and went on putting up machinery, and -drilling wells, would find their derricks blown into kindling-wood. -Referring to one of these occurrences, a member of the Well-drillers' -Union told Congress it was a case where no permission had been granted -by the union to drill. - -"Was the rig destroyed?" he was asked. - -"The derrick was blowed up by some kind of compound." - -The quantity of the "compound" was enough to shake windows six miles -distant. The derrick and the machinery were "cheapened" into junk. - -"Did you ever know of a case of any man's derrick and apparatus being -blown up in the oil region before the formation of this association?" -one of the shut-downers was asked. - -"I could not say that I do."[289] - -The owner of the apparatus destroyed, it was stated by the press, had -been repeatedly requested to join the shut-down, but had refused. There -were several such occurrences, recalling the affairs at the Buffalo -refinery in 1885.[290] When the people in Pennsylvania saw apostles of -the gospel of making oil cheap enter into a bargain with them to make -it scarce, it is not surprising that they should have become bewildered -to the point of thinking that the noise of nitro-glycerine was "good -talk," and should have sunk into the depression, monetary and moral, -that alone could make such haggard faces rise among an honest laborious -people. - -We have seen how the refiners who pass under the control of the -trust are compelled to make monthly reports. The same perfectness of -discipline appears at once among the producers in this shut-down. -Every one of them had to make monthly reports of how much oil he had -taken out of the earth. If the mobilization of industry goes on at -the rate of recent years, it will not be long--not later, perhaps, -than the end of the nineteenth century--before all producers, and all -makers, will be sending monthly reports to New York of grain, cattle, -iron, wool, lumber, leather, and the manufactures of them to trustees, -whose "pleasure it is to try to make them"--the men as well as the -commodities--"cheap." The supervision by means of these monthly reports -was so close that over-production, however minute, was immediately -known. If the owner of a well over-produced only the one-hundredth of a -barrel, he got a notice to go slower.[291] - -To the producers engaged in it the result of the shut-down was -that when their representatives at the end of it called on the oil -combination in New York for the profits on the 5,000,000 barrels of -oil set apart for them, as agreed, they were given a check for a sum -between $200,000 and $250,000.[292] This was divided among those who -had co-operated--nearly one thousand--in proportion to their share -in the good work of making the supply of the light of the people so -much "less per day." The drama of industry has not many scenes more -striking than this of these men--the principal producers of the oil -country, which had yielded in the thirty years up to this time more -than 300,000,000 barrels of oil--going to the great syndicate in New -York to buy the privilege of restricting the production of their own -wells, thankfully accepting the scanty profits on a speculative deal -in the oil exchange of 5,000,000 barrels, receiving with emotions of -enthusiasm a check for a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a -year's "co-operation" from the men who had made out of their product -hundreds of millions. - -The shut-down was a great disappointment in prices. The average price -of petroleum at the wells for October, the month before the shut-down, -was 70-7/8 cents a barrel. The highest monthly price reached during -the restriction was 93-5/8, in March, 1888. The average for October, -1888, the last month of the year originally agreed upon, was 90-5/8. -By a subsequent understanding the restriction was continued until -July, 1889. The price then was 95-1/8. At no time during the shut-down -was the coveted dollar mark maintained, and it was barely touched -in March, 1888, after which there was a sharp decline to 71-3/8 in -June, with savage losses to "the lambs." High prices did not come -until the accumulation of 6,000,000 barrels set aside "for the use" -of the producers had been sold out. After that there were in the -winter following--1889-90--a few months in which the price rose, as to -$1.12-1/2 in November, 1889, but it sank the year following to 60-3/4 -in December, 1890, and it continued to go down until crude oil reached -50 cents in October, 1892, the lowest point known since there was an -oil market.[293] - -The men with whom the producers made their bargain, shrewder than they, -and versed in the dynamics of the markets, knew that the effect of -setting apart 6,000,000 barrels of oil would be ultimately depressive -to prices, not stimulating. Not knowing when or at what price this vast -amount would be unloaded, buyers, both for use and for speculation, -would be made timid, and prices would be held in check. The shut-down -produced a great gambling mania. Untold millions were lost by men in -the oil country, who gambled on the exchanges to make the profits -of the expected advance. Local panics, bank failures, ruin in all -its shapes, were the escort of shame and loss which marched with the -shut-down. Curiously enough, it was those who speculated for the rise -who were the losers. There was against them an element which knew -better than they what prices were going to be, for it made them. It -is this ability of insiders to bet on a certainty which has been the -destruction of the oil exchanges. From Pittsburg to New York they are -now practically all dead. - -The amount of the reduction effected by the shut-down, independent of a -natural decline which had set in some months before, has been estimated -at 11,000,000 to 15,000,000 barrels. The production ran down from -25,798,000 barrels in 1886 to 21,478,883 in 1887, and 16,488,688 in -1888. In 1889 it was up to 21,487,435 again, and in 1890, 29,130,910. - -The price of light advanced. When the negotiations were in progress the -producers were told that if the flow of oil glutting the market could -be stopped the price of refined could be advanced, and that for every -eighth of a cent a gallon advance in it the producers could expect an -advance of 4 cents a barrel on their crude oil. Refined advanced during -the shut-down to a price to correspond to which the crude should have -risen to 96 cents a barrel. Instead, its price fell to 78 cents. The -committee went to New York "to protest." Their New York ally said there -was no change in the markets of the world. That they could get the -price for the refined, but they did not propose to hold up the price of -the crude. "If we could not do that, they could not help it." - -"He had refined to sell, and crude to buy?" - -"Yes, sir."[294] - -This shut-down, the New York _Tribune_ said, was "one of the most -interesting economical experiments made in recent years." It was, as -the New York _World_ said, "one of the largest restrictive movements -ever attempted in commerce." The president of the trust, when examined -on February 27, 1888, by the New York Legislature, as to the agreement -for the shut-down, declared positively that nothing of the kind had -been done. - -"There has been no such agreement?" he was asked. - -"Oh no, sir!... Oil has run freely all the time." - -"And no attempt to do that?" - -"No, sir."[295] - -He afterwards recalled these denials, and excused himself on the ground -that as he had been in Europe when the arrangement was made he had -known of it only "incidentally."[296] A "shut-down" on facts is as -necessary to the success of the schemes for scarcity as a shut-down in -oil. There are too many facts, as well as too much oil. - -"By advancing the price of the crude material you necessarily advance -the price of the refined?" another of the combination was asked. - -"Yes, sir."[297] - -The average price of refined at New York for export was 6.75 -cents a gallon in 1887. This rose to 7.50 in 1888, the highest -average price for any year between 1885 and 1893.[298] The effect -of the restriction--"one of the most extensive ever attempted in -commerce"--was thus to make oil and light and all its other products -scarcer and dearer. The producers really got no good. After the -shut-down had been in progress five months, their committee issued -an address congratulating them on the "glorious results" achieved in -the fidelity with which the pledge of restriction had been kept, but -continued, "But prices are not yet remunerative."[299] - -"We do not seem to have gotten it," one of the producers said to -Congress, referring to the assistance they expected in an advance of -the price to profitable figures.[300] No lasting gain came to any one -unless to the monopoly, and it is possibly too soon to tell whether its -gain will be "lasting." - -Part of the speculation was that the profits of 2,000,000 barrels, -contributed equally by the combination and the producers, were to be -distributed among the working-men affected by the loss of employment. -Men who had been earning $12 a day received a dollar a day from this -fund, and lay idle.[301] A blistering picture of the condition of the -region is to be seen in the testimony of one of the producers. - -"The payments that you have made, or that your assembly has made, have -been to individuals?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"State what the character of the occupation of the individuals thus -relieved was in relation to the shut-in." - -"Pumpers and roustabout men who had families sick and impoverished. -That was a source of relief to them, and we did not withhold it. It was -in our community, and we thought we could well afford to allow them -that." - -"For what did you pay them?" - -"For charity's sake." - -"Did you give them any occupation?" - -"We had it not to give; we gave them money instead."[302] - -This was the melancholy end of the great shut-down. But the people -were not broken by their new failure. They did not lie long in the -cul-de-sac into which they had been trapped. There is a magnificent -reserve force of public spirit and love of liberty in the province -of William Penn and the chosen State of Benjamin Franklin. The oil -business has been a thirty years' war. The people have been whipped -until one would suppose defeat had become part of their daily routine, -but there have always been enough good men who did not know they were -beaten to begin fighting again early the next morning. It was so when -the independents of Pennsylvania took the pool of the oil trust's pipe -lines and the railroads before the Interstate Commerce Commission, -only to reap the unexpected demonstration that the tribunal created by -Congress to prevent and punish discrimination was but one more theatre -for litigation and delay.[303] Leaving their cause on the floor of the -Interstate Commerce Commission, these men went forth for the seventy -and seventh time to build a pipe line of their own, on which they are -now busy. Their numbers, resources, and hopes are less, but their will -and courage are undiminished. To-day, in northwestern and western -Pennsylvania this small, determined body of men are going forward with -a new campaign in their gallant struggle for the control of their own -business. Their efforts have been, a friendly observer says, not too -warmly, as heroic and noble and self-sacrificing as the uprising of a -nation for independence. - -Of all this very little has been known outside the oil regions, for -the reason that the newspapers there are mostly owned or controlled -by the oil combination,[304] or fear its power. The last independent -daily in northwestern Pennsylvania became neutral when the threat -was made to place a rival in the field. With sympathy from but few -of the home press, ridiculed by the "reptile" papers, and met at -every turn by crushing opposition, and annoyances great and little -from spies and condottieri, these men are, in 1894, working quietly -and manfully to cut their way through to a free market and a right -to live. Their new pipe line has been met with the same unrelenting, -open, and covert warfare that made every previous march to the sea so -weary. The railroads, the members of the oil combination, and every -private interest these could influence have been united against them. -As all through the history of the independent pipe lines, the officials -of the railways have exhausted the possibilities of opposition. At -Wilkes-barre, where a great net-work of tracks had to be got under, -all the roads united to send seven lawyers into court to fight for -injunctions against the single-handed counsel for the producers. They -pleaded again the technicalities which had been invoked afresh at -every crossing, although always brushed away by the judges, as they -were here again. Though they have allowed their right of way to be -used without charge for pipe lines which were to compete with them, -the railroads refused to allow the independents to make a crossing, -even though they had the legal right to cross. Not content with the -champerty of collusive injunctions, they have resorted to physical -force, and the pipe-layers of the independents have been confronted -by hundreds of armed railroad employes. When they have dug trenches, -the railroad men have filled them up as fast. Appeal to the courts has -always given the right of way to the independents, but the tactics -against them are renewed at every crossing because they cost them heart -and money, and they have not the same unlimited supply of the latter as -of the former. Their telegraph-poles have been cut down, lawyers and -land-agents have been sent in advance of them to make leases of the -farmers for a year or two of the land it was known they would want. For -a few dollars earnest-money to bind the bargain, a great deal of land -can be tied up in such ways. In some cases conditional offers would -be made guaranteeing the owner five times as much as the independents -would give, whatever that might be. Further to cripple them, a bill -was introduced into the Pennsylvania Legislature and strongly pushed, -repealing the law giving pipe-line companies the right of eminent -domain. - -The Erie, which has let the combination lay its pipe lines upon its -right of way, and bore there for oil,[305] has been conspicuous in its -efforts to prevent the new pipe line from getting through. The line at -last reached Hancock, New York; there it had to pass under the Erie -Railroad bridge in the bed of the river. The last Saturday night in -November, 1892, the quiet of Hancock was disturbed by the arrival -of one hundred armed men, railroad employes, by special train. They -unlimbered a cannon, established a day and night patrol, built a beacon -to be fired as an appeal for reinforcements, put up barracks, and left -twenty men to go into winter quarters. Dynamite was part of their -armament, and they were equipped with grappling-irons, cant-hooks, -and other tools to pull the pipe up if laid. Cannon are a part of the -regular equipment of the combination, as they are used to perforate -tanks in which the oil takes fire. To let the "independents" know what -they were to expect the cannon was fired at ten o'clock at night, -with a report that shook the people and the windows for miles about. -These opponents of competition were willing and ready to kill though -their rights were dubious, and there could be no pretence that full -satisfaction could not be got through the courts if any wrong was done. - -For weeks Hancock remained in a state of armed occupation by a private -military force. Referring to this demonstration with a private -army at a moment of profound peace, the Buffalo _Express_ said of -those responsible for it: "They continue to fight with their old -weapons--incendiarism and riot." No case has been come across in which -the railroads made any opposition in the courts to the oil trust -crossing under their tracks with its pipe line. More than once the -railroads have allowed this rival carrier to lay its pipes side by side -with their rails. - -"Now, is your pipe line to New York laid upon the right of way of any -railroad?" - -"It touches at times the Erie road, and crosses the Erie road." - -"Did you pay anything for that to them?" - -"No, sir." - -"Nothing?" - -"Nothing."[306] - -But never have the railroads failed to compel an independent pipe -line to fight through the courts for every crossing it needed. It has -made no difference how often or emphatically the law has sustained the -right of the people to make such crossings. The next attempt would be -resisted on the same ground, and with the same desperate determination -"to overcome competition" for the favorite. The local line laid by the -independents in 1892 between Coraopolis and Titusville had to pass -under the Erie, the Lake Shore, the Pan Handle, the Western New York, -and the Pennsylvania railroads, and in every case had to encounter -needless litigation to do so. It was victorious, for the roads did -not dare go to trial, though the managers, one after the other, to -help cripple competition, spent the money of the stockholders in what -was perfectly well known to be a hopeless opposition. A correspondent -of the Bradford _Record_ wrote: "When the news reached Bradford that -the Erie Railroad had sold her independence to the combination, that -the latter might defeat honorable competition and continue to rob the -people, that one hundred men and a cannon confronted the United States -Pipe Line at Hancock, who could have censured the outraged producers -of Bradford for blowing the great Kinzua viaduct out of the Kinzua -valley? Who could blame the bankrupt producers of the oil country for -destroying every dollar's worth of the combination's property wherever -found? The people are getting desperate; they are ready, like the -blind Samson, to pull down the pillars of the temple, even though they -themselves fall crushed to death amid the ruins." These are wild, even -wicked words, but is it not a portent that such words rise out of the -heart of an honest community? - -This opposition, with show of force and threats of violence, was -successful. In February, 1893, after months of facing the cannon and -the private army which the railroad maintained for the oil combination, -it was publicly announced by the president of the new pipe line that -the route by Hancock must be abandoned. Many thousands of dollars -and time worth even more were lost. "Suppose," said a daily paper of -Binghamton, "that a body of laboring men had unlimbered a cannon and -stationed armed men to suppress competition, what denunciation of the -outrage there would have been!" - -A new way through Wilkes-barre was chosen after the retreat from -Hancock, and by that route the independent producers and refiners, with -hope long deferred, are now seeking to finish their march to the sea. - -The producers are poor men, and their resources for this unequal -contest come from the sale of oil, and day by day the price of oil was -depressed until it sank to the neighborhood of half a dollar a barrel. -There has been some recovery since, but still the lowest prices of -many years are being made, and the producers are finding the burden -of their escape very heavy. "It is the honest belief of all oil men," -says one of them, "that the low price of oil for the year is due to -efforts to make the producer so poor that he cannot carry through his -pipe line." This is the enterprise of the independent refiners as well -as producers. Against these refiners, therefore, the market for refined -oil also is manipulated. Very fantastic have been the operations of the -"unchanging" laws of supply and demand under this manipulation. The -independents found that in the export market of New York, in the spring -of 1894, petroleum, just as it came from the pipe line crude from the -nether earth, was quoted at a higher price a barrel than the same oil -after it had gone through all the processes of refining and was aboard -ship ready for the lamps of Europe or Asia.[307] - -To throw another obstacle in the way of the new line, the oil trust in -1893 began again the game of 1878, of refusing to relieve producers of -their oil with its pipe lines. As in 1878, the oil was left to run to -waste. Then, the object was to compel the producers to sell it "always -below the market";[308] now, it was to force them to sign a contract -not to patronize any other pipe lines. Producers who refused to sign -this contract, in order to be free to join the new line when it was -finished, were refused an outlet, and they had to pump their oil on -the ground while appealing to the courts to compel this common carrier -to do its duty.[309] When they applied for a mandamus the combination -receded from its position without waiting for a trial. - -This has been a warfare on more than a new competitor; it is an -attempt to suppress improvement and invention. A new idea in oil -transportation, which promises a revolution in the industry, was hit -upon by these independents. This was that pipe lines could be used -to send refined oil long distances to market as well as crude. The -announcement of their plans to do this was met with the ridicule of -those who control the existing pipe lines to the seaboard and do not -wish to see their old-fashioned methods of piping crude oil alone -disturbed. But the independents went on with their idea. They have -proved it practicable. Now, for the first time in the history of the -oil industry, a pipe line transports oil ready for the lamp. Refined -oil is piped from Titusville to Wilkes-barre with no loss of quality. -Many hundred thousand barrels of it have been piped for nearly three -hundred miles, and not a barrel has been rejected by the inspection, -either at New York or its destination abroad. The success of the -experiment proves that it can be piped to New York. - -The independents press on. Occasionally one of them, says a local -journal, unhinged by the loss of property, commits suicide or is taken -to an insane asylum, and another goes down out of sight in bankruptcy, -but the others close the ranks and go on, and now about 4000 men, in a -strongly organized association, are marching side by side towards the -sea--the blue and free.[310] - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -PURCHASE OF PEACE - - -Hunting about for tax-dodgers, it was discovered by the authorities -of Pennsylvania some years ago that many foreign corporations were -doing business within the limits of the Commonwealth and enjoying -the protection of her laws, and at the same time not paying for it. -Foremost among these delinquents stood the principal company in the -oil combination with its mammoth capital, practically buying, refining -and controlling nearly the entire oil production of the State, "and -yet failing to pay one cent into the public treasury." So wrote the -Auditor-General to his successor in 1882. The combination, beginning, -like creation, with nothing, had grown, until in 1883 it was so rich -that, according to the testimony of one of its members, it owned -"between $40,000,000 and $50,000,000" in Pennsylvania alone.[311] But -though doing business in Pennsylvania, and legally within the grasp -of the taxing power, as decided by the courts, this company paid no -taxes, and would not give the State the information called for by law -as to its taxable property. It practised "voluntary taxation." "For -eight years," Auditor-General Schell says, "it had been doing business -in this Commonwealth, and had failed in all that time to file a single -report." "It was not necessary for the department to call upon it to -make reports." The law required these reports specifically and in -details that could not be misunderstood, and that was notification -enough. But year after year the Auditor-Generals, whose duty it was to -collect due contribution from each taxpayer, made special demands upon -this one for reports in compliance with the law, but with no effect. - -In 1878 William P. Schell became Auditor-General, and began, shortly -after taking his oath, to see if he could find out what taxes were due -from this concern, and how they could be collected. He sent official -circulars to the company in 1878, 1879, 1880, but "there was no reply -made at any time."[312] His predecessor had had the same experience. -He then sent one of his force to Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York -to investigate. Whenever he could get the names of persons familiar -with the workings of the company he would visit them, to find himself -usually "not much further ahead than when he started."[313] "It was -impossible to get any information. Even the men we talked to deceived -us. Men came to Harrisburg to give us information, and afterwards we -found they were in the interests of the company."[314] The department -found itself, the Auditor-General wrote to his successor, "foiled at -all points, not only by the refusal of the company to respond to the -notices sent to its officers, but also by the great reticence of all -persons in any manner connected with or employed by the company." - -These efforts to find out the nature and character of the business of -the company extended through two or three years. The first workable -indication that the company was taxable in Pennsylvania came when the -Governor of Ohio, in answer to inquiries, sent the Attorney-General a -copy of the charter of the company. The Auditor-General wrote to the -Governor and Auditor-General of New York and the Governor of Ohio for -information. Letters were sent to the president and principal members -of the company at Cleveland, Oil City, New York, and elsewhere. An -answer was finally received from the company's attorney. He said that -the company was not subject to taxation. The department replied the -same day refusing to accept this view, and insisting on reports. Then -the lawyer replied that the books and papers "were at Cleveland, and it -would take some time to prepare reports." The Auditor-General offered -to send his clerk to Cleveland "by first train," to prepare the reports -for the company if assurance was given that he would be permitted to -examine the books of the company when he got there. - -No reply to this request was ever received. Then telegrams were sent, -several days in succession, asking for reports, offering more time -if the company would agree to report within any reasonable time, and -finally warning the company that if it did not comply with the law and -file its reports the Auditor-General would act under the authority -given him by the law, and charge it with taxes estimated on such -"reasonable data" as he could procure. All the department could get -were evasive letters or telegrams from the counsel in New York, such -as "letter explaining on the way." The letter came with the valuable -information that "the officers are out of the city, and the company -will answer on their return." Another "reply" was: "I have failed to -get replies from the absent officers."[315] No reports forthcoming, -the Auditor-General at last, on the best information he could get, -backed by affidavits which were placed on file in the archives of his -office, calculated the taxes due from 1872 to 1881, with penalties, -at $3,145,541.64. This was totalled on an estimate, supported by -affidavit, that the profits of the company had been two to three -millions a year from 1872 to 1876, and ten to twelve millions a year -from 1876 to 1880, figures which what is now known show to have been -near the truth. After fixing upon this amount, and before charging it -against the company, the latter was given still another chance, and -another. Two telegrams were sent notifying that the estimated tax would -be entered up if "the refusal to report" was persisted in. The last -telegram said: "Still hoping that reports will come from the company, -so that we will have some data to act upon." - -No word of reply came. - -Then the Auditor-General formally entered the amount he had estimated -on his books, as the law authorized him to do.[316] His investigations -had consumed his entire term, and the filing of this estimate was -almost his last official act. It is a fact of record that after all -this, officers of the company, in seeking to have this estimate of -taxes due set aside, stated in writing that "there was no neglect -or refusal on the part of said company to furnish any report or -information which could lawfully be required of it by any officer or -under any law of the State of Pennsylvania."[317] - -Suit was now brought by the Attorney-General of the State to recover -this tax, as was his duty, and then the company began to stir -itself. To assist him in procuring and interpreting evidence the -Attorney-General, who knew nothing of the oil business, obtained -the services of a man who knew more about it than any one else in -Pennsylvania. This person was a practical oil man. He was one of the -leaders of the producers and refiners' association, which in the -exciting times of 1872, when law and order in Pennsylvania stood on -the edge of a crater, compelled the railroads to abandon the South -Improvement scheme, "in name," and to give in writing the pledge that -"all arrangements for the transportation of oil after this date shall -be upon the basis of perfect equality to all," though he could not -find a way to make them keep the pledge. He was prominent six years -later in the uprising of the people when they found that all these -promises were being broken, and all their rights on the highways being -violated. It was largely through his influence that the producers -determined to proceed against the oil combination as a criminal -conspiracy, and procured the indictment of its principals in Clarion -County, Pennsylvania, on charges of crime.[318] "When," as was said -before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee of 1883, "the doors of -the penitentiary were gaping wide to receive them; when a true bill had -been found before the Grand Jury; when, if they ever were in jeopardy -before to-day, they were in jeopardy." - -He was chairman of the Committee on Transportation of the Oil -Producers' Association, and was one of the "legal committee" of five -who represented the producers in having the "anti-discrimination suits" -brought and pushed against the Pennsylvania Railroad by the State -in 1879. By these suits the discriminations and favoritisms, which, -though known, it had till then been impossible to prove, were forced -into the light as facts, and the evidence was furnished without which -the indictments just referred to could not have been found. When the -accused, frightened at last, succeeded in getting the aroused producers -to agree not to push the criminal trial, in consideration of a solemn -pledge that all secrecy and favoritism in transportation should be -given up, he withdrew from the negotiations and would not sign the -compromise. He had assisted the Congressional Committees of Commerce at -Washington in 1872 and 1876 in their ill-starred investigations, and -had been active in the effort to get another investigation begun in -1880. He had also been one of the principal witnesses before the New -York Legislative investigation of 1879. For eighteen years he had been -on this quest. With him the Attorney-General now arranged to get the -evidence on which the State could support its claim for taxes. - -The members of the great corporation saw that they must act. In -out-going Auditor-General Schell they had met the first officer of -the people who was as determined to make them pay as they were not to -pay. The policy of silence and nullification was abandoned. One of -the members of the trust came in person to the State capital to see -the Attorney-General. He made an unexpected overture. He volunteered -to furnish the State with a full disclosure of the facts it needed to -prove its claim. - -"I confess," said the Deputy Attorney-General, "that I little knew in -what direction to cross-examine him."[319] He therefore sent for the -expert who had been employed by the Attorney-General. The "trustee" -protested against his presence; but the Deputy Attorney-General said -that he had been employed by the State, and it would be necessary that -he should take part. The representative of the trust, moved, as he -afterwards testified, by the patriotic consideration that "the regular -cumbersome way of taking oral testimony ... would result in great labor -and expense to the State, and would be an obstruction and labor to us -that could be avoided," made a suggestion that the State go to the -trial of the case upon a statement of facts of their business which he -and his associates would make. This offer to become a volunteer witness -was agreed to, and the delinquent corporation and the State went into -court with an "agreement as to facts." The Attorney-General reserved -for the State the right to add to these facts, but did not at any time -during the proceedings do so. - -His expert shrewdly foresaw that another defeat for the people was to -be the result of this policy. "I objected very strenuously," he says. -"It was my pet scheme to examine them orally in court or by commission, -and I gave it up very reluctantly. I told the Attorney-General I could -not believe those gentlemen were in earnest, that I knew I could ask -a string of questions of any one of them which if answered would have -given the case away to the State."[320] But the Attorney-General, -the same who as counsel for the people, in 1879, against the members -of the same corporation, led his clients to defeat, overruled him. -The old campaigner saw the mistake of 1880 about to be repeated, and -an agreement with the offenders substituted for trial and for the -defeat of them he believed would follow. He determined to prevent -the consummation of this second catastrophe. He sent his counsel to -New York to the headquarters of the oil combination with a notice -that he would not adhere to the bargain made by the Attorney-General -at Harrisburg with reference to "the agreement of facts." "I propose -to attack," was the message he sent.[321] He was to have received -compensation from the State. He believed that this gave him an interest -in the matter sufficient to gain a footing in the courts for action by -himself independently of the Attorney-General. In pursuance of this -idea, when the case came up for trial, he appeared with his private -counsel ready to take part in the proceedings if permitted. - -The notice of attack was received "with surprise," but was met with a -characteristic move. "I raised the question with him"--the counsel--"as -to what possible motive" his client "had in the matter," the "trustee" -testifies, "and as to whether it would not be better for him to desist -from it; whether it would not be possible for us, if he was needing -business, to find some position in which he could legitimately earn -a living."[322] The lawyer replied that he had no right to treat on -any such basis, and withdrew from all connection with the case. But -this was the opening of a negotiation which through another lawyer -"resulted," as the expert of the State afterwards confessed, "in peace -between us." He had given notice that he meant to attack, and the -"negotiation" which followed "was whether anybody would give me as much -as there was in my contract with the State if I would not attack."[323] - -Meanwhile the Attorney-General marched gayly to another defeat of his -client--the people--going into court with no other ammunition than the -facts furnished by the men he was suing. He did not put his expert, -nor the Auditor-General, nor his assistant, nor the men on whose -information and affidavits the estimate had been made of taxes due, -nor any one else on the stand. He was "perfectly satisfied," he says, -"that these facts were true," and that the company were "in good faith -doing exactly what they undertook to do--namely, to furnish me with -all the information that was necessary to establish the Commonwealth -case."[324] - -His method was as singular with the argument as with the testimony. -He insisted, in opposition to the opinion of Auditor-General Schell, -that such a corporation must pay taxes on all its capital stock, -whether it represented property in the State or out of it. The court -decided against him. It held that it was taxable "only on so much of -its capital stock as was represented by the business and property of -the company within the State." As to what the amount of this property -and business within the State was the court took the facts furnished -by the delinquent itself, as they were the only ones presented to it -by the Attorney-General. The amount originally charged for taxes by -Auditor-General Schell, who had forced the fighting, was $3,145,541.64. -The Attorney-General, on his mistaken theory of the law and on the -facts volunteered by those he was suing, had "split the difference" and -sued for only $796,642.20. The court cut this down to $33,270.59, and -on appeal this was still further reduced to $22,660.10.[325] - -This decision was not final or conclusive as to either the State or the -company, both of whom afterwards sued out writs of error. The expert, -who had been pushed to one side, at once determined to take what steps -he could to reopen the case and mend the fortunes of the State. The -moment the decision was announced he telegraphed the Attorney-General -again for another conference, and was told to come to Philadelphia. He -told the Attorney-General that he thought "the hope of the State to get -the largest amount of money was to get a rehearing and let us have an -oral examination." But the "satisfied" Attorney-General refused to do -anything but carry the same argument and the same agreement of facts up -to the Supreme Court. He refused to move for a new trial, and not only -told his expert so, but told the "trustee" so. The trustee, by one of -those coincidences which prove how much better it is to be born lucky -than rich, happened to have come at the same time to stay in the same -hotel with the Attorney-General. - -It was in vain that the expert pointed out omissions of property and -facts which he thought "had not been clearly shown in the agreement -as to facts," and afterwards other matters he had discovered. After -the defeat of the State he prepared an affidavit containing additional -facts. He employed an attorney in the preparation of this affidavit and -a petition to the court to have the case reopened. His purpose was "to -get another chance at this trial." - -"To get another trial?" - -"Anything." - -"Another hearing?" - -"Anything." Anything to prevent the miscarriage of this last attempt to -"round up" the men he had been trying for nearly twenty years to bring -to justice. The Attorney-General would not present this petition. After -this, still before the final decision, he saw the Attorney-General -again to renew his pressure for a change of policy. Three times he saw -the Attorney-General to lay his additional facts before him, and urge -that a different method of conducting the case be tried.[326] Some of -the new points he raised the Attorney-General referred and deferred to -the company he was pursuing, and "we showed him how they were fully -included in the statement rendered by us to the State, and he (the -Attorney-General) expressed his entire satisfaction with every point -raised." Others of the new points the Attorney-General declared to be -"immaterial."[327] The Attorney-General showed no wish to bring proof -into the case of any facts except those furnished by the people being -sued. Although the decision of the lower court had been a warning that -the theory on which the State had gone into court was bad, and that -the amount of taxes to be recovered depended on the amount of tangible -property in the State, he refused to use the right he acknowledged he -had--to call other witnesses, to put the men who had made the agreed -statement of facts upon the stand, and cross-examine them. - -From the Attorney-General, who knew little of either the facts, as he -confessed, or the law as the court declared it, who accepted their -statements as gospel, and who asked them whether new facts offered -him should be admitted into his side of the case against them, the -company had nothing to fear. But this old opponent of theirs, whom -the Attorney-General had employed, was at large, and was a dangerous -man. He knew the facts; he had the right theory of the law; he was -tremendously in earnest. The case had only got as far as the first -decision of the lower court. There were still opportunities for all -kinds of legal proceedings. By virtue of this contract he claimed such -an interest in the proceedings as to give him a right to ask the courts -to interfere. He might get a new trial and carry out his "pet scheme -of oral examination." He might rouse the people as he had roused them -before. He might interfere through the Legislature. He might raise a -storm which could not be quieted until in this suit, or some other, his -pet plan might be carried out, of getting these silent gentlemen into a -witness-box. He considered himself to be in the service of the State. -"I was under a contract with the State,"[328] he says. And we find the -Attorney-General in close consultation with him in Philadelphia down to -the very last day. - -The company sees that something must be done, and does it. Its -"trustee" calls upon the expert at his hotel.[329] He renews the -suggestion he had made in New York when word had been sent by -the expert that he would not be bound by the agreement of facts, -and "proposed to attack." He finds his man cast down, utterly -discouraged by the decision of the lower court and the attitude of -the Attorney-General. Time and again he had seen the people denied -justice, and their enemies escape even so much as the necessity of -appearing in court. He had seen, in every one of the proceedings -against them, from 1872 to 1880, committees of Congress, State -governors, judges of the Supreme courts, State legislatures, -attorney-generals, railroad officials, every trustee of the people, -wilt, like green leaves in a fire, before this flashing wealth. His -resolution gave way. He was to have received, under his agreement -with the Attorney-General, in salary and commissions, $23,000, or -less, according to the amount recovered. That he saw fading out of -sight in consequence of the, to him, inexplicable course of the -Attorney-General. Every one else who had tried to stand up for the -people against this power had gone down; why should he be quixotic and -poor? - -"We want peace," the "trustee" said, and the, till then, faithful -friend of the people sold him all he had of that commodity for $15,400, -to be paid in instalments, and a salary of $5000 for a year. - -"I proposed to reopen it"--the case--"and I did not." - -"Why did you not?" - -"Simply because I was assured I should have just as much money out of -the transaction as my original contract would have paid me." - -This confession made on the stand, under the strain of -cross-examination in a civil suit in which he was a witness, startled -the country with its first hint of the real cause of the failure of -the great tax case, and led to an investigation by the Legislature of -Pennsylvania.[330] - -The first payment was $7500. This was paid, not in a check, as is the -usual method between business men in legitimate transactions, but in -bank-notes--$500's or $1000's.[331] That this method of payment was -inconvenient and unusual was shown by the statement of the recipient, -that he went to the Chemical Bank and got a bank certificate for his -$7500 of bank-notes. "Of course I did not carry that amount of money -around with me.[332] Bank-notes and bank drafts, not the company's -checks, were used in the succeeding payments also. - -"In sending him money to Titusville, where you had a bank account, why -did you not send him a check on your own bank or draft?" - -"Well, there was nobody at Titusville who had any knowledge of the -matter. It was not necessary to acquaint them with it," said the -"trustee."[333] - -This representative of the company was diligent in business, as he -understood business, and was always forehanded. He made the first -moves and kept the lead. He went all the way to Harrisburg to meet the -Attorney-General. He got control of the case by making the overture -to volunteer testimony. He called first on the lawyer sent to New -York with notice of "attack," called first on the State's expert in -Philadelphia and New York, made the first suggestion for "peace," and -got it "cheap."[334] But after he had bought "peace" the next interview -is at the company's office. The other man must walk now. When put on -the stand, the purchaser, of course, denied that this "purchase of -peace" had anything to do with the case against his company, or with -the suppression of the only expert in the employ of the State in that -suit. - -"With reference to the tax case," he said, "the payment of this money -had no bearing whatever." - -"Then why did you pay him the money?" - -"Well, I have already said, two or three times, that I paid him the -money for the purpose of having him desist from further malicious -attacks upon our company." - -The man of whom he had bought "peace" was not then engaged in any -proceedings against "our company," except the tax case. He had been -engaged in nothing for two years, since the proceedings of the -Producers' Association in 1880. There were no other movements in -prospect. The only war, actual or contemplated, was this tax war. -Pressed through several pages of cross-examination, and challenged to -name a single instance of war by this man upon them, at the time of -the purchase of "peace," or since 1880, which would account for their -willingness to pay him so large a sum, he was finally forced to say: "I -cannot do it."[335] - -The Attorney-General, who had thought it unnecessary to collect more -testimony by putting the defendants on the stand under oath, testified, -of course, that there had been no suppression of testimony. The seller -of peace himself, when he was afterwards brought to book before the -Legislature, attempted to stand to a similar denial that he had in -any way been unfaithful to his trust as the expert of the State and -representative of the people. But he broke down. He was asked if his -agreement with the company had any relation to this case. - -"Unquestionably. To all cases--this case and all others." - -"You were to do nothing further for the Commonwealth in this or any -other case?" - -"Precisely." - -"If the Supreme Court had subsequently reversed the case, and it -had gone back for a new trial, and had been tried before a jury, so -that the company's officers could have been subpoenaed and compelled -to testify, would you then, after receiving this money, have been -at liberty to assist in getting that testimony together for the -Commonwealth, and aiding the Commonwealth?" - -"I should say not." - -"You were free to do it prior to your arrangement?" - -"Certainly." - -"By whom was it"--the negotiation--"begun?" he was asked. - -"By the representative of the company," he replied, naming him.[336] - -When this bargain was arranged and the first payment made only an -opinion had been filed. No judgment had been entered. There was still -time to make any one of many moves. Reargument and new trial both were -possible. - -These men seduced this representative of the people only to cast him -aside, as seducers always do. They did not pay him "cash down" when -they bought his "peace," but in instalments, and part of his pay was in -the shape of $5000 for a year's service for which he was to do no work. -This kept the whip-hand of him until the tax matter was finally settled -and irrevocably past reopening. When that had been done they cast him -off with scorching contumely. The secretary of the trust waved him into -obloquy as a black-mailer. - -When the trustee who negotiated the "peace" was before the committee -of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1883 which investigated this -miscarriage of justice in the tax cases, he was asked if the man of -whom he had bought "peace" had used the positions he had held in the -producers' and other associations to further his own ends. He answered: -"I think he would prostitute anything to further his own mercenary -ends."[337] - -The committee of the Legislature appointed to investigate this -"purchase of peace" furnishes in its report the facts we have recited, -which were uncontradicted, but declares that the transactions they -disclose "did not prejudice the rights of the Commonwealth," and that -nobody had done anything wrong. An effort was made after the failure -of the tax case to get the Attorney-General of the State to issue a -warrant against the purchaser of peace, upon which he could have been -held to trial in a criminal court for bribery and corrupt solicitation -of a public officer. An affidavit charging the crime in the usual -form was presented to the Attorney-General. There was by this time a -new Attorney-General, but he ditched this move with the same skill -for the management of his adversaries' case that his predecessor had -exhibited in the tax suit. He demanded that affidavit be made by -some one who could testify to the bribery of his personal knowledge -before the committing magistrate. As the facts were known only to -the two principals, and neither of them could be expected to come -forward to make affidavit and application for his own commitment, the -Attorney-General demanded the impossible.[338] The fact of bribery was -publicly known by the confession under oath of one of these principals, -and the Attorney-General had been presented with the affidavit of a -citizen, prepared in due and regular form, upon which he could have -proceeded to issue a warrant, as is done in the case of less powerful -offenders. Failing with the Attorney-General to have this transaction -taken into the courts, the effort was renewed with the committee -the Legislature had appointed to investigate. It was asked to do as -committees had done before--to send the case to a criminal court and -let it be tried. The distinguished lawyer acting for the people before -the committee offered to appear as a volunteer Attorney-General in the -prosecution of the trustee. "There is not an honest jury," he said, -"in the State of Pennsylvania which upon the testimony would not send -him to the penitentiary for the crime of bribery."[339] The committee -refused to send the matter to the courts. - -Upon the only occasion when the "Trustees" seemed in real danger of -being brought in person and on specific charges to trial, criminally, -the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania saved them. In the Clarion County -cases it took the unprecedented step of interfering with the criminal -jurisdiction of the lower courts. It was in reference to this that Mr. -Gowen said before the Committee of Commerce of Congress in 1880: "I -was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, and I -know that if that convention did anything effectively it was when it -declared that the Supreme Court should not have original jurisdiction -in criminal cases, and yet I have seen three judges of the Supreme -Court lay their hands upon an indictment in a county court and hang it -up." The effect of this interposition of the Supreme Court is summed up -as follows in the history of the contest between the Producers' Union -and their powerful antagonists: "This practically terminated the last -legal proceeding conducted by the general council of the producers of -petroleum." "It was the greatest violation of law," said Mr. Gowen -before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee, "ever committed in the -Commonwealth."[340] - -That some such action might have been expected could be inferred from -the remark in _Leading Cases Simplified_, by John D. Lawson, warning -the student of the law of carriers "not to pay much heed to the -decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania--at least, during the -past ten or fifteen years. The Pennsylvania Railroad appears to run -that tribunal with the same success that it does its own trains."[341] - -Some time after these events the purchaser of this peace gave -some money to a hospital for cancers, and, in recognition of his -philanthropy, was made its president. This hospital was for cancers of -the body--not for moral cancers of the kind propagated for money by -men who corrupt the Commonwealth. It would have been full expiation -in the good old times of the priest and the baron Ruskin describes to -donate to the cure of an evil a fraction of the profits of the culture -of it. The newspapers in May, 1891, chronicled the opening of another -pavilion of this hospital, and the delivery of "an interesting address" -by the new president. One of the journals remarks that "this interest, -combined with his well-known liberality in Church and humane matters -generally, suggests a thought concerning the peculiar development on -this line of many of our very rich men." But what the "thought" was the -journalist did not go on to state. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -"I WANT TO MAKE OIL" - - -At this writing there is an old man named Samuel Van Syckel, over -eighty years of age, partly paralyzed, but still vigorous, living in -an obscure back street of Buffalo, very poor, though his fertile brain -has helped to make millionaires of many others. Van Syckel's life has -been one of ups and downs, possible only in the case of an adventurous -mind seeking the golden-fleece in a new industry and in a new country. -Of all the brave and ingenious men who have experimented, invented, -and pioneered to realize for mankind all the surpassing possibilities -of the coming oil age, he is one of the most notable. He had already -made and lost one or two fortunes when we find him, about 1860, with a -little still in Jersey City, making roof-tar. - -He was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the son of a farmer, and -worked on the farm until he was of age, when he went into business. -The panic of 1857 caught him with sails wing-a-wing, conducting all -at once, and prosperously, grist-mills, linseed-oil mills, grain -distilleries--these he had to take for a debt--several stores, -cooper-shops, and two or three farms. - -He failed because he had gone security for others, but he paid 100 -cents on the dollar, and went to New York City. There he became a -member of the Corn Exchange, and opened a commission-house for the sale -of produce. His country friends had such confidence in his honesty and -judgment that within six months he had done a business of $400,000. -But he discovered that of the 1500 members of the Exchange all but -one had failed, and many of them several times. He saw that he was -in a position where, through the inability of some other dealer to -fulfil his contract, he might be swamped any day, and lose all he had -himself and all the thousands intrusted to him by his friends. He had -old-fashioned notions about losing friends' money, to himself or to any -one else. He left the produce business. He went to making roof-tar in -Jersey City, and in 1860 built one of the first refineries for making -kerosene out of petroleum. When "Colonel" Drake, in 1859, found out -that oil could be got by drilling, Van Syckel was one of those the new -source of supply found waiting for it. He began refining in a small -way, and, with an ardor which he has carried into everything he has -done, he plunged into the study of new ways of refining the oil which -then started to flow with embarrassing riches out of thousands of -wells. The study of oil-refining became his passion, as, fortunately -for us less gifted folk, the study of the effects of heat on clay, -of sulphur on the gum of the caoutchouc-tree, of steam on the lid of -the teakettle, were in their time passions with Palissy, Goodyear, -and Watts. In the work of his life, forcing its secrets out of this -difficult liquid, he has been very successful. Earthly reward the -old inventor has none, but, sitting in his story-and-a-half cottage, -what he mourns most is that he has been and is denied the opportunity -of work. Tortured by restless and inventive energy, which age and -disappointment and betrayal have not sufficed to snuff out, his -continuous word is: "I want to make oil." - -When petroleum from the new wells began to come to New York, dozens -of little stills were built all over the Jersey flats, many of them -by Jews and Greeks. "Stills kept burning up all around," he says to -his visitor. "Almost every day there was an explosion somewhere from -the gases. I told my wife to give me my oldest clothes and send me -my meals. I was going to find out all about this business. There was -a pile of roofing-gravel under a shed by my stills. I went there and -slept and ate, day and night, and watched the stills and the pipes, -the gases, the oils, and all. All the sleep and rest I had for months -was there. It was while watching these work that my greatest idea -came to me, of making oil by a continuous process, so that I could -feed in petroleum at one end and have kerosene running out at the -other in an unceasing stream, day after day, without stopping the -whole establishment, as the oil-refineries still do, every day or two, -to cool off and clean up. By the old process, still in use, when the -charge in the still of perhaps 1000 barrels had been refined, we had to -draw the fires and wait perhaps ten hours--the best part of a day--for -the still to cool off, so that the men could go in with iron chisels to -chop it all loose and clean it out. This would take four or five men -from four to six hours. The still would be idle for a day and a half, -and then the same process would have to be gone through with again with -every charge. All over the flats the Jews and Greeks kept burning up. -The Common Council of Jersey City said we must stop refining. The rest -joined a great combination to fight the Common Council, but I made up -my mind to go where the oil was produced. I went to Titusville in 1865. -I had all the money I could want. Some rich men told me to draw on them -up to $100,000 for anything there was 'snacks in' for them." - -This was about the time the founders of the oil combination began in -Cleveland, with "no money." - -"What makes I found in Titusville!" continued Van Syckel. "I went all -up and down the creek. They were glad to get 65 gallons of kerosene -out of 100 gallons of petroleum, while I could get 80. I think the -head of the oil combination had a little still cocked up in the woods -there--a one-horse, pig-pen kind of a place at the bend of the creek, -a cobbled-up sort of a mud-hole, with a water-trough to bring the -oil to the still. He was not there himself; he stayed in Cleveland. -I didn't ever think anything about him then. I was 'way above him. I -first saw him some years after, about 1872, in a refiner's office. He -was talking up some scheme he had for a combination of refineries. -He said he didn't want to have the market overstocked. He was just a -common-looking kind of a man among the rest of us there. I saw, when I -reached Titusville, that the most money was to be made in shipping oil. -I made a dollar a barrel, and in six months I was $100,000 in pocket. -The land speculation I wouldn't touch. It was wild. It scared me to see -men sitting around on logs, and trading off little pieces of land for -hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was the first man to lay a pipe -line to carry oil up and down the hills of Pennsylvania." - -"The first successful pipe line," says the United States Census -Report of 1885, "was put down by Samuel Van Syckel, of Titusville, in -1865, and extended from Pithole to Miller's Farm, a distance of four -miles."[342] - -"When I first came to the oil country all the oil had to be teamed from -the wells to the railways, over roads with no bottom in wet weather. -Sometimes a line of teams a mile long would be stuck in the mud. Often -the teamsters would dump their load, worth $5 a barrel, and abandon -it. Mules would get so discouraged that they would lie down and die -in the roadway before they could be helped. The teamsters knew their -power. They charged accordingly. They charged for looking at the oil -to see how many barrels their teams could draw. They charged extra for -every mud-hole they struck, and if the wagon-wheels went to the hubs -they doubled their bills. I paid $2 to $4 a barrel for teaming, and -was shipping 4000 barrels a week. The teamsters were making more money -than the well-owners, and didn't care whether they hauled oil or not. -All this set me to thinking. I hit on the pipe line idea, and announced -that I would carry the oil by pipe from the wells to the railroad. That -was too much for the people of the oil regions. Everybody laughed me -down. Even my particular friends, with whom I used to take my meals -at the hotel, jeered and gibed me so that I took to coming and going -through the back door and through the kitchen, and ate by myself. 'Do -you expect to put a girdle around the earth?' was the favorite sarcasm. -I knew it would cost a great deal--$100,000 perhaps; but I had the -money. I built it--two two-inch lines, side by side--between June and -November in 1865, and turned the oil in. The pipe was a perfect success -from the first barrel of oil that was pumped in. It flowed, just as I -expected, up hill and down dale. The line was four miles long--from the -Miller Farm to Pithole--with two or three branches. - -"Then the teamsters threatened to kill any one who worked on the pipe -line or who used it. They would drive astraddle of it, dig down to it, -put logging chains around it and pull it out of the ground, and leave -the oil, worth $4 to $5 a barrel, running to waste out of the holes. I -sent to New York for some carbines, hired 25 men to patrol the line, -and put a stop to that. I put up the line as security for some debts -owed by my partner, under an agreement that when its profits had paid -the debt it was to be returned to me. The debt was wiped out in a few -months, but I never got the line back.... I had no money left to sue -for it. This was the end of my pipe line. It has grown into a system -thousands of miles long, second in importance only to the railroad, -and out of it many, many millions of profit have been made, but not -a cent has it yielded me. Then I went to refining oil, and, with a -partner, built one of the first big refineries in the oil regions. -There has been no oil refined in this country since 1870 without the -help of my improvements. Some I patented, some I did not. The refiners -at Titusville were hard put to it for pure water. I drove pipes through -the river into the second gravel under the river, and got the finest -cold water there could be. This anticipated the 'driven wells' several -years. I put steam into the stills" (this had been done before both -by European and American refiners). "I found out how to burn the -uncondensable gases. I showed one of my neighbors how to do this, and -he saved $20 a day after that in his coal bills, but I got nothing for -it. Each new thing I proposed, up would go everybody's hands and eyes, -and oh, what a rumbling there would be! I never made money so fast as -in this refinery. We did not use the continuous process. I had not -patented it, and I had partners whom it would not have been right for -me to experiment with. Our profits were over a dollar on every barrel. -We sold our product as fast as we could make it. We made $125,000 in -fifteen months, although we paid as high as $8 a barrel for crude. I -worked like a slave to make good the loss of $100,000 in my pipe line. -I worked and watched day and night, and knew I was beating them all -making oil. My partners were church elders, who could never find words -enough to express their indignation about the way my pipe line had been -taken away from me, and so virtuous that they never smoked a cigar nor -drank a drop. I got into no end of lawsuits with them, and I lost my -property again. I sold a part interest in my patent to some one who was -afterwards taken into this oil combination, and it now claims that they -own all my patents. They have frightened off or bought off every one -who has tried to use any of my inventions." - -The rest of the old man's story was told by him under oath in a suit -he brought against members of the combination.[343] "The idea of -continuous distillation, as it was suggested to me at Jersey City, was -always in my brain ever since. I made an attempt to construct such -works in 1876 under Mr. Cary. I run out of money. I had been robbed out -of my pipe line that cost me $100,000, and my oil-refinery in which I -had more than $100,000. Mr. Cary said he was going to build a little -refinery. He said he had $10,000 that we might use in making oil in a -continuous way. We got our lease and broke ground in 1876. We had not -got very far--we got the pipe on the ground and some brick and one -old-fashioned still--when" the representative of the oil combination, -one of its principal members, "came on to the ground ... the 15th -of December, 1876. He asked me if I would not take a salary and not -build these works in opposition to them. I told him 'No.' Then he -wanted I should take a life salary, one that would support me for life -comfortably. I told him I did not want his salary; I wanted to build -this refinery and make oil in a new continuous way. He then wanted me -to let him build it. He said, 'We will build it for you.' I objected -to this. He then said that I could make no money if I did refine oil. -He also said if I did I could not ship it. He said he would say to me -confidentially that they had made such arrangements with the railroads -in reference to freight--in reference to getting cars--he knew I could -make no money if I did make oil." - -Almost on the same day--May 14, 1888--on which Van Syckel was giving -the jury this undisputed account, sustained by the judge and jury, of -how the combination used "arrangements with the railroads" against -its rivals, another pioneer, even more distinguished, was relating -his almost identical experience before the committee of Congress -investigating trusts, May 3, 1888. This was Joshua Merrill, "to whom," -said S. Dana Hayes, State Chemist of Massachusetts, "more than to any -one else, belongs the honor of bringing this manufacture to its present -advanced state."[344] Merrill's inventions and successful labors are -described in the United States Census Report on Petroleum, 1885. He was -at work guessing the riddles of petroleum as long ago as 1854.[345] - -From 1866 to 1888 he and his partners ran a refinery at Boston. - -"What has become of it?" - -"We have recently dismantled it."[346] - -For several years their business had been unprofitable. There were two -causes, he explained. One was that they made a better quality of oil -than the average, at a cost which they could not recoup from the prices -established in the market by poorer oils. The other cause was the -extraordinary charges made against his firm by the railways in Boston -which brought their crude. - -His firm had their own tank-cars, in which their crude oil came from -Pennsylvania. From Olean to Boston his freight cost him the last few -years 50 cents a barrel. From the depot in Boston, to get it over two -miles of track to his refinery, cost him $10 a car, or about $1.25 a -barrel. This was at the rate of about 42-1/2 cents a ton a mile. The -average freight rate for the United States is about half a cent a ton -a mile. His rate was an advance of 8400 per cent. on the average. He -appealed to the Railroad Commission of Massachusetts. - -"We wrote to the commissioners that we thought the charge was very -high, and they ought to interfere to have it reduced. But it was not -done. - -"We made repeated efforts, personal solicitations, to the railroad -officers, and to the railroad commissioners also, but it was the -established rate."[347] - -Two roads participated in this charge of $10 for hauling a car two -miles. One of these was the New York and New England road, whose haul -was a mile and a half, and its charge $6. - -"Who was president of the New York and New England road?" - -The dismantled witness's experience had made him timid. - -"I do not know." - -"Do you not know," he was asked, "that one of the oil trustees is -president?" - -"Yes, sir."[348] - -The same railroad is the principal New England link in the lines of -circumvallation which the combination in coal, hard and soft, American -and Nova Scotian, is drawing about the homes and industries of the -country. His company sold their tank-cars to the oil combination, as -"we no longer had any use for them."[349] - -"I was thirty-two years in the oil business," the veteran said, -mournfully, as he left the stand. "It was the business of my life."[350] - -To return to Van Syckel. After his warning to the inventor that he -could get no cars and make no money, even if his new idea proved a -success, the representative of the combination invited Van Syckel to -put himself in its hands. - -"He said they would furnish the money to test the invention and pay me -all it was worth. I felt a little startled at the rebates, and I knew -it before, but I did not know it was so bad as he had figured it out. -I then asked him who of his company would agree to furnish me money to -test the patent and to pay all it was worth. He asked me who I wanted -to agree with. I then asked him if a man" (naming him) "that I had had -more or less dealings with" (one of the trustees) "would agree to what -he had said. He said he had no doubt he would. He said, 'We will go and -see him, and go at his expense.' He said he would take the works off my -hands at cost, and would satisfy my partner to stop building them if I -would go to New York, and I think it was the next day when we went to -New York." - -They went to the office of the member of the combination whom Van -Syckel had said he would confide in. "He seemed to be very glad to -see me, and very sorry to learn I had been so unfortunate in the oil -regions. He then asked me what these patent works would cost in a small -way to prove that oil could be successfully made under continuous -distillation. I told him it could be done for about $10,000. He said -they would give it, ... and if it proved a success they would give me -$100,000. He said it was worth more. He would give me $125 a month to -support my family during the time I was building and testing it. I -said, 'Let us put what we have agreed upon in writing.' He begged off -for a time. He said it could be done at Titusville just as well. He saw -I was not quite satisfied being cut off in that way, so he took my hand -and said he would give me his word and honor what they had agreed upon -there should be put in writing at Titusville Monday morning. I did not -want to press him any harder. I told him I would take the $125 a month -until the thing was tested. If it proved a failure the whole thing -should come back where it started from, and if it proved a success he -was to pay me $100,000" (for the patents and the business). "He said -we all understood it, then. I went home." Van Syckel called upon the -Titusville member of the trust. "He begged off from me the same as the -other did in New York; said they were pressed with business. He said -they would fix it this afternoon, or words to that effect." Instead -of building for him, as it had agreed, the combination, the moment he -placed himself in its hands, destroyed the building he had already -begun. - -"What did they do with the works when they bought them?" - -"They took the brick that was on the cars and hauled them to other -places, I suppose, and I don't know where they threw the still. They -kept that leased property during the five years for a junk-yard. I went -the next day to see him, and pressed him about it the best I could. -I could not accomplish anything; he appeared to be busy, or kept out -of the way. I kept chasing to his office. I tried to catch him and -talk over what I should depend on, where we were going to build; but -he kept out of the way. He said he had not seen their folks. In July, -1879, more than three years after our contract in New York, he said -they had had a meeting of all their wise-heads, and they had called in -chemists, and they all unanimously agreed that oil could not be made -by a continuous process, and gave that as a reason for not furnishing -the money to build these works. I said, in reply, 'I am not responsible -for the knowledge that the "oil combination" has for refining oil; -neither would I exchange mine for all they have got combined. You said -you would furnish me the money and build these works, and do as you had -agreed to do.' I walked out. That was about the last I had to say to -him on that subject." - -"Did you after that build, or undertake to build, an oil refinery to -test your continuous process?" - -"Yes, sir; in connection with a German. He was going to build a small -refinery. He said he would build it my way, if I would let him use -it in the new way. He constructed it on that principle; but he was -slow--he was a very slow man to deal with. We ran ... twenty days -without stopping" (to clean out the stills). - -"And it actually ran that length of time?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"What became of these works?" - -"Hauled off to the junk-yard"--by one of the companies in the -combination. It "bought them out after we just got them under way, and -then tore them down and hauled them off." - -"You then brought them up to Buffalo, and tried to put them into the -Solar Works?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"What became of those?" - -"They eventually went the same way." - -In court the combination claimed that Van Syckel's was an inferior -process, but it had not left it to die the natural death of the -inferior process. - -"And how about the expense of the two ways?" he was asked. - -"The same help that would make 1000 barrels the old way, to take three -or four days, I would make in the new process in one day; the old way -takes about a ton of coal more and gets less oil, and the oil is not -near so good." - -No contradiction was offered by the defendants of any of these -statements. Uncontradicted evidence showed that the new process was -cheaper and produced better oil than the old processes. Stillmen from -the Herman and Solar refineries, in which Van Syckel tried his new -process after the combination refused to build for him, testified to -the practical success of his method. "We must have run these continuous -works for two months while I was there" (at the Solar).[351] - -"We kept Van Syckel's process running right along continuously for -sixteen days" (at the Herman refinery).[352] - -"We did not have to clean out the patent stills, while by the old -process they would have to be cleaned out about every day or thirty-six -hours."[353] - -A number of residents of Titusville, dealers in oil and consumers, -testified to the superiority of the illuminant Van Syckel produced. -It burned much better than that made by the monopoly, several said. -"The burning qualities was extraordinarily good." "It gave better -satisfaction to my customers." "It did not gum the lamp-wicks, and did -not smell."[354] - -This was done in spite of rusty and choked-up pipes, defective stills -and apparatus. - -One of the owners of the Solar, who was a practical refiner and -the overseer of the works, testified that he had seen Van Syckel's -continuous process run successfully both in Titusville and Buffalo: - -"The result was much beyond my expectation." - -"How long did you run the works?" - -"I think about two weeks." - -"What was the cause of it stopping?" - -"The president of the company, also the treasurer, had been to New -York two or three times; after the second or third visit he came back -seemingly disgusted with the business; afraid of losing his money if he -continued any longer, and quit." - -"Was there a mortgage upon your property?" - -"Yes, sir." It had been foreclosed, he said, in conclusion, by one of -the leading members of the oil combination.[355] - -The only thing Van Syckel can do to carry out his part of the contract -he does. He develops his invention. He is successful in his application -to the United States patent-office. He made his contract with the -combination in 1876, and got four patents thereafter in 1877, 1878, and -1879. - -"Well," it was said in court, "they are a large concern; they would -make money out of this; I should think they would want it if it is -such a good thing." "Why, my dear man, they have got a monopoly of the -business, anyway," Van Syckel replied. "They don't care what kind of -oil they sell; but they have got a plant that has cost them millions -of dollars that they have got to change, and all that sort of thing, if -they take my patent. That is the situation." - -He lived on the $125 a month while he was testing and proving the -invention. In July, 1880, when four years of his life had been thus -wasted, the allowance was changed, without notice or his consent, to -$75 a month. The next month he was refused even that sum "unless I -signed a receipt in full of all demands, and I walked out without it." - -His pipe line has become a part of the net-work of pipe lines of which -the oil combination boasts. His refinery of 1869, one of the largest -built in western Pennsylvania up to that time, passed into its hands. -Three times in succession, after it refuses to build for him as it -agreed, he arranges to put his idea of continuous distillation into -use, and in each case the refinery in which he sets up his pipes and -stills is bought up by it and destroyed. He is kept dangling for years -by its policy of delay. Then his independent efforts are broken up; -capitalists are made afraid of him. He can get no means for building -new works. "Ever since I went into their hands," he said in court, "I -have been just as I am now. I could not make oil; could not build a -refinery; could not get anybody help me to do it; and here I have stood -these last twelve years, and I want to be out. That is just where they -want to keep me, so I cannot make any oil. It is the whole profit of -the whole of it. They hold me to my contract, and they break theirs." - -When twelve years had gone by, and he found that they would neither -build for him as agreed nor let any one else build for him, Van Syckel -turned to the law and sued them for damages. On the trial all the facts -as we have stated were admitted--the abandonment of the enterprise in -consequence of the threats that he would not be allowed to ship and -market his oil; the interviews in New York; the contract; the sale; Van -Syckel's later efforts to make oil in other refineries; his success -in producing better and cheaper oil; its popularity; the purchase and -destruction of the works using the new method. Not a word of evidence -was adduced in disproof. The judge and the jury found all these -questions in Van Syckel's favor. - -The defence was twofold. It was admitted that the two representatives -Van Syckel had dealt with had made the contract as he described it. The -members of the combination did not deny that. But, they argued, it was -not legally binding. "We simply concede," said these great men to the -Court, "that they made a contract, but leaving it to the corporation -itself to decide upon it.... There cannot be the slightest claim that -the company was bound by a contract of that character." On this point -they were defeated in the trial. Their second defence was that there -were no damages. "The trouble is," they said, "that there are no -damages sustained, no damages whatever sustained." They took the ground -that his possessing a creative mind was the cause of Van Syckel's ruin, -not their betrayal of him. "Mr. Van Syckel," they argued to the Court, -sympathetically, "is an instance of what it means to get out a patent, -and deal in patents--in nine cases out of ten. He was an inventive man. -He has got out a good many patents. No question they were meritorious -patents. And what is the result? Poverty, a broken heart, an enfeebled -intellect, and a struggle now for the means of subsistence by this -lawsuit. So that, if your honor please, there is nothing here from -which we can determine what the original value of this patent was." The -jury and the judge decided against them, and held there was a contract, -legal and binding. That brought them face to face with the question of -damages, and here the ruling of the judge saved them, as the decision -of another judge saved other members of the combination in the criminal -case in the same city, about the same time.[356] The judge ordered the -jury to find the damages at six cents, and the jury--in the evolution -of freedom juries appear to have become merely clerks of the Court--did -so. "This direction of a verdict," said the Court to Van Syckel, -"decides every other question of the case in your favor." - -Six cents damages for breach of such a contract, and in Buffalo $250 -fine for conspiracy to blow up a rival refinery! Here are figures with -which to begin a judicial price-list of the cost of immunity for crimes -and wrongs. - -Lawyer Moot, Van Syckel's counsel, deferentially asked the Court to -suggest where was the defect in the proof of damages. It would be "the -wildest speculation and guesswork," the Court said, for the jury to -attempt to compute the damages. - -"Then the Court is unable to suggest any particular defect in the -proof?" - -The Court evaded the point of the counsel, and repeated in general -terms that there was no testimony upon which a jury could assess -damages. - -Those whom he was suing did not disprove that, by threats of making it -impossible for him to get transportation, they had driven Van Syckel -to abandon his own business, and make a contract with them by which -they were to pay him $100,000 for his new process, if successful. The -Court held the contract binding. They had not furnished the money and -works to test the inventions as they had agreed to do; but he had -nevertheless gone on and completed the invention, so that patents -were granted for it by the government. He had tested the invention in -other works, they failing him, and had proved it a success; they had -thereupon purchased and destroyed these works; he was beggared, and -nobody else under these circumstances could be induced to venture money -on his invention. Upon these facts, judicially ascertained, the judge -refused to let the jury compute the damages, and ordered them to find -the damages "nominal," as another judge sentenced their associates in -Buffalo to "nominal" punishment. - -"There are many things known to the law," said Parnell to the president -of the Special Commission trying the Irish members of Parliament, -"which are strange to a non-legal mind." - -This pioneer, inventor, and true Captain of Industry, real creator of -wealth, has ever since had his neck bent to the pressure of hands too -heavy for him. While all over the earth homes are brighter, knowledge -is more easily got, and civilization forwarded, because of what his -head has thought and his hands have done, he has retired to what is, -in fact, a life of penal exile. He has been cut off from the darlings -of his brain. Like the political prisoners of Siberia, he can eat -and sleep and dress, but he cannot go into the world. His mind is at -work there, in every factory and pipe line and lamp; but he must sit, -unknown and unrewarded, in his pine cottage on unpaved Maurice Street, -ploughed up in the prairies on the outskirts of Buffalo. Dearer than -money to him, as to all such creative minds, would be the privilege -of feeding the appealing activities of his brain with work. But he -is banished from work. He has been set down outside the frontier of -industry, and commanded never to return. No one dares buy or sell of -him, nor adventure labor or money with him. He is an outcast. This is -his greatest grief. The day I visited him he came into the sitting-room -from the patch of garden behind the house. "I keep busy," he said, -"to keep my mind off--anything to keep busy, if it is only pulling -weeds." He is glad to see visitors. "I have been knocked out," he -said, "so that nobody now comes to see me." His clear gray-blue eyes, -tall, strong frame, firm mouth, large features and limbs, eager face, -fit the facts of his career. He is one of the type of country-bred, -hard-working American manhood of the last generation. There are -no visionary lines in his face, as in his life there have been no -impracticabilities, except his too great trustfulness. Gambling oil -exchanges, wild oil-land speculations, inside "deals" with railroad -freight agents, have never caught him. He has been a money-maker--not -a money-taker. To-day, at eighty, the only thing he asks is that he -may have the chance to work out his ideas. He talks patiently and -courteously, with perfect intelligence and memory, but every once in -a while breaks in with an outburst of what is evidently an unceasing -refrain within--"I want to make oil." - -The diminutive room we are in is stark in its simplicity and poverty. A -paragraph in the morning paper on the table tells of "a massive oaken -case, similar to a bookcase," which one of the chief reapers where -Van Syckel has sowed is having put into his stable in New York. "It -has doors of polished oak, with brass hinges, and heavy plate-glass. -The inside will be lined with purple plush, and, when completed, the -bits which shine in the mouths of his trotters and coach-horses will -be arranged inside of this magnificent case in rows, ready for use, as -well as an appropriate ornament for the stable." - -It is better to be one of the king's horses than one of the king's -men. But no words of envy pass his lips. He does not seem to repress -them. He simply appears never to feel them. It chanced that as I -left him, standing on the uppermost of the three wooden steps of his -cottage, bleakness all about, "plain living" within, plain enough to -satisfy the hardest climber for "high thinking," it chanced that his -last words to me were--"I want to make oil," with an appeal to seek -for him the opportunity so long denied. These words, plain and homely -as they must seem to those who feed their appetite for the sublime -and heroic with the highly varnished sayings of the battle-field and -illustrious death-beds, will never cease to ring in my ears with a tone -of greatness.[357] - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -SYMPATHETICAL CO-OPERATION - - -Some day, perhaps, when more of our story-readers have learned that -there are things in the world quite as important as the frets, follies, -and loves of boys and girls half-grown, more of our story-tellers will -hold their magic mirror up to the full-pulsed life with which mankind -throbs through the laboring years that stretch along after the short -fever of mating is over. George Rice, coming from the Green Mountains -of Vermont, entered the oil business twenty-nine years ago, when he and -it were young. He was one of the first comers. Beginning as a producer -in the Pithole region, in the days of its evanescent glory, in 1865, -he prospered. Escaping the ruin which overtook those who stayed too -long in that too quick sand, he was one of the first to develop the new -field at Macksburg, Ohio, and to see the advantages of Marietta, on the -Ohio River, as a point for refining. Crude oil could easily be brought -from Ohio and Pennsylvania by barge down the Ohio River. The field he -entered was unoccupied. He drove no one out, but built a new industry -in a new place. In 1876 he had risen to the dignity of manufacturer, -and had a refinery of a capacity of 500 barrels a week, and later of -2000 barrels. Owning wells, he produced, himself, a part of the crude -which he refined. His position gave him access to all the markets by -river and rail. Everything promised him fortune. His family took hold -with him in the work of bread-winning. "The executive part of the -business is done altogether by my family," he says. "One daughter keeps -the books, another daughter does nine-tenths of the correspondence, and -my son-in-law is the general manager."[358] One of the daughters was -a witness in one of her father's cases before the Interstate Commerce -Commission. "She discussed with counsel," said the New York _World_, -"the knotty points involving tank-car rates, mileage, rebates, and the -long and short haul as familiarly as any general freight agent present." - -Several other refiners, seeing the advantages of Marietta, had settled -there. They who elected themselves to be trustees of the light of the -world, thus having the advantages of the place pointed out to them by -practical men, determined that Marietta must be theirs. They bought up -some of the refiners. Then they stopped buying. Their representative -there, afterwards a member of the trust, "told me distinctly that -he had bought certain refineries in Marietta, but that he would not -buy any more.... He had another way," he said, "of getting rid of -them."[359] Of these "other ways" the independents were now to have a -full exposition. In January, 1879, freight rates on oil were suddenly -and without previous notice raised by the railroads leading out of -Marietta, and by their connections. Some of the rates were doubled. The -increase was only on oil. It was--in Ohio--only on oil shipped from -Marietta; it was exacted only from the few refiners who had not been -bought, because there were "other ways of getting rid of them."[360] - -This freight-tariff attack on the independent refiners was arranged by -their powerful rival and the railroad managers at a secret conference, -as the latter admitted. - -"Did you have any consultation or invite consultation with other -manufacturers of oil at Marietta?" - -"No, sir."[361] - -When the representatives of the combination in this market were taxed -by a dealer with getting the benefit of this manipulation of freight, -"they laughed." All the railroads took part in the surprise. Curiously -enough, the minds of the managers of a dozen roads acted simultaneously -and identically, over thousands of miles of country--some, as they -admitted, with suggestion, and some, as they testified, without -suggestion--upon so precise a detail of their business as the rates -on oil at one little point. "I did it at my own instance," said the -freight agent of the Baltimore and Ohio. Freight officials of railways -as far apart east, west, and south, and in interest, as the Baltimore -and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania, and the Lake Shore, which had no direct -connection with Marietta, and reached it only over other lines, stopped -their "wars" to play their part in the move by raising the rate on oil -only, and, most remarkable of all, to a figure at which neither they, -nor the railroad connecting them with Marietta, nor (and this was the -game they were gunning for) the independent refiners could do any -business. From other points than Marietta, as Cleveland, Parkersburg, -Pittsburg, and Wheeling, where the combination had refineries, but the -Marietta independents had none, the railroads left the former rates -unchanged.[362] - -Rice was "got rid of" at Columbus just as effectually as if Ruskin's -"Money-bag Baron," successor of "the Crag Baron," stood across the road -with a blunderbuss. His successful rival had but to let its Marietta -refineries lie idle, and transfer to its refineries at Wheeling its -Marietta business--and Rice's too. By the pooling of the earnings -and of the control of all its refineries--the essential features of -the combination--its business could be transferred from one point -to another without loss. One locality or another could be subjected -to ruinous conditions for the extermination of competitors, and the -combination, no matter how large its works there, would prosper without -check. It gets the same profit as before, but the competitor by its -side is ruined. All its refineries along a given railroad can be closed -by high rates made to "overcome competition," but profits do not cease. -Their business is done elsewhere by its other refineries, and all the -profits go into a pool for the common benefit. - -From Rice's point of view, Marietta was the storm-centre; but the -evidence before the Ohio Legislative Investigation of 1879, before the -Legislative Committee of New York of 1879, before Master in Chancery -Sweitzer in Pennsylvania, and in the suit against the Lake Shore -Railroad, showed that the low barometer there was part of a disturbance -covering a wide area. The demonstration against the independent -refiners of Marietta was only part of a wider web-spinning, in which -those at all points--New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Oil -City, Titusville, Buffalo, Rochester,[363] and Cleveland--were to be -forced to "come in" as dependents, or sell out, as most of them did. - -That rates were not raised from points controlled by the combination -is only part of the truth. At such places rates were lowered. This, -like the increase of rates, was done at a secret conference with the -oil combination and at its instance.[364] Where it had refineries the -rates were to be low; the high rates were for points where it had -competitors to be got rid of without the expense of buying them up. The -independents knew nothing of the increase of freights prepared for them -by the railroad managers and their great competitor until after, some -time after, it had gone into effect. - -The railroad company gave notice to their rivals what the rates were -to be, but withheld that information from them.[365] That was not all. -Before the new rates were given all the old rates were cancelled. "For -a few days," said an independent, "we could not obtain any rates at -all. We had orders from our customers, but could not obtain any rates -of freight." - -As to many places, the withholding of rates continued. "There's many -places we can't obtain any rates to. They just say we sha'n't ship to -these other places at any price."[366] - -When the Ohio Legislature undertook to investigate, it found that the -railroad men professed a higher allegiance to their corporations than -to the State. They refused to answer the questions of the committee, -or evaded them. "I am working under orders from the general freight -agent," said one of them, "and I don't feel authorized to answer that." -The arguments of the committee that the orders of an employer could not -supersede the duty of a citizen to his government, or the obligations -of his oath as a witness, were wasted. "I will tell you just how I -feel," said the witness to these representatives of an inferior power. -"I am connected with the railroad company, and get my instructions from -the general agent, and I am very careful about telling anybody else -anything." The Legislature accepted the rank of "anybody else" to which -it was assigned, and did not compel the witness to answer. - -To a question about the increase in freight: "I object," said another -railroad officer, "to going into details about my own private -business."[367] - -One peculiar thing about the action of the railroads was that it was an -injury to themselves. The Baltimore and Ohio, for instance, by raising -its rate, cut off its oil business with Marietta entirely. "What -advantage is it, then?" the freight agent of the road over which the -Baltimore and Ohio reached Marietta was asked. - -"There is no advantage.... We had revenue before this increase in -rates, and none since." - -"What would be the inducement for her (the Baltimore and Ohio) to do -it, then?" - -"That is a matter I am not competent to answer."[368] - -The railroad men testified positively that the increase affected all -alike at Marietta. It was supposed even by those who thought they saw -to the bottom of the manoeuvre that the combination would close its -Marietta works temporarily, in order to seem to be equally affected -with all the rest. It could do this with no loss whatever, since, as -explained, no raise in rates had been made from Wheeling, Parkersburg, -Pittsburg, Cleveland, where it was practically alone, and it could -reach all its customers from those places as well as from Marietta. But -the combination kept on filling orders from its refineries at Marietta -at the old freight rates, while by its side the men it was hunting down -sat idle because the discriminating rates of freight made it impossible -for them to use the highways. It was so careless of appearances -that oil ordered of its works at Parkersburg would be sent from the -Marietta branch,[369] and at the old rate of 40 cents, while the other -refineries could not ship because the rate to them was 65 cents; the -increase at Marietta was not enforced against it, but only against the -three independents--just as planned in the South Improvement scheme. - -The move was far-reaching--as far as Chicago, the rate to which was -made $1.20 a barrel, instead of 90 cents a barrel. - -"Then they cut you off from the Western trade as well as this State?" - -"Yes, sir; almost entirely.... I was selling in Chicago, and it cut -trade entirely off."[370] - -"Before the rates were changed did you run to your full capacity?" - -"Yes, sir; about that."[371] - -At one stroke the independents lost the business which it had cost them -years of work to get. As the testimony of witness after witness showed, -the merchants who had been their customers in Chicago, Columbus, and -other places, now had to send their orders to those for whose benefit -the railroad men had raised the rates. This sweeping change was not due -to any change in their desire to sell, or of their old customers to -buy. They could still make oil which was still wanted. But they were -the victims of a competitor who had learned the secret of a more royal -road to business supremacy than making a better thing, or selling it -at a better price. Their better way was not to excel but to exclude. -When their "secretary" was called before the Ohio Legislature, after -this freight ambuscade had transferred the bulk of the business of -the independent refineries at Marietta to him and his associates, he -declared that the sole cause of their success was the "large mechanical -contrivances" of the combination, its "economy," and its production of -the "very best oil." "With an aggregation of capital, and a business -experience, and a hold upon the channels of trade such as we have, it -is idle to say that the small manufacturer can compete with us; and -although that is an offensive term, 'squeezing out,' yet it has never -been done by the conjunction of any railroads with us."[372] - -The small manufacturer did compete and flourish until these railroad -men literally switched him out of the market. He competed and got his -share of the business, until the men who wanted monopoly, finding that -they had no monopoly of quality or price or business ability, resorted -to the "large mechanical contrivance" of inducing the managers of -the railroads to derail the independent, throwing him off the track -by piling impassable freight tariffs in his way. The successful men -secured their supremacy by preventing their competitors from entering -the market at all. Instead of winning by "better" and "cheaper," they -won by preventing any competitor from coming forward to test the -questions of "better" and "cheaper." Their method of demonstrating -superiority has been to prevent comparisons. - -All the independent refiners at Marietta, except Rice, died. "Most of -those we received from have gone out of the business," a Cincinnati -dealer told the Legislature. Some had fled; some had sold out.[373] -Rice set himself to do two things: the first, to drag into the light -of day and the public view the secrets of these "better methods"; and -the second, to get new business in the place of what he had lost. He -succeeded in both. It was in January that he had notice served upon him -that he could no longer go to market. In two months he had the Ohio -Legislature at work investigating this extraordinary administration of -the highways. This was a great public service. It did not yield the -fruit of immediate reform, but it did work which is the indispensable -preliminary. It roused the people who were still asleep on these new -issues, and were dreaming pleasant dreams that in George III. they had -escaped from all tyrants forever, and that in the emancipation of the -blacks they had freed all slaves forever. - -Rice knew that the Legislature were planting trees for posterity, and -did not wait for help from them. He set about looking up markets where -the public were free to choose and buy. He could not go West or East or -North. He went South. The little family kept the refinery at Marietta -running, and the father travelled about establishing new agencies in -the South, and studying freight tariffs, railroad routes, and terminal -facilities for loading and unloading and storing. In 1880, through all -the storm and stress of these days, he was able to double the capacity -of his refinery. Again he succeeded in building up a livelihood, and -again his success was treated as trespass and invasion. His bitter -experience in Ohio in 1879 proved to be but an apprenticeship for a -still sterner struggle. Rice was getting most of his crude oil from -Pennsylvania, through a little pipe line which brought it to the -Alleghany. The pipe line was taken up by the oil trust.[374] - -This compelled him to turn to the Macksburg, Ohio, field for most of -his petroleum. He had one tank-car, and he ran this back and forth -faster than ever. Then came the next blow. The railroad over which he -ran his tank-car doubled his freight to 35 cents a barrel, from 17-1/2. -That was not all. The same railroad brought oil to the combination's -Marietta refineries at 10 cents a barrel, while they charged him 35. -That was not all. The railroad paid over to the combination 25 cents -out of every 35 cents he paid for freight. If he had done all the oil -business at Marietta, and his rival had put out all its fires and let -its works stand empty, it would still have made 25 cents a barrel on -the whole output. Rice found a just judge when he took this thing into -court. "Abhorrent," "dangerous," "gross," "illegal and inexcusable -abuse by a public trust," "an unparalleled wrong," are the terms in -which Judge Baxter gave voice to his indignation as he ordered the -removal of the receiver of the railroad who had made this arrangement -with the combination, to enable it, as the judge said, "to crush Rice -and his business."[375] - -In an interview, filling four columns of the New York _World_ of March -29, 1890, the head of the trust which would receive this rebate is -reported to have made this attempt to reverse the facts of this and -similar occurrences: "The railroad company proposed to our agent," -he said. But the judge who heard all the evidence and rendered the -decision, which has never been reversed or impaired, declared that it -"compelled" the railroad to make the arrangement, "under a threat of -building a pipe line for the conveyance of its oils and withdrawing its -patronage." This arrangement was negotiated by the same agent of the -oil combination who engineered the similar "transfer" scheme by which -the trunk-line railroads gave it, in 1878, 20 to 35 cents a barrel out -of the freights paid by its competitors in Pennsylvania, as already -told.[376] - -"I reluctantly acquiesced," the receiver said, writing in confidence -to his lawyer, anxious lest so acquiescing he had made himself legally -liable. The interview describes the arrangement as an innocent thing: -"A joint agreement for the transportation of oil." It was an agreement -to prevent the transportation of oil by anybody else. Judge Baxter -shows that it was a joint agreement, procured by threats, for the -transportation of "$25 per day, clear money," from Rice's pockets into -the pockets of the members of the trust for no service rendered, and -without his knowledge or consent, and with the transparent purpose of -transporting his business to their own refineries. Judge Baxter called -it "discrimination so wanton and oppressive it could hardly have been -accepted by an honest man, and a judge who would tolerate such a wrong -or retain a receiver capable of perpetrating it, ought to be impeached -and degraded from his position."[377] - -This matter was also passed upon by the Select Committee of the United -States Senate on Interstate Commerce. "No comment," the committee say, -"is needed upon this most impudent and outrageous proposition"--by the -oil company to the railroad.[378] - -"Are you going to deny that story?" a great American statesman of the -latter-day type was asked by one of his friends. - -"Not I," was the reply. "The story's false. When you find me taking the -trouble to deny a thing, you can bet it's true!" - -This "agreement for the transportation of oil" had its calculated -effect. It put a stop to the transportation of oil from the Ohio field -by Rice over the railroad, just as the destruction by the same hands -of the pipe line to the Alleghany had cut him off from access to the -Pennsylvania oil-fields. He then built his own pipe line to the Ohio -field. To lay this pipe it was necessary to cross the pipe line of his -great rival. Rice had the pluck to do this without asking for a consent -which would never have been given. His intrepidity carried its point, -for, as he foresaw, they dared not cut his pipe for fear of reprisals. - -In turning to the South, after his expulsion from the Ohio and Western -markets, the Marietta independent did but get out of one hornet's -nest to sit down in another. His opponent was selling its oil there -through a representative who, as he afterwards told Congress, "was very -fortunate in competing." He thought it was "cheaper in the long-run to -make the price cheap and be done with it, than to fritter away the time -with a competitor in a little competition. I put the price down to the -bone."[379] Rice, in the South, ran into the embrace of this gentleman -who had the "exclusive control" of that territory, and whose method of -calling the attention of trespassers to his right was to cut them "to -the bone." The people and the dealers everywhere in the South were glad -to see Rice. He found a deep discontent among consumers and merchants -alike. They perhaps felt more clearly than they knew that business -feudalism was not better, but worse, because newer, than military -feudalism. This representative of the combination assured Congress -that "99.9 of all the first-class merchants of the South were in close -sympathetical co-operation with us in our whole history"--that is, out -of every hundred "first-class merchants" only one-tenth of one merchant -was not with them. This is a picturesque percentage. - -Rice's welcome among the people would not verify his opponent's -estimate that his vassalage included all but one-tenth of one dealer -in every hundred. From all parts came word of the anxiety of the -merchants to escape from the power that held them fast. From Texas: -"Most of our people are anxious to get clear." From Arkansas: "The -merchants here would like to buy from some other." From Tennessee: "Can -we make any permanent arrangement with you by which we can baffle such -monopoly?" From Kentucky: "I dislike to submit to the unreasonable -and arbitrary commands." From Mississippi: "It has gouged the people -to such an extent that we wish to break it down and introduce some -other oils." From Georgia, from different dealers: "They have the -oil-dealers in this State so completely cooped in that they cannot -move." "We are afraid."[380] As Rice went about the South selling oil -the agents of the cutter "to the bone" would follow, and by threats, -like those revealed in the correspondence described below, would coerce -the dealers to repudiate their purchases. Telegrams would pour into -the discouraged office at Marietta: "Don't ship oil ordered from your -agent." "We hereby countermand orders given your agent yesterday." One -telegram would often be signed by all the dealers in a town, though -competitors, sometimes nearly a dozen of them, showing that they were -united by some outside influence they had to obey.[381] - -Where the dealers were found too independent to accept dictation, -belligerent and tactical cuts in price were proclaimed, not to make -oil cheap, but to prevent its becoming permanently cheaper through -free competition and an open market. Rice submitted to Congress -letters covering pages of the Trust Report,[382] showing how he had -been tracked through Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Georgia, Kansas, -Kentucky, Iowa, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama. -The railroads had been got to side-track and delay his cars, and the -dealers terrorized into refusing to buy his oils, although they were -cheaper. If the merchants in any place persisted in buying his oil -they were undersold until they surrendered. When Rice was driven out -prices were put back. So close was the watch kept of the battle by the -generals of "co-operation" that when one of his agents got out of oil -for a day or two, prices would be run up to bleed the public during -the temporary opportunity. "On the strength of my not having any oil -to-day," wrote one of Rice's dealers, "I am told they have popped up -the price 3-1/2 cents."[383] - -The railroad officials did their best to make it true that "the poor ye -have with you always." By mistake some oil meant for the combination -was delivered to Rice's agent, and he discovered that it was paying -only 88 cents a barrel, while he was charged $1.68, a difference of 80 -cents a barrel for a distance of sixty-eight miles. - -"Could you stand such competition as that?" - -"No, sir. Before that I went up there and sold to every man in the -place nearly. They were glad to see me in opposition.... I lost them, -except one man who was so prejudiced that he would not buy from them." - -"Your business had been on the increase up to that time?" - -"Increasing rapidly.... I haul it in wagons now forty miles south of -Manito." - -"The rates against you on that railroad are so high that you can for -a distance of forty miles transport your oil by wagon and meet the -competition better than you can by using their own road?" - -"Infinitely better."[384] - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -"TURN ANOTHER SCREW" - - -A spy at one end of an institution proves that there is a tyrant at -the other. Modern liberty has put an end to the use of spies in its -government only to see it reappear in its business. - -Rice throughout the South was put under a surveillance which could -hardly have been done better by Vidocq. One of the employes of the oil -clique, having disclosed before the Interstate Commerce Commission that -he knew to a barrel just how much Rice had shipped down the river to -Memphis, was asked where he got the information. He got it from the -agents who "attend to our business." - -"What have they to do with looking after Mr. Rice's business?... How do -your agents tell the number of barrels he shipped in April, May, and -June?" - -"See it arrive at the depot." - -"How often do your agents go to the depot to make the examination?" - -"They visit the depot once a day, not only for that purpose, but to -look after the shipment of our own oil." - -"Do they keep a record of Mr. Rice's shipments?" - -"They send us word whenever they find that Mr. Rice has shipped a -car-load of oil." - -"What do their statements show with respect to Mr. Rice's shipments -besides that?" - -"They show the number of barrels received at any point shipped by Mr. -Rice, or by anybody else." - -"How often are these statements sent to the company?" - -"Sent in monthly, I think." - -"It is from a similar monthly report that you get the statement that -in July, August, and September, Mr. Rice shipped 602 barrels of oil to -Nashville, is it?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"Have you similar agents at all points of destination?" - -"Yes, sir."[385] - -This has a familiar look. It is the espionage of the South Improvement -Company contract, in operation sixteen years after it was "buried." -When the representative of the oil combination appears in public with -tabulated statements exhibiting to a barrel the business done by its -competitors for any month of any year, at any place, he tells us too -plainly to be mistaken that the "partly-born," completely "buried" -iniquity, sired by the "sympathetical co-operation" of the trustees and -their railroad associates of easy virtue, is alive and kicking--kicking -a breach in the very foundations of the republic. - -A letter has found the light which was sent by the Louisville man who -was so "fortunate in competing," immediately after he heard that one -of "his" Nashville customers had received a shipment from the Marietta -independent. It was addressed to the general freight agent of the -Louisville and Nashville Railroad. It complained that this shipment, -of which the writer knew the exact date, quantity, destination, and -charges, "slipped through on the usual fifth-class rate." "Please turn -another screw," the model merchant concluded. What it meant "to turn -another screw" became quickly manifest. Not daring to give the true -explanation, none of the people implicated have ever been able to make -a plausible explanation of the meaning of this letter. The railroad man -to whom it was sent interpreted it when examined by Congress as meaning -that he should equalize rates. But Congress asked him: - -"Is the commercial phrase for equalizing rates among railroad people -'turn another screw'?" - -He had to reply, helplessly, "I do not think it is." - -The sender before the same committee interpreted it as a request "to -tighten up the machinery of their loose office."[386] Rice found out -what the letter meant. "My rates were raised on that road over 50 per -cent. in five days." - -"Was it necessary to turn on more than one screw in that direction to -put a stop to your business?" - -"One was sufficient."[387] - -The rates to the combination remained unchanged. For five years--to -1886--they did not vary a mill. After the screw had been turned on, -he who suggested it wrote to the offending merchants at Nashville, -that if they persisted in bringing in this outside oil he would not -only cut down the price of oil, but would enter into competition on -all other articles sold in their grocery. He italicized this sentence: -"_And certainly this competition will not be limited to coal-oil or -any one article, and will not be limited to any one year._"[388] "Your -co-operation or your life," says he. - -"Have you not frequently, as a shipper of oil, taken part in the -competition with grocers and others in other business than oil, in -order to force them to buy oil?" - -"Almost invariably I did that always."[389] - -"The expense and influence necessary for sustaining the market in this -manner are altogether expended by us, and not by the representatives -of outside oil," he further wrote. "Influence," as a fact of supply -and demand, an element of price-making, is not mentioned in any -political economy. And yet the "influence" by which certain men have -got the highways shut to other shippers has made a mark as plain as -the mountains of the moon on our civilization. "If we allow any one to -operate in this manner," he continued, "in any one of our localities, -it simply starts off others. And whatever trouble or expense it has -given us in the past to prevent it we have found it to be, and still -believe it to be, the only policy to pursue."[390] - -They "are threatening," his Nashville agent, after the screw was -turned, wrote Rice, "to ruin us in our business."[391] - -The head of the Louisville "bone-cutters," when a witness before -Congress during the trust investigation, stigmatized the action of his -Nashville victims as "black-mail." They were "black-mailers" because -they had sold a competitor's oil, and refused to continue to sell -his own unless it was made as cheap or cheaper. Competition, when he -practised it on others, was "sympathetical co-operation." Tried on -him, it was "black-mail." "That man wanted us to pay him more than we -paid the other jobbers"--_i.e._, he wanted them to meet the prices of -competitors "because he thought we had the market sustained, and he -could black-mail us into it. I bluffed him in language, and language is -cheap."[392] The "language" that could produce an advance of freights -of 50 per cent. in five days against a competitor was certainly "cheap" -for the man whose rates remained unchanged, and who thereby absorbed -his neighbor's vineyard. The inevitable result followed at last. Rice -fought out the fight at Nashville seven years, from 1880 to 1887; then, -defeated, he had to shut up his agency there. That was "evacuation day" -at Nashville. It was among his oldest agencies, he told Congress, "and -it was shut out entirely last year on account of the discriminations. I -cannot get in there."[393] - -State inspection of oil and municipal ordinances about storage have -been other "screws" that have been turned to get rid of competition. -City councils passed ordinances forbidding oil in barrels to be stored, -while allowing oil in tanks, which is very much more dangerous, as -the records of oil fires and explosions show conclusively. His New -Orleans agent wrote Rice concerning the manoeuvres of his pursuer: "He -has been down here for some time, and has by his engineering, and in -consequence of the city ordinances, cut me out of storage. As matters -now stand, I would not be able to handle a single barrel of oil."[394] -In Georgia the law was made so that the charge to the oil combination -shipping in tank-cars was only half what it was to others who shipped -in barrels. The State inspector's charge for oil in tanks was made 25 -cents a barrel; for oil in barrels it was 50 cents a barrel. But as if -that was not advantage enough, the inspector inspected the tanks at -about two-thirds of their actual capacity. If an independent refiner -sent 100 barrels of oil into the State, he would have to pay $50 for -inspection, while the oil combination sending in the same would pay -but 25 cents a barrel, and that on only 66-2/3 barrels, or $16 in all. -This difference is a large commercial profit of itself, and would -alone enable the one who received it to sell without loss at a price -that would cripple all others. In this State the chief inspector had -the power to appoint inspectors for the towns. He would name them only -for the larger places, where the combination had storage tanks. This -prevented independent refiners from shipping directly to the smaller -markets in barrels, as they could not be inspected there, and if not -inspected could not be sold.[395] All these manoeuvres of inspection -helped to force the people to buy of only one dealer, to take what he -supplied, and pay what he demanded. Why should an official appointed -by the people, paid by them to protect them, thus use all his powers -against them? Why? - -"State whether you had not in your employ the State inspector of -oil and gave him a salary," the Louisville representative of the -combination was asked by Congress. - -"Yes, sir."[396] - -Throughout the country the people of the States have been influenced -to pass inspection laws to protect themselves, as they supposed, from -bad oil, with its danger of explosion. But these inspection laws prove -generally to be special legislation in disguise, operating directly -to deprive the people of the benefit of that competition which would -be a self-acting inspection. They are useful only as an additional -illustration of the extent to which government is being used as an -active partner by great business interests. Meanwhile any effort of -the people to use their own forces through governments to better their -condition, as by the ownership of municipal gas-works, street-railways, -or national railroads and telegraphs, is sung to sleep with the lullaby -about government best, government least. - -This second campaign had been a formidable affair--a worse was to -follow; but it did not overcome the independent of Marietta. With all -these odds against him, he made his way. Expelled from one place and -another, like Memphis and Nashville, he found markets elsewhere. This -was because the Southern people gave him market support along with -their moral support. Co-operation of father and son and daughter made -oil cheaper than the "sympathetical co-operation" opposing them, with -its high salaries, idle refineries, and dead-heads. Rice had to pay no -dividends on "trust" stock capitalized for fifteen times the value of -the property. He did not, like every one of the trustees, demand for -himself an income of millions a year from the consumer. He found margin -enough for survival, and even something more than survival, between the -cost of production and the market price. "In 1886 we were increasing -our business very largely. Our rates were low enough so that we could -compete in the general Southern market."[397] - -Upon this thrice-won prosperity fell now blow after blow from the same -hand which had struck so heavily twice before. From 1886 to the present -moment Rice and his family have been kept busier defending their right -to live in business than in doing the business itself. Their old enemy -has come at them for the third time, with every means of destruction -that could be devised, from highway exclusion to attacks upon private -character, given currency by all the powerful means at his command. The -game of 1886 was that of 1879, but with many improvements gained from -experience and progress of desire. His rates were doubled, sometimes -almost tripled; in some cases as much as 333 per cent. Rates to his -adversary were not raised at all. The raise was secret. Suspecting -something wrong, he called on the railroad officer July 13th, and asked -what rates were going to be. The latter replied that he "had not the -list made out." But the next day he sent it in full to the combination. -Rice could not get them until August 23d, six weeks later, and then not -all of them. As in 1879 the new tariff was arranged at a conference -with the favored shippers.[398] - -This was the first gun of a concerted attack. Rice was soon under fire -from all parts of the field. One road after another raised his rates -until it seemed as if the entire Southern market would be closed to -him. While this was in progress the new Interstate Commerce Law passed -by Congress--in part through the efforts of Rice--to prevent just such -misuse of the highways, went into effect. But this did not halt the -railway managers. A month after it was passed the Senate Committee on -Interstate Commerce was shown that discrimination was still going on, -as it is still. At points as far apart as Louisville, New Orleans, -Atlanta, St. Louis, and San Francisco switches were spiked against -Rice, and the main lines barricaded of all the highways between the -Ohio River, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico. In -the face of the Interstate Commerce Act the roads raised his freights -to points in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and -Mississippi in no case less than 29, and in some cases as high as 150, -168, and 212 per cent. more than was charged the oil combination. Where -the latter would pay $100 freight, he, shipping the same amount to the -same place, would sometimes pay $310--if he got it taken at all.[399] - -The general freight agent of one of the roads, when before the -Interstate Commerce Commission, denied this. When confronted with -written proof of it he could only say, "It is simply an error."[400] - -Rice shows that in some cases these discriminations made him -pay four times as much freight, gallon for gallon, as the -monopoly. The differences against him were so great that even the -self-contained Interstate Commerce Commission has to call them "a -vast discrepancy."[401] The power that pursued him manoeuvred against -him, as if it were one track, all the railroads from Pennsylvania to -Florida, from Ohio to Lake Superior and the Pacific coast. "Through its -representative the oil combination was called before the Interstate -Commerce Commission to explain its relation to this 'vast discrepancy.'" - -"Your company pays full rates?" - -"Pays the rates that I understand are the rates for everybody." - -"Pays what are known as open rates?" - -"Open rates; yes, sir."[402] - -That the increase of rates in 1886, like that of 1879, was made by the -railroads against Rice, under the direction of his trade enemy, is -confirmed by the unwilling testimony of the latter's representative -before Congress. "I know I have been asked just informally by railroad -men once or twice as to what answer they should make. They said, Here -is a man--Rice, for instance--writing us that you are getting a lower -rate." He was asked if he knew any reason, legal or moral, why the -Louisville and Nashville Railroad should select his firm as the sole -people in the United States. "No, sir," the witness replied; but then -added, recovering himself, "I think they did because we were at the -front."[403] The railroads bring the people they prefer "to the front," -and then, because they are "at the front," make them the "sole people." - -Rice did not sleep under this new assault. He went to the -Attorney-General of Ohio, and had those of the railroads which were -Ohio corporations brought to judgment before the Supreme Court of -Ohio, which revoked their action, and could, if it chose, have -forfeited their charters. The Supreme Court found that these railroads -had charged "discriminating rates," "strikingly excessive," which -"tended to foster a monopoly," "actually excluded these competitors," -"giving to the favored shippers absolute control."[404] Rice went to -Cincinnati, to Louisville, to St. Louis, and Baltimore to see the -officials of the railroads. He found that the roads to the South -and West, which took his oil from the road which carried it out of -Marietta, were willing to go back to the old rates if the connecting -road would do so. But the general freight agent of that company would -give him no satisfaction. He wrote, October 3d, to the president of -the road over which he had done all his business for years. He got -no answer. He wrote again October 11th, no answer; October 20th, no -answer; November 14th, no answer. Rice had been paying this road nearly -$10,000 a year for freight, sending all his oil over it. The road had -used its rate-making power to hand over four-fifths of his business -to another, but he has never been able to get so much as a formal -acknowledgment of the receipt of his letters to the head of the road, -asking that his petitions for restoration of his rights on the highway -be considered. A part only of the letters and telegrams which he sent -during these years--to get rates, to have his cars moved, to rectify -unequal charges, to receive the same facilities and treatment others -got--fill pages of close print in the Trust Report of the Congressional -Committee of Manufactures of 1888. - -"Your time is a good deal occupied with correspondence, is it not?" - -"I should say so. If the rates had been more regular, I would not have -had so much correspondence. It takes about all my time to look after -rates."[405] - -Driven off his direct road to market, Rice set to hunting other ways. -The Baltimore and Ohio, he found, was, though very roundabout, the only -avenue left by which he could get his oils into Southern markets. He -began to negotiate with it immediately, but it was not until several -months later--the middle of November--that he succeeded in closing -arrangements. To get to Chattanooga, Tennessee, over this route his -oil had to travel 1186 miles as against 582 miles by the roads which -had been closed to him, and yet the rate was lower over the more than -double distance. Again, he could send a barrel of oil 1213 miles by the -Baltimore and Ohio to Birmingham, Alabama, for $1.22, while the roads -he had been using put his rate up to $2.26, although their line to -Birmingham was only 685 miles. - -All the arrangements had been concluded to the mutual satisfaction -of Rice and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After this thorough -discussion of four months, in which every point had been examined, -Rice sends forward his first shipment December 1st. He is not a little -elated to have blazed his way out of the trackless swamp in which he -had been left by the other roads. His satisfaction is short enough. In -about a fortnight--on December 15th--the then general freight agent of -the Baltimore and Ohio telegraphed him that he could not be allowed -to ship any more. "We will have to withdraw rates on oil to Southern -points, as the various lines in interest"--the connections to which the -Baltimore and Ohio delivered the oil for points beyond its own line, -and which shared in the rates--"will not carry them out." - -This was stunning. It nullified the labor of months which had been -spent in opening a way out of this blockade. It put the cup of ruin -again to the lips of the family at Marietta, innocent of all offence -but that of trying to make a living out of the industry of their -choice, and asking no favors, only the right to travel the public -highway on equal terms, and to stand in the open markets. The excuse -given was heavy-laden with inaccuracy. Rice immediately found out by -wire that the Piedmont Air Line, one of the most important of the -connections, had not refused to carry at the agreed rate. Its traffic -manager telegraphed the Baltimore and Ohio people to reconsider their -action, and continue taking Rice's oil. When asked first by Rice, -and afterwards by Congress, to name the lines which refused, as he -alleged, to carry out the rates he had agreed upon, the general freight -agent of the Baltimore and Ohio could not give one. He escaped from -Congress by promising to send its committee, "within a day or two," -all the correspondence with these other companies. Once out of the -committee-room, he never sent a scrap of paper to redeem his promise, -and the whole matter was lost sight of by the committee.[406] - -Rice, badly shattered, still sought and managed to find a few -long-way-around routes. He presented to Congress in 1888 a table -showing how he still managed to get to some of his markets. To -Birmingham, Alabama--the direct route of 685 miles, as well as the -Baltimore and Ohio, being closed to him--he shipped over seven -different railroads forward and backward 1155 miles. The rates of all -these roads added together made only $2.10 a barrel instead of $2.66, -to which the shorter line had raised its price, for the purpose, as -this comparison shows, not of getting revenue, but of cutting it off. -To get into Nashville he had to go around 805 miles over five different -lines instead of 502 miles, as usual, and still had a rate of $1.28 -instead of $1.60. - -From 1880, the moment he turned to the Southern field, after the -destruction of his business in the West, everything that railroad men's -ingenuity could do was done to prevent him from becoming a successful -manufacturer who might increase the amount to be shipped, open new -markets, and steady the trade by making it move by many minds of -different views and reasons instead of by one. In order barely to live -he was kept writing, telegraphing, travelling, protesting, begging, -litigating, worrying, and agitating by press, prosecutions, private -and public, and by State and national investigation. The ingenuity of -the railroad officials in chasing him down was wonderful. Nothing was -too small if it would hurt. Sometimes the railroad made through rates -so high that it was cheaper for him to ship his oil along by short -stages, paying the local rates from place to place until it reached -its destination. In this way he got a car from Cincinnati to Knoxville -at the rate of 32 cents altogether, when, if it had been shipped at -once all the way on the through rate, it would have cost 40 cents a -hundred. The railroads have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, -used up armies of gifted counsel, and spoiled tons of white paper -with ink to argue out their right to charge more for short hauls than -long hauls; but when some traffic manager wants to crush one of his -employer's customers, no short-haul long-haul consistency stands in -his way.[407] It was not enough to fix his rates at double what others -paid. All kinds of mistakes were made about his shipments. Again and -again these mistakes were repeated; nor were they, the Interstate -Commerce Commission shows, corrected when pointed out.[408] One of -the stock excuses made by railroad managers for giving preferential -rates to their favorites is that they are the "largest shippers," and, -consequently, "entitled to a wholesale rate." But when Rice was the -largest shipper, as he was at New Orleans, they forgot to give him the -benefit of this "principle." When Rice wrote, asking if a lower rate -was not being made, the railroad agent replied: "Let me repeat that the -rates furnished you are just as low as furnished anybody else." "This -lacks accuracy," is the comment of the Interstate Commerce Commission. - -Wishing to know if the Louisville and Nashville would unite with other -roads in making through rates to him, Rice asked the question of -its freight agent. He replied: "I do not see that it is any of your -business." "It was undoubtedly his business," the Interstate Commerce -Commission says, sharply; "and his inquiry on the subject was not -wanting either in civility or propriety." When Rice asked the same road -for rates, the officials refused to give them to him, and persisted in -their refusal.[409] Like Vanderbilt before the New York Legislative -Committee, they seemed to think excuses to shippers were a substitute -for transportation, and evidently thought they had done more than their -duty in answering Rice's letters. But as the Commission dryly observes, -their answers to Rice's letters did not relieve him of the injurious -consequences. In attempting to explain these things to the Interstate -Commerce Commission, the agent of the railroad said: - -"If I have not made myself clear, I--" - -"You have not," one of the Commission interrupted.[410] - -The refusal to give Rice these rates was an "illegal refusal," the -Commission decided; "the obligation to give the rates ... was plain and -unquestionable." This general freight agent was summoned by Congress to -tell whether or not lower rates had been made to the oil combination -than to their competitors. He refused to produce the books and papers -called for by the subpoena. He had been ordered by the vice-president -of the road, he said, to refuse. He declined to answer the questions of -the committee. Recalled, he finally admitted the truth: "We gave them -lower rates in some instances."[411] - -Rice took to the water whenever he could, as hunted animals do. The -Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri were public highways that had -not been made private property, with general agents or presidents to -say "No" when asked permission to travel over them. He began to ship -by river. The chairman of the Committee of Commerce rose in his seat -in Congress to present favorably a bill to make it illegal to ship oil -of less than 150 degrees fire-test on the passenger boats of inland -waters. The reason ostentatiously given was public safety. But, as was -at once pointed out in the press, the public safety required no such -law. The test proposed was far above the requirement of safety. No -State in its inspection laws stipulated for so high a test. Most of the -States were satisfied with oil of 110 degrees fire-test; a few, like -Ohio, went as high as 120 degrees. All but a very small proportion of -the oil sent to Europe was only 110 degrees fire-test. The steamboat -men did not want the law, and were all against it. There was no demand -from the travelling public for such legislation. General Warner, member -of Congress, said, in opposing the bill: "Petroleum which will stand a -fire-test of 110 degrees is safer than baled cotton or baled hay, and -as safe as whiskey or turpentine to be carried on steamers. What is the -object, then? There can be but one, and I may as well assert it here, -although I make no imputation whatever upon the Committee of Commerce, -or any member of it. It will put the whole carrying trade of refined -petroleum into the hands of the railroads and under the control of ... -a monopoly which has the whole carrying trade in the oil business on -railroads, and they will make it as impossible for refiners to exist -along the lakes and the Ohio River as it is impossible for them now to -exist on any of the railroads of the country." Why the trust, though -it was the greatest shipper, should seek to close up channels of -cheapness like the waterways was plain enough. They were highways where -privilege was impossible. With its competitors shut off the railroads -by privilege, and off the rivers by law, it would be competition proof. - -The United States authorities, too, moved against Rice, responsive to -the same "pull" that made jumping-jacks for monopoly out of committees -of commerce and railway kings. When the Mississippi River steamer _U.P. -Schenck_ arrived at Vicksburg with 56 barrels of independent oil, the -United States marshal came on board to serve a process summoning the -officers and owners to answer to the charge of an alleged violation of -law. Several steamboats were similarly "libelled." - -"We were threatened a great many times," the representative of the -steamboat company told Congress.[412] The steamboat men were put to -great expense and without proper cause. When the cases came to trial -they were completely cleared in every instance. But the prosecution had -done its work of harassing competition. The success of the campaign -of 1879 in Ohio was now repeated over a wider field. The attack of -1886, "in a period of five months," Rice said before Congress, "shut up -fourteen of my agencies out of twenty-four, and reduced the towns we -had been selling in from seventy-three to thirty-four."[413] This was a -loss in one year of 79 per cent., or about four-fifths of his business. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -IN THE INTEREST OF ALL - - -The difference in freights against Rice was so great, as the Interstate -Commerce Commission found, after taking hundreds of pages of testimony, -that he had to pay $600 to $1200, "or more," on the same quantity his -opponent got through for $500. These discriminations were made, as the -commissioners say, "on no principle.... Neither greater risks, greater -expense, competition by water transportation, nor any other fact or -circumstance brought forward in defence, nor all combined, can account -for these differences."[414] - -The railroads had, of course, to give some reason, and they put forward -the plea that it was much more expensive and dangerous to carry Rice's -shipments, which were in barrels, than those of the combination, which -were in tank-cars.[415] This excuse for charging him rates at which -he could not ship at all did not stand examination by the Interstate -Commerce Commission. - -But he did not wait for that. When he found the railroads were so fond -of tank-cars, he set about getting them. He wrote the general freight -agent and the president of the road that he would build tank-cars, and -asked what his rate would be then; but he got no answer. He wrote other -roads, but got no answer. He asked the general manager of the Queen -City and Crescent Route the same question. After a correspondence of -five months with him and other officials, in which he was shuttlecocked -from one to another and back again, he had not only not succeeded in -getting any tank-car rates, but at the end of that protracted exchange -of letters the general manager wrote: "I was not aware that you had -asked for rates on oil in tank-cars."[416] Rice wrote the Louisville -and Nashville: "I will build immediately twenty tank-cars if you will -guarantee me ... as low a net rate as accorded any other shipper." -Commenting on his failure to get answers, the commissioners say: -"Complainant did not succeed in obtaining rates. The denial of his -right was plain, and stands unexcused.... What reason there may have -been for it"--the refusal of rates--"we do not know, but find that they -were not just or legal reasons."[417] - -How history is made! One of the reasons given by the solicitor of the -oil trust[418] for its success is its use of the tank-car, with the -obvious inference that its would-be competitors had no such enterprise. -And Peckham, in his valuable and usually correct "Census Report on -Petroleum," in 1885, says that the railroads require shippers to use -tank-cars![419] - -Determined to keep in the field and to have tank-cars, if tank-cars -were so popular with the railroad officials, Rice went to the leading -manufacturers to have some built. He found they were glad to get his -contract. After making arrangements at considerable trouble and expense -to build him the cars, they telegraphed him that they had to give it -up. Bankers, who had promised to advance them money on the security of -the cars, backed out "on account of some supposed controversy which -they claim you have had with the Standard Oil Company and various -railroads in the West. They feared you could not use these cars to -advantage if the railroads should be hostile to your interests."[420] - -Through the all-pervading system of espionage, to which cities[421] -as well as individuals were subject, his plans had been discovered -and thwarted. The espionage over shipments provided for by the -South Improvement scheme has now extended to business between -manufacturer and manufacturer. Why should it stop at unsealing private -correspondence in the post-office in the European style, and making its -contents known to those who need the information for the protection of -their rights to the control of the markets? - -Rice, who was nothing if not indomitable, finally got ten cars from the -Harrisburg works. But this supply was entirely inadequate, and he had -to continue doing the bulk of his business in barrels. What a devil's -tattoo the railroad men beat on these barrels of his! They made him pay -full tariff rates on every pound weight of the oil and of the barrel, -but they hauled free the iron tanks, which were the barrels of his -rivals, and also gave them free the use of the flat-cars on which the -tanks were carried.[422] Hauling the tanks free, on trucks furnished -free, was not enough. The railroads hauled free of all charge a large -part, often more than half, of the oil put into the tanks. In the exact -phrase of the Interstate Commerce Commission, they made out their bills -for freight to the oil combination "regardless of quantity." This is -called "blind-billing." - -Of the 3000 tank-cars of the combination only two carried as little as -20,000 pounds; according to the official figures there were hundreds -carrying more than 30,000 pounds, and the weight ran up to 44,250 -pounds, but they were shipped at 20,000 pounds.[423] A statement put in -evidence showed that shipments in tank-cars actually weighing 1,637,190 -pounds had been given to the roads by the combination as weighing only -1,192,655 pounds. Cars whose loads weighed 44,250, 43,700, 43,500, -36,550 pounds were shipped as having on board only 20,000 pounds. At -this rate more than one-quarter of the transportation was stolen. - -The stockholders of the road were paying an expensive staff of -inspectors to detect attempts of shippers to put more in their cars -than they paid for, but these shippers paid for three car-loads and -shipped from four to six regularly, and were never called to account. -This "blind-billing," the Commission said, was "specially oppressive." -It was done by the roads in violation of their own rule. It had -been mutually agreed among them, and given out to the public, "that -tank-cars shall be taken at actual weight."[424] - -When Rice was trying to get the roads to allow him to use tank-cars, -he asked how the charge on them was calculated. Of those that answered -none answered right. None of them gave him the slightest intimation -that there was any such practice as "blind-billing." On the contrary, -they assured him he would have to pay for every pound he shipped. -The Missouri Pacific replied with a "statement not warranted by the -facts," as the Commission softly put it. They said they charged -for the "actual weight," while, as the Commission shows, they made -shipments "regardless of quantity." Rice asked the Newport News -and Mississippi Valley Railroad for tank-car rates. "A tank-car is -supposed to weigh (carry) 20,000 pounds; if it weighs more, then we -will charge for it." At the same time the agent wrote Rice this, he -was hauling cars containing 35,000 pounds "with no additional charge." -"If this statement was made in good faith," the Commission says, "it -is difficult to account for it, and it is not accounted for." "Had he -(Rice) provided himself with cars for tank shipment, and been charged -as he was told he would be, the discrimination against him would have -put success in the traffic out of the question." - -When they wanted to turn some new screw in freight rates against Rice, -the railroad officials would whip themselves around the stump by -printing a new tariff sheet on a type-writer, and tacking it, perhaps, -as one of the Interstate Commerce Commission said, on some back door in -their offices. This they called "publishing" their rates, as required -by the Interstate Commerce law. To Rice, asking for tank-car rates, -they would send this printed sheet, showing that if he shipped by -tank-car he must pay for every pound, and they held him off with this -printed, official, and apparently authentic tariff, though shipping -44,000 for 20,000 pounds for the trust. This was done after the -Interstate Commerce Act went into force.[425] - -One of these roads assured Rice that its rates had been fixed "by the -special authority of the National Railway Commissioners." The fact was, -as the Commission declares: "The Commission never investigated coal-oil -rates, or gave special authority for their renewal; it never sanctioned -any difference in the rates as between tank-car and barrel shipments, -and had never, up to the date of this letter, had its attention called -to them in any way."[426] - -The representative of the combination was called as a witness before -the Interstate Commerce Commission. "We pay for exactly what is put -in the tanks,"[427] he testified. "In fact, this was never done," -says the Commission.[428] Even the railroad officials, who could go -any length in "blind-billing" for him, could not "go it blind" on the -witness-stand to the extent of supporting such a statement. "Our price -per tank-car was not based on any capacity or weight; they have been -made simply per tank-car."[429] - -"What, generally, is the object of false billing?" - -"I suppose to beat the railroad company."[430] - -In defence of the discrimination against the barrel shippers, a great -deal has been made of danger from fire, damage to cars from leakage, -and trouble of handling in the case of barrel shipments, but the best -expert opinion which the Interstate Commerce Commission could get -went against all these plausible pretences.[431] The manager of the -tank line on the Pennsylvania roads showed that the risks were least -when the transportation was in barrels. Another reason given for the -lower rates on tanks was that they returned loaded with turpentine -and cotton-seed oil from the South; but, as the Interstate Commerce -Commission shows, this traffic was taken at rates so astonishingly low -that it was of little profit;[432] and the commissioner of the Southern -Railway and Steamship Association informed the Commission that the -return freight business in cotton alone, brought back by the box-cars, -to say nothing of other freight, was worth more than these back-loads -of turpentine in the tank-cars.[433] It was, consequently, the box-car -in which barrel shipments were made, and not the tanks, on which the -railroad men should have given a better rate, according to their own -reasoning. Turpentine and cotton-seed oil are worth three or four times -more than kerosene, and it costs no more, no less, to haul one than the -other; but the railroads would carry the cotton-seed oil and turpentine -for one-third or one-fourth the rate they charged for kerosene. The -Commission could not understand why the rates given by the roads on -these back-loads of turpentine and cotton-seed oil were so low. "This -charge, for some reason not satisfactorily explained to the Commission, -is made astonishingly low when compared with the charge made upon -petroleum, although the cotton-seed oil is much the more valuable -article."[434] - -The newspapers of the South have contained many items of news -indicating that the men who have made the oil markets theirs have -similarly appropriated the best of the turpentine trade, but nothing is -known through adjudicated testimony. The trustees of oil have always -denied that there was any connection between them and the Cotton-seed -Oil Trust, although the latter shipped its product in the oil trust's -cars. The reasons, therefore, for the "extraordinarily low" rates made -on the turpentine and cotton-seed oil shipped North in its tank-cars -must remain, until further developments, where the Commission leaves -it--"not satisfactorily explained." The railroads said they made -the rates low for tanks because of the enticing prospects of these -back-loads, in which there was no profit to speak of; but they -extended these special rates to points from which there was no such -back-loading.[435] Rice saw how the cost of sending his oil South could -be reduced by bringing back-loads of turpentine at these "astonishingly -low" rates. He found there was still turpentine in the South he could -buy; but the railroads would not so much as answer his application for -rates. - -"They absolutely refused." - -"Was this refusal since the Interstate Commerce decision in your case?" - -"Yes, sir; since that decision."[436] - -It might have been thought this would have been enough--hauling the -tank itself free; furnishing the flat-cars free for many tanks; -carrying free a quarter to a half, "or more." But there was more than -this. The railroads paid the combination for putting its tank-cars on -their lines. For every mile these cars were hauled, loaded or empty, -the roads paid it a mileage varying from 3/4 to 1-1/2 cents. This -mileage was of itself a handsome revenue, enough to pay a profit of 6 -per cent. on its investment in the cars. But when Rice asked what the -railroads would charge him for hauling back his empty tank-cars, he was -not told that he would be paid for their use, as others were. He was -told that he would be charged "generally a cent and a half a mile," -or, "we make the usual mileage charge on return of empty tanks." "This -last statement," the Interstate Commerce Commissioners say, "was not -warranted by the facts."[437] The vessel which contains the oil of the -combination "receives a hire coming and going," Mr. Rice's lawyer said -before the Committee of Congress on Commerce; "that which contains -Rice's oil pays a tax." When Rice tried to sell his oil on the Pacific -coast he found that if he shipped in tank-cars he would have to pay $95 -to bring the empty car back, which others got back free. - -The representative of the oil combination was questioned about all this -by the Interstate Commerce Commission. - -"Are you allowed mileage on tank-cars?" - -"No, sir." - -"Neither way?" - -"Neither way."[438] - -But the railroad officials again could not "blind-bill" him as far as -this. Asked what mileage they paid him, they replied: - -"Three-quarters of a cent a mile."[439] - -When the freight agents who did these queer things at the expense of -their employers--_i.e._, their proper employers, the stockholders--were -put on the stand before the Interstate Commerce Commission to explain, -they cut a sorry figure. "It was an oversight," "a mistake," said one. -Another could only ring confused changes on "I think it is an error.... -I cannot tell why that is so.... It is simply an error.... I cannot -tell."[440] There were never any errors, suppositions, oversights for -Rice.[441] Referring to this, the Commission says, caustically: - -"The remarkable thing about the matter is that so many of these -defendants should make the same mistake--a mistake, too, that it was -antecedently so improbable any of them would make. The Louisville and -Nashville, the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, the Newport -News and Mississippi Valley, and the Illinois Central companies are -all found giving out the same erroneous information, and no one of -them can tell how or why it happened to be done, much less how so many -could contemporaneously, in dealing with the same subject, fall into so -strange an error. It is to be noted, too, that it is not a subordinate -agent or servant who makes the mistake in any instance, but it is the -man at the head of the traffic department, and whose knowledge on the -subject any inquirer would have a right to assume must be accurate. In -no case is the error excused."[442] - -The cases in which Rice prosecuted the railroads before the -Interstate Commerce Commission are among the most important that -have been tried by the Commission. The charges made by Rice were -conclusively proved, except as to some minor roads and circumstances. -The Commission declared the rates that were charged him to be illegal -and unjust, and a discrimination that must be stopped. It ordered the -roads to discontinue using their power as common carriers to carry -Rice's property into the possession of a rival. "The conclusion is -irresistible that the rate sheets were not considerately made with a -view to relative justice."[443] - -The facts of these discriminations--"unjust," "illegal," and -"abhorrent"--are on the records as judicially and finally determined. -But one of the combination said before the Pennsylvania Legislature, at -Harrisburg, as reported in the Harrisburg _Patriot_, February 19, 1891: - - "I say to you all, in good faith, that since the passage of the - Interstate Commerce law, and the introduction of that system, we have - never taken a rebate. I mean we have taken no advantage over what any - other shipper can get. I make the statement broadly, and I challenge - the statement to the very utmost, and will pay the expenses of any - litigation undertaken to try it." - -When it was found that this practice of charging the preferred shipper -for only 20,000 pounds when it shipped 25,000, 30,000, 40,000, or -44,000, was going to be investigated by the Interstate Commerce -Commission, there were intellects ready to meet the emergency. A pot -of paint and a paint-brush furnished the shield of righteousness. -Each car being known by its number, and only by its number, all the -old numbers of the 3000 tank-cars of the oil trust were painted -out, and new numbers painted on. Whether its mighty men left their -luxurious palaces in New York, and stole about in person after dark, -each with paint-pot and brush, or whether they asked employes to do -such work, the evidence does not state. The device was simple, but -it did. Rice was suing for his rights to use the highways before -the Interstate Commerce Commission, and before the Supreme Court of -Ohio, through the Attorney-General of the State, who had found the -matter of sufficient importance to use his official power to institute -suits in _quo-warranto_ against two railroads. It was necessary that -evidence should be forthcoming in these suits to prove what his rate -was in comparison with the others. The only way this could be done was -by comparing the actual size of the cars with the size given in the -freight bills, or manifests. The cars are known in the bills only by -their numbers, and without its number no car could be identified. The -report of Congress reprints the following from the testimony of the -representative of the trust before the Interstate Commerce Commission: - -"Has there recently been any general change in the numbering of the -cars?" - -"Yes, sir; there has been quite a general renumbering, repainting, and -overhauling." - -"When did that change take place?" - -"I think it was commenced some time in July; it may have been later." - -The result of that renumbering made it practically impossible to -identify any car as connected with any shipment made before that time. -The cars were there, looking as fresh and innocent as good men who -have donned robes of spotless white earned by the payment of generous -pew-rent. The cars showed even to the unassisted eye, as the Interstate -Commerce Commission said, how much larger they were than was pretended. -There were still the accounts of the railroads, showing that these cars -had been "blind-billed" as containing only 20,000 pounds, but the cars -mentioned in the manifesto could no longer be identified with the cars -on the tracks. The sin of "blind-billing" was washed out in paint. Rice -went to the Interstate Commerce Commission with his complaint in this -case in July. Immediately the repainting and renumbering took place. -"It was commenced some time in July; it may have been later."[444] - -In such cases time is money, and more. "Seest thou a man diligent in -business, he shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean -men." - -The members of this combination have many thousand tank-cars engaged -in carrying their oil, and some of them have another kind of tank-car -travelling about the country. Under the head of the "Gospel Car" the -_Daily Statesman_, of Portland, Oregon, printed the following article, -Sunday, December 13, 1891: "THE GOSPEL CAR.--The mission car 'Evangel' -arrived yesterday, and was side-tracked on the penitentiary switch. A -song service attracted many people during the morning. There will be -services at 10.30 this morning, and in the afternoon, at 3 o'clock, a -Sunday-school will be organized. This will be the first Sunday-school -ever organized from the gospel car, which has been on the road since -last spring. The 'Evangel' is sixty feet in length, ten feet wide, and -seats nearly one hundred people. It is the generous gift of"--several -New York millionaires, the most important of them belonging to the -oil trust--" ... to the American Baptist Publication Society. The -reverend gentleman who was in charge of the 'Evangel,'" the _Statesman_ -continued, "will visit the smaller towns along the railway, and conduct -evangelistic meetings in the car." One of these cars was in Chicago -early in 1893, and was admiringly described by the Chicago press. -Though corporations have no souls they are ready to help save the souls -of others, for the railroads give these cars free hauling, and the -messages and the packages of its occupants are franked by the telegraph -and express companies. The contents of this tank-car are distributed -by its donors to the people without money and without price. It is -conceivable that by making it so "cheap" and by multiplying the -"Evangel" into an evangelical tank line of thousands of cars, the -donors might drive the churches, which have no tank-cars, out of the -business, as they have done the tankless refiners, and ultimately add -to their monopoly of the Light of the World that of the Light of the -other World. - -Tho effect of all this on the family co-operation at Marietta does -not need to be described. Its head told Congress that if he had had -no difficulty in getting the same freight as others he could have run -his refinery to its full capacity, and could have increased his works -largely. - -"Are not your expenses less than theirs?" - -"Yes, sir.... I am running very moderately now.... One-third to -one-half generally."[445] - -"I am virtually ruined," he says still later in a statement of his -condition in a circular to the public, urging them to petition -Congress to make the imperfect Interstate Commerce law operative. He -is virtually ruined, though he has won his cases before the Interstate -Commerce Commission, and that Federal tribunal has ordered the roads to -give him his rights on the highways; but it has been a barren victory. -His circular is entitled "My Experience Very Briefly Told." Its opening -sentences give us in a phrase the secret of the significance of Rice's -story, and dignify his appeal to the public. They show how thoroughly -adversity had driven home into this plain man's mind a great civic -truth which his fellow-citizens have not yet learned, probably because -they have not yet had adversity enough. His solitary and fruitless, -although successful, struggle taught him that the citizens of industry -can no more maintain their rights acting singly than the citizens of -government. He had learned that "competition," "supply and demand," -"eternal laws of trade," were catchwords as impotent in the markets to -give individuals their rights, if unassociated, as the incantations of -royalty and loyalty, and law and order, to save people from their king -until they made themselves a People. Persons fail; only a People can -get and keep freedom. This Rice had begun to learn from his failure to -enforce single-handed rights which all the courts declared were his, -but which no court could secure. In his card to the people, he said: -"I am fighting for my rights and for my existence (which happens to be -in the interest of all) single-handed and alone, at my own expense and -time lost.... I am here ... to do what I can to get the Interstate -Commerce Act amended at this present session of the Fiftieth Congress, -to cure existing evils, and all I ask is that you will take hold and -assist me by your signature and approval to the enclosed petition. -You are subject to the same influences, and now is your time, my -fellow-countrymen, to come forward and assist a little to stop this -nefarious work." - -"In the interest of all." This is exactly the relation which the -struggle of this common citizen bears to the general welfare. The -investigation by the Ohio Legislature in 1879;[446] the removal by the -United States Court of the railroad receiver who agreed to pay the -oil trust $25 out of every $35 freight collected from Rice;[447] the -refund ordered by the Supreme Court of Ohio from a pipe-line company -which had charged Rice 15 cents extra on every barrel he shipped to -pay it to his competitors;[448] the successful prosecution, by the -Attorney-General of Ohio before the Supreme Court, of the railroads -discriminating against Rice;[449] the cases before the Interstate -Commerce Commission from its beginning till now, involving hundreds of -railroads, and decided, so far as it did decide, on almost every point -in Rice's favor;[450] the disruption, as far as forms go, of the oil -trust in Ohio by the Supreme Court of the State ousting corporations -from the right to become members of such combinations and to pool their -earnings therein;[451] the investigation of the oil trust by Congress -in 1888 and 1889, devoted in large part to the various aspects of -Rice's experience--these are some only of the public functions which -had to be invoked in the ineffectual attempt to protect this one man on -the high-road and in his livelihood, and they show how little his was -merely a "private affair." - -When the amendment of the Interstate Commerce law was before Congress -in 1889, eminent counsel were employed by Rice to explain the defects -of the law to the committees, and petitions to Congress through his -instrumentality were circulated all over the country, and numerously -signed. Though a poor man, who could ill afford it, he gave time -and money and attention, frequently spending weeks at Washington, -discussing the subject with members, and presenting petitions. The -act was amended in partial accordance with these petitions and -recommendations. - -To obtain the elementary right of a stockholder, never withheld in the -course of ordinary business--to vote and receive dividends on stock in -the oil trust which the trustees had sold and he had bought in the open -market--Rice had to sue through all the New York courts from 1888 to -1892. The Court of Appeals decided that there had been no lawful reason -for the denial of his rights, and ordered that they be accorded him. -This was another barren victory. The trust had meanwhile ostensibly -been dissolved; but the dissolution has every appearance of being like -that of its progenitor, the South Improvement Company, a dissolution -"in name" only; not in reality. In place of the old trust certificates -listed on the New York Stock Exchange, new certificates have been -issued which were selling in the spring of 1894 at about the same -quotation as the former ones. - -In this case the trust asked the New York courts to deny Rice his -rights because he had in other matters, and as to other parties, -appealed to other courts. His other suits had been against the -railroads, not against the oil combination. He acted on the defensive, -and went into court only to save himself from commercial strangulation. -In all of them that went to trial he was successful, with but one or -two exceptions. He was so successful that even the judges who heard his -case and decided in his favor were moved to outbursts of unaffected -indignation on the bench. The only result aimed at or procured was that -the courts decreed that these common carriers must in the future give -this citizen his legal rights on the railways; not that he must have -the same rates as his opponent, but only that the difference in their -favor shall not be "excessive," "illegal," "unjust." - -Because of this attempt to secure the fair use of the highways side by -side with it, the trust pleaded in the Supreme Court of New York that -his appeal to courts as a shipper was a reason why the courts should -withhold his rights as a stockholder. - -In making this plea the trustees described themselves as having been -for years persecuted by the independent of Marietta, and moistened the -dry pages of their legal pleadings with appeals for the sympathy of the -courts and the public. He has "diligently and persistently sought to -become acquainted with" our "methods of business and private affairs;" -"he has used efforts to injure" our "business"; "he is attempting to -harass, injure, and annoy" us; "he has ever since ... 1876, when he -first engaged in business, ... maintained a hostile attitude, and -been engaged in hostile transactions and proceedings against" us, ... -"for the purpose of injuring" us and our "business"; he "has been -uninterruptedly prosecuting ... a series of litigations ... in the -courts, as well as before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and -before an investigating committee of Congress ... for the purpose of -harassing and annoying" us.[452] And when in 1891 Rice was appealing -to the Attorney-General of New York to bring suit in the name of the -State against the oil combination in New York, like that which had been -successfully brought in Ohio, he was publicly stigmatized in court as -a "black-mailer" because he had once named a price at which he was -willing to sell his refinery and quit. So the citizens of Nashville -were called black-mailers for competing, and the citizens of Buffalo -for bringing a criminal conspiracy to justice. - -It is this dancing attendance upon State legislatures, courts, -attorney-generals, Congress, the Interstate Commerce Commission, as -shown in this recital, which the modern American business man must add -to Thrift, Industry, and Sobriety as a condition of survival. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -ORDINARY SUPPLY AND DEMAND - - -"Do I understand you that they have not sought in any way to make the -operations of refineries outside the trust so unprofitable that parties -would either come into the trust or have to abandon the business--has -anything of that sort been done?" - -"They have not; no, sir, they have not," was the triple negative of the -president. - -"They" (the trustees) "have lived on good terms with what I may call -their competitors?" - -"They have; and have to-day very pleasant relations with those -gentlemen." - -"So far as you know," he was asked, "the product of the crude oil and -the manufacture and sale of the refined oil has been absolutely left to -the ordinary rules of supply and demand, has it not?" - -"It has."[453] - -In the winter of 1873 a young farmer living among the blue hills of -Wyoming, in western New York, where he had been born and bred, was -asked by a stranger from Rochester to help him in a search for oil -lands. The old-fashioned quiet of the little community was agitated by -the hope that the milk and honey of their valleys might be replaced -by a more precious flow. The stranger and his son were prosperous oil -refiners, but a little cloud, about the size of a "trustee's" hand, -had crept into their sunshine. As they set about drilling a well on -some "likely-looking" land they had leased, the stranger told the -farmer why he was so anxious to strike oil for his own exclusive use. -The reader is better prepared to understand his explanation than the -then inexperienced agriculturist to whom he gave his confidence. It had -begun to be difficult for him to get a full and regular supply of the -crude petroleum for his works. There were restrictions, he said, about -the shipments.[454] What that meant the young farmer was to learn for -himself. - -There was no oil in Wyoming, and the refiner went back to Rochester, -and, as so many others have done, sold the control of his works, -the Vacuum, to the "successful men" of the combination, and stepped -silently into the minority place. His Wyoming friend, Charles B. -Matthews, had continued in his service, and when the Vacuum was sold -he and two other of its employes made up their minds to go into the -business of refining in Buffalo on their own account. They were under -no obligations or contract to remain, and did not suppose themselves -to have been sold along with the concern. They were capable men, and -showed great business sense in their arrangements. Buffalo, by its -connections by rail and the lake with the market, and its nearness -to the oil supply, was a much better situation than Rochester or -Cleveland. An independent refining company--the Atlas--was then -constructing an independent pipe line from the oil regions to Buffalo. -"This made Buffalo the best point for establishing refining industries -in the country, with its canal and lake transportation for the products -of the factory, and with a pipe line, in the hands of independents, -from the crude oil wells to the city," said the Buffalo _Express_. -Matthews had by this time had several years' experience in the -business. Of the two with him, Albert was a laborer, who had worked -his way up in the Vacuum refinery until he could run the stills, and -had learned how to make oil. He and his thrifty wife had saved a few -thousand dollars. He was ambitious. He had learned at school and in the -army and at Fourth-of-July celebrations that America is a free country -for all, and that there are no classes here, and that any workman -may go to the top. Farmer Matthews had fed his boyhood with stories -of country boys who had gone to the city and matured into business -magnates. He and Albert pooled their visions and their savings, -borrowed some money, and went to work. As for competition, though -they knew it was close, they were not afraid but that they could hold -their own in a fair fight, and of anything but a fair fight they never -dreamed. - -"How are you going to get your crude oil?" Albert and Matthews were -asked when they went to tell their employer what they were going to do. - -"From the Atlas pipe line." - -"You will wake up some day and find that there is no Atlas Oil Company. - -"We have ways," he continued, "of making money you know nothing about," -using, singularly enough, the phraseology employed by a greater man in -the interview with another would-be competitor.[455] - -"As gentlemen," he went on to say, "I respect you, but as to the -Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company I shall do all in my power to injure or -destroy it."[456] - -Afterwards Albert alone was sent for. "Don't you think it would be -better for you to leave these men, and have $20,000 deposited to your -wife's credit than go with these parties?" - -"I went out with them in good faith, and I propose to stay." - -"It will be only a matter of a few days with the Buffalo institution at -the furthest. We will crush them out, and you will lose what little you -have got." - -Albert was shown an elaborate statement of the cost of making oil and -its selling price, proving that there was no money in oil.[457] The -record of dividends was produced in court afterwards. It showed that -just before this--January 18, 1881--a dividend of 50 per cent. had been -paid in one month.[458] Dividends of $300,000 had been paid in 1881 on -the capital of $100,000. "No wonder they did not want competition," -said the New York _World_. - -These negotiations had been with the son. Albert not yielding to this -pressure, and pushing ahead with the construction of the rival stills, -the father, who was in California, came back. At his request Albert -again interrupted the work on the new refinery, which he alone of -the partners could direct, and came from Buffalo to Rochester for an -interview. - -"You have made a grand mistake," said his old employer, "by going out -with those fellows.... The company will not last long.... The result -will be, if you stay with them, you will lose all you have got in -it.... We are going to commence suits against them. We will not only -sue them, but serve an injunction on them and stop their work. The -result of it is that when these suits commence, if you are in it, you -will be responsible, and you have got a little money, and you will lose -it all.... If you come back and work with us everything will be all -right, and we will make everything satisfactory to you." - -"If I leave them it will leave them in bad shape," Albert urged. - -"That is just exactly what I want to do,"[459] his former employer -replied. - -Albert began to weaken. "I had," he afterwards told in court, ... -"about $6000 altogether, or a little more. They had reason to know -that I had some property there."[460] This was all he had to show for -the work of a lifetime, and it began to look as if it were fading away -under these reiterated threats and warnings, which went on from March -to June. Albert gave way. He went to his lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, of -Rochester. "We have come," said his former employer, who accompanied -him, "to see what disposition can be made of Al's property." - -"They are going to bust the company up," said Albert to his lawyer, -when asked why he was going back to the Vacuum Company. "I am an -indorser on one of its notes, and if I do not come back with the -Vacuum, what property and money I have will be taken away from me." - -The lawyer was pressed to tell how Albert could get out of his -arrangement with his company. They could not get along without him, and -were not likely to discharge him. - -"If they won't release him or buy him out, the only other way," said -the lawyer, "is to leave them, and take the consequences. If he has -entered into a contract and violated it, I presume there will be a -liability for damages as well as for the debts." - -"I think there is other ways for Albert to get out of it," said the -representative of the Vacuum method in commerce and morals. - -"I see no way except to back out or sell out; no other honorable way," -persisted the lawyer. - -"Suppose he should arrange the machinery so it would bust up or smash -up, what would the consequences be?" - -"If negligently, carelessly, not purposely done, he would be only -civilly liable for damages caused by his negligence; but if it was -wilfully done, there would be a further criminal liability for -malicious injury to the property of the company." - -"You wouldn't want me, would you," said the poor man to his late -employer and friend, "to do anything to lay myself liable?" - -"You have been police justice," said the Vacuum man to the lawyer, "and -have had some experience in criminal law. I would like to have you look -up the law carefully on that point, and we will see you again."[461] -Or, in effect: "See about how much crime we can commit," District -Attorney Quinby paraphrased it afterwards to the jury. - -In a day or so the two managers of the Vacuum--father and son--came -back again with Albert. - -"Have you looked up that matter, Mr. Truesdale?" asked they. - -"Yes, I have looked it up." - -"What do you think about it?" - -"My impression has not changed. Such a course would involve him in a -criminal liability if he did it on purpose. Everybody who advised or -counselled him in such a course would be equally liable with him. The -consequences, if you follow that course, would be that you would get -into State's prison. If he is an honest man he won't think of taking -any such action as that. I advise him to keep out of any such thing." - -"Such things will have to be found out before they can be punished," -was the Vacuum reply. "They will have to find him before they can do -anything to him. We will take care of him." "Having in mind," said -District Attorney Quinby to the jury, "what happened afterwards--that -they should spirit him away." - -"The suggestion is altogether wrong," persisted the lawyer. "The action -would certainly be very hazardous as well as wrong." - -On leaving, the elder of the two, evidently persisting in his plan, -said to the lawyer, "If you want to communicate with Albert, you can do -so through C.M."[462]--his son. - -These men were too careless to note that the lawyer they were talking -to was not their lawyer, but Albert's. When they were brought to trial -for the crime that followed, and Albert, repentant, told the truth, -the lawyer was free to testify against them. "I am entirely willing," -said Albert in court, "that Mr. George Truesdale shall state what took -place. I withdraw any legal objections I might have." - -The accident which has let us see how the employes of a trust coolly -debated with lawyers the policy of blowing up a competitor's works, -is one of the few glimpses the American public will ever get into the -relations of great legal lights and law-reformers with the mighty -capitalists who wreck railroads and execute wholesale corruption of -courts, legislatures, and trustees, and evade and transgress the laws -with the sure march of those who know that indictments and bail-bonds -and verdicts of "guilty" and the penitentiary are only for men not -rich enough to plan crime "by advice of counsel." When such men went -marauding through the treasury of a great railroad and the courts of -an Empire State, we saw the greatest of law-reformers, with a host -of legal luminaries, picketing and scouting for them. Every sound in -nature is phonographed somewhere, as its waves strike, and Judgment Day -will be rich with the revelations from these invisible rolls of the -confidential conversations between "trustees" and counsel, who are not -honorable lawyers as George Truesdale was, prostituting their functions -as "officers of courts" into those of officers of crime. - -All these trips from Buffalo to Rochester for these interviews made bad -breaks in the construction of the works of the new company at Buffalo. -The partners, who were wholly dependent upon Albert's knowledge and -experience for the building of the refinery, and running it when built, -were mystified and alarmed. Time and again he ran away without a word -to them, and all work would stop until he came back. When he was on -hand his task did not prosper as if his heart were still in it. When -one of the three stills of the refinery had been set up ready for use, -and before any oil was run, Albert went up to Rochester again. At this -rendezvous the sinister suggestion of "doing something" was repeated. -"You go back to Buffalo and construct the pipes and stills so that they -cannot make good oil, and then if you would give them a little scare -... they not knowing anything about the business ... you know how to -do it." Swearing he would not consent, but already succumbing to this -temptation, as he had given way to the threat of ruin, he replied as -before: "I don't propose to do anything to make myself criminally -liable."[463] At their suggestion he took a man they sent all through -the new works, showing him how the stills had been constructed, how the -oil was to be made, and all the details of the refinery.[464] - -The day came at last--long expected, delayed by these unaccountable -absences--when the members of the new company were to have the -happiness of seeing their enterprise set going. The one still that -was ready was filled with crude oil. The morning of the start Albert -weighted down the safety-valve with heavy iron, and packed it with -plaster of Paris. "Fire this still," he said to his fireman, "as heavy -as you possibly can." The fireman did as he was ordered. During the -forenoon Albert came to him. "Damn it!" he said, "you ain't firing this -still half. Fire this still! I want you to fire this still! You ain't -got no fire under it!" He took the shovel himself and threw some coal -in, although there was, as the fireman expressed it, "an inordinary -fire." The fire-box grew cherry red.[465] - -Albert knew well enough what the next chapter in the history of his -associates was likely to be. He had carried a dark-lantern into the -still-room one day when he was superintendent of the Vacuum. "I was -badly burned by the explosion," he testified before the coroner's jury -investigating the explosion in Rochester, in 1887. There were four -explosions in the Vacuum works while he was there. In the second, four -men were burned. As one of them ran to get water, with his clothes -burning, he set fire to the gas coming out of the sewer. Flames flashed -all about him. "There's hell all around!" he exclaimed. The third -explosion came from an overheated condensing-pipe, and destroyed one of -the buildings. The fourth burned up three tanks. Remembering all this, -he now took himself off to the grounds of the Atlas Company, out of -harm's reach. The brickwork about the still cracked apart with the heat. - -But the "smash-up or something" had not been thoroughly arranged. -Despite the heavy weight and the packing of plaster, the safety-valve -lifted itself under the unusual pressure, and was a safety-valve yet. -It was blown open, and a large mass of vapor rose and spread. This -was the real accident: that the safety-valve broke loose instead of -keeping the gases in to explode, as had been planned. The spreading -vapor was not steam, as that had not been admitted to the still, but -the gas of distilling petroleum, as inflammable as gunpowder. There was -danger still, as great almost as that of explosion. A spark of fire, -and it would have wrapped all within its reach in flames. The boiler -fires were but twenty feet distant; not far from them the distilled oil -was being gathered in the "tail-house"; near the tail-house stood the -tanks of crude oil, hundreds of barrels of the fuel that conflagration -loves--the kind of fuel the cooks use who, beginning with kerosene for -kindling, make the whole house into a stove, and cook themselves and -the family with the breakfast. - -The kindly wind of a June day carried the cloud of gas away from the -fire until it passed out of sight. The unsuspecting, inexperienced -men, whose lives and property had been at the mercy of explosion, knew -nothing of their peril until years afterwards. The worst they knew -then was that the "batch" of 200 barrels of petroleum was spoiled, -and that Albert, the only practical man among them, was gone, leaving -them crippled for a year. They waited for him, but he did not come. -They looked for him, but could not find him. Matthews went to the -depot night after night, sometimes at midnight, or later, to watch the -trains, but Albert never came. - -"What would be the consequences?" Albert was asked afterwards in court, -when he was telling about "the pretty heavy fires" he had made under -the still--"what would be the consequences in case too hot fires were -applied, and the gas should blow off the pipes and become ignited?" - -"The consequences would be that, if ignited, there would be a -fire."[466] - -An Associated Press despatch from Louisville, Kentucky, June 30, 1890, -describing an explosion in an oil refinery there, and the "five acres -of fire" that followed, reproduces for us the picture which it had been -planned to paint at Buffalo as part of the panorama of "the ordinary -rules of supply and demand." A tank-car had been opened to run some oil -out. As the workmen lifted the cap from the manhead of the tank a cloud -of gas poured forth. It had been generated simply by the heat of the -summer sun, without the aid of an "inordinary" hot fire. The men jumped -and ran. Before they had taken a dozen steps the vapor, spreading over -the ground and moving with the wind, had reached one of the sheds near -by in which there was a fire. There was a flash. The men were bathed in -a lake of fire. They ran with the flames streaming from them. At the -infirmary their bodies were found to be charred in spots, literally -roasted alive, and the flesh dropped off as their clothing was removed. -Three men died and several were injured. - -Several years after the Buffalo explosion, when those convicted for -their part in it were fighting for stay of proceedings, new trial, -anything to escape sentence, and were trying by every means in their -power to impress upon the public the altogether innocent character of -the little incident at the works of their rival, something happened -at their own works--the Vacuum in Rochester--which gave the people -an appalling sense of the terrors of the new school of supply and -demand. Naphtha is one of the by-products of petroleum distillation, -and is used by the gas companies in the manufacture of the greased -air they furnish under the name of gas. The Vacuum Company were -selling their naphtha to the Rochester Gas Company. It was delivered -to the gas company through a pipe line. On the afternoon of December -21, 1887, there was an explosion on Platt Street, Rochester, tearing -away the pavement, shattering the basement of a building, and filling -the air with missiles. In a few seconds another explosion occurred -a short distance away, making a hole in the street several feet in -diameter, from which came large volumes of smoke and flame. A third -and fourth "bust-up" rapidly followed, and then a fifth, in the -Clinton Flouring Mill, tearing away a considerable portion of the -building, blowing off the roof and upper stories of the Jefferson -Mill adjoining, and shattering the Washington Mill. The Jefferson and -Clinton and Washington mills were burned to the ground. People were -killed by flying debris, burned to death, smashed by falling walls, -crippled by jumping from the upper stories of factories and mills on -fire. "There is probably no chemical product," says Professor Joy, of -Columbia College, "which has occasioned the loss of so many lives and -the destruction of so much property as naphtha.... From its highly -explosive and inflammable nature it has proved little better in the -hands of ignorant people than so much gunpowder." - -"The counsel for the defence," said District Attorney Quinby, in -summing up the case before the jury, "laughed at the idea of Matthews -and his associates coming to Buffalo with a little money to compete. -I congratulate him that instead of defending for conspiracy he is -not here to-day pleading for the defendants' lives. If a person had -been killed, and it had been under the advice and instruction of his -clients, he would have been differently situated from what he is -to-day. How well you men may be thankful that the gases from this still -did not flow down and, becoming ignited, explode and kill the fireman! -You ought to get down on your knees and thank your God that Providence -prevented any such terrible thing as that for you." - -After the "bust-up" had been planned, and before it was done, one of -the Vacuum managers went to New York, where the "trustees" for whom -he was managing the company were. After the "bust-up" Albert heard by -telegram from New York, as had been arranged, and went to meet his -old employer. "What do you say to going down to Boston?" he was asked -on his arrival. Later a man came in and was introduced by the name -of one of the three trustees who purchased and directed the Vacuum. -On leaving, this "trustee" said: "I will see you again if you do not -go to Boston." He thus showed that he knew of the plan that Albert -should be taken away, and that they should go to Boston. The manager -of the Vacuum now gave the world a genuine illustration of the harmony -of labor and capital. He couldn't let Albert out of his sight. They -went to Boston on the Fall River boat. The representative of a hundred -millions took the laborer into his own state-room, and at Boston -carried him into the splendors of Young's Hotel, where he registered, -naming himself "and friend," and they shared one bedroom. They went to -church together, and to Nantasket Beach, his friend introducing Albert -to those whom they met under an assumed name. "You don't want to be -known here," he said, "and I will introduce you by the name of Milner." - -"That is the name I was known by while I was there." - -"Albert has nothing to fear," said District Attorney Quinby on his -trial. "He had never been in Boston before in his life. He had no -acquaintance there. There was no reason why he should be registered -'and friend' at the hotel. There was no reason, so far as he was -concerned, that he should be introduced under a fictitious name, except -that his employer had been schooled in the wonderful university known -as" the oil combination. In Boston, on a Monday, on the Common, within -sight of the equestrian statue of the Father of his Country, his former -employer made a contract with Albert to pay him $1500 a year for doing -nothing except staying away from Buffalo. - -"You won't have much to do, and you can stay here in Boston, and keep -away from those fellows, and we will protect you." - -"Who's going to make up if those fellows come on and sue me for -damages? Who will make up this loss that I have been going to by -sacrificing my property?" - -"Leave that to me; I will fix that all right. You do just as I tell -you, and you will come out all right.... Go wherever you like, stop -where you like, and we will pay all your expenses while you are -here."[467] - -Albert loafed about Boston several weeks, sometimes helping to roll -a barrel of oil in the Vacuum's store. When he wanted money he asked -for it and got it. He had once been a hard drinker. Destruction was -as carelessly invited upon the soul of a poor brother as upon the -lives and property of competitors. He hung around Boston and Rochester -nearly a year. Then his old employer, who was in California, sent for -him to come there to help in a fruit cannery, his salary continuing -as before. From the moment he deserted his partners, as Judge Edward -Hatch, the counsel for Matthews, stated in the civil suit for damages -in this conspiracy, Albert "never earned enough to cover the end of -your knife-blade with salt at your dinner. But they pay him, in salary -and bonus, over $4000. Why? To get him away, and to stifle lawful, -legitimate, and honest competition; to stifle that which brings into -every poor man's home an article of necessity at a cheaper rate." -He stayed in California a few months, and, finally, sickened of the -disgraceful part he was playing, turned at bay, and gave notice that -he was going to leave. "This is kind of sudden," the agent of his -employers replied, but said he would write to the principal director in -New York and advise that he release him. "You will give me time, won't -you? You know it takes a couple of weeks or longer to do business from -here to New York." Albert waited, and in time the word came from New -York. "I have heard from these parties, and they are willing to release -you."[468] - -Albert, who had put himself into the extraordinary position in which -he was on the repeated pledges of the tempters that they would make it -"all right" with him, and protect him from loss and harm, found that -he had put his "trust in princes." When he came to settle he expected -that those for whom he had sacrificed his honor, his property, and his -career would make him some compensation. In answer to the question how -much they ought to make up to him, he named $5000 or $10,000, which -was certainly little enough, in view of the fact that the business -he had sacrificed to them was one in which, as the Vacuum's career -showed, $100 shares came to be worth $2666 each. But the representative -of the trust declared he could not think of such a thing, and in full -of all obligations gave him nothing but the balance due of the wages -agreed on. Then he asked Albert to hold himself still further at their -service. As they parted, he said: "Now we have settled up; now we are -good friends.... If anything ever comes up in this matter I would like -to have you stand by us.... We will see that you are paid all right, -and give you $25 a day while we need your services." Albert replied -that he did not feel under any obligations to the oil combination. -"I do not know as my interest lays that way. I do not think I shall -do anything to benefit them; they have injured me all that they can; -they have switched me all around, all over the country; they have got -me out of employ, not given me anything to do, which I sought to have -them do. I do not think they have used me right, and I have sacrificed -considerable money by this transaction, and you have always promised -that it would be made good, and you have not done so."[469] - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -THROUGH THE WOMAN'S EYES - - -Matthews knew nothing and suspected nothing about the worst part of -the plot against him until Albert's lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, nearly four -years later, was called upon to testify in the suit Matthews brought -for damages against the Vacuum people. This suit was to recover from -them for having enticed Albert away, and having persecuted Matthews -with false and malicious suits; but Truesdale's evidence at once -revealed that there had been a deeper damnation still in the conspiracy -against him. Mr. Matthews, one day on the street in Buffalo, ran across -Albert, who had just come back from California. - -"No man ever used another meaner than I have you," said the now -repentant man to him, volunteering all the information he had, -and agreeing to testify if called on. This revelation made the -farmer-refiner a reformer. This was the public's business. If such -things could be plotted and done with impunity by one man against -another, there was an end forthwith of every liberty the republic -boasted. Especially menacing was such a conspiracy when concerted by -the rich fanatic of business against the poorer citizen to prevent -the latter from disputing the claim that a great market was a private -preserve, and that the right to trade in it is a privilege which -"belongs to us."[470] Matthews could have used his discovery as an -irresistible weapon to force his enemy to his knees, but he laid his -evidence before the district attorney. This official presented it to -the grand-jury, which found that the facts warranted indictments. -When the first indictment was quashed on technical grounds a second -grand-jury, sifting the facts, agreed with the first that the accused -should be held to answer in the criminal courts. This was six years -after the crime. The five persons indicted were the two former owners -of the Vacuum, now the resident managers of it for the combination, -and the three members of the oil trust, as the combination then called -itself, who had bought the Vacuum for it, and had been elected by the -trustees directors to manage it for them, and had so managed it even -to the most picayune details. The case caught the ears of the world, -not because crime was charged against men who had dazzled even the -gold-filmed eyes of their epoch by the meteor-like flash of their -flight from poverty into a larger share of "property"--the property -of others--than any other group of millionaires had assimilated in an -equal period; not for that, but because the charges of crime against -these quickest-richest men were to be brought to trial. Members of the -combination had been often accused; they had been indicted. This was -the first time, as District Attorney Quinby said in his speech to the -jury, that they had found a citizen honest enough and brave enough to -stand up against them--the only one. "There is no man," he said, "so -respected to-day in Buffalo as he for the method he has used to bring -these men to justice." He succeeded in doing alone what the united -producers of the oil regions failed to do, although their resources -were infinitely greater. The people of the entire oil country failed -utterly to do so much as get the members of the oil combination, when -indicted for conspiracy in 1879, to come into court to be tried. All -its principal men were indicted--the president, the vice-president, -the secretary, the cashier, and others. They could not even be got to -give bail. One of them had said when the indictments were found, that -the case would never be tried, and it never has been. The Governor -would not move to have those of the accused who were non-residents -extradited, as he would have done, does daily, in the case of poor -men, and the courts so tangled up the questions of procedure that the -people withdrew, and left the indictments, as they remain to this day, -on file in the Clarion County court, swinging like the body of some -martyr on a road-side gibbet in the pagan days, polluting the air and -mocking justice.[471] - -That the trust was thoroughly alarmed, and saw the necessity of -rallying all its resources to save itself, was apparent from the -formidable display with which it appeared in the court-room. Present -with the five defendants, as if also on trial--a solid phalanx--were -its president, the vice-president, the manager of its pipe-line system, -the principal representatives of the trust in Buffalo, and many others. -Their regular attorney of New York was present with two of the leading -lawyers of Buffalo. Besides these there was a distinguished man from -Rochester, reputed the ablest lawyer in western New York, whose voice -is often heard in the Supreme Court at Washington. He had two important -members of the Rochester bar as assistants, one of them in the summing -up unmercifully scored by the District Attorney for fixing witnesses; -and, not least, a well-known United States District Attorney, who made -the convention speeches by which a distinguished citizen of Buffalo -was nominated, successively and successfully, for Sheriff, Mayor, -Governor, and President. The defendants come here, said the people's -attorney, with the best legal talent the country affords, the best -the profession can furnish; for the trust--"they are practically the -defendants in this action--with its great wealth, has the choice of -legal talent." Other eminent lawyers were also consulted, but were not -present. Never was a weak defence made the most of with more skill -than these gentlemen exhibited upon the trial.... But great as was the -ability of the defence, Mr. George T. Quinby, the District Attorney, -and his assistant, William L. Marcy, proved a match for them. Every -political and moneyed influence that could be brought to bear was used -to mislead the District Attorney, but all to no purpose. The jury -could see that the complainant, Charles B. Matthews, did not get the -indictment to sell out, otherwise he would have sold it out and not -have insisted upon a trial. The fact that the case was on trial, at a -cost of many thousands of dollars to the defendants, was conclusive -upon that point. An emissary, trying to get Matthews to call off the -District Attorney and to hush up this criminal prosecution, said the -oil trust could "give him anything, even to being governor of a Western -territory."[472] "You will have a chance," Matthews told the District -Attorney, "to line the street from your house to the City Hall with -gold bricks." But this public prosecutor had no price. He grasped the -full scope of this extraordinary case, which involved not only a crime -against persons and against the people, but against that true commerce -of reciprocal and equal service on which alone the new civilization of -humanity can rest. - -The room in the Buffalo court-house, where the case was being heard, -was bright with the sunshine of a May day, putting out the shadows of -indictments and verdicts lurking in corners and pigeon-holes. Although -it was a criminal case, the on-looker saw, strange as it seemed, that -whatever strain there was in the situation appeared to be felt least -by the accused, and most by the public and the jury. The nearer the -eyes of the on-looker travelled towards the prisoners, the lighter -and brighter was the scene. Close to the accused sat a bench full of -notables, evidently friends lending moral support. That the bench was -occupied by men of importance was evident. They were supported by -platoons of eminent counsel and detectives. Only the judge betrayed -no consciousness of the presence of the herd of millionaires. The -whisperings and pointings and namings by one spectator to another -showed that the people's curiosity was greatly excited by the -sight of the richest men in the country, if not in the world, with -attendant millionaire esquires in or about the dock of a criminal -court. On this particular day the notables and their suite had come -in specially good-humor. Nods of kindly recognition went about and -smiles rippled everywhere as, settled into their seats, they listened -to the recital by the witnesses. It had been as good as a play to hear -the working-man, Albert, tell on the stand how he had been bribed and -threatened with ruin until he yielded to the suggestion that he should -"bust up" the works of his friends, partners, and employers, and run -away. There had been nothing funny to Albert in those threats: "We will -ruin you," "We will crush you," "You will lose what little you have got -left."[473] - -"Then the compensation you got was $300 and the pleasure of selling -out your friends?" Albert was asked by one of the great lawyers.[474] -Albert did not smile, but "they seemed to enjoy hugely," reported -the press, "the idea that men could be bought so cheap." The eminent -counsel of the prisoners took the cue from their clients, and treated -the proceedings as a farce. When the State's Attorney was questioning -his witnesses, they objected to his questions with laughs and sneers -until he became indignant, and asked, with considerable emphasis, to -have the joke explained to him--a need the jury also felt, as their -verdict showed. When the Boston agent of the trust told that his -instructions from headquarters were that if there was to be any selling -at a loss to let the new competitor have the loss,[475] they all -laughed again. - -So all the morning there had been fine sport in the court-room, and -the good-humor had risen higher with every fresh incident in the -entertainment until Albert's wife took her place in the witness-box. -She, too, raised a laugh, but it was not she who laughed. Serious -enough she was when taking her place on the witness-stand. She had to -face these gentlemen, before whose hundreds of millions her husband's -little venture had withered, but, as she herself afterwards said: "I -wasn't afraid of them, but I was nervous. But as soon as I got talking -I didn't care anything for them, although they all sat there in front, -in a row, looking straight at me." - -The wife's story to the jury showed how such an adventure appeared -when looked at and experienced from the woman's stand-point--the -home-maker's and the home-keeper's--which the smiling row before her -were as little able to grasp as the participants in a pigeon-shooting -match to look upon that vision of flames, demons, and death-dealing -thunder from the point of view of the hapless birds. A bright-faced, -brown-eyed, pleasant-looking woman, as she took the stand she looked -what she was--an artisan's honest wife. "My husband," she said, "had -been employed in the Vacuum oil works at Rochester thirteen or fourteen -years, and we had accumulated some property--mortgages and money -and real estate. We moved to Buffalo, April 5, 1881, where he was -superintending the building of the Buffalo works."[476] After Albert -had yielded to the threats and the temptation, and had fixed the stills -and the fires for an explosion, he fled without a word to his wife -or his associates, hid, under an assumed name, in Boston, and then -travelled over the continent for a year--from Buffalo to Boston, to -Rochester, to San Francisco. - -"When you left Buffalo did you leave any word with Matthews where you -were going?" - -"No, sir." - -"Or your wife?" - -"No, sir." - -While the wife was in Buffalo wondering what had become of her husband, -he was in New York with his venerable ex-employer, getting lessons -like the following in the secrets of building up a great commercial -enterprise: - -"The best thing you can do, Albert," said the latter, "is to go and -write a telegram, and tell your wife to go back to Rochester." - -"You'd better write it; I am a poor writer," said Albert. - -"No," he said; "I do not want to appear in this case at all. Write it -so," he continued, "that she can move on the Fourth of July, and they -can't attach her things."[477] - -The first word she got from her husband was this telegram to move -between two days, and back to Rochester the dutiful woman packed -herself and her things. - -"It was two or three weeks before I heard from him direct or knew just -where he was," she said. - -"I asked Charles"--one of the two managers--"how Al was, and he said Al -was all right." - -"Would he tell you where he was?" the State's Attorney asked. - -"No, sir; when I wrote to my husband I left the direction blank, and -gave the letter to Charley. I got an answer through Charley."[478] - -For three weeks they would not let her know where her husband was. -"Think of that," said the District Attorney. "She had to go and take -her poor little letter to her husband, thinking, perhaps, if he was -away from her tender care he might get to drinking, because he does -drink some; but when with his wife they lived year in and year out -without his tasting a drop; ... afraid that he might get to drinking, -and that she could not watch over him.... It was a cruel thing to do." - -"C. told me to go to the real-estate agents," Albert's wife continued, -"and try to sell our property and get it into money. He made out a list -of real-estate agents from the city directory. I guess that is all he -did about assisting me in the sale of the property." - -"I asked C. if my husband could not come home from Boston. I was sick. -He said 'Yes.' Al came home and stayed a week or two. Then he went back -to Boston. C. told me they did not want the Buffalo company to know -where Al was."[479] - -Albert was a man infirm under temptation. The employer knew, by -fourteen years' acquaintance, the weakness this man had acquired in his -service in the army. He gave him idleness, money, temptation, and an -assumed name to go to the devil with, if that agent of the trust was to -be found in Boston. - -"You want to take good care of Al," said the good old man to his clerk -in Boston, "and not let him get homesick. If he wants any money, let -him have it." Albert travelled the broad way made smooth for him. - -"Of course I never went around with him," said the clerk, in a -deposition; "a porter that I had was the party that went around with -him in the evening. I would hear what was going on, and I could judge -about the size of Al's head when he came around in the morning." - -With all Albert's faults he kept one dignity to the end which makes -him tower above his seducers--the dignity of the laborer. A life's -discipline in daily toil had made his whole fibre too honest to enjoy -idleness, even at the rate of $1500 a year. He was free to come and go -amid the gaudy joys of a great city, as irresponsible under the assumed -name given him as if he wore the ring of Gyges. He had money for the -asking, and boon companions. But the habit of a lifetime of honest, -hard manual work was too deeply ingrained into the very substance of -his nature for him to become a cheap American Faust, revelling in -a pinchbeck paradise. This simple son of poverty had all his life -handled only real things, and had at every point had the mind's native -wantonness and riot checked by the hard surface which had calloused -his hands, and the outer air which had cooled him as he worked. His -were dreams of honest rest earned by honest work, and of family joys. -The self-indulgence that was revealed by the "size of his head in the -morning" was an animal exuberance that, as the result showed, did but -stain the "rose-mesh of his flesh," and went no deeper. Albert could -not stand the idleness of his Boston life. He went back to Rochester. - -"I want something to do." - -"What brings you here?" said his employer. "Go back." - -After hanging around the office in Boston a few weeks longer, the -workman's nature reasserted itself again. He went back again to -Rochester. "I want something to do." "We have not got anything for you -to do just now," he was told. "You are all right."[480] - -Months of idleness were interrupted only by odd jobs, like -superintending the digging of a ditch or the sinking of a salt-well. -Time and again, though he was drawing his pay of $125 a month, he went, -as he told the story in court, to repeat the plea for "something to -do." Finally, the elder of the managers, who was in California, sent -for him. He was to be made "an independent man," the new promise ran, -but really, as the sequel showed, was, if possible, to be kept out of -the way of too inquisitive juries and prosecuting attorneys. The wife, -treated as a mere pawn in the game, protested vehemently. "I went down -to the Vacuum Oil Company's office, and asked C. to give Al something -else to do. I didn't want him to go to California. He said that there -was not anything that he knew that he could do." - -"I don't want Al to go. I won't go. Give him something else to do." - -"I have nothing else."[481] - -She had to yield, and her husband left her to go to California. His -employer persuaded Albert to buy a piece of land in California. "He -seemed to be very anxious to locate me there."[482] Albert sent to -his wife for the money, but the shrewd little woman sent only half. -"I thought I would let him pay it out of his pay." With the same good -sense the wife had not sold all the property when sent out alone among -the real-estate men. "I did not sell the real estate," she said; "I -thought there was too much expense."[483] She was not with her husband -when the rupture came in California. The first news the anxious wife -had of a change in her husband's affairs was when "Charley" came to -her, as she was sitting one summer evening on the porch of a neighbor's -house, and told her "Al" had quit them. "I do not know what to make of -it," he continued: "I think he must be crazy or something."[484] - -It was not until his return that she learned the details of the painful -experience he had been through. When it was heard that Albert, upon -his return from California, had made restitution as far as he was able, -by telling what he knew to the authorities, to aid them in bringing -the principals in the crime to justice, there was consternation in the -trust. One of its detectives had been captain of the company Albert -was in during the Civil War. The captain now presented himself before -Albert as he went to his work in Corry, Pennsylvania, where he had -gone after his return from California, and became sociable rapidly. -He had great plans for Albert, and came to the house to discuss them -confidentially. Albert and his wife had been simple folks to start -with, but they had learned a thing or two by this time. The captain's -desire for confidential talk with his old comrade was so intense that -it would have been rude in Albert's wife to thwart it. She packed off -her daughter on an errand, and announced that she had a call up the -street, and would leave them to themselves; but she did not add, as she -might have done, that during her absence she would be represented by -the Chief of Police, whose appetite for confidential communications was -as keen as the captain's, but whose retiring disposition kept him in -the dark seclusion of an adjoining room, with his ear to the crack of -the door. - -"Wouldn't Albert like to go to Russia?" the captain asked his dear -friend the private, whose existence he had never personally recognized -when they were so close together during the Civil War. "If the Court -will allow me to show by this witness," said the prosecuting attorney, -"that the captain came there as a detective for the oil trust, and made -a proposition, after the indictments were found, to Albert to flee the -country, and go with him to Russia." One of the army of trust lawyers -was instantly on his feet with "I object." The judge sustained him, and -the testimony was shut out. - -Albert's wife kept close to his side, and held him steady. No, Albert -did not care to go to Russia. Advertisements of an alum-mine in Corry -then began to appear in newspapers where Albert's attention could -be called to them. By a lucky chance the captain happened to know -the capitalists whose boundless powers of enterprise could find -full outlet only by developing the hitherto unsuspected resources of -Corry for supplying the nations of the earth with alum. By a joyful -coincidence, these capitalists wanted for superintendent of their -bottomless alum-mines just such a man as the captain knew his dear -Albert to be. Would Albert like to go to Italy to learn the true -science of alum manufacture, and to show the effete monarchies how -an American could disembowel the earth of its alum? Salary, $5000 -and expenses. No, Albert had no unslaked ambition to go to Italy as -superintendent of mines of alum, or green cheese, or any other lunar -commodity. - -At least, Albert would take a drink? That poor Albert would do; and -when he failed to come home at night his wife went up and down the -streets seeking him. "A persistent effort had been made" by the trust, -Mr. Matthews testified, "to get Albert out of the country. I was afraid -they would get him away, as he might not be used in this case. Men -had been sent there to get him drunk, and had debauched him."[485] -Money was potent enough to persuade lawyers to make it a part of their -professional duty to help in this. One of the trust's lawyers sat with -Albert and its detective in the stall of a cheap saloon, and plied him -with liquor to get from him some letters of Matthews' they wanted. -"There they sat," said the keeper of the saloon; " ... they got what -they called for, probably.... I couldn't tell how many drinks they got -into Albert on that occasion; I think they drank there."[486] - -While this courtship was in progress with Albert in Pennsylvania, wires -were being pulled to get him indicted in New York. The grand-jury of -Rochester was asked to indict him for receiving stolen property in a -watch trade he had made seven years before. This would have ruined him -as a witness in the forthcoming criminal case against the members of -the oil trust, but the grand-jury decided that there was no evidence -on which to indict. When Adam Cleber, a stolid-looking German laborer, -who worked in the same place with Albert in Corry, took the stand for -the State at the close, an eager excitement filled the court-room. -The State's Attorney was known to have his darkest sensation still in -reserve. What it was he would not, of course, disclose in advance, but -those hardly less familiar than he with the evidence hinted that the -fertile genius of the captain, having exhausted itself in the ideas -of the trips to Russia and Italy, had fallen back upon the genius of -his superiors, and had arranged to have Albert go a-hunting, and get -a "bust-up" as much as possible like the one he had been induced to -attempt upon his employers and partners. - -"Did the captain tell you what he wanted you to do to Albert?" Cleber -was asked. - -"Yes--" That was as far as Cleber got. - -"I object!" screamed one of the lawyers. - -"I propose to show that the captain made a request of this witness in -regard to what he should do to Albert, and what he should come and -swear to about Albert, there being no truth in the matter he wanted -Cleber to swear to," the State's Attorney urged to the Court. The judge -took the matter home for consideration over-night, and announced in the -morning that he would not admit the evidence. It was acknowledged by -one of the lawyers for the members of the trust on trial that he had -employed the captain to get evidence for them; but the judge, instead -of admitting Cleber's testimony, and leaving the question of its value -to be settled by the jury, excluded it. - -In his closing speech District Attorney Quinby said: "Why, in Heaven's -name, my friends, didn't you place the captain on this witness-stand? -He would have been a feast for you and a feast for me. His ways -have been curious and sinuous, his methods have been peculiar and -corrupting, and they did not dare to put him on the stand because if -they did he would have left it to go to prison. That is the reason. -They know it." - -The brave and steadfast woman told her part of this story on the -witness-stand. Her home had been broken up again and again. As she -herself said afterwards: "I had to live with my carpets packed, and -moved around like a gypsy." Her husband had been tempted to commit a -crime which compelled him to lead the life of a fugitive. He had been -spirited away and secreted; she had not been allowed to know where -he was, and could communicate with him only through a third person; -they had moved around, in her expressive phrase, until they had moved -into two rooms; the savings of fifteen years' hard work were all gone, -and the independent business, in which her husband had just got his -footing, swept away. He and she faced the world with no other assets -than their child and the palms of their hard-working hands. - -"Well, it's taken all we had," she says; "we've lost it all, but I'd -rather it would be so than to have the money they have, and go about -hiding and sneaking. I'd like money, but not so well as that. When I -said to 'Charley,' 'I shall have to sell all my furniture'--'Oh, that's -nothing.' And when I told him it had cost us $100 to pay the expenses -of selling real estate--'That isn't much.' It wasn't much to them, but -it was to us, who had made every dollar by hard work. Well, we'll have -to do without the money, and just live along by honest work. We can -live that way. We have had all this trouble and lost our money, and -haven't made money enough to buy a calico dress." - -All the good that had come of this loss of savings and home and honor -had gone to those at the bar of justice and their associates sitting -in the tickled row before her. On the cross-examination, which was -to crush the witness and her damaging testimony, the distinguished -counsel, not content with all the suffering and loss already inflicted -on this wife, tried to humiliate her still further, but the woman's wit -of truth was too much for the lawyer's wit of wile. - -"Don't you recollect," the lawyer asked, "that you went to the house -of the manager of the Vacuum, and that you saw him in the parlor, and -that you asked him to take your husband back?" - -"I never asked him to take my husband back." - -"Then you did not ask him at the time and place I spoke of?" - -"I never asked him anywhere to take him back." - -"Don't you recollect upon that occasion being considerably affected, -and asking him to take your husband back, and his speaking of the way -in which he had left the company, which he characterized as shameful, -and that you cried--shed tears?" - -"I never asked him to take him back. I recollect going there. I -recollect I felt bad, because I was talked to so much about it. I had -reason to feel bad. I am trying to tell the truth as near as I can." - -"Then what was the occasion of your bad feeling?" - -"It was because I thought we were going to lose everything, and would -not have nothing left. That is what I felt bad for--was shedding tears -for, if I did. I don't know as I did."[487] - -Then came the laugh. From millionaire to lesser millionaire went -the enlarging laugh. The mighty cortege of the retained ex-judges, -famous constitutional and criminal lawyers, detectives, camp-followers -laughed. It was the laugh of hundreds of millions, and it clinked and -tinkled and rang. As if every mouth were a bagful of gold, and as if -every bag had burst, the golden notes of mirth filled the air, and -struck the ceiling, and rolled over the floor, rebounded and fell and -rose in mellow chimes of sound, and the golden rain dripped everywhere. -Millions on millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of the -coin of the republic, and in every coin a cackle. - -"Yes, they all laughed at me," the little woman told her friends; "it -looked like such a great joke to them. Perhaps I did not tell it very -well, but I told the truth." - -In closing the case the State's Attorney said to the jury: "A sorrow -was placed on that woman's heart that can never be removed. One of the -pathetic things in this case was that when this woman was on the stand, -telling her little story, how they were afraid they might lose the -few thousand dollars they had saved, the $6000 or $7000 they had been -struggling for for fifteen years, these New York gentlemen with their -millions laughed in her face at the idea of her being sorry to lose the -pittance of $6000 or $7000. It was the only time in the case, really, I -felt that these gentlemen were outraging common decency."[488] - -Some time after the trial was over, and sentence passed and satisfied, -these men sent for Albert to come to Rochester. He went with witnesses. -There in the office of a leading lawyer he was tempted with desperate -propositions to do something or say something that would break the -force with which these disclosures must act on public opinion. "They -need not think," he replied, "that they can get me to make a false -oath to let them out of a hole. I would not do it for all the combined -wealth of the trust. When my wife was on the stand they laughed her -in the face when she told about losing all we had. Do you suppose any -man with a particle of American blood could have any love for them? I -think as much of my wife and daughter as any of them of theirs, and I -will do nothing to disgrace them." This hard-working and hard-living -laborer and his wife had, by thirteen or fourteen years of toil and -stinting, saved $6000. The laughers had in the same time saved about -$300,000,000, and somebody else had done all the work. The poor man and -his wife had been afraid that the $300,000,000 would devour the $6000. -It said it would, and it had. Shall not they laugh who win? - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -TAKEN FROM THE JURY BY THE JUDGE - - -The District Attorney put the president of the light of the world on -the stand. His evidence showed that the purchase of the three-quarter's -interest in the Vacuum Company, sold because "there were restrictions -in the shipments," was made by the three New York men on trial. "They -are share-holders in the trust," he said. When they bought the stock -they transferred it to the oil trust. He had known of the contemplated -purchase. Having thus proved that the three indicted directors from -New York on trial were members of the oil trust, and were managing -the Vacuum for it, the District Attorney proceeded, in pursuance of a -logical plan of inquiry, to bring before the jury what the trust was, -and its relations to the companies it covered. - -"What is it ... if you know?" the District Attorney asked. The -president, through his counsel, objected to the question. - -"What is the object of this?" the judge asked the District Attorney. - -The trust, the District Attorney explained, owns a majority of the -stock of this Vacuum Company and others, and controls the manufacture -in this country of substantially all the lubricating and illuminating -oils. These defendants belonging to the trust, and "one of these being -chairman of a committee of the trust, it was the desire and motive -of the three to do away with competition, to destroy and ruin the -competitive works in Buffalo." - -The Court asked the president of the trust if it was a manufacturing -company. - -"It is not, your honor." - -The Court ruled out the question "What is it?" although in doing so he -used language apparently contradicting his ruling, saying, in effect, -that it was "quite immaterial what the objects or purposes of the oil -trust are, unless these defendants are in some way interested so as -to create a motive to do what it is claimed they did do." Again, when -the District Attorney sought to ascertain in what other corporations -engaged in the manufacture of oil in 1879, 1880, and 1881 the trustees -on trial owned stock, it was objected to and the objection sustained, -although the Court but a few moments before had said, "I will allow -you to show everything these defendants have done upon the question of -motive, ... to show what their business is, the companies they have -stock in, whether it is an oil company or some other company--that -is, any company engaged in the manufacture of oil that would come in -competition with the Buffalo company...." - -The judge, declaring that he would admit such evidence, refused to -admit it. What the District Attorney would have been able to uncover -as to the responsibility of the "trustees" for what was done by the -subordinate companies, the reader, freer than the jury in this case, -can find out for himself. - -The nine trustees, of whom three were on trial, owned as their -individual property more than half of this as of every establishment in -the trust. They decided who were to be elected directors and officers -of each company. They exercised full control over these officers -when elected. They declared the dividends. The profits of all these -shares are put into one purse, and distributed in quarterly dividends -among the trustees in proportion to their interest in the trust--the -purse-holder.[489] In the case of the Vacuum Company, accordingly, we -find that the minutes of stockholders' meetings record the presence -of members of the oil trust, in person and by proxy, representing -a majority of the stock, electing the officers and directors, and -declaring the dividends. How thorough and minute is the supervision -over the vassal companies an employe, who had been in the service of -the combination for several years in a confidential way, and "had -access to every book and paper and their cipher arrangement," has -told.[490] They "control every movement of every branch of their -business." The subordinate companies "make a report every day of all -their business.... They have blanks there on which they make a report -of all their shipments, where shipped, and who shipped to, and all -their purchases; and they report every month the exact percentage they -have made out of their crude oil, of all the different products they -get out of it. They report everything in detail." - -This was in 1879. Ten years later, in 1888, the testimony of the -president shows that the system is the same. "They know the cost at -every refinery. They get such reports once in thirty days; each report -shows just what it has cost for everything.... Made out on regular -blanks."[491] - -But when put on the stand in this case, in Buffalo, he had professed -himself altogether ignorant of any such reports.[492] Asked if the -Vacuum Company had made them, he replied: - -"I can't recall any such reports." - -Asked if it was obligatory upon the Vacuum Oil Company to make reports, -he said: - -"I can't state." - -But the manager's testimony in the same case shows that the system of -reports which his superior "could not recall" was in regular operation. - -"There are reports of sales of the Vacuum Oil Company made to certain -parties in New York."[493] - -The three trustees who bought the control of the Vacuum stock did -not keep it for themselves. They transferred it to the trust, and -received for it shares in the trust. They were not stockholders in -the Vacuum, but stockholders in the trust. It was the trust which was -the real stockholder in the Vacuum. The profits on this Vacuum stock, -therefore, went into the common fund in which the trust accumulated the -profits of all its controlling ownerships in companies all over the -country--all over the world. Every trustee shared in the profits of -every company so controlled, whether in the United States or Europe or -Asia. The president of the trust, now on the witness-stand, was a large -participator in the profits of the Vacuum, because he was a large owner -in the trust which possessed three-quarters of it. Similarly as to the -three trustees indicted and on trial, and every other trustee.[494] -The case was interwoven, notwithstanding the exclusion of this by the -judge, with evidence that the three members of the trust on trial -were the managers of the company for the trust, and were consulted -habitually about the current details by the salaried agents. - -"After this purchase was made did you continue to represent the -purchasers in the management of the affairs of the Vacuum Oil Company?" -one of the three was asked. - -"I did." - -After the purchase of the Vacuum by the trust, Mr. Matthews, before he -left to go into business on his own account, had to go to its office -in New York half a dozen times, to see the New York directors when he -wanted instructions. His testimony on this point covers thirty pages of -the official testimony, and shows repeated interviews between him and -the members of the trust about every kind of detail of the business of -the Vacuum. When Matthews asked the manager of the Vacuum to give him -more pay, the latter had told him to speak to one of the trustees--one -of the three now on trial. "It will be as he says about it." Again, as -to another matter, he said to Matthews: "I cannot tell you. There is no -use for me to pretend that we run our business, for we do not."[495] - -This evidence must be sought in the original records of the case at -Buffalo, as it is left out in the transcript furnished by the trust to -the committee of Congress, which represents the case against the two -local managers only. The Rochester manager, after the explosion, and at -the time of sending for Albert to come to New York, telegraphed to his -son: "Our views with regard to Albert confirmed." By whom? as Matthews' -lawyer asked. The manager saw one of the three accused trustees in New -York after he returned from the trip to Boston to hide Albert. "I told -him that I had hired him," he testified. - -The trustee denied this, as the president denied the monthly reports. -But he has himself furnished the evidence that his employe told the -truth. In their answer in court to the allegations of the suit against -them for damages, he and the other two trustees concerned in the -Vacuum direction testified that they advised the Rochester managers -"to endeavor to retain the said" Albert, ... "and after" he "had left -the employment of the Vacuum Oil Company ... they further advised that -he should be re-employed if it could be done by reasonable increase of -his wages. They were afterwards informed that he had been re-employed." -This shows they knew about the negotiations before, during, and after. -They knew the man was to have more wages, though the increase was only -$300 a year, and their income was millions yearly. When he had been -gotten away they were informed of that too. The District Attorney knew -all about this answer in the civil case, but under the statutes of New -York it could not be used in a criminal prosecution against those who -had made it. He put the trustee on the stand, and did his best to get -him to tell the same story, but in vain. - -The body-guard of lawyers surrounding the great men who made the -court-room a veritable curiosity-shop for the people of Buffalo, did -a deal of acting throughout the trial to impress on the jury that the -whole proceeding was a farce. They laughed and yawned and pooh-poohed, -and sneered at the District Attorney's questions and points, and went -through all kinds of dumb-shows of indignation and ennui that their -clients should be so needlessly called on to waste priceless time. But -this could not prevent their faces from lengthening as the story was -told by witness after witness, as more than one observant reporter -saw and noted. When the evidence was all in, and District Attorney -Quinby had closed his case, the situation was desperate. There was no -doubt about that. The great men of the trust on trial had been proved -to be the actual directors of the Vacuum at every turn of its daily -affairs. Before any evidence was introduced for the defence, one of -the distinguished lawyers arose and moved the discharge of the three -members of the trust, who were a majority of the Board of Directors -of the Vacuum Company, and managed it for the trust. The prosecution -were not taken unawares by the motion. The District Attorney's able -assistant, William L. Marcy, had gathered all the precedents and -equipped himself to resist the discharge. He and the District Attorney -fought hard to have the principals in the company go to the jury with -their agents, but in vain. Mr. Marcy pointed out that, as shown in the -case of The People _vs._ Mather, "to charge partners as conspirators it -is not necessary even to show that they were the original conspirators. -It is sufficient if at a subsequent time they become party to it by -accepting the benefits derived from the conspiracy. The case lays that -down in exact terms." - -The Judge: "Must there not be an adoption?" - -Mr. Marcy: "That is an adoption--accepting the benefits." - -The Judge: "They may accept the benefits without knowing." - -Mr. Marcy: "Then the jury may infer that knowledge from all the -circumstances. The jury are the tribunal to determine whether or not -the parties had the knowledge." Mr. Marcy pointed out that there was -everything to lead the jury to infer that these men were parties to the -plan. "Where did the meetings of the Board of Directors take place? -At Rochester, where the works are? No; at New York, where these men -carried on their other business. The Rochester representatives dance -in attendance wherever these New York parties desire them to go." He -pointed out to the judge that the trustee whom Albert met in New York -after the explosion knew of the plan to take him to Boston. He showed -that the same trustee, when remonstrated with by Matthews for bringing -patent suits without foundation, said that he intended to carry them -on, and if he was beaten in one court, he would carry them to a higher -court. Just in the same way the Rochester representative of the trust -had said: "I will bring lawsuits against you. I will get an injunction -against you." "When the Rochester manager," said Mr. Marcy, "hired -Albert, he did not pretend to be able to make a bargain until he had -been to New York and consulted about it. He was in New York before he -telegraphed to him to come to New York. This significant fact points -home the conspiracy upon the gentlemen who reside in New York." - -But the judge, and not the jury, rendered the verdict as to the three -members of the trust on trial. He failed to remember or observe the law -that leaves it to the jury to render the verdict. He announced that he -had decided to grant the motion for their discharge. There was silence -in the court-room for a moment. Then: "Gentlemen of the jury, hearken -to your verdict as advised by the Court," came in sonorous tones from -the clerk; "you find the defendants"--naming the three members of the -oil trust at the bar--"not guilty of the crime, as charged in the -indictment, so say you all." - -The jury looked scared at being addressed so peremptorily, but said -nothing. - -"The New York men looked happy," said one of the observers, "but -their Rochester associates and codefendants did not smile." Upon the -discharge of the trustees, one of the Buffalo dailies said that whether -there was any conspiracy at all is an undecided question, but it should -be remembered that the oil trust and the Vacuum Oil Company "have been -honorably acquitted of the charge of having anything to do with the -matter. As the case now stands, it is simply The People against"--the -two Rochester managers. - -Poor men! It was for this that they succumbed to the attacks of the -oil trustees upon their business, sold them for $200,000 three-quarters -of a concern which produced $300,000 in dividends in one year for -the lucky conquerors, became vassals instead of masters in their own -refinery. It was for $10,000 a year, divided into $6500 for one and -$3500 for the other, that they undertook to fetch and carry for their -suzerains, even to the gates of the penitentiary; and when discovery -and conviction came, to bear in silence upon their own shoulders the -guilt and shame from which others got only "more." - -The trial of the two remaining defendants proceeded. Neither of them -took the stand. In a deposition the elder said it was Albert who had -spoken about misplacing the pipes; but when asked what he said in reply -to a suggestion, which no one better than he knew the significance -of, he replied: "I made no reply to it, but I thought it would be a -very scandalous proceeding."[496] Albert had told how, in conversation -in California, his employer had described his plans with regard to -Matthews. - -"We would have just got them fellows in a boat, right in the middle -of the stream, and we would have tipped them two over, and drowned -them, and you would have been all right."[497] "If I ever made such a -remark," this defendant deposed, "it was in a playful humor. I am in -the habit of making playful remarks." - -Witness after witness had to confess, under cross-examination, that -his testimony had been written and rewritten by himself or the lawyer -for the defence, and carefully conned before coming on the stand. The -District Attorney asked one of these tutored witnesses why he had read -over the written preparation of his testimony in the rotunda of the -court-house just before going on the stand. - -"I read it over," he replied, lucidly, "for the simple reason of -reading it over." - -"Just to practise in reading?" - -"Well, perhaps we might call it practice in reading."[498] - -"This preparation of the testimony," said the District Attorney to the -jury, "which I stigmatize as infamous, this going to a witness and -writing him down, and having him fix it, and write it over again, and -keeping it in his mind, and reading it over, and so going on the stand, -is not the way to try a lawsuit, in my mind. I write nothing down. I -coach no witnesses. I want a witness to tell me his story. I put him on -the stand and he tells me his story; but no writing down, no reading -over. It is not right, and it is very liable to be very wrong." - -Several witnesses were introduced to prove that Matthews had offered -to settle the criminal prosecution. He could not have done so had he -wished to. The criminal case was in the hands of the State. Of the -witnesses who made this charge against Matthews, one was a stockholder -in the trust, another had been a stockholder in one of its pipe lines, -and both had to admit on cross-examination that the occasion of his -alleged agreeing to settle the case had been that they had gone to him -for their friends, unsolicited by him and unexpected, to find out at -what price he would sell his works to the combination." I was anxious -to settle the criminal prosecution," said one of these ambassadors. - -"Anxious for whom?" asked the ever-ready District Attorney. - -"I should say--nobody," replied the witness, in confusion. - -"Mr. Matthews told him," said Mr. Hiram Benedict, one of the best-known -citizens of Lockport, who was present, "that if they bought the capital -stock of the company they could do what they chose with the civil -suits, but with the criminal suit he had nothing to do; the people had -that in charge."[499] - -The lawyers tried to make a jest of the whole proceeding, and affected -to look upon the incidents of this rivalry with their powerful client -as something too trivial to be noticed. "Is it a trivial matter," asked -District Attorney Quinby, "that it shall be decided, once for all, in -a court of justice, that in an alleged republic you and I shall not -start a business which is a rival to some one else? That is the issue -here, and yet the lawyers for the accused tell us it is trivial. It -is the most important question that was ever left to a jury of twelve -men in this or any country in this age of monopoly." The jury thought -so too. The meaning of the policy of suppressing competition was -skilfully described by Judge Edward Hatch, Mr. Matthews' counsel in -the civil suit for damages, and here again the jury, representing the -people, thought so too. "When a man or a corporation is in a position -to control the market as to a given article, then everybody is within -their power, and it rests with their conscience to determine what -shall be the price. Every time you farmers at home, or your wives or -daughters, take your oil-can, turn it up, fill your lamp, and then -sit down to read by it, you can understand what is meant by this -proposition to crush these men out.... It was a matter that not only -these three men were interested in, but every person that lived in the -community. Competition would run along to a point where you could get -the oils that you use in your families, to grease your wagons, and to -burn in your houses, or for any other purpose, at a price that should -give the manufacturer a fair profit, and at the lowest possible price. -On the other hand, if you leave that open to these parties to regulate -as they saw fit, having a monopoly of the market, then you rest upon -the conscience of a corporation and put your faith in a soulless -individual." - -It is one of the few bright lines in this picture that whenever the -people got a chance to make themselves heard, their utterance was -always right and true. The four juries which passed upon the facts -understood them, and had the moral standard by which to judge them -aright. - -One of the trust's employes was put on the stand to break the effect -of the evidence that the competition of the new works had put down the -price of oil. "In the early part of 1881--the winter of 1881"--he said, -"common oil was 5-1/2 cents a gallon"--this to prove that the reduction -had preceded the appearance of the new refinery. He was confronted -by the District Attorney with one of his own bills of oil sold in -February, 1881. "That would seem to be a sale of 120 degrees oil at 12 -cents a gallon," he confessed, and added, awkwardly, "I was asked as to -the winter of 1881. That is not the winter of 1881 as I understand. I -meant to speak from July, 1881, and so on."[500] - -The great lawyers held up to the ridicule of the jury the idea that the -gases of distilling petroleum were dangerous. Matthews stated on the -stand that he had seen this gas burn up derricks, property, and several -men. The lawyers could not let anything so absurd go unchallenged. - -"Did it explode?" he was asked smartly. - -"Yes, sir." - -"And how did the 'explosion' burn up the men and property?" with a -knowing look to the jury. - -"The gases crept quietly to the boilers, unobserved," said the witness, -"and all at once the whole atmosphere was ablaze." - -The witnesses who tried to prove that no harm could have resulted from -the tampering with the still broke down. One of them was the inspector -of oils at the combination's refinery at Cleveland. He, too, had once -been an independent refiner, but had passed under the yoke. He declared -with every possible variation of phrase that there could not have been -an explosion at the Buffalo works; but the District Attorney got out of -him piecemeal admissions that the "escaping petroleum gases would be -inflammable"; that "in a damp day you would expect them to settle close -to the still"; that then, if they came in contact with fire, "you would -have a large flash, and consume those vapors; if a person was in the -vicinity he would burn." - -"I ask you if it would be a safe thing to fill a still with 175 barrels -of petroleum, put under it an extremely hot fire, so that the front -portion of the still is a cherry red, and a weighted safety-valve is -blown off--would you consider that a safe thing to do?" - -"I would not." - -Still another of these witnesses ended, like Balaam, by saying just the -opposite of what had been wanted of him. He testified that the escape -of gases from the stills, and even their ignition, was a matter of no -consequence--"it may occur at any time"--until he was cross-examined. -It turned out then that his own works had been burned three times by -the gases from distillation taking fire. "These gases," he had to -admit, "took fire and burned the receiving-house. A man got burned up -with it." - -"Are you willing," the District Attorney asked, sarcastically, "to go -down to the Buffalo works and have them run some vapor, on a quiet day, -on the ground, and let you stand in the middle of it and touch it off?" - -"I am not anxious to do that."[501] - -Every one looked to see Matthews crushed by the cross-examination, in -accordance with the widely advertised promises of the counsel on the -other side. - -"As he stood up to take the oath," said the New York _World_, "and -confronted the men with whom he had been at sword's-point for six -years, men of unlimited wealth and almost unlimited influence, and -controlling the most gigantic monopoly of any age or any country, -Charles B. Matthews looked, as a good observer said, what he proved -himself to be, a fighter, who will never know when he is whipped. Hard -knocks and a struggle of years against an all-powerful enemy have -whitened his hair, and set firm, hard lines about his face. His eyes -are deep-set under a protruding forehead and black, bushy lashes, and -are dark, firm, and searching. His jet-black beard is luxuriant but -coarse, his whole head and face bespeak the dogged persistence in -following a foe that is characteristic of the man. He is tall, well -built, and with those whom he knows to be friends he is kindly and -almost jovial in his manner." He told his story, and the jury believed -it. One of the most damaging portions of his testimony was that given -to connect the New York members of the trust with the conspiracy by -showing that they had the actual, practical, continuous management of -the Vacuum in matters small as well as large. Matthews, when in their -employ, was kept running to New York continually to see one or the -other of them about some detail of the business. Seeking to break down -the force of this testimony, the big gun of the legal battery opened on -him. - -"But you did not see the name" of the oil combination "up over the -office that you went into (in New York)?" - -"I do not think I ever saw the name over the office that I went into. I -think that name is not often in view over where they do business." - -"What makes you think so?" - -"My experience and observation." - -"What experience and observation have you had?" - -"Do you want I should tell it all?" - -"No, you need not tell it all. We will let that go now." Matthews had -been in their employ. He knew about the staff of lobbyists they keep to -go from capital to capital as needed. - -For lack of evidence the jury was offered abuse of Matthews, spoken by -the brilliant attorney on a shout which enabled the populace outside -the court-house to hear his speech, and, as the verdict proved, -deafened the jury to his eloquence. The jury preferred the view given -by the District Attorney. "When I look upon the troubled face of -Matthews," said District Attorney Quinby in his closing of the case, "I -know what is coming upon his head. When I know the struggle he has gone -through, the integrity that is in his heart, I would say to him, 'Well -done, good and faithful servant, you have withstood the powerful arm -of this insatiable corporation. You stand to-day honored from one end -of this land to the other.' ... I am proud that in the county of Erie -has been born a gentleman who has had the bravery and fortitude he has -shown." - - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -CRIME CHEAPER THAN COMPETITION - - -The jury was composed of nine farmers, one tailor, one store-keeper, -and one railroad foreman. "So intelligent a jury," said the Buffalo -_Express_, "is proof perfect that the verdict it returns is the -only one warranted by the law and evidence." The jury found all the -defendants guilty whom the court allowed them to try. The verdict, -"Guilty as charged in the indictment," was given May 18, 1887. Every -possibility of appeal and reversal was resorted to. The judge granted -a stay, and this left the defendants unsentenced. A motion for a new -trial postponed the day of fate until December 24, 1887. - -When the judge decided against the new trial an appeal was taken, and -was carried through every court except the highest. Legal procedure -in New York makes the courts a hunting preserve for those who can -afford the luxuries of litigation. The law was changed by the Field -code so that demurrers and counter-appeals, proceedings and ancillary -proceedings, on technical points can be carried, one after another, -from court to court, while the real point at issue has to wait untried -below for the results of this interminable contest. By grace of -this power to carry preliminary and technical questions from court -to court, at the pleasure of quibbling and appealing lawyers and -procrastinating judges, from courts of Oyer and Terminer to the Supreme -Court at General Term, to the Court of Appeals, rich corporations and -individuals are able to tire out altogether all ordinary opponents. -It was only by help of very able and highly paid lawyers, officers of -the courts and of justice, that the law of New York was "reformed," -so that the technical parts of a case could be to such an extent -disengaged from the main body, and sent forward and backward, up and -down, through the whole series of appeals, consuming endless time and -money, while poor men seeking justice kick their heels in the lowest -courts. - -As the time for pronouncing sentence came on, petitions for mercy were -circulated in Buffalo and Rochester. The members of the jury which -had found the accused guilty were labored with separately to sign -a recantation. Only six succumbed and signed a statement that the -prisoners were found guilty, not because they had conspired to blow up -their rival's refinery, but because they had enticed away Albert. This -recantation was in the face of the judge's charge, which had made the -plot to blow up the Buffalo works the chief and the important inquiry -in this case, and the verdict had been given under the influence of -this view of the case. Six of the jury saw the impropriety of making -this statement after they had disbanded and passed from under the legal -and moral restraints they felt when sitting under their oath of office, -and refused to sign it. - -When the paper from the complaisant six jurors was handed in, the -District Attorney said in court: "These jurors received money for -making these affidavits. If required to do so I will prove the -statement." He was not called upon to do so. "These affidavits," he -said afterwards, "were procured for the purpose of influencing the -Court to administer the lighter punishment, since they tended to -show that the verdict was directed against the lighter offence. One -of the jurors told me he had been offered money to sign one of these -affidavits, and he knew of one juror who had received $10 for signing -one." - -When the last possibility in the way of proceedings for a stay or for a -new trial had been exhausted, except argument of an appeal in the Court -of Appeals, which was known to be useless, sentence was pronounced. -The penalty provided in the statutes was imprisonment for one year in -the penitentiary, or a fine of $250, or both. The lawyers pleaded -that the elder of the convicted men was old, that the younger had just -returned from a wedding tour in Europe, that some of the wealthiest -and most prominent citizens of Rochester had petitioned for mercy, -and that six of the jury had done likewise. Each was sentenced to pay -a fine of $250. Notice of appeal was given by the convicted, and a -year was consumed on both sides in preparations to fight the case to -a bitter finish. But the appeal was abandoned. A new trial and new -sentence might have ended worse. The fine was paid, and these employes -of the trust, upon whose record as reputable and inoffensive citizens -for all the years of their business career no shadow had fallen till -they entered its employ, took thereby the place assigned them by the -jury--that of convicts guilty of crime. - -Crime, it seems, may in this country be cheaper than competition. -They who received the larger part of the benefit of the enticement -of Albert, of the harassing litigation, of the damage done by the -explosion, and of the bankruptcy which was finally produced by these -means, went free of all punishment; and the employes found their crime -but little less than a pastime. After his conviction, and before his -sentence, one of the two married. His wedding was attended by many of -the great men of the trust--magnates in the New York world of affairs -and its affiliated interests. It glittered with gold and silver and -precious stones which they sent to signify to the world that they stood -sponsor for him. - -The case of some humble boycotters was then fresh in the public mind. -Certain working-men, on strike, handed around printed circulars in the -streets of New York, requesting people not to buy beer sold by their -employer. In a few weeks from the time they dropped those circulars in -the streets they were in the penitentiary at Sing Sing. It was shown on -their trial that they were entirely ignorant of the fact that they were -violating any of the laws of the State in what they did. It was shown -on the trial of the oil men that they did know that the course they had -in view was criminal, and were warned by a lawyer it might land them -in prison. "It was very fortunate," said the New York _World_, "that -they were not poor men convicted of stealing a ham." - -One of the reasons given by the judge for his leniency was that -prominent citizens of Buffalo and Rochester had begged for mercy. "With -the very highest respect for the judge," said the Buffalo _Express_, -"as the _Express_ has often demonstrated, we must say that this is a -mighty queer excuse. Three-fourths of those citizens are in one way -or another identified in interest with the oil trust, as the judge -could readily have ascertained, and their names on that petition were -entitled to no more moral weight in the consideration of this case than -the names of the two guilty men should have had if they had seen fit to -sign it." - -The sentence raised a whirlwind of indignation. "As ridiculous as -anything that could be imagined," said the Philadelphia _Ledger_. "It -is high time," said the New York _World_, "that the lines were drawn -between competition and conspiracy, between business and brigandage." -Referring to the golden harvest of $300,000 dividends in one year on -a capital of $100,000, representing an original investment of only -$13,500, the _World_ said: "The monopoly of this sort of business is -a very seductive thing. It is calculated to make men of more boldness -than morals blow up factories, or do almost anything else to control -the field." "It can afford to blow up a rival refinery every day -in the year at that price," said the Erie _Dispatch_. "There have -been conspiracies," said the Oil City _Blizzard_ (Pa.), "to injure -the business of opposition concerns right here in Oil City, and the -conspirators have never been punished." "It is--a light sentence," was -the comment of the Buffalo _Commercial_. "Poor criminals," the Buffalo -_Express_ declared, "may well wonder why rich ones are let off so -easily. It is equivalent to deciding that wealth may securely indulge -in that inexpensive sort of amusement as a mere pastime. Who's afraid?" -it asked. "What conspirator 'in restraint' of trade is afraid of a $250 -fine?" "Certain it is that no wealthy criminals convicted of such a -crime ever before received from a court such a mockery of justice," was -the verdict of the Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_. - -The facts of this case have not been carelessly examined or decided. -Two grand-juries in succession passed upon the evidence and found it -good enough for indictments. Two petit juries heard the evidence, -both for and against, in the civil and criminal suits, and found it -good enough--one jury for $20,000 damages, another for a verdict of -criminally guilty. Seventy picked citizens have unanimously concurred -in the decision "Guilty." And this scarlet letter the monopoly will -always have to carry. - -"So surely as Matthews lives, and so long as he lives," District -Attorney Quinby said in the criminal prosecution, "he will never again -make another dollar upon a barrel of oil he may manufacture. The -word has gone forth, right in this court-room, that this man shall -be crushed, and he can never again run his works successfully. That -is going to be one of the results of this case." The fulfilment of -this prediction came swiftly. This sentence of ruin upon Matthews was -executed before sentence was even pronounced upon the conspirators -against him. He had been left crippled by the flight and corruption -of his partner, the only practical oil man in the enterprise. When -he tried to obtain some one to take his place, he could not get word -of any one not connected with the oil combination. He did not dare -to advertise, and knew no one in Buffalo he could venture to speak -to. He had made contracts before opening the works, and was unable to -fill them. The pipes had been laid wrong; it took him a year trying -one way and another, and making a great many mistakes, to set them -right. His third partner was frightened back into the employ of the oil -combination by threatening litigation. - -Then came the suits to destroy, punctually as threatened.[502] "If one -court does not sustain the patents, we will carry them up until you -get enough of it," one of the trustees said to Matthews. One of the -Rochester managers, in speaking of these suits, said: "I don't know as -we will gain anything really, but we will embarrass them by bringing -these suits, and, if it is necessary, we will bring them once a month; -yes, we will bring them once a week." One, two, three, four, five suits -came with injunctions. "Null and void" was the verdict of court after -court on the worthless patents and pretended trade-marks on which he -was sued. - -Matthews had to keep pushing his pursuers to trial. What they wanted -was not decisions but delays, to ruin him by the waste of time and -money.[503] "It cost me one-third of my time, and $25,000 or more to -defend these suits." These suits were used to scare away his customers. -"I was instructed," said the Boston representative of the combination, -"to tell the customers that the Buffalo company were using their -patents."[504] The sole legal victory the combination won was the -recovery of six cents damages on a technical point. - -Matthews, on his side, took to the courts. He sued his persecutors as -individuals and corporations. He pursued them civilly and criminally. -He was successful in defending himself against their suits. All his -suits were successful as far as he was able to carry them. One suit -for damages produced a $20,000 verdict; another was for $250,000, -on the still stronger evidence procured in the criminal trial. It -took Matthews two years--from 1883 to 1885--to get his first case -for damages for conspiracy to trial. All that time was consumed by -his opponents in quibbles about procedure, technical objections, and -motions for delay, appealing them from court to court. The judge, in -taking from the jury afterwards the three trustees who had been brought -to trial for conspiracy, declared that he could see no reason to -believe that these suits had been brought without probable cause. But -the jury before which the suit for damages was tried saw plenty of such -reasons, and gave Matthews' company a verdict of $20,000 damages. The -views of the judge and jury might have varied in the same way on the -question of the guilt of the three members of the trust. - -Matthews woke up one morning to discover, as he had been told he would, -that there was no Atlas Company to get his oil from. Corporations may -have no souls, but they can love each other. The Erie Railroad killed -the pipe line of the Atlas Company for the oil combination.[505] The -courts had been kept busy granting injunctions against it on the -motion of the Erie. These were invariably dissolved by the courts, -but an application for a new one would always follow. At one time the -lawyers had fifteen injunctions all ready in their hands to be sued -out, one after the other, as fast as needed. The pipe line was finally -destroyed by force. Where it crossed under the Erie road in the bed -of a stream grappling-irons were fastened to it, and with an immense -hawser a locomotive guarded by two freight cars full of men pulled it -to pieces. The Atlas line and refinery became the "property" of their -enemy. Matthews' supply of crude oil was not cut off immediately. He -was tapered off. One of the superintendents of the Atlas testified in -the suit for damages Matthews brought against the Atlas after it passed -into the hands of the combination, that by the order of the manager -of the refinery he mixed refuse oil with the crude which they sold to -the Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company. Finally the supply was shut off -altogether. - -Matthews turned to the railroads connecting Buffalo with the oil -country. They all put up their rates. At the increased rates they -would not bring him enough to keep him going; they would not give him -cars enough, and told him they would not let him put his own cars on -the road. Even the lake steamers raised their rates against him. The -farmer-refiner was taking his lesson in the course which had driven -his first employer to dig oil-wells because "there were restrictions -in the shipments." Cut off from a supply by either pipe or rail at -Buffalo, Matthews made an alliance with the Keystone Refinery in the -oil regions. War was now made upon the Keystone. It was finally ruined. - -Packs of lawyers were set upon Matthews, and they finally brought -him down. An attorney appeared before a judge and made a motion that -the property of Matthews' company be taken out of Matthews' hands -and be placed in the charge of a receiver, as officer of the court, -to secure a debt due a Buffalo bank. This done, the lawyer appeared -before the judge who afterwards decided that $250 fine was punishment -enough for criminal conspiracy, with an offer from the monopoly to -pay $17,300 for the discontinuance of the suits for damages which -Matthews had instituted, and $63,700 for all the other assets. The -other creditors and all the stockholders opposed the motion, but the -judge granted it. There were two suits. One had produced a verdict of -$20,000, and the other one for $250,000 was brought on the new and -much stronger evidence secured in the criminal trial. As to the value -of the property, Matthews had brought his enterprise to the point -where it was worth $20,000 a year. It was capable of producing many -times that amount of profit. Had not Albert been enticed away, the new -works would have yielded a profit of over $100,000 the first year. -They had a capacity of 70 to 80 barrels a day of lubricating oil, -and the profit was $5 to $6 a barrel at the time Matthews and Albert -went into the business.[506] The judge, overruling a majority of the -creditors, ordered the receiver to accept the offer. He gave as his -reason for selling these damage suits that a criminal prosecution had -already taken place for the same offences, and a person could not be -punished twice for the same offence. As they had not yet been punished, -this meant, if it meant anything, that the suits were to be sold out -for this inconsiderable sum, and the guilty men were to get their -punishment in the sentence he was to pass upon them in the criminal -court. - -Three months later, before the same judge, these convicted agents stood -up to receive their criminal sentence. The judge gave them the lightest -sentence in his power, "nominal punishment." He did so, he was reported -by the Buffalo press to have said, because "it has come to the -attention of the court that civil suits have been brought to recover -damages sustained by reason of the same overt acts. Large punitive -damages are demanded in those actions. It is fundamental that a person -cannot be punished twice for the same offence." - -The judge released them from the suits for damages because they were -to be punished criminally. Then he released them from any but nominal -punishment, because there had been suits for damages. One would infer -that the civil suits for damages were in full career in the courts, -to end possibly in hundreds of thousands of dollars' damages against -the convicted. No one would infer what was the truth--and who should -have remembered it so well as the judge, for it was he who had done -it?--that the civil suits had been ordered sold. The judge had ordered -his officer--the receiver--who had the luckless Matthews' affairs in -his grip, not to try the cases, but to sell them. The suits had been -ordered sold in February preceding, and they were as dead as--justice. -But as all the technical formalities and slow proceedings needed to -consummate the sale had not been completed when sentence was passed in -May, the damages they might produce were made a reason for inflicting -none but nominal punishment. The order of sale made it impossible that -they should ever be tried. - -Of the money paid into court, nearly half--$30,000--went to the -lawyers, and, crudest stroke of all, the attorney who had made the -successful motion before the judge to take Matthews' property away, and -to order the forced sale, got $5000. Matthews got nothing. Even his -right to sue his destroyers had been sold to them on their own motion -and at their own price. - -The crime was plotted in March, 1881. The participants were indicted in -1886. It took until May 15, 1887, to secure conviction. While sentence -was still unpronounced Matthews' property was put into the hands of a -receiver of the court, January 16, 1888; the property was sold by order -of the court, February 17, 1888; sentence was pronounced May 8, 1888; -the formalities of the sale were consummated July 11, 1888; and the -sentence, coming last of all--the fine of $250--was executed May 1, -1889. - -Matthews had tried to make money in oil, and had failed; but his -competition had forced those in control of the markets to increase the -price to the producer, and he made light cheaper to the community. In -Buffalo his enterprise had caused the price to drop to 6 cents from 12 -and 18 cents, in Boston[507] to 8 cents from 20. Oil has never since -been as high in Boston or Buffalo as before he challenged the monopoly. -And he forced the struggle into the view of the public, and succeeded -in putting on record in the archives of courts and legislatures and -Congress a picture of the realities of modern commerce certain to -exercise a profound influence in ripening the reform thought with which -our air is charged into reform action. - -Nothing is so dramatic as fact, when you can find the fact. The -treatment his church gave the brother, who had been the victim, as -judicially declared, of a criminal conspiracy, is described in the -following letter from Matthews: - - "BUFFALO, January 19, 1888. - - "MY DEAR FRIEND,--As your father was a clergyman, and as you feel an - interest in church affairs, I think you will wish to know of my recent - experiences. My church here is not a rich one, but we pay as much for - church music as we do as salary to our pastor. Probably the wealthiest - man in our church is an agent of the oil trust. He receives a salary - of $18,000 per year, and keeps their retail store here, and has been a - witness for them in important suits. He does not belong to our church, - but is a trustee and treasurer of the Church, and is very kind to our - pastor, whom he took last summer on quite an extended vacation trip - in New England. But you know the class of men that usually become - trustees in our city churches these days. - - "My pastor surprised me a few days ago by making a visit at my office, - and telling me that as my term of office as member of the session - expired soon, it might be best for me not to be a candidate for - re-election, in view of what the newspapers had said about me, and - the opposition there was. He said, however, that he personally felt - friendly to me, and regarded me highly. He seemed to be embarrassed, - but I quickly relieved the situation by saying that I had told my - family some months before that I should not again hold a church - office. I told the doctor he well knew I did not desire office in or - out of the Church. True, the newspapers, under the influence of the - oil trust, had ridiculed me as 'farmer Matthews from the country.' But - why should my pastor mock me with such shallow pretences for reasons - for church opposition to me? I had engaged in the oil business without - the consent of the oil monopoly, and my pastor then and there told me - my friends thought me foolhardy in doing so. I could hardly suppress - my feelings on hearing this said by the man who baptized my children - and ministers at the church altar. What could all this mean? I had - only fought for my rights as an American citizen, as a manufacturer - and shipper of oil. I had been sustained in every detail by the - courts. I had convicted in our courts prominent men of conspiracy, - little thinking that the subtle power of these men could come to - dominate the Church itself. My feelings were intense, and words came - thick and fast--all too tame to express my feelings. I told the doctor - how I had struggled on from boyhood, and at middle age had accumulated - a few thousand dollars, and in all these years had never sued a man or - been sued, and that my struggle with the oil monopoly was for rights - that no one worthy to be called a man dare to surrender. I told the - doctor how I had been hounded, and my business beset by spies--that - my friends had often told me I was in danger of assassination if I - continued the fight in the courts. He, having done his errand, seemed - uneasy, and anxious to go. I told him I had seen the rising and - corrupting power of this trust in their control of our aldermen and - courts, in state and national legislation. I could witness all this - with comparative composure; but it made every drop of my blood hot - to see them erect their altars for Mammon worship in the Church of - the living God. I had seen the hard-won earnings of a lifetime swept - away, and had hoped that at least one word of sympathy might come - from the Church. If I had been robbed by old-fashioned highwaymen and - the Church received none of the loot, church sympathy would have been - hearty and abundant. But no; Sabbath after Sabbath our reverend doctor - rises in the pulpit, and, at the regular time, says: 'Let us worship - God in the gift of money.' Religion, divine worship, and money all - seem to have a like meaning as they are alternately mentioned in our - pulpit. My ancestors far back were church people, but this worshipping - money, or worshipping God with money, is all new to me. It was not the - acceptable worship required by Christ and taught by his disciples. - After the conversation I had with my pastor that day I trudged home, - but could not sleep that night. My heart was too full of sorrow as - well as anger. I hope you will forgive me for writing you so long a - letter. I have written much more than I intended to, but did not see - where to stop. There are many things I wish you could see but not - experience in the life of a business man nowadays. I want you to write - often, as every word from a true friend is prized highly in these dark - days for me." - -The action of the judge in this and another celebrated case was made -an issue in the elections in New York in 1889. In June, 1882, the -railroads in New York City, rather than pay the freight-handlers the -20 cents an hour they asked for, instead of 17 cents, brought the -business of the city to a stop. They refused to employ their old men -at that price, and did not supply their places. Trucks by thousands, -heavy with merchandise, stood before the railroad freight-houses for -days, waiting in vain to be unloaded. The trade of the metropolis was -paralyzed, and the railroad officials sat serenely in their offices, -letting the jam pile up until the freight-handlers were starved into -accepting the wages they were offered, and commercial distress had made -the business community desperate enough to tolerate that injustice, or -any other iniquity, provided the "Goddess of Getting-on" were allowed -to get on again. It was so clear that the price asked by the men was -fair, and that the refusal of the railroads to set them at work and -keep the channels of trade open was due to a purpose to manufacture -such widespread loss and trouble that the public should be goaded into -forgetfulness of the rights of the men, that public opinion forced the -Attorney-General of the State to act. Re-enforced by able counsel, he -applied for a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel the roads to resume -operations. This motion came before this Buffalo judge, then sitting -by assignment in New York. He kept the people waiting ten days, and -then quashed and dismissed the petition. The decision of the Supreme -Court, composed of judges of both parties, reversing his action, was -unanimous, but the mischief he had done was by that time--January 17, -1883--long past mending. - -When he was nominated to be judge again, after his indecision and -decision had swelled the dividends of the great railways of New York, -the presiding officer of the convention which was to choose him to be -their candidate was, by a coincidence, also the president of one of -the great railway corporations which had been involved in the judicial -proceeding of 1882. The judge's record was made one of the issues in -the State election which followed the defeat of justice in Buffalo. He -was nominated by the Republicans in 1889 for Judge of the Court of -Appeals, the highest court in the State of New York, and the nomination -was asserted by the New York _Times_, in a leading editorial, to have -been procured by the oil trust. Its "influence was active," said the -_Times_, "in securing the nomination of" this judge. " ... An attorney -who has labored in its interests at Albany during the last two sessions -of the Legislature was conspicuous among the men who did the work." The -New York _Times_, the Buffalo _Courier_, the New York _Star_, the New -York _World_, and other leading journals of the State retold the story -of the trial, and declared that the judge's action in taking the case -of the members of the trust from the jury, and the sentence he gave the -convicted agents, made it clear that he was unfit to be a judge. The -oil combination, the _World_ said, editorially, "have had agents busy -this year trying to secure his elevation to the highest court in the -State.... We say confidently that the history of the case establishes -his conspicuous unfitness for a place on the bench of the Court of -Appeals. He should be defeated, and with him the oppressive monopoly -which is actively seeking his election." - -He was defeated with the rest of the ticket. District Attorney Quinby -was re-elected several terms in succession. After their victory the -people went to sleep, but not the sower of tares. At the election of -1890 the nomination of this judge to a seat on the bench was secured -from both parties. For fourteen years, therefore--from 1890--a seat of -the Supreme Court, one of the most important tribunals of justice in -New York State, will be occupied by this judge, before whom must come -many questions affecting oil transportation, electric lighting, natural -gas and illuminating, street railways, banking, and other interests of -the oil trust. - -Monopoly cannot be content with controlling its own business. It is the -creature of the same law which has always driven the tyrant to control -everything--government, art, literature, even private conversation. Any -freedom, though seemingly the most remote from any possible bearing -upon the tyrant, may--will grow from a little leak of liberty into a -mighty flood, sweeping his palaces and dungeons away. The czar knows -that if he lets his people have so much freedom as free talk in their -sitting-rooms their talk will gather into a tornado. In all ages -wealth, like all power, has found that it must rule all or nothing. Its -destiny is rule or ruin, and rule is but a slower ruin. Hence we find -it in America creeping higher every year up into the seats of control. -Its lobbyists force the nomination of judges who will construe the laws -as Power desires, and of senators who will get passed such laws as it -wants for its judges to construe. - -The press, too, must be controlled by Power. During the criminal trial -at Buffalo one of the oil combination's detectives was put on the -stand. He was compelled to produce his written instructions from the -counsel of the trust.[508] These had been given him at the office of -the oil trust in New York. He forwarded his reports to its office in -New York, and received his pay from the same place.[509] He sent his -subordinates to get employment in Matthews' works, and through them -obtained information from the inside. The monopoly paid one of these -detectives $2.50 a day for spying, while he could earn only $1.50 a day -for working. - -"I see here further," said the District Attorney, "'Why the _Express_ -published the last complaint'"--in Matthews' suit for $250,000 damages. -"Did he ask you to find out about that?" - -"He did." - -"That is, he wanted you to find out what arrangements were made with -the Buffalo _Express_ to have the complaint published?" - -"Yes; the whole complaint. It covered the whole of the newspaper." - -"And do you know 'how many copies were taken by Matthews?' Did he tell -you to find that out, too?" - -"Yes, sir."[510] - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES - - -The South is the most American part of America. Close observers note -as its especial characteristic the preservation of the original -Anglo-Saxon types, which gave this country its first and deepest -impress. - -The South is not yet so steeped as the North in the commercialism to -which it is all of life to buy and sell, and its population, less -affected by trade and immigration, remains more nearly American, as the -fathers were American, than the parts of the country flooded by the -full force of the modern tide. Only in the South is there record all -through this history of a man "too prejudiced to buy" from those who -claimed the sole right to sell. - -The merchants of Columbus, Mississippi, were buying their oil of the -southern branch of the combination when they were offered a supply at -cheaper prices by an independent refiner. They asked the combination -to meet this competition of the market. This was refused. There were -eleven firms there which sold oil in connection with other things. The -combination "coolly informed us," wrote one of the firms to a journal -of the trade, "that we were in their power, and could not buy oil -from any one else, and that we should either pay such prices as they -demanded or not sell oil. We immediately formed an association among -ourselves and ordered from other parties. On receipt of our first car -they immediately put the retail price below the cost per car lots, -and for some time tried to whip us in that way, as we still declined -to handle their oil. They then wrote offering to rebate to several of -the larger firms if they would withdraw and leave the smaller ones to -fight the battle alone. This proposition we declined, and they again -tried the low-price dodge, their agent telling us that they would -spend $10,000 to crush us out. This game they have now been trying for -three years, and in that time we have not handled one gallon of their -oil." As these devices, irresistible in more commercial civilizations, -did not fool the brotherhood of Columbus, a special agent was sent to -Columbus to carry on the war. - -"You can tell the Columbus merchants if this does not succeed we will -have it out on other lines," the agent was instructed, in the strain -of the letter to the merchant of Nashville.[511] "The battle has not -fairly opened yet; sharpen up your sword, we mean war to the knife." -And again: "We want Columbus squelched," was the word sent the agent -from the headquarters at Louisville. - -He was ordered to start a grocery store in Columbus, to compete in -their entire business with the "black-mailers." While the fight was -on, and it was still hoped to conquer Columbus, the following was kept -prominently before the people in the daily papers: - -"We desire to state that we did not establish an agency in Columbus to -force the wholesale grocers to handle our oil." - -But seven years later the general in command of this department told -Congress it was his practice to fight in that way. "Almost invariably I -did that always."[512] - -"To threaten the people elsewhere with Columbus," the agent at Columbus -was told, "will make them scat, as it were, and take our oil at any -price." But the people of Columbus did not "scat." The new store had a -complete stock of groceries. Prices on everything, including oil, were -put "down to the bone." But one essential feature of the enterprise all -the ingenuity and power of the invader could not furnish--customers. -Goods were advertised at cost; alluring signs were hung out with daily -variations; but the people would not buy. A few citizens who bought at -the beginning, without understanding the plan of campaign, came out -in the newspapers with cards of apology, and pledges that they would -not repeat the mistake. Local bankers refused to honor the drafts of -the enemy, threw out its accounts, and gave notice that they would -advance no money to persons who bought at its store. The public opinion -of Columbus so bitterly resented the attack upon the livelihood of its -merchants, because they had dared to buy where they thought best, and -so clearly saw that the subjugation of the merchants would be but the -preliminary of a conquest of themselves, that any one seen within the -doors of the odious store fell into instant and deep disgrace. "Their -store is regarded as a pest-house," wrote one of the leading business -men, "and few respectable people ever darken their doors, their trade -being confined mostly to negroes. Their oil trade has dwindled down to -almost nothing, and we are selling now to merchants in other towns who -heretofore bought exclusively from them." - -At the first sign of aggression the merchants had given up competition, -which they saw meant only mutual ruin, and had tied themselves together -in an association. Now as the struggle widened the people did the -same, and found a greater benefit and pleasure in co-operation than in -keeping up the delusion of the "higgling of the market" where there was -no market. The _Index_, of Columbus, printed an agreement signed by -hundreds "of those who will sustain our home merchants in the struggle -they are making.... It will receive many more signatures among our -citizens.... The people have only to understand to properly decide in -this matter between right and wrong." - -"You ask if the feeling is bitter against them in our 'community,'" -one of the merchants wrote. "I can only liken it to the spirit which -prevailed when the people of Boston emptied King George's taxed tea -into Boston Harbor." - -Attempt was made to intimidate the press. Advertisements were -discontinued because the papers supported the cause of the people. -"If the agent," said the _Index_, of Columbus, "thought the cash that -might be obtained for such advertisements could purchase the silence -of this journal when it should speak, or its support in a wrong cause, -he reckoned without his host." "The pledge" was signed by practically -every man in the place. The country people about Columbus, when they -came to town to sell produce and buy supplies, took back with them -blanks of the agreement not to buy the obnoxious oil, and circulated -them among their neighbors for signature. Agents were sent among -these country people to win back their trade, but they could not be -moved. The competition was made "war to the knife," and the knife "to -the bone." It was a singular sight--this concentration of millions -to "kill" these little men in this remote country town in far-off -Mississippi. Nothing was too small to do. When one of the Columbus -"rebels" bought oats for his trade, a competitive stock of the same -kind of oats was hurried into Columbus, and these instructions sent -with it: "Put your sign out. Rust-proof oats to arrive at 98 cents to -$1 a bushel. This will kill him. The same signs should be posted about -meats, sugar, coffee, etc." - -The plan of action of the Merchants' Association was simple: they -declined to handle the enemy's oil at any price. "Then to have a stock -of our own always on hand, ready to sell whenever we could at a profit, -and hold in reserve whenever they put prices below cost; and in this -way we have made it a losing business to them for over three years, and -will continue to do so as long as they remain in our town.... When our -association buys a car of oil, each member pays for and takes charge of -an equal share, but the oil remains the property of the association; -and should any member sell out before the others, he has the right to -buy from them at cost, and the next car is not ordered until all are -nearly sold out." - -It is "our pleasure to make oil cheap"; but a written proposition was -made to the merchants that if they would repent and return, the price -would be 20 cents a gallon, with a rebate to the loyal dealers. As -this oil could be, and was being, laid down in Columbus at 12 cents -a gallon, the proposition amounted to a request that the merchants -join in imposing a tax on the people of 8 cents a gallon, which must -be added to the retail price, and go to swell the profits of the -"sympathetical co-operation." "Can any one," said the _Index_, "after -knowing these facts, doubt that in a pecuniary point our merchants -could have done better by surrendering the principle and joining the -ring? But, at the same time, could any reasoning man (even viewing it -in the light of policy alone) advise such a course?--one which, if -adopted, would only open the door for other monopolies to enter and -demand high prices on meat, flour, and the other necessaries of life, -until our city becomes the highest market in the land. Let all good -citizens, then, unite in a steady effort to resist the yoke which this -monopoly is now trying to force upon us, and let us teach them and all -others that our people are too loyal to each other and too intelligent -to allow themselves to be made the instruments of their own destruction. - -"Remember, that should our merchants be forced to yield, the day of -low prices will be a short one, and then these strangers, having -accomplished their purpose and forced their yoke upon you and us, will -return to their homes, and while rioting in the taxes wrung from you, -with your own assistance, will laugh at you for allowing yourselves to -be so easily duped, and, emboldened by their success in forcing upon -you high-priced oil, will soon return to demand high prices on sugar, -coffee, and every other article of trade." - -The nose for news of the American press scented out the novelty of a -whole community acting as one man in successful resistance to those who -had till then found nowhere any cohesive brotherliness to make a stand -against them. The newspapers of the county took the matter up. It was -absolutely the first time any method had been found that could prevail -against the tactics of divide and conquer, which had been elsewhere -irresistible. Public attention was fascinated by the revelation that -a brotherhood to ravage the people turned impotent when the people -were roused to meet it with their brotherhood of the commonwealth. -There was in the spectacle a moral illumination--the light that never -fails. Instead of becoming, as had been planned, a warning to all the -people of the dire destruction to be visited upon any who dared to -disobey, the encounter between the one-man power of united Columbus -and the one-man power of hundreds of millions of dollars became every -day more brilliantly a sign in the sky, showing all the people how the -invasion of their industrial liberties could be changed into a ruin -more complete than the retreat from Moscow. Scores of such assaults on -the people had been won before. "What was being done at Columbus," said -one of the papers, "is but what they have done before at Aberdeen, and -at hundreds of other places North and South." - -But as despoilers always have to fear, one defeat may undo a lifetime -of conquest. The success of the people of Columbus was teaching the -people of the whole country, and of all markets, that their real enemy -was not the oil trust, but the lack of trust in each other. The people -were learning there was a magic in association more potent than the -trick of combinations. The _Index_ proposed to the people of the South -to join the citizens of Columbus, and make the fight general. "There -is this about it: if there was concentrated action among the smaller -cities and towns throughout even this section of the State, we would -have no fear of the result. The oil trust may be too strong for a -single small locality, but if a combination of a certain number of -localities handling oil were effected, they would soon be forced to -retire. Such a combination can be and should be brought about at once." - -The struggle at Columbus lasted three years. It had seemed unequal -enough--a few thousands of dollars against hundreds of millions. But -three years of this commercial warfare failed to break the spirit or -resources of the brave--and wise because brave--people. The community -never broke rank. They laughed when they were tempted with cheap -coffee, flour, sugar, to join in the attempt to bankrupt their home -merchants. They could see that the gift of forced cheapness, used to -destroy natural cheapness, was a Trojan horse bearing within itself -the deadliest form of dearness. Defeated, the oil lords gave up the -contest, closed their store in Columbus, and left the people of that -place free. - -"England," says Emerson, "reaches to the Alleghanies; America begins -in Ohio." In the Western Reserve of Ohio, hive of abolitionists and -Union soldiers, was the same spirit of America which, at Columbus, -Mississippi, had defended its market rights as outposts of all other -rights. It was only a few years ago discovered that the flames of the -"burning springs" of the Caspian Sea, China, and America, whose torches -kindled the lamp of history, were beacon-fires uncomprehended by a -procession of civilizations, and waiting to light man to the knowledge -that the earth beneath him was a city of domes, huge receivers storing -up the products of vaster gas-retorts below. Man found that he need not -wait for this spirit to come to him out of the "caverns measureless to -man." He could go to it, as in oil, and, tapping the great tanks, could -lead their flighty contents to homes and mills, to emerge there as -light and warmth and power. - -Experience in oil had made ready skill and capital to use the new -treasure. In a very few years thousands of miles of pipe were laid, and -millions of capital invested in the natural-gas business, mainly in -Ohio and Pennsylvania. The gas was found in the same general localities -as oil, and the methods of procuring and distributing it were similar, -and the similarity easily extended to the methods of administering this -bounty of nature as "property." Toledo began to be supplied in 1887 -with the new fuel through pipe lines by two companies. They obtained -their franchises as competitors, but were soon found to be one in -ownership, prices, and all details of management. The discovery that -the two companies at Toledo were really one, and that one the evil one -of the oil trust, aroused the apprehensions of the people, and these -were increased by a number of circumstances. - -The Toledo companies got from the city as a free gift a franchise -worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, on condition that they would -supply Toledo before a certain date. But in the midst of the work of -laying pipes they suspended operations, and declared that they would -do nothing more unless the City Council fixed, at rates dictated by -them, the prices the people were to pay. These rates were enough -to pay not only a fair dividend, but to return in a few years every -dollar of capital invested in lands, pipes, etc. Later they demanded -another increase which, according to the sworn statement by their -superintendent of the amount of gas supplied daily, would have -amounted to $351,362.50 a year. They made the charges regardless of -the ordinance, and used delay in furnishing gas as a means to make -people willing to pay these illegal rates. Consumers seeking to renew -their contracts were informed that the price would be doubled. The -companies had assured the people that they should get their heat at -half the price of coal; but when the bills were footed up, the gas in -many cases cost more than coal. The companies refused to supply fuel -to an oil refinery which had been built in Toledo in opposition to the -trust refineries. The companies discriminated against some customers, -and in favor of others. The power to say which manufacturer should -have cheaper fuel than his competitor was a power to enact prosperity -or ruin.[513] It was a power to force themselves into control of any -business they desired to enter. - -Those who controlled these gas companies appeared in the Circuit Court -of the city in a proceeding which alone contained warning enough to -put any self-governing community on guard. The Court was asked to deny -the right of farmers in Wood County to give a way over their lands to -the Toledo, Findlay, and Springfield Railway, being built to give the -independent oil-refiners and producers of the Ohio oil-field a route to -market. The farmers in question had made leases to an oil corporation -of the trust, giving only the specific right to bore for and pipe and -store oil and gas. The farmers supposed that they had parted only with -what they had signed away in the leases. They supposed they still owned -their farms. When the new railroad sought the privilege of a right of -way the farmers granted it. Suit was at once brought for an injunction -to prevent this use of the land. According to the logic of the claim -in these cases a farmer who has made such a lease could not build a -road across his own farm without permission. "Most certainly not," was -the reply made by one of the lawyers to the judge who asked if the -farmer could do so. - -By occurrences like these an increasing number of influential citizens -were convinced that the gas companies would hold a power over the -comfort and daily life of the people not wise to surrender entire to -any corporation. An agitation was begun for the supply of gas to the -people by themselves acting through the municipality. Six thousand -citizens sent a petition, in the session of 1887-88, to the Legislature -to pass the necessary enabling act. There was a discussion of the -project for two years. Public opinion grew more favorable every -day. The citizens chartered a special train to carry a delegation -to Columbus the day the pipe-line law came before the Senate. The -Legislature in 1889 passed the law. It authorized the people of Toledo -to issue bonds to the extent of $750,000 to buy gas land and build -pipe lines. This legislation was, of course, bitterly opposed by the -existing gas companies, and they demanded of the Legislature that -before the law became operative it should be ratified by a three-fifths -vote of the people. The friends of this scheme of municipal self-help -and independence accepted the challenge. In the ensuing campaign the -opposition to the people was officered by the president of one of the -natural-gas companies, twice Governor of Ohio, afterwards United States -Secretary of the Treasury. The natural-gas trustees of the City of -Toledo in an official communication said: "There is reason to believe -the money of the natural-gas companies was freely spent to defeat it." - -The act was ratified April, 1889, by a vote of 7002 for to 4199 -against--"a vote," say the trustees, "in which the heavy taxpayers -were largely acting with the majority."[514] Organized labor took an -enthusiastic part in the work of this election. The Central Labor Union -held a special meeting which filled the largest public hall. Men -paraded the streets with banners favoring the policy of independence. -The Knights of Labor held meetings to discuss the project, and the -Central Council, representing all the assemblies in the city, passed -unanimously resolutions appealing to all members of the order and all -working-men to support no candidate who would not pledge himself to -the city pipe line. At a meeting of the glassworkers it was resolved -to be "the duty of every working-man to vote 'Yes' for the pipe line -next Monday." "Many of us glassworkers," said the resolutions adopted, -"have been employed in factories in the Ohio Valley, receiving their -natural-gas fuel from a gigantic corporation similar to that which now -supplies Toledo. We have seen our employers unfairly dealt with, and -arbitrarily treated in the matter of making rates. Some of them were -forced to go into the courts, to prevent the extortion of the piratical -company who were bent on assessing each citizen and industry at the -highest rate possible, irrespective of its effect on the industries or -the wages of the employes. Many manufacturers were compelled to move -their plants to the cheap gas-fields of Ohio and Indiana. The employes -were compelled to break up their homes and emigrate, in order to follow -their trade for a livelihood." The question came before the people -again the next spring, when both the Republican and Democratic parties -by acclamation renominated a natural-gas trustee, whose term was -expiring, to succeed himself. At the election the vote was 8958 for, -and only 58 against--a practically unanimous indorsement of the project -by the people. - -Toledo now began to make history. "It is entirely safe to say," a -well-known citizen declared in the Toledo _Blade_, "that in the history -of this country no other people have been called to the experience -which Toledo has been undergoing for the past year. Communities often -are agitated and divided on questions of local policy; but no second -case will be found in which a people, after settling such questions -among themselves according to recognized rules, were confronted with -warfare, bitter and persistent, such as this city is now called to -meet, and at the hands of a combination wholly of non-residents, -without the slightest proper voice in their domestic concerns." -In every direct encounter with the "commons" the "lords" had been -defeated--in the two years' debate which preceded the first appeal to -the Legislature; in the Legislature, where the bill passed the House -almost unanimously, and the Senate more than two to one; in the appeal -to the voters; before the governor, who had been approached to cripple -the enterprise of the municipality by naming unfriendly trustees. The -gas companies had tried at each city election, after the Legislature -acted in 1889, to seat in the City Council a majority in their -interest; but the people, making the city pipe line the issue of the -election, gave an overwhelming preponderance of their votes to the men -pledged to see it through. - -"Strong and subtle opposition"[515] was then brought to bear on the -Common Council to prevent it from passing the necessary ordinances; -but, in spite of it, both branches of the Council voted them -unanimously. A clearer case of the will of the people and of law and -order there could not be. A free and intelligent community, in a matter -of vital concern to its industrial freedom and business prosperity, -after thorough discussion, in which all sides had been freely heard, -had by constitutional proceedings decided by an overwhelming majority -upon a policy altogether within its legal, moral, and contract rights. -The ablest lawyers, writers, and financiers that money could hire had -had it under the microscope to find some breach for attack, but had not -been able to find a flaw. All was constitutional, legal, proper, and -expedient. A glance at the contestants brings out in clear outlines -some conditions of our modern development which have come upon us -almost unawares. The City of Toledo was a vigorous community of 90,000 -people; its opponent was a little group of men; but they controlled -in one aggregation not less than $160,000,000, besides large affairs -outside of this. The assessed valuations of the property of the people -on which Toledo could levy taxation was, in 1889, but $33,200,000. -The total income of the municipality was $961,101; that of a single -member of the little group opposing them had been acknowledged to -be $9,000,000 a year, and was believed by the best informed to be -several times as much. This individual income was greater than the -product of all the manufactories of the city, and three times greater -than the combined wages of the workmen in these establishments. There -were several members of the natural-gas syndicate who collected and -disbursed every year more than the community. Toledo had about the -same population as Kansas in 1856. The slave power of the South that -assailed the liberties of the 90,000 in Kansas numbered millions, but -the new power in the North, which in a short generation had grown so -strong that it did not fear to attack the 90,000 freemen of Toledo, -counted only nine names. The people could act only after public -deliberation, and through the slow stages of municipal and State -procedure. Their antagonist met in secret council, and devised plans -executed by a single hand, armed with the aggregated power of hundreds -of millions of dollars, and liable, if found illegal or criminal, to -only "nominal" punishment, or only 6 cents damages.[516] - -At Columbus the struggle was with something very simple but -extraordinarily difficult to overcome, as simple things often are--an -obstinate, immovable, thoroughly angry public opinion, acting only -through private voluntary means, its set will to exchange the fruits of -its labor with whom and on what terms it pleased. There was absolutely -no leverage to be got to bear upon the people of Columbus except by -changing their feelings. Compulsion was out of the question. But at -Toledo compulsion was possible. There the people had acted not through -unofficial combination as at Columbus, but through the official -machinery of the town and State. If the law could be turned against -them by able counsel or compliant judges; if any smallest fault, -however technical, could be found in the legislation of the State or -the city or the practical administration of the official machinery -provided for the natural-gas business of the city--if this could be -done, the people of Toledo could be compelled, however little their -will had changed, to see their enterprise of independence balked; this -compulsion could be carried to the use of force if they resisted, and -the militia of the State and the regular army could be brought into the -conflict. - -Such is the prize of power which tempts--more than tempts, drives as -by fate--our overgrown wealth to fortify itself by control of judges, -governors, presidents, commanders-in-chief--all the agents of the -supreme authority and force. - -Columbus was so local that its people were sufficient unto themselves. -All they had to do was to keep on saying, We will not buy. But Toledo -was a citizen of the great world of affairs and finance. It was part -of London, New York, Chicago. Much of it was owned as an investment -elsewhere. Sensitive nerves connected it with all the markets, -especially the greatest of all--the money-market. It sold and bought -and borrowed and lent far beyond its own border. What Wall Street -gossips said about the people of Columbus would not make a dollar's -difference to the whole town in a year, but a whisper started through -the offices of the great capitalists in New York and abroad would -flash back by wire to Toledo, and go like a quick poison through its -industries and credit, private and public. - -"Private enterprise" could not afford to let the people of Toledo go -forward with their public enterprise. Many millions had been invested -in getting control of a business representing $200,000,000. Many -towns and cities, as Fostoria, Sandusky, Fremont, Clyde, Bellevue, -Norwalk, Perrysburgh, Tiffin, and Detroit, were being supplied with -gas at a handsome profit. If Toledo should set a successful example -of self-supply, it would find imitators on every side. The essence of -"private enterprise" was that the people should get their gas from -Captains of Industry, and pay them for their captaincy two or three -times the real cost as profit, just as monarchical countries pay kings -for kindly supplying the people with the government which really comes -from the people. The essence of municipal supply was that the people -should supply themselves at cost without profit, and without Captains -of Industry, except as the people provided them. Toledo, in fine, -proposed to keep step with the modern expansion of self-government, -which finds that it can apply principles and methods of democracy -to industry. It proposed to add another to many demonstrations -already made, noticeably in this very department of gas supply to -municipalities, of the truth that the ability to carry on the business -of supplying the various wants of mankind is not a sort of divine right -vouchsafed from on high to a few specially inspired and gifted priests -of commerce, by whose intermediation alone can the mysteries of trade -be operated; but, like the ability to govern and be governed, is one -of the faculties common to mankind, capable of being administered of, -by, and for the people, and not needing to be differentiated as the -prerogative of one set of men. The Toledo experiment was another step -forward in the world-wide movement for the abolition of millionaires--a -movement upon which the millionaires look with unconcealed apprehension -for the welfare of their fellow-beings. - -Mankind views with equanimity the expulsion of the profit-hunter from -the businesses of carrying letters, minting coins, administering -justice, maintaining highways, collecting taxes, in which -millionaireism has been universally put an end to. It views with hopes -of larger results the newer manifestations of the same tendency which -in England have abolished millionaireism in telegraphs and parcel -express; in Germany and France, Australia, and India have gone a long -way towards the abolition of the millionaire in railroads; and in -various cities and towns in Europe, America, and Australia have put up -local signs, "No millionaires allowed here," by the municipalization of -trade in water, gas, electricity, street-railways, baths, laundries, -libraries, etc. The trust of millionaires was therefore fighting for a -principle, and what will good men not sacrifice to principle! - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -FREEDOM OF THE CITY - - -Towns, like men, stamp themselves with marked traits. Toledo had an -individuality which showed itself from the start. Its leading men -clubbed together and borrowed money as early as 1832 to build one of -the first railroads constructed west of the Alleghanies--the Erie and -Kalamazoo, to connect Toledo and Adrian. When, in 1845, the steamboats -on the lakes formed a combination, and discriminated against Toledo, -the city through its council refused to submit, and appropriated -$10,000 to get an independent boat to Buffalo. The city appropriated -its credit and revenues to other important and costly enterprises, -including four railroads, to keep it clear of the cruel mercies of -private ownership of the highways. In 1889 it expended $200,000 to -secure direct railway connections with the Pennsylvania and the -Baltimore and Ohio railways for competition in rates with the Lake -Shore Railroad. - -As it had been authorized to do so by the State, the City Council of -Toledo, April 29, 1889, ordered gas bonds to the amount of $75,000 -sold, that work on the city pipe line might begin. Before proceeding -with the enterprise confided to them, the natural-gas trustees gave -the private companies an opportunity to save themselves from the -competition of the city. They asked them in writing if they would agree -to furnish gas cheaply for a term of years, or if they would sell -their entire plant to the city? They did this, as they expressed it, -as "an honorable effort ... to obtain cheaper gas without unnecessary -expenditure, and without injury to established rights." After a -delay of nearly a month a reply was received, refusing to enter into -negotiations either for a reduction of charges or for the sale of the -private plants to the city. The trustees then asked for a personal -interview, but this was refused. Then when the city began preparations -to sell its bonds, a cannonade was opened on it in the courts, the -money-market, the gas-fields, the city government, the press, among -the citizens, and everywhere. Injunctions were applied for in three -courts, unsuccessfully in all instances. No injunction was ever granted -in these or any other of the many suits brought for the purpose of -enjoining the sale of the bonds. Courts will usually grant temporary -injunctions awaiting a hearing on the merits when complainants will -enter into ample bonds and indemnify defendants. But the parties -instigating this litigation would not put up the necessary bonds. They -thus could smirch the bonds without incurring any personal liability in -so doing. - -An expensive array of lawyers was sent before the United States -courts to prevent the issue of the bonds on the ground that they were -illegal, and the law under which they were issued unconstitutional. -The principle involved had been frequently discussed and always upheld -both by the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United -States.[517] - -"Does not your argument appear to be in conflict with the views of the -Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United States?" the -judge asked. The counsel for the gas companies responded in substance: -"If so, then so much the worse for the views of those courts." - -As it was through the suffrage that the people of Toledo were able to -do this, the attack was widened from an attack on the enterprise to one -upon the sovereignty of the citizens which made it possible. "Everybody -votes in Ohio--in fact, too many people," said the lawyer who applied -for an injunction against Toledo. If he had his way, he declared, there -would be fewer voters, and he stigmatized the arguments of Toledo as -those of John Most, the communist. - -"Unquestionably," decided Judge Jackson, "the Legislature may -authorize a city to furnish light, or facilities for transportation, or -water to its citizens, with or without cost, as the Legislature or city -may determine.... Since the decision in Sharpless _vs._ Philadelphia -it is no longer an open question whether municipalities may engage in -enterprises such as the one contemplated by the act in question in this -case. The act of January 22, 1889, authorizing the city of Toledo to -issue bonds for natural-gas purposes, is clearly within the general -scope of legislative power, is for a public use and purpose, and is -not in contravention of any of the provisions of the constitution. The -court being of the opinion that the legislation is valid, it follows, -of course, that the injunction applied for must be refused."[518] When -the news of Judge Jackson's decision was telegraphed to Toledo nothing -less than the booming of cannon could express the joy of the citizens. -They sent this message to the just judge: "One hundred guns were fired -to-night by the citizens of Toledo in honor of your righteous decision -to-day." Judge Jackson again upheld the bonds at Toledo, January 14, -1890, when he again dismissed the case against the city "for want of -equity, at cost of complainants." - -The favorable decision by Judge Jackson, although an appeal was taken, -made it possible for the city to sell the $75,000 bonds which had been -issued by order of the Council. The bonds brought par, interest, and -over $2000 premium. With the money thus procured the city's Board of -Natural Gas Trustees began operations. Their opponents had spread far -and loud among the voters before the election--among those who would -be likely to buy the bonds, everywhere it would hurt--the assertion -that all the territory that was good had been bought up by them, and -the city's trustees would not be able to get any. One of the companies -had no less than 140,000 acres of gas lands in its possession or under -contract, at a cost in rentals and royalties of $100,000 a year.[519] -But the city trustees, even with the small sum at their command, were -able to secure at the very beginning wells with a capacity more than -four times as great as the private companies had had when the latter -began the investment of a million or more to lay their pipe lines to -Toledo.[520] Together with this supply the city trustees got 650 acres -about 35 miles from Toledo of as choice gas territory as there was in -Ohio, almost all of it undrilled, and they had offers amounting to 5000 -acres more within piping distance from the city. The city's trustees -made their purchases with success, and received the laudations of their -constituents for having got lands and wells at better prices than the -private companies. - -August 26, 1889, after a decision in the United States courts that -there was no ground on which to object to the issue of the bonds, the -City Council voted the issue of the remaining $675,000. - -Defeated in the public debate which preceded the decision of Toledo -to supply itself; defeated at the State Capitol; defeated at the -polls of Toledo time and again--every time; defeated in the Common -Council; defeated in the gas-fields; defeated in the courts of their -own choosing, the opponents of the city, thorough as only the very good -or the very bad can be, refused to submit. When the two corporations, -in 1886, were seeking the franchise indispensable for doing business -in Toledo, they said to the Board of Aldermen: "We ask no exclusive -privilege.... We cannot have too many gas companies." They also said: -"If the city desires to furnish its own gas, there is nothing in this -ordinance to hinder it. We are ready and willing at any time to enter -into competition with the city or any other company." They said, on -the same occasion, in answer to apprehensions which had been expressed -about the danger of putting the fuel supply of the city into the hands -of a monopoly: "You can go before the Legislature and obtain the right -to issue bonds for furnishing yourselves with gas." It was by these -assurances the companies induced the Common Council to grant them -gratuitously the very valuable franchises they were seeking. - -The right of the people to compete was not left to these assurances. -It was specifically and formally asserted in the ordinance of July 5, -1887, fixing rates. This was the ordinance to procure which the gas -company suspended its operations in mid-course, and declared it would -not continue unless the prices which it wanted were made. The ordinance -was, in fact, prepared by the company. It said: "Provided that nothing -herein contained shall be construed as granting to existing companies -any exclusive rights or privileges, or prevent any other company from -furnishing natural gas to the citizens of said city." But the same -learned counsel who, in behalf of the companies, had assured the city -that "there was nothing in this ordinance to hinder it," went before -the United States Court and pleaded that ordinance as good reason for -the intervention of the Federal Government to prevent the city from -going on with its enterprise. - -The only morning paper--an able advocate of the city pipe -line--suddenly changed owners and opinions. Among its new directors -were two of the lawyers of the trust opposing the city, a director -in one of its companies, and, besides them, the manager, a contract -editor from Pennsylvania. His sole conspicuity there had been won in -turning against the people of the oil regions a paper which had been -their stanchest defender. This Toledo daily, in its espousal of the -cause of the city, had been firing hot shot like this against the oil -combination: "It wants a monopoly of the natural-gas business. This -is what it is driving at." Under its new management it roared like a -sucking dove, thus: "It is fashionable with demagogues and men who are -not capable of appreciating the worth of brains in business to howl -against it"--the oil combination--"as a grasping, grinding monopoly." -Just after the people had decided in favor of the pipe line, and only -a few days before it changed owners, it had said: "All manner of -influences were brought to bear to defeat this proposition.... All the -plausible falsehoods that could be invented, and all the money that -could be used, were industriously employed, but the people saw the -situation in its true light, and the majority voted right." It now made -the defeat of the city's pipe line the chief aim of its endeavors. In -this work "no rule or principle recognized in decent journalism was -respected." - -In all the history of Toledo no interest on its bonds had ever been -defaulted or delayed; no principal ever unpaid at maturity. The city -was prosperous, its growth steady; its debt growing less year by year -in proportion to its population and wealth. Its bonds ranked among the -choicest investments, and commanded a premium in the money-market.[521] -But the credit and fair fame of the city were now over-whelmed with -wholesale vituperation by this paper, and others elsewhere under -similar control. Articles were carefully prepared for this purpose by -skilled writers. These were then copied from one newspaper to another. -By some arrangement insertion was obtained for them in financial -journals in New York and in London, and in other foreign capitals. -The Toledo organ declared that Toledo was an unsafe place for the -investment of capital in any form. Its public affairs were said to be -run by a set of "demagogues and speculators," whose administration was -"piratical mob rule." The city pipe line was a "monstrous job," and the -men who favored it were "a gang of throttlers and ravenous wolves." -They were "blatant demagogues, who made great pretence of advancing -the city's interest, but whose real aim is to enrich themselves at -public expense." The bonds, which had been issued in due form by -special authority of the Legislature, ratified by a vote of more than -three-fifths of the citizens, and declared to be valid by the United -States Court, were described as "chromos," "worthless rags," "bad -medicine," "disfigured securities," "like rotten eggs, highly odorous -goods," "but few persons at most can be found ignorant enough to buy -them." - -The Mayor, City Auditor, Board of Natural Gas Trustees, united with -a citizens' committee of the Board of Trade in a plan to promote the -sale of the bonds direct to the people of Toledo through a financial -institution of the highest standing. This action the paper described -as "a scheme for gulling simples," "a blind pool," "an unpatented -financial deadfall"; compared it with "gambling, pool-playing, and -lottery selling." These grave charges were widely circulated throughout -the country. Bankers and capitalists in other cities who received them -had no means of knowing that they were not what they pretended to -be--the honest if uncouth utterances of an independent press chastising -the follies of its own constituency. Newspapers which supported the -city's project were assailed as ruthlessly as the community and -citizens. The _Blade_ was constantly referred to as "The Bladder." -Another journal was given a nickname too vulgar to be printed here. One -of the most prominent journals of Ohio was punished by the following -paragraph, which is a fair sample of the literary style of monopoly: -"That aged, acidulous addle-pate, the monkey-eyed, monkey-browed -monogram of sarcasm, and spider-shanked, pigeon-witted public -scold, Majah Bilgewater Bickham, and his backbiting, black-mailing, -patent-medicine directory, the _Journal_." - -An old journalist and honorable citizen who wrote over his initials, -"C.W.," a series of able and dignified letters in the _Blade_, which -had a great influence in the formation of public opinion in favor -of the pipe line, was assailed with "brutal falsifier," "hoary old -reprobate," "senile old liar." Caricatures were published depicting the -buyers of the bonds as "simple greens." When the County Court of Lucas -County, following the United States Court, sustained the bonds on their -merits, and did so on every point in question, because, as the judge -stated, "the equities of the case are with the defendants," the organ -falsely stated that judgment for the city was given "because the merits -of the case are involved in a higher court." When a capitalist of New -York, who had been an investor in the bonds of Toledo and a taxpayer -there for twenty-five years--one of the streets of the city was named -for him--bought $10,000 of the city pipe-line bonds, the paper attacked -him by name in an article headed "Bunco Game," charging him with being -a party to a bunco game in connection with "public till-tappers" for -"roping Toledo citizens into buying doubtful securities." When the -Sinking Fund Commissioners of Toledo very properly invested some of the -city's money in the gas bonds, they were held up by name as "public -till-tappers," "menials" of a "hungry horde" of "boodle politicians," -accomplices of "plunderers of the public treasury," unable to withstand -"the brutal threats and snaky entreaties of the corrupt gas ring." For -one of the associate editors the position of Deputy State Inspector -of Oil was obtained--an appointment which cost the Governor who made -it many votes in the next election, and did much to defeat him. Such -an appointment might give a versatile employe the chance to do double -duty: as editor to brand as bad good men who could not be bought, and -as inspector to brand as good bad oil for sale.[522] - -One of the means taken to defeat the pipe line was the publication of -very discouraging accounts of the "failure" at Indianapolis, where the -citizens had refused to give a natural-gas company belonging to the -oil trust the franchise it demanded, and, forming an anti-monopoly -trust, had undertaken to supply themselves. Some "influence" prevented -the Common Council of Toledo from sending a committee to Indianapolis -to investigate. A public-spirited citizen, prominent and successful -in business, came forward, and at his own expense secured a full and -accurate account of the experience of Indianapolis for the city. -This proved that the people were getting their fuel gas at less than -one-half what Toledo was paying. The contest against giving the -Indianapolis franchise to a corporation of the trust had been a sharp -one. Its success was due to the middle classes and the working-men, -who stood together for freedom, incorruptible by all the powerful -influences employed. "We will burn soft coal all our lives," one of -their leaders told the Toledo committee, "rather than put ourselves in -the power of such men." - -In Indiana the Legislature meets only once in two years, and when this -issue arose had adjourned, and would not meet again for a year. The -people, not being able to get authority for a municipal gas pipe line, -went to work by voluntary co-operation. Every voting precinct in the -city was organized and canvassed for the capital needed. The shares -were $25 each, and they were bought up so rapidly that the entire -amount--$550,000--was subscribed in sixteen days by 4700 persons, -without a cent of cost to the city. When subscriptions to the amount of -$550,000 had been raised, $600,000 more was borrowed on certificates of -indebtedness. - -Gas lands were bought and 200 miles of pipe lines laid, all at a cost -of about $1,200,000. The income in one year, during a part of which the -system was still under construction, was $349,347. In the first year of -complete operations the Indianapolis people's trust paid off $90,000 -of the principal. The income for the year ending October 31, 1892, -was $483,258.21, and the bonded debt has been paid. The stock, since -January 1, 1893, has been paying dividends at the rate of 8 per cent. a -year. - -A prominent citizen of Indianapolis, one of the State judges, told the -Toledo papers, in an interview: "The private companies had their gas -laid to the city and along the streets several months in advance of the -Citizens' Trust, but it did them little good. Everybody said: 'I will -wait for the Consumers' Trust.' 'Yes, but we will furnish you gas just -as cheap,' said the Indianapolis company; 'why not take it of us?' To -this the citizens replied: 'To take gas of you means cheap gas to-day, -but high gas to-morrow.' And wait for the gas they all did." The charge -to manufacturers was 2-1/2 cents a thousand feet, as against 8 cents, -at that time charged at Toledo. There were 12,000 private consumers. -Cooking-stoves in Indianapolis were about $12 a year, against $19.50 -in Toledo. One of the representatives of the private company declared -at a public meeting at Indianapolis that its charges were made -such as to give a full return of all the invested capital in three -years, as that was the probable life of the supply. A year after the -inauguration of the Indianapolis movement a committee of the citizens -at Dayton, who had risen against the extortionate prices charged them, -investigated the condition of affairs at Indianapolis. They reported -that Indianapolis had paid $200,000 on its bonded debt, and was getting -ready to pay as much more. The Consumers' Trust supplied between 10,000 -and 11,000 consumers, and spent $1,000,000 less than the Dayton private -company spent to supply 3000 fewer consumers. The annual charge at -Dayton was $54.80; at Indianapolis only $26.80--less than half. - -When facts like these were brought out, to the demolition of the -fictions circulated in Toledo, the answer was characteristic. The -"organ" could not deny the statements, but it fell upon the citizen -through whose generosity the information had been got for the people, -and assailed his private character in articles which, one of the daily -papers declared, editorially, "would almost, if not quite, justify him -in shooting their author on sight." - -This newspaper charged the city natural-gas trustees with being "rotten -to the core," and with every variation of phrase possible to its -exuberant rhetoric sounded the changes upon their official career as a -"big steal," "fostered by deception, falsehood, and skull-duggery." It -sought to intimidate the Legislature and the courts when they failed -to enact or construe laws against the people. It said: "Law-makers, -judges, and others may feel the force of this element when the proper -time comes and political preferment is sought." - -It was money in pocket that facts like those of the experience of -Indianapolis, Detroit, and other places should not be made known. Even -ideas must not be allowed to reach the public mind. Professor Henry C. -Adams, the well-known political economist, lectured in Toledo during -this contest, in a University Extension Course, on "Public Commissions -Considered as the Conservative Solution of the Monopoly Problem." The -"organ" gave a synopsis of the lecturer's views, which is printed -herewith in parallel columns, with a synopsis of what Mr. Adams really -said, as revised by himself: - - - WHAT THE ORGAN OF MONOPOLY REPORTED. | WHAT THE LECTURER REALLY SAID. - | - The lecturer made reference to Toledo |Professor Adams thought the - as an unfavorable place to discuss |solution of the monopoly problem - the matter of municipal control of |must be found either in public - quasi-public business and competition |control or in public ownership. - of municipalities with private |He advocated public control, and - corporations. But he deprecated anything|held that the State and Federal - in that line. He did not mention |railroad commissions should have - particular instances, but broadly |a fair trial, that their hands - condemned the policy pursued by this |should be strengthened by further - city in matters of this kind, and his |and adequate legislation. He - remarks had a visible effect on his |entertained the hope that this - audience. He considered municipal |control and regulation would - control of business enterprises the |ultimately protect the interests - worst form of monopoly, as they began |of the public in a satisfactory - by having the unfair advantage |manner. He was willing to admit, - of the law-making power, and the |however, if this effort to secure - tendency to corruption was greater |the needed public control by the - than when individual enterprises were |aid of commissions and - asking privileges. The audience |legislation should fail, then - was much pleased with the lecturer. |public ownershipwas the only - |remaining solution. He held that - |in local monopoliesit may still - |be wise to try the experiment of - |public control by aid of - |commissions. He said, however, - |that if anything should be owned - |and controlled by and for the - |people it would be - |street-railroads, gas and - |waterworks. He admonished his - |audience not to be misled by the - |argument that municipal ownership - |would be dangerous because of - |undue political influence, for - |the local monopolies under - |private ownership were already in - |politics, and in a most dangerous - |manner. He observed facetiously - |that he hesitated to discuss the - |question before a of municipal - |control orownership Toledo - |audience. - - -From the control of the markets to the control of the minds of a -people--this is the line of march. - -So direct, persistent, and bold were the charges of corruptions rung -day after day by this journal against all the officials concerned -in the city gas enterprise that some people began to believe there -must be truth in them. But when the community at last turned upon -its maligners, and the grand-jury brought indictments against the -active manager of the paper and his chief assistant for criminal -libel upon the city's natural-gas trustees, the whole structure of -their falsehood went down at a breath. They had no defence whatever. -They made no attempt to justify their libels or even explain them. -Their only defence was a series of motions to get the indicted editor -cleared as not being responsible for what had appeared in the paper. -Counsel labored over the contention that the accused was none of the -things which the language of the law holds for libel. He was neither -the "proprietor," "publisher," "editor," "printer," "author," nor a -person "who uttered, gave, sold, or lent" a copy of the newspaper, -but only the "manager." The employes gave testimony which would have -been ludicrous but for the contempt it showed for court and community. -The journalist who was the "managing editor" of the paper under the -indicted chief editor was asked: - -"Who was the head of the paper when you entered upon your duties as -managing editor?" - -"I do not know." - -"Who hired you as managing editor?" - -"I really can't say that I was hired at all." - -"Who employed you to come to Toledo?" The witness had been an employe -in Pennsylvania of the editor on trial, and had followed the latter to -Toledo to take the place of managing editor. "Nobody employed me." - -The son of the indicted editor had also followed his father to Toledo, -and was employed on his paper. Asked for what purpose he came, he said: -"I had no purpose in coming." - -The gentleman who had charge of the counting-room was asked who fixed -his salary. - -"I regulate my own." - -The advertising manager declared: - -"I have no knowledge who is my superior." - -The accused had to let the case go to the jury without a spark of proof -of the accusations which had filled the paper every day for months. -He had no evidence to offer either that the charges were true, or -that he believed them to be true. He stood self-confessed as having -for years printed daily gross libels on citizens, officials, and -community, as part of the tactics of a few outside men to prevent a -free city from doing with its own means in its own affairs that which -an overwhelming public opinion, and the legislative, executive, and -judicial authorities, and its present antagonists themselves, had all -sustained its right to do. The agent of this wrong was found guilty, -and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail, with heavy costs and -fine; like the unhappy agents at Buffalo--"made cheap" for others.[523] -But sentence was suspended pending hearing of the motion for a new -trial. This did not come up for a year. The court could find no error -in the proceedings of the trial court, and could not sustain any of the -objections made. But it found a point which even the lawyers had not -hit on, and strained this far enough to grant the new trial. Then the -convicted editor went before another judge--not the one who had tried -him--pleaded guilty, and was fined, and so saved from jail. - -One of the last scenes in this Waterloo was the abandonment of the -newspaper with which the corruption and intimidation of public opinion -had been attempted. Failure was confessed by the sale of the paper, and -it was bought by a journalist who had been especially prominent in the -defence of the city, and against whom on that account a bitter warfare -had been waged by the daily which now passed into his possession. The -_Sunday Journal_ of Toledo, in commenting on the surrender, declared -that the course of the organ had been one of the strongest factors of -the success of the people. "In every possible way it slandered and -outraged the city, where of necessity it looked for support. There -could be but one result. Scores who had opposed the pipe line became -its most ardent advocates purely in the general defence." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -HIGH FINANCE - - -When Judge Jackson refused to enjoin the city from issuing its bonds an -appeal was taken. The court and the lawyers of the city were promised -that it would be carried up without delay. Months passed, and no use -was made of the privilege of filing new pleadings and taking new -testimony--that is, no use but to make the suits the basis for libels -on Toledo and its bonds. - -Time ran on until the day was at hand for opening bids for the bonds. -That was to be Wednesday. Then the counsel for the opposition notified -the city that on Monday they would begin the taking of depositions. -This was not then or afterwards done, but on the strength of the -notification news despatches were sent over the country that the -proceedings against the legality of the Toledo bonds were being -"pressed." In consequence of this and other manoeuvres, when Wednesday -came there were no bids. A hasty rally of some public-spirited -capitalists at home, learning of the emergency, made up a subscription -of $300,000. The names of the citizens who made this patriotic -subscription were printed in the daily paper under the heading of "The -Honor Roll." - -Only by extraordinary manoeuvres could the market for such securities -offered by such a community have been thus killed in a time of great -general and local prosperity, and extraordinary they were. What they -were was formally and authoritatively ascertained by an investigation -made by a committee appointed at a mass-meeting[524] of the citizens -of Toledo called by the mayor, the Hon. J.K. Hamilton. The call ran: - - "For the first time in the history of Toledo, its general bonds, - secured by the faith and property of the city, and bearing a fair rate - of interest, have been offered, and only such of them sold as were - taken at home by popular subscription. It is deemed desirable that - under such circumstances the citizens of Toledo should meet together - and determine what further steps should be taken to carry out the will - of the people as expressed by 62 per cent. of the voters of the city. - - "It is believed that with proper effort a large additional popular - subscription may be obtained, and thus notice given to the world that - notwithstanding all opposition the citizens of Toledo have confidence - in and will maintain the credit of this fair city, and that a great - enterprise undertaken by its people will not be defeated by the - machinations of private opposing interests, no matter how powerful and - unscrupulous." - -The meeting appointed a committee of three--David Robinson, Jr., Frank -J. Scott, and Albert E. Macomber--"to prepare and circulate throughout -the financial circles of the country a pamphlet which shall set forth -the case of the city of Toledo in its struggle against those who by -anonymous circulars and other dishonorable ways have attempted to -prevent the sale of the Toledo natural-gas bonds." This committee put -the facts before the public in a very able pamphlet, "The City of -Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds." In an official statement asked for -by this committee the city natural-gas trustees say: "Skilled writers -were employed to furnish articles for Eastern financial journals, to -cast discredit on the bonds on the very grounds that had been set -aside by Judge Jackson's decision. Not content with this open warfare, -anonymous circulars were sent to leading investment agencies in the -United States, warning them to beware of these bonds, as they were -under the cloud of doubtful constitutionality and an impending lawsuit. -When the day arrived for bidding for the bonds no bids were made. -Agents of investors were present, who came to bid, but by some unknown -and powerful influence they were induced not to put in their bids. The -writers are not aware that any similar mode of striking at the credit -of a whole community was ever before resorted to in this country. -It is an insult and a wrong not only to this city, against which it -is aimed, but to people of independence everywhere in the United -States who have a common interest in the maintenance of the rights of -all."[525] - -Press despatches impugning the validity of the bonds and -misrepresenting the facts were sent all over the country. The anonymous -circulars referred to were mailed to all the leading banks, investment -agencies, capitalists, and newspapers. The New York _Mail and Express_ -said: "It would be decidedly interesting to know who is responsible -for the ... methods by which it was thought to prevent the city from -undertaking the enterprise. A number of volunteer attorneys and -correspondents deluged bankers and newspapers with letters warning them -against the bonds which the city proposes to issue, on the ground that -it had no right to issue them. The _Mail and Express_ received several -communications of this kind." - -"Not only the financial centres of this country," say the city's -natural-gas trustees in their official report for 1890, "but those -of Europe were invaded with these circulars."[526] The circular was -headed "Caveat Emptor." It contained twenty-four questions, and every -one of the answers, except those which referred to matters of record -and routine, like the date, amount, name, etc., of the bonds, was -incorrect. What hurt the people of Toledo most, as it was most base -and baseless, was its attack on their hitherto unquestioned credit and -financial honor. Asking the question, "How does the credit of the city -stand?" the circular answered: "Refunding has been going on ever since -1883. The bonded debt was greater at the beginning of 1889 than of -1888; bonds bearing interest at 8 per cent. will become due in three or -four years. The mayor, in his last annual message, admits the inability -of the city to pay much of these except the refunding." "Willing to -wound, and yet afraid to strike," the authors of this attempt to pull -down an entire city managed, by the interweaving of such phrases as -"ever since 1883," "bonded debt greater," "inability of the city to -pay," to create by insinuation the feeling of financial distrust for -which their greatest industry and ingenuity had been able to find not a -particle of foundation. No modern municipality is asked or expected or -desired "to pay much except the refunding." Capitalists would greatly -prefer that even the refunding should not be carried on, but that the -debt should run along at the original high rates of interest, which -they regretfully see dwindling away. The circular failed to state that -the city was borrowing money at 4 per cent. to pay off debts bearing 8 -per cent. The insinuations of the circular could have been used of "the -credit" of the United States, New York, Paris, London, Chicago, with -the same appropriateness--with this exception, that Toledo's municipal -financial credit was relatively to its resources on a sounder and more -conservative basis than these much more highly financed cities. The -circular did not state that the proportions of debt to population had -been decreasing for many years past.[527] - -"Toledo has not two years' supply of gas," the circular said, "in all -the territory acquired." The State Geologist, in his annual report -for 1890, said that Toledo would have no gas to supply its pipe lines -or citizens in 1891. In 1892 the city pipe line supplied gas to the -value of $168,954.46. Three years have passed, Toledo wells still flow, -and new ones are being found continually. "Whatever may have been his -object," say the city gas trustees, "in volunteering such a statement, -we know that so far in 1891 it is untrue, and that such positive -declarations, based upon hypothetical conditions, are utterly unworthy -of scientific pretensions."[528] The State Geologist also took part in -his annual report in the debate between municipal control and private -enterprise, siding altogether with the latter. - -The quantity of gas land owned by the city was put by the circular at -300 to 500 acres. The city had 650 acres. The circular declared the -life of an ordinary well to be one to three years. There is no such -limit. Referring to the quantity of gas land the city had, the circular -asked and answered: - -"Cannot other territory be acquired? - -"Not in Northwestern Ohio, and not nearer than the gas fields of -Indiana." - -This was untrue, for the gas trustees had already been offered, as -stated, several thousands of acres of the best gas lands in addition -to those they had bought. But the authors of the circular did their -best to make it true. The city's natural-gas trustees say in their -report for 1890: "As soon as the trustees were prepared to negotiate -for gas wells and gas territory, the field swarmed with emissaries and -agents of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company to compete with -the trustees. In order to prove what had been previously stated, 'that -Toledo could procure no gas territory,' no means were left untried; -agents of that company even fraudulently represented themselves to the -owners of gas property that they were connected with the gas trustees -and working in their interest, and in some instances introducing -themselves as the president of this board. Prices went up 1000 per -cent. in some instances rather than let it fall into the hands of the -trustees. A conspicuous officer of that company, as an excuse for -paying an enormous sum of money for a gas well, is reported as saying, -'We did not want the gas well, but we had to buy it in order to keep -Toledo from getting hold of it.'"[529] - -Referring to the private companies, "Are the people of the city already -supplied with natural gas for public and private use?" the circular -asked. "They are," it answered, and goes on: "Why does the city want -to go into the natural-gas business, then?" "To boom the lands of -real-estate speculators." This is a charge affecting the Legislature -and Executive and State courts of Ohio, the courts of the United -States, the people of Toledo, and all the members of their city -government. Burke confessed that he did not know how to draw up an -indictment against a whole people. That art has been acquired since his -day. - -"Are these bonds of unquestionable validity?" this catechism of libel -upon a community queries. - -"By no means. Prominent taxpayers have suits pending attacking the -constitutionality of the act under which they are issued." - -"Have these cases," the last question ran, "ever been tried on their -merits?" - -"They have not." - -They had been tried so far that the United States and State courts had -refused on every ground urged to interfere with their issue and sale, -declaring the legislation authorizing them to be valid. They had never -been tried any further in the United States courts for a very good--or -bad--reason. The "prominent taxpayers," after their defeat before Judge -Jackson, took every possible means to prevent the case from reaching a -final adjudication. The invariable rule of the United States Supreme -Court has been to treat as final and conclusive the decisions of State -courts as to such domestic issues. During the hundred years of its -existence not a case can be found in which that court has overruled -the fixed and received construction given to a State law by the courts -of that State.[530] The only hope for the suit of the "prominent -taxpayers" was, therefore, that the Supreme Court of the United States -would for their special profit reverse the practice to which it had -consistently adhered since the establishment of the government. What -they really thought of their prospect of success in that effort they -confessed when their case, no longer delayable, was upon the point of -being reached. - -They who had been so "anxious to get to the case as soon as possible" -refrained from printing the record, a condition precedent to putting -the case on the docket of the United States Supreme Court. The city -wanted the decision, and in order that the case might not be dismissed -for this failure to print the record, and a decision upon the merits be -thus prevented, the city's gas trustees advanced the money--$1100--to -the court printer for printing the record. Pushed thus against their -will to trial, when the day came on which they must rise to state their -case the opponents of Toledo folded their tents and stole silently -away. On the motion of their attorney the case was dismissed, against -the protest of the city. They paid all the costs, including the money -advanced by the city for printing the record. To their defeat all along -the line they did not want to add a formal decision against them from -the Supreme Court, which was inevitable. And they ran away to fight -another day. - -Another purpose of these suits was confessed only a few weeks after -this circular was issued. The existence of the suits was used to try to -frighten the city's natural-gas trustees into accepting a "compromise." -The compromise was that they should abandon the enterprise, sell out -pipes and lands for a fraction of their worth, get their gas from the -private company at higher rates, and put the city in its power for -all time to come. "It will be three or four years before your case is -through the Supreme Court," its representative told the natural-gas -trustees, in urging them to accept. "You can't sell your bonds," he -continued; "you have no money." The "compromise" was refused, but the -city's pipe line had been delayed so long that the profits of the -company for another twelvemonth were secure. - -The demonstration against the bonds in the United States Circuit Court -had been followed by similar suits in the State courts. Here again the -city was successful. It was upheld on every controverted ground--in -the enabling act, in the vote of the people, in the appointment of the -trustees by the governor, and in the issue of the city bonds. Appeal -was taken here, as in the United States courts, and, as there, for -delay, not for decision. To checkmate further use of this lawsuit to -smother the law and cripple the city, the friends of the pipe line -began a suit against the authorities to force an immediate decision -from the Ohio Supreme Court as to the legality of the bonds. It was -certainly, as was said in the press, "a curious state of things when -the defendant is compelled to bring suit against himself because the -plaintiff refuses to allow trial in his own case." - -These litigations, the circulars, the press, were only part of the -campaign. One of the committees of the Common Council was brought -under control, and induced to throw technical difficulties in the way -of the sale of the bonds, which caused months of delay.[531] Effort -was made to get the Governor to appoint natural-gas trustees hostile -to the city, but failed. It was attempted, also without success, to -get the Legislature to prevent the sale of the bonds at private sale. -During all this controversy the city was most fortunate in receiving -the needful authority from the State Legislature. This was due mainly -to a faithful and able representative of Toledo in that body, the Hon. -C.P. Griffin. He was offered every promise of political preferment -and other allurements to betray his constituents, but he always -remained faithful. Without his support the efforts of the city would -have failed. His services amid great temptations deserve the grateful -remembrance of the public. - -Some of the devices of "private enterprise" were childish enough. -"A Business Men's Protest" was published, which proved under the -microscope to have been largely signed by men whose names could not be -found in the directory. A similarly formidable-looking remonstrance -against the pipe-line bill was sent to the Legislature. It had 1426 -names; of these 464 could not be found in the directory, and over 300 -of the 962 remaining names signed the petition for the city's bill. -Many of them avowed that when they had signed the "Remonstrance" it -had a heading in favor of the pipe line, which must have been changed -afterwards. As part of the tactics of misinformation, a report was -published--in January, 1890--claiming to give the business of both the -private companies; but the members of the Council Committee on Gas, -when afterwards examining the books for the gas company, found that -it gave the receipts of only one company. A paper was prepared by a -citizens' meeting for circulation among the manufacturers to ascertain -how much they would contribute towards the city pipe line; but when -reported back to the meeting it had become, in some mysterious way, a -paper asking the manufacturers how much they would advance to quite a -different scheme, the effect of which would be to sell out the city -pipe line or convert it into a manufacturers' line. - -These were the infantile methods of men who could not see the -ludicrousness of the position they put themselves in by such efforts to -keep a business which they were constantly declaring to be hazardous -and unprofitable. - -Detectives appear in almost every scene of our story, and are as common -in its plot as in any extravagant melodrama of the Bowery thirty years -ago. To counteract the anonymous circulars the City Council sent a -committee headed by Mayor Hamilton--the "War Mayor," one of the ablest -lawyers of the city, upright and loyal at all times to Toledo--to visit -the Eastern money-markets. The committee, in their official report, -state that they were assured by responsible dealers in municipal -securities in New York and Boston that they would bid for the entire -amount to be sold. "We regret, however, to have to report that the -powerful and influential parties who have on all occasions and in every -way sought to obstruct and defeat the enterprise for which the proceeds -of these bonds were to be used, in some way succeeded in inducing those -who intended to purchase to withhold their bids--in fact, no matter -how guarded our movements, we believe that every person or firm with -whom we had interviews was reported to the agents of the Standard -Oil Company, for in every instance where from our interviews we had -encouragement that the bonds would be bid for, within a short time more -or less influential agents of opponents interviewed these parties and -succeeded in changing their minds." - -What a picture of "high finance," of the "beneficent inter-play of the -forces of supply and demand," of the "marvellous perfection" with which -capital moves under "natural laws" to carry its fertilizing influences -where they are most needed! The officials of this free city compelled -to sneak around in the open money-market under cover with "guarded -movements," seeking buyers for its bonds as if they were stolen goods! -About them a cloud of spies and detectives reporting every movement as -if it were a crime to the little handful of trust millionaires in their -grand building on Broadway! "They have entered the ---- Bank!" "They -have just left ----'s office!" After each report the leash is slipped -of a waiting sleuth, who flies away to run down the quarry. - -The gas trustees made public a letter and telegram they received from a -prominent New York bank: - - "NEW YORK, November 27, 1889. - - "DEAR SIR,--A gentleman named" (naming a man who signs the - certificates of the Standard Oil Trust as treasurer),[532] "introduced - by the card of Mr. ----" (one of the richest men in New York not - otherwise known as connected with the trust), "called on us to-day and - stated that understanding that our firm was on the point of bidding - on the Toledo bonds, etc., he would caution against the purchase, as - they were not legal. Mr. ---- represented himself as coming from ----" - (one of the companies of the oil combination), "and referred us to - their lawyer for further information. Now as this may hurt the sale - of the bonds we want to be cautious, and on Friday will make further - inquiries, and will wire you accordingly. We may not care to hand in - our bids on this account." - -The telegram sent on Friday is as follows: - - "NEW YORK, November 30th. - - "Fearing sale of bonds has been injured, will not bid at present." - -"That tells the story," said one of the trustees, "in a nut-shell." - -A local bank bid for $500,000 of the bonds, but did not sustain its -bid. A reputable citizen, an ex-mayor, wrote for publication in one of -the leading journals that he had been informed by a well-known banker -there was reason to believe a banking firm which, in 1892, defaulted -on its bid for bonds, had been indemnified by the opposition for the -$5000 it thereby forfeited to the city, and for the profits it would -have made from the sale of the bonds. With the city line crippled the -gas company would pocket the profits on the sale of a million dollars' -worth of gas a year. Five thousand dollars, or several times that, was -a small insurance to pay for such a gain. - -This was the game of hide-and-seek played in Wall Street by detectives -and financial stilettos against "simple greens," who thought supply and -demand still rule values. This was the reality which the officials of -Toledo found behind the outward aspect of its magnificent buildings, -the benevolent millionaires who look out through their plate-glass, the -grandiloquent generalizations of professors about "the money-market." - -The city was brought to the humiliation of seeing its officials meet -in public session at an appointed hour to open bids it had invited -from all the money centres for its bonds, only to have the news -flashed all over the country that not a bid from abroad had been -made. This opposition cost the city in one way and another not less -than $1,000,000, according to the estimate of the city's natural-gas -trustees. The feeling of the people was expressed in the following -language in a circular sent out with the pamphlet report of the -committee appointed in mass-meeting to make a statement of Toledo's -case to the public: - -"We have seen the modern aggregation of corporations--trusts--suppress -other corporations in the same line of business. But this Toledo -contest is believed to be the first instance where private -corporations--creatures of the State--have assumed to exercise -monarchical powers over a portion of the State--one of its leading -municipalities; to dictate the policy of its people; to seek to -control the legislation as to the laws that should be enacted for such -portion of the State; to bribe and intimidate the votes of such city -at the polls; to attempt to subsidize the press by the most liberal -expenditure of money; to at last purchase, out and out, a heretofore -leading paper of the city, place its own managers and attorneys as -directors, import one of its long-trained men as editor, and turn -this paper into an engine of attack upon the city, an attack upon -the city's honor and credit, characterized by the most unscrupulous -misrepresentation and a perfect abandonment of all the amenities of -civilized warfare." - -The Toledo public felt no doubt as to who were attacking it under -the convenient anonymity of the two gas corporations. At a public -conference, January 16, 1889, between the presidents of the private -natural-gas companies and the people assembled in mass-meeting, the -representative of the former said the only condition on which the -members of the oil trust had been induced to interest themselves in -natural-gas in Northwestern Ohio was that of absolute and unqualified -control of the entire business through a majority of the stock of all -the gas companies to be organized. - -"The trust is interested in companies engaged in supplying natural -gas?" the president of the oil trust was asked by the New York -Legislature about this time. - -"To a limited extent, yes." - -"Have they a majority interest in any of these companies?" - -"I think they have."[533] - -This was identically the arrangement by which the nine trustees owned -as their private property the control of the oil business. At several -later conferences with the city's trustees and the Common Council -the gas companies were represented by one of the principal members -of the oil combination, the ingenious gentleman who had managed the -negotiations with the railroads by which, under the _alias_ of the -American Transfer Company, the trust claimed and got a rebate of 20 -to 35 cents a barrel,[534] not only on all oil it shipped, but on all -shipped by its competitors. He was also its representative in the -similar arrangement by which the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad -agreed to carry its oil for 10 cents a barrel, to charge Rice 35 cents, -and to pay it 25 out of every 35 cents Rice paid.[535] He had acted in -the same interest throughout the gas field as well as in oil, and his -pathway could be traced through one independent company after another, -whose wrecks, like those in oil, are milestones. - -July 27, 1889, in an item originating in New York, in the _Tribune_, a -friendly paper, and given an extensive circulation by news despatches -sent to the leading papers in other cities, it was said that the -representatives of the oil trust "in this city say emphatically -that they will attack in the courts the right of the city to issue -them"--the bonds. - -At the great meeting of the citizens, October 19, 1889, to organize -a popular subscription to take the bonds killed in the money-market, -the resolutions named the oil combination as the power responsible for -the attacks on the city, and appealed to the people to observe that -it, "no longer content with destroying individuals and associations -which stand in the way of its moneyed interests, now rises to grapple -with and destroy the rights of cities and states; we therefore ask all -liberty-loving men to make common cause with us in the defence of the -community against the aggression of colossal power." - -The aldermen and the Common Council of Toledo unanimously adopted -resolutions, September 15, 1890, requesting the State and Federal -courts to give decisions as promptly as possible in the suits pending -against the validity of the natural-gas bonds. These bodies in their -official utterance declared that the oil combination, "through its -officers and agents in the city of Toledo and at many other points in -the United States, has circulated false and malicious statements about -the bonds of the city of Toledo issued for natural-gas purposes." The -natural-gas trustees of the city say in their report for 1890: "These -injunctions and circulars, although fathered in the first instance -by non-resident taxpayers, and in the second by irresponsible or -anonymous parties, were traced directly to the oil trust, a trust -having a large number of corporations within its control, among which -is the North-western Ohio Natural Gas Company, and to whom the city -of Toledo may reasonably attribute a loss of more than a million of -dollars already. What further financial embarrassment it may suffer -in the future cannot be measured by the depravity and moral turpitude -which its seeds have sown in our midst."[536] - -When the warfare against Toledo became a scandal ringing throughout -the country and beyond, the organ of the trust in Toledo attempted to -make it appear that the oil trust was not the party in interest. But -there was open confession on the record. Its connection and its control -were admitted by two representatives in conference with a committee -appointed by the mayor at their request to discuss the situation.[537] -They described the circumstances under which the members of the oil -trust had gone into the project of the Toledo line and the project -of the natural-gas business. One of the two stated that he came into -it as its "more direct representative." The pipe line of the private -gas company was built, he went on to say, by one of the principal -corporations in the oil trust. At the same interview it was admitted -that the oil trust owned 60 per cent. of the natural-gas company's -stock. - -The people of Toledo did not surrender to this success of their enemies -in the money-market. The bonds which calumny and espionage prevented -them from selling at wholesale to the great capitalists of New York and -Boston they took themselves at retail. The Legislature having given -authority for such sales, a committee of one hundred had been appointed -by the citizens' meeting, October 19, 1889, to canvass all the wards of -the city for subscriptions to the gas bonds. "Gas Bond Pledges" were -circulated, to which people subscribed according to their ability, in -amounts ranging from $2 to $5000. The employes at the Wabash Railway's -car shops sent in a list signed by fifty names for a total of $1102, an -average of $22 each. The labor of two hundred men for a week without -pay was offered the gas trustees as an earnest of the good-will of the -people. Piece by piece the city's pipe line was pushed through. At a -critical moment a shrewd and patriotic contractor saved the enterprise -by building a large part of the line, and taking for his pay the bonds -the banks would not take. In June, 1890, the public were gratified by -the announcement that their trustees had secured the means "for the -construction of three miles more," making eight miles in all, or nearly -one-fourth the entire line. In August a contract was made for five -miles more, and so the work went on, step after step. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -A SUNDAY IN JUNE - - -In the midst of the anxious discussion by the citizens of Toledo as -to the character of the power which ruled them both by night and by -day, the same question arose in the metropolitan religious press, but -in its broader ethical aspects. After the petition of Toledo to be -allowed to take the control of its light, heat, and power into its own -hands had been laid before the Legislature, the _National Baptist_ -of Philadelphia, in an article on the trusts, criticised them as the -prophet Nathan would have done. It gave to that in oil, "of course, -the bad pre-eminence in all this matter." "This corporation has, by -ability, by boldness, by utter unscrupulousness, by the use of vast -capital, managed to control every producer, every carrier, to say -nothing of the legislatures and courts." The _Examiner_, the leading -religious weekly of the Baptist denomination in New York, rose against -this. "We can readily understand how there should be differences of -opinion in the matter of these trusts, and their influence is a proper -subject of discussion; but to make it the occasion of so unjust and -intemperate an attack on Christian men of the highest excellence of -character is something that was not expected from a paper bearing -such a name. The four most prominent men in the oil trust are eminent -Baptists, who honor their religious obligations, and contribute without -stint to the noblest Christian and philanthropic objects.... All -of them illustrate in their daily lives their reverence for living -Christianity." - -The _National Baptist_ did not submit to this attempt to cite men's -creeds to prevent judgment on their deeds. It quoted the reply Macaulay -makes Milton give to the similar pleas urged for King Charles: "For -his private virtues they are beside the question. If he oppress and -extort all day, shall he be held blameless because he prayeth at night -and morning?" It held to its ground, and cited against the trust -the recorded evidence, but it declared it was "a marked breach of -propriety for the _Examiner_ to bring their private character into the -discussion." The _National Baptist_, going on to speak in praise of a -series of lively cartoons in _Harper's Weekly_ on the Forty Thieves of -the Trusts and similar subjects, said, with some sadness: "It will be -a sorry spectacle if the secular papers shall be ranged on the side of -justice and the human race, while the defence of monopoly shall be left -to the so-called representatives of the religious press." - -Later, March 20, 1890, the _Examiner_ returned again to its -discussion of the religious performances of the chiefs of the oil -trust as a matter of public importance. Of one of them it said: "The -prayer-meetings of the Fifth Avenue Church are on Wednesday evening, -and no business man in the church is less likely to be absent from one -of them than he. His wife and children, when they are in the city, come -with him, and it is by no means an unusual thing for the whole family -to take part, each of them occupying one or two minutes of time. He and -they are at church every Sunday when in the city, and no husband and -wife keep up the good old Baptist habit more faithfully of exchanging a -kind word with the brethren and sisters after the regular services are -over. He dresses plainly, and so do his family, and every one of them -has a kind heart and a pleasant word for all. They are among the last -to leave the church and the prayer-meeting. Now the question is, How -is it, as things go, that a man possessing the great wealth imputed to -him should have so warm a fraternity of feeling for the lowly in their -temporal conditions? And is there not an example here that might well -be imitated in all the churches of our Lord?" - -In an address on Corporations the reverend secretary of the Church -Edifice Department of the Home Missionary Department of the Baptist -Church followed the example of the leading Church journal. "The oil -trust was," he said, "begun and carried on by Christian men.[538] They -were Baptists, and, so far as the speaker knew, both the objects and -the methods of the oil trust were praiseworthy." A clergyman of another -denomination once called upon one of the great men of the trust to seek -a subscription. - -"But," said the rich man, "I am not of your Church." - -"That does not matter," said the minister, "your money is orthodox." - -The secular press followed the example of the religious press in -treating their public faithfulness to Church ceremonies as news of the -day, and part of the record of their social functions. The New York -correspondent of the Philadelphia _Daily Record_ wrote for the people -of Philadelphia: "It is not often that a millionaire stands up to lead -in prayer, but I heard the president of the oil combination make an -excellent prayer the other evening. He is said to be worth $25,000,000, -but he neither drinks nor uses tobacco, and he is a deacon in Dr. -Armitage's church. He likes a fast horse, and has eleven horses in his -stable here. Few men, however, lead plainer lives than he, and few put -on less style. He gives liberally to unsectarian charities, but, he -says, 'when it comes to Church work I always give to the Baptists--my -own denomination--and to no other Church.'" A New York daily described -the same trustee "as one of the few millionaires who devote much of -their time to the improvement of the condition of others. When not -called away by social or business engagements, you are pretty sure -to find him at home evenings. Here, in his costly and well-equipped -library, he receives his visitors, many of whom represent the various -benevolent and religious undertakings in which he is interested. He -has for years been a hearty supporter, financially and personally, of -foreign-missionary work, and no layman, perhaps, is so well informed -concerning the details of it. He has a personal acquaintance with -many of the leading missionaries of the world, and his residence is -frequently the scene of a gathering of these workers among the heathen. -He is now devoting considerable attention to home-missionary work, -a field which, he is convinced, presents splendid opportunities for -Christian endeavor." - -Many descriptions have been given by the press, metropolitan and -interior, of the success with which one of the trustees built up the -largest Sunday-school in his city at the same time that he was building -up the monopoly--leading the children of his competitors and customers -to salvation with his left hand, while with his right he led their -fathers in the opposite direction financially. The church where these -men appear has had columns of admiring description in the leading -daily papers of New York and other cities. "There are few wealthier -congregations than this one," says a reporter of the New York _World_, -though he adds, "the wealth is elsewhere more evenly divided." The -trustee of the light of the world "is the magnate of the church, the -centre around which all lesser millionaire lights revolve. Everybody -stops to speak and shake hands with him. Everybody smiles upon him, -this modest man of nearly $200,000,000." "It is amusing," says the -Brooklyn _Eagle_, "to note the manner in which his neighbors watch him -during the service. Quite a number of people loiter near the door to -see him as he walks out of church." "They are worth a bit of careful -study," says another paper of the trustees, "and no place is quite so -convenient as when they are at church. Their interest in religion is -as sincere as their belief in oil. From the moment they enter church -until they leave they are examples that Christians of high and low -degree might follow with profit." "They have made the most of both -worlds," writes another journalist. The oil trust was criticised -by the Rev. Washington Gladden at Chautauqua, in 1889. One of its -prominent officials, as reported in a friendly journal, defended it as -"a sound Christian institution; and all these communistic attacks are -due entirely to the jealousy of those who cannot stand other people's -prosperity."[539] - -"In Anniversary week" in Boston, in May, 1889, at the meeting of the -American Baptist Education Society, the secretary said he had an -announcement to make. "It had been whispered about," says the New -York _Examiner_ of May 23, 1889, from whose friendly account we are -quoting, "that something important was to occur at this meeting, and a -breathless silence awaited the announcement. Holding up a letter, the -secretary said that he had here a pledge from a princely giver to our -educational causes, naming him (here he was interrupted by a tremendous -cheer), of $600,000 for the proposed Chicago college.... This statement -was followed by a perfect bedlam of applause, shouts, and waving of -handkerchiefs. One brother on the platform was so excited that he flung -his hat up into the air, and lost it among the audience." Eloquent -speeches at once overflowed the lips of the leading men of the meeting, -which was a delegate assembly. They sprang to their feet, one after -the other, and mutually surpassed each other in praising God and the -giver of this gift, which was equal to his income for a fortnight. "I -scarcely dare trust myself to speak," said a doctor of divinity. "The -coming to the front of such a princely giver--the man to lead.... It -is the Lord's doing.... As an American, a Baptist, and a Christian I -rejoice in this consummation. God has kept Chicago for us; I wonder at -his patience." Another reverend doctor said: "The Lord hath done great -things for us.... The man who has given this money is a godly man, who -does God's will as far as he can find out what God's will is." - -The audience rose spontaneously and sang the Doxology. On motion the -following telegram was sent, signed by the president of the society: - - "BOSTON, May 18, 1889. - - "The Baptist denomination, assembled at the first anniversary of the - Education Society, have received with unparalleled enthusiasm and - gratitude the announcement of your princely gift, and pledge their - heartiest co-operation in the accomplishment of this magnificent - enterprise." - -The name signed to this telegram happened to be the same as that of -the divine with whom, when president of Brown University in 1841, one -of the most devoted of the laborers for the freedom of the negro had a -discussion which is perhaps the most pungent in the literature of the -antislavery movement. - -On August 30, 1841, Henry C. Wright wrote to Edmund Quincy: "I once met -the president of Brown University, in the presence of several friends, -to converse on the subject of slavery. The conversation turned on the -question: Can a slaveholder be a Christian? To bring it to a point, -addressing myself to the doctor, I asked him, 'Can a man be a Christian -and claim a right to sunder husbands and wives, parents and children, -to compel men to work without wages, to forbid them to read the Bible, -and buy and sell them, and who habitually does these things?' 'Yes,' -answered the reverend doctor and president, 'provided he has the -spirit of Christ.' 'Is it possible for a man to be governed by the -spirit of Christ and claim a right to commit these atrocious deeds, -and habitually commit them?' After some turning he answered, 'Yes, I -believe he can.' 'Is there, then, one crime in all the catalogue of -crimes which of itself would be evidence to you that a man had not the -spirit of Christ?' I asked. 'Yes, thousands,' said the doctor. 'What?' -I asked. 'Stealing,' said he. 'Stealing what, a sheep or a _man_?' -I asked. The doctor took his hat and left the room, and appeared no -more."[540] - -The Sunday following a special service was held in the churches -throughout the country in behalf of further help in "the new -educational crisis." Many eulogistic sermons were preached that day -by the leading clergymen of the denomination. "And so," one of them -is reported to have said, "when a crisis came God had a man ready to -meet it.... An institution was bound to come, and unless a God-fearing -man established it it was likely to be materialistic, agnostic.... In -this emergency, and in God's providence, society raised up a man with -a colossal fortune, and a heart as large as his fortune." "God," said -the Chicago _Standard_, a religious weekly, "has guided us and provided -us a leader and a giver, and so brought us out into a large place." - -Another of the trustees has poured into a Southern State hundreds -of thousands of dollars for churches of various denominations, and -millions for hotels of a more than Oriental magnificence. "There is -no philanthropist," says an editor of that State, commenting on these -expenditures, "who renders the world greater service than the man of -enterprise." But "Western Pennsylvania," said the Pittsburg _Post_, -"looks more with awe than pride at the liberal diffusion of its wealth -in Florida improvements and Baptist universities." A daily paper of -Richmond, Virginia, in an editorial commenting on a report that the -hostlery glories of St. Augustine were to be repeated in Richmond, -said: "We have naught to remark on the tyrant monopoly if some of -its profits are to come in such a direction. We could forgive much -that monopoly visits on the down-trodden, horny-handed son of toil -if it would come with open pockets proclaiming the era of luxuriant -accommodations for all those other millionaires whose money we want to -see invested in Richmond." - -The next year after the Boston meeting the Church celebrated its -"Anniversary week" in the city which was to be the seat of the new -college. And the anniversary closed with a jubilee meeting, which -filled the largest assembly room in America. "All the church-going -people of Chicago must have attended," one of the daily papers said. It -was addressed by the principal clergymen of the denomination from all -parts of the country. Again, as at Boston, the centre of interest was -the gift of a fortnight's income to the university. A telegram making -the gift conclusive, since the conditions on which it was promised had -been complied with, was read. Cheer after cheer rose from the assembly, -and oratory and music expressed the emotion of the audience. The divine -who made the closing speech declared that he needed ice on his head on -account of the joyful excitement of the occasion. The cheers and the -hand-clapping closed again, as at Boston, with the spirited singing -of the Doxology. Not only in the religious press of all denominations, -but in the worldly press, the topic was the best of "copy." The great -dailies gave columns, and even pages, to the incident, and to the -subsequent gift from the same source of larger sums. "Conspicuously -providential," "princely," "grand," "munificent contribution," -"man of God," were the phrases of praise. A writer in the New York -_Independent_ said: "Your correspondent speaks from opportunities of -personal observation in saying that pecuniary benefaction to a public -cause seldom if ever, in his belief, flowed from a purer Christian -source." The only recorded note of dissent came from a humbler source. -Under the text, "I hate robbery as a burnt-offering," a weekly business -journal said: "The endowment of an educational institution where the -studies shall be limited to a single course, and that a primary course -in commercial integrity, would be a still more advantageous outlet for -superabundant capital. Such an institution would fill a crying want." - -It was the last Thursday in May, 1890, when this great representative -convention of the Church from all parts of the United States celebrated -the acceptance of this endowment. Even while the roll of the Doxology -was still rising to the roof of the auditorium the plans were preparing -for a performance at Fostoria the next Sunday, three days later, which -had a profound effect upon Toledo, though just the opposite of what was -expected. - -Fostoria, Ohio, is the home of the president of the principal -natural-gas company in Ohio controlled by the oil trust and leader -in the vendetta against Toledo. A wealthy miller erected in Fostoria -in 1886 a flouring-mill, with a capacity of 1000 barrels a day. One -of the inducements was a contract made with this manufacturer by the -gas company, by which it bound itself to supply him with natural-gas -at a price which would be one-fifth what coal would cost him, and to -continue to supply him as long as it supplied any one. The manufacturer -carried out his agreement by the expenditure of $150,000 for the -erection of the mill, and by running it continually to its full -capacity. His bills for gas he paid promptly every month. Relying upon -the contract with the gas company, the mill was built for natural -gas, and could use no other fuel. In February, 1890, the gas company, -dissatisfied with the bargain it had made, demanded better terms. The -milling company refused. On a Sunday morning in June, "when, if ever, -come perfect days," a gang of men appeared, led by an officer of the -gas company, and dug up and tore out the pipes supplying the mill with -gas. - -Church bells of different denominations were scattering their sweet -jangle of invitations to the sanctuary as the tramp of these banded -men, issuing on their errand of force, mixed with the patter on the -sidewalks of devout feet. Private grounds were unlawfully entered, -property was destroyed, the peace broken, a day of love changed to one -of hate, all the bonds of community cut asunder, and the people turned -from the contemplation of divine goodness to gaze at shapes of greed -and rage. Sunday is chosen for such deeds, since the help with which -the pagan law, gift of heathen Rome, would interpose, cannot be invoked -by the victims on Sunday, and because on Sunday Christian people go -to church, and leave their property undefended. The peace-officers -were summoned to arrest the invaders for violating the Sunday law, but -before they could get on the ground the mischief was done. The pipes -had all been excavated, the connections wrenched off, and the trench -nearly filled up. The milling company began suit for $100,000 damages -against the gas company,[541] but a private settlement was made, and -the case has never been pressed to trial. The laborers who did the work -of the Captains of Industry in this matter were tried and convicted at -the County Court in July, but by no process did the law, which is "no -respecter of persons," reach out towards the principals. - -This Fostoria incident occurred during the heat of the Toledo -contest--June, 1890--while the city was pushing the sale of bonds -for its emancipating pipe line by popular subscription and in odd -lots. Notice had been already served on the people of Toledo at public -conference, that despite contracts, charters, franchises, the private -companies would not take any less price from Toledo than they demanded. -In pursuance of this, after the council had fixed the price in -accordance with its admitted right, a circular was sent out containing -this significant threat: "If it"--the legally declared price--"is -approved by our customers we will know what course to pursue." - -Even before the occurrence at Fostoria it had been definitely suggested -to the people of Toledo that in case the council failed to accept -the demand as to rates in making the new ordinance (July, 1890) the -pipes would be so far removed as to cut off the supply on some Sunday -when no legal help could be invoked. The possibility of this Sunday -cut-off of the fuel supply of 15,000 consumers became a living topic of -discussion, public and private, and was considered in all its bearings -by the Toledo press. Calculations were made and published of the -number of men it would require to take up the hundred miles or so of -pipe in the streets of Toledo between dark and dark some holy Sabbath -day. It was confessed, hopelessly, that they would be more than the -police could handle. "Of course," as was said in the Toledo _Blade_ by -a leading citizen, "such enterprise would involve a very remarkable -degree of both lawlessness and desperation on the part of the managers. -It would be a mode of withdrawal from trade quite unknown among sound -business men. But then their processes have been peculiar from the -start." - -It was nothing less than startling to Toledo, almost before the print -on the types of these words was dry, to hear the news from Fostoria of -the Sunday raid there. There were those who declared that the Sunday -violence at Fostoria was deliberately done as a warning to Toledo. If -it were a warning to them not to insist on the legal and equitable and -contract right of their Common Council to fix the rates of gas, it -was a failure. The council went forward and did its duty. If it were -a warning to the people to redouble their labors to free themselves -forever from the possibility of such thraldom as that in which Fostoria -and other cities were enchained, it was a success. The people heard and -heeded, and in ten months thereafter gas began to flow into the city -through its own pipes. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -TOLEDO VICTOR - - -It was remarkable to see the revival of the passion of freedom of 1776 -and 1861 in the editorials, speeches, resolutions of public meetings, -and the talk of the common people in Toledo as in Columbus. The example -of "the heroic liberty-loving people of Boston" was held up in every -aspect to fire the heart of Toledo not to be frightened into subjection -to the foreign power that threatened them. To resist "the domination -of an economic monarchy" was the appeal made in posters with which the -town was placarded. - -"During all the time George III.'s soldiers were quartered in Boston -that monarch did not spend as much money to bring the city to terms as -has been spent in this effort to subjugate the city of Toledo," said -Alderman Macomber. - -"A people like those of Toledo," said one of them in the press, "when -once united and determined as they now are, cannot be subjugated by any -combination of mercenaries yet known." - -"It is evident," the Toledo _Sunday Gazette_ said, "that the people -of Toledo have come to a full realization of the truth that the money -saved by the independent pipe line, though great, is a matter of little -importance compared with the social and political issues involved. It -would be a thousand times better," it continued, "to utterly bankrupt -the city than permit the oil combination to win. The fight was not for -the present alone, but it was for the present and future, and for all -time to come. It was not for the people of Toledo alone, but it was for -the whole Union, though God had chosen the people of Toledo for the -struggle." - -The Cincinnati _Commercial-Gazette_ said, in its editorial columns: -"In itself the Toledo enterprise is not a big one, but it will prove -an object-lesson for the whole country. It will show the open door -through which people may pass from under the yoke of a most gigantic, -unscrupulous, and odious monopoly. And it will be surprising if this -does not extend beyond gas and ultimately cover oil. We are only on the -verge of a revolution that is as sure to come as that which followed -the throwing overboard of a lot of tea in Boston Harbor. Neither the -power nor the vulgarity of capital can long rule the people." - -Numerous letters of sympathy, congratulation, and indignation -were received by the Toledo committee appointed by the citizens' -mass-meeting to make a statement of their case to the people of the -United States. There were letters from chairs of political economy in -the universities, from scholars and students in history and politics, -and from men in affairs and finance. - -The completion of the line to the city was not the completion of the -enterprise. Mains had still to be laid in the streets, and house -connections made. At every step, now as before, unrelenting opposition -did all that could be conceived of--in the courts, the Legislature, the -city government, the money-market--to block municipal self-help. Great -numbers of the citizens desired to change from the private companies -to the city. Over 7500 consumers were at one time, in 1891, calling -upon the city to supply them.[542] The litigation which was kept up, -and the defeat of the attempt of the city to sell its natural-gas bonds -in the open market, had exhausted the funds at the disposal of the -city trustees. But they showed a readiness of resource equal, with the -help of the people, to all these emergencies, and proving that public -enterprise can more than hold its own in the competition with private -enterprise. Contractors were got to pipe the streets by sections, and -take for pay the pledge of the income earned by the pipes so laid. In -other cases people wanting the gas were willing to advance a part of -the cost. The same contractor who had faith enough in the city to build -the main line from the gas-fields and take the bonds while they were -under fire volunteered in the same way to build the submerged lines -across the Maumee River, and ten miles of mains within the city. This -was done at a moment when otherwise the enterprise must have come to a -stop, and the name of this patriotic contractor is given to the public -by the trustees in their annual report with words of gratitude. - -The amount of bonds originally authorized was $750,000. The trustees, -in consequence of the delays and enhanced cost caused by lawsuits and -other tactics of opposition, had to incur a floating debt of $300,000. -The council by ordinance directed the issue of bonds by the city to -the amount of $120,000 to pay off part of this floating debt. The -State Circuit Court refused to sustain this action of the council, -but pointed out that all the city lacked was the authorization of the -Legislature. This was the only decision against the city in all the -litigations, and in this the State Court was afterwards overruled by -the United States Circuit Court. A bill was accordingly introduced, -giving the city the right to issue $300,000 in bonds for the floating -debt, and $100,000 for the extension of the gas plant: wells, pipes, -pumps--whatever was needed. A strong lobby immediately appeared in the -State Capitol to defeat the bill. As part of its ammunition a pamphlet -was circulated among the legislators, giving "Facts and Reasons" why -the Legislature should not authorize the new issue of bonds. This -pamphlet illustrates the easy virtue with which some lawyers dispose -of themselves to those who have the money to pay them. Two of its -strongest points were that the contracts for which the floating debt -had been incurred were let without proper competition, and that the -trustees had no power to make the contracts. This pamphlet was signed -by two lawyers, one of whom, before these contracts were let, had -given the trustees his written opinion supporting such contracts -unqualifiedly. The representatives of the people were able to exhibit -to the Legislature his written opinion stating that the trustees had -the power to make the contracts, and had let them in compliance with -the requirements of the statute as to bids. The pamphlet declared that -the court, in granting the injunction against the issue of the $120,000 -of bonds by the Common Council, had declared the claims which were to -be paid by the proceeds of the bonds to be "illegal and invalid." This -was untrue. The court had held only that the city had not the power to -issue the bonds, and pointed out that the remedy was in new legislation -by the State to remedy the want of power. - -Pursuing the tactics of defamation of the city and its authorities -which had been used throughout this contest, the pamphlet said: "We -are prepared to prove ... that the contractors put in their bids -substantially as gambling transactions, at such excessive price -that they thought they could take the risk of the illegality of the -natural-gas proceedings, trusting that these illegal transactions would -be permitted to pass without question, or that subsequent legislation -would ratify these illegal acts; all, or nearly all, of the contracts -were taken at prices more than double the fair cash value for all the -work and material provided for; and all the work and materials, the -claims for which now aggregate about $350,000, could have been obtained -in the open market, under valid laws, upon proper terms of payment, -for less than $250,000. We have the evidence within our control to -establish that the work under some of these contracts was actually -done for less than 40 per cent. of the amount named in the contract. -In addition to these facts, we can establish, if permitted to offer -evidence, that the certificates issued by the natural-gas trustees -were, immediately after the conclusion of the contracts and before any -litigation was had upon them, hawked about the streets of Toledo at -from 60 to 75 cents on the dollar; and that the great majority of these -certificates are now in the hands of speculators, who bought them at -not to exceed 65 per cent. of their face value." - -The authors of these statements were at once challenged by the city's -gas trustees to prove them. "We assert," the gas trustees said, in -a formal challenge, "that you cannot establish the truth of those -statements. We deny that the facts are as you state them to be, either -in substance or in detail." This was signed by John E. Parsons, W.W. -Jones, Reynold Voit, J.W. Greene, gas trustees, and Clarence Brown -and Thomas H. Tracy, ex-gas-trustees. The city's trustees proposed -that they and their accusers deposit $1000 on each side as a forfeit -to abide the result of an inquiry by the three judges of the Court of -Common Pleas, or any other disinterested arbitrators. They placed at -the service of the accusers and the arbiters all the books, records, -and employes of the city's gas department. - -The challenge was not accepted, and the authors of these attacks made -no attempt to prove them. The Legislature disregarded them, and granted -the city and the gas trustees all the additional power to issue bonds -asked for. In a subsequent proceeding in the Federal courts--the issue -involving the validity of these certificates--it was admitted, contrary -to these allegations, that the prices were fair, and that the contracts -were entered into in good faith, and the court held the certificates -valid. - -The most serious crisis in the contest was still to come. In 1892 the -gas wells of the city began to do what the people of the city will -never do--surrender to the enemy. When the oil trust found, after years -of opposition in the Legislature, the courts, and the gas-fields, that -it had been helpless to prevent Toledo from getting ample tracts of -excellent gas territory, with some of the largest gas wells in the -field, and equal to the supply of the entire consumption, domestic and -manufacturing, it turned to other tactics. - -All about this territory secured by Toledo and found so productive the -private companies of the trust proceeded to buy or lease and to sink -wells. The trust shut off all its own wells, except those adjacent to -the city territory, and for two years drew exclusively from the wells -nearest those of the city. When the city's line was completed to the -wells the volume of gas was found to be largely reduced. It had been -drawn off into the wells of the opposition. In the spring of 1892 the -private companies resolved to put in pumps to strengthen the diminished -natural pressure, but to prevent the city from doing the same thing. -Then, with their pumps alone at work, the pressure could be so much -further reduced as to render the Toledo pipe line valueless. To this -end all efforts were directed. The newspapers were kept full of matter -showing how impossible it was to pump gas, that all the money expended -in pumps would be just so much wasted, and that the companies had -canvassed the matter fully, but abandoned the idea. Column after column -of inspired interviews filled the papers, all admonishing the city of -Toledo not to commit such an act of folly as to put in gas pumps. Then -application was made to enjoin the sale of the bonds authorized by the -council and the Legislature for pumps. So month after month dragged -along. The bonds remained unsold, and the pumps unobtainable. - -The injunction was refused both by the Court of Common Pleas and by -the Circuit Court. But there was a right of appeal to the Ohio Supreme -Court until the beginning of 1892. Boston bankers had subscribed for a -large block of the bonds, but withdrew upon learning these facts. "It -is possible for the contestants," the lawyers advised them, "to carry -the matter to the Supreme Court. This, we understand, they propose -to do." The simple assertion of a purpose to continue the litigation -was enough to defeat the sale of the bonds. The payment of costs and -lawyers' fees would be a very moderate price to pay for compelling the -city's gas plant to go past midwinter without the pumps indispensable -for its operation. One of the employes of the private pipe line, -according to an account in one of the Toledo papers, declared to a -reporter that "if we could not prevent the city from putting in a -[pumping] plant any other way, we would blow it up with dynamite."[543] - -Any faithful employe familiar with the blowing up of derricks in the -shut-down of 1887,[544] the explosion in the independent refinery at -Buffalo,[545] and the "chemical war" waged by the whiskey trust against -the "outsiders" in Chicago[546] might almost be pardoned for thinking -this was "only good, reasonable talk." The oil monopoly is evangelical -at one end and explosive at the other, and it has made both ends meet. - -The people of Toledo were thus prevented from getting the pumping -facilities ready during the summer of 1892 for the work of the winter. -Meanwhile its rival had been secretly pushing pumps for itself to -completion, in the hope that it alone would be ready when cold weather -came. This would mean a gain to it, at the city's expense, of hundreds -of thousands of dollars. Late in August, 1892, the representatives of -the city found that two powerful duplex gas pumps had been shipped -to the gas-field, and were being put in place by the very opponents -who had declared pumps impracticable. Public sentiment became aroused -to the need for the immediate purchase of pumps to protect their -wells. The city attempted to use its income from the sales of gas to -buy pumps. An injunction was applied for and granted. This emergency -was finally met by having the gas trustees hand over to the city -authorities the accumulated earnings they were forbidden by the court -to spend themselves. The city thereupon turned around and invested -this money in the gas bonds. In this way the identical money the gas -trustees could not use while it remained in their hands was made -available to them by passing through the hands of the Sinking Fund -Trustees, and coming back to them. Thus the natural-gas trustees were -enabled to make a contract in September, 1892, for pumps to assist the -flow of gas to the city. - -The gas pumps are a patented device. The private companies, wanting -all the profit of everything, had had their pumps made at their own -factory. The city made its contract directly with the owner of the -patents. The result was that the city got its pumps in place in time -to save the city pipe line, while its opponents were delayed by the -inexperience of their own pump-makers. This was the most critical -period in our history. Greed had again defeated itself. Had the -opposition gone to the owner of the patents he would have been unable -afterwards to take the city's contract and complete it in time, and the -effort to make the city line valueless would have succeeded--for the -time being, at least. The bonds in question were afterwards held valid -by the Supreme Court. - -Toledo knew it was building wisely, and every day brought new proof -that it had builded better than it knew. Its saving was great, but -that was the least of its gains. It escaped tyranny and extortion and -other wrongs which fell upon communities in plain sight, which had not -the wit and virtue to establish their independence. When the city pipe -line was opened in 1891 the city began supplying gas to its citizens -at 8 cents a thousand for houses. The private companies were charging -12 cents a thousand, or 50 per cent. more. Profits were such at this -charge of 12 cents a thousand feet that in some tracts single wells -would repay the cost of the land every four days and two hours, or -eighty-nine times a year. Since then the private corporations have -raised their rate to 25 cents. The city continued the rates at 8 cents -until December, 1892, when the rate was advanced to 15 cents. This -advance would have been unnecessary but for the losses arising from the -obstructions placed in the way of the city plant. - -The people of Toledo got their gas lands, pipe line, and street mains -for an outlay of $1,181,743 up to the end of 1891,[547] and $1,294,467 -up to the end of 1892. In the canvass before the election in 1889 their -opponents declared that $4,000,000 would be required. - -Private enterprise cannot find rhetoric strong enough to express its -contempt for the inefficiency, costliness, and despotisms of public -enterprise. Private enterprise put at $6,000,000--twelve times the -amount of the property they reported for taxation--the "capital" -stock invested by the two natural-gas companies. The city pipe line -was capitalized (bonded) at just what it cost--a little more than -a million. The city trustees built a better pipe line than private -enterprise had laid. The private line was of cheap iron of 14-feet -lengths, while Toledo's was in 24-feet pieces. One of the private lines -was laid with rubber joints and in shallow trenches, in many places of -not more than plough depth. It leaked at almost every joint; its course -could be traced across the fields by the smell of gas and the blighted -line of vegetation. There were frequent explosions from the escaping -gas; lives and property were much endangered. The city line was laid -with lead joints, and had every device that engineering experience -could suggest for its success, and was so constructed that it could -be cleaned or repaired, and freed from liquids interfering with the -flow of gas, without shutting off the supply--features the other pipe -had not. The action of the city trustees had to endure the microscopic -scrutiny of friend and foe. No one was able to show as to a single acre -that the title was defective, or that it could have been bought for -less, or to find any taint of a job in the construction of the pipe. A -committee of the city council sat and probed for six weeks, but failed -to find any evidence whatever to confirm the reported "irregularities." - -What Toledo will save in one year by the difference between the actual -cost at which its people can supply themselves and the price the -private companies would have charged, to pay dividends on $6,000,000 of -"capital," is only part of the story. The profit of the city enterprise -is to be estimated by its competitive effect upon the charge of the -private companies. These have been kept down in Toledo much below the -average of other towns, where they have been as high as 35 cents a -thousand. If the city had not supplied a foot of gas this check on the -private companies would make its pipe line still a good investment. -The people, when it is in full operation, can pay the cost of the -system complete out of the savings of a few years, then pay off the -entire city debt, and have a large income left for public buildings, -roads, parks. Or by reduction of price they can keep this sum in their -pockets, where it will do quite as much for the general welfare as if -it had been transferred to the bank accounts of non-residents. - -The city, at the end of 1891, had 3299-3/4 acres of gas land. In March, -1892, forty-five wells were giving over 50,000,000 cubic feet of gas, -equal to 3500 tons of anthracite coal. Its income from the sale of gas -was at the rate of $20,032 a month in winter, and $10,221 in summer. -An investigation made in March, 1892, by a committee appointed by the -mayor at the request of the city's gas trustees, showed that an income -could be counted on ($180,000) ample to pay all expenses ($128,120), -including interest, rentals, and the cost of drilling new wells, and -provide a small fund annually ($51,880) for the extinction of the -bonded debt. The committee said: "We believe that if the gas plant is -properly managed upon prudent business principles and methods, that it -can be made a profitable investment for the city and her people; that -the class who will derive the greatest benefit is the laboring class, -who pay rent or taxes upon their little homes, and to whom the matter -of cheap fuel is quite an item in the total amount of annual expenses; -and we believe it to be the duty of every good citizen to aid and -encourage this class." - -These were the results with a charge of 8 cents a thousand. Gas to -the amount of $167,899 had been sold up to August 1, 1892. Between -November, 1891, and August, 1892, the city earned on the million -invested the sum of $150,000, or nearly one-ninth of the cost of -the plant, and this at the low price of 8 cents a thousand feet. -Unobstructed by its enemies and at the price charged by the private -companies, 20 cents a thousand, the city would pay for its entire plant -in less than three years. - -To discourage the public from going forward with its pipe line the -private companies "talked poor." In an interview in the public -press the president of the principal company said it had paid but -9 per cent. in dividends in two and a half years. The net earnings -were stated to be "about 4 per cent. per annum on the capital," -$4,000,000;[548] for the smaller company they were figured out to be -at the rate of a fraction less than 1 per cent. a year on its capital -of $2,000,000.[549] "We feel sore and hurt about it," said the "direct -representative" of the oil combination to the citizens' committee; "we -have seen no good return from our money." "It has pretty nearly swamped -us," said the president of the company. The citizens of Toledo were -shrewd enough to ask themselves how long their antagonists would have -been likely to remain in a business which paid only 3 per cent., and -was as "hazardous" and "shortlived" as they pictured it to be. Careful -estimates made by close students of the question calculated that of -the $6,000,000 of paper capital "invested" in the two companies which -supplied Toledo and other cities, $1,125,000 was the proportion of -actual cash devoted to Toledo. The receipts upon this Toledo investment -in the two and three-quarters years between the opening of the business -and the date at which, by the contract with the city, the council was -to make new rates (June 30, 1890), were, as nearly as can be calculated -from the figures of their report, $1,300,000 greater than the expenses -of the Toledo business. This is a profit of 115 per cent. In less than -three years the total investment had been repaid by the profits, and, -in addition, enough to have paid dividends of 5 per cent. a year. -This was an estimate, but it was an estimate publicly made from the -companies' figures, and by a responsible man. It remained unchallenged -at a time when every cranny of fact and fiction was being rummaged for -missiles to fling at the people. - -When the citizens' committee sought a reduction in price, the companies -pointed to the small dividend their stockholders had had. In the face -of the fact that they had received but a 3-per-cent. dividend the -previous year, no business man, their spokesman said, could ask them -to reduce their price. It is for such uses that shrewd men "water" -stock. The surface of the capital is broadened, so that even large -dividends can cover it only by being spread out very thin. This 3 per -cent. a year was on $6,000,000 of dilution, representing a solid, at -the most, of only $1,500,000. The balance sheets of the companies -showed that the companies had paid small dividends for the additional -reason that a large part of their receipts had been reinvested in -lands, wells, and extensions of the pipes and plants. - -The people are often assured that these false figures of capitalization -are merely romantic and do them no harm, because charges must be -governed by the "laws of trade." One of the "laws of trade" that -regulates the "market price" of such commodities as transportation, -light, water, gas, furnished by the help of the public franchises, is -the power of the public to regulate. This public power depends upon the -public knowledge and the public disposition. To make the public believe -that the profit of serving it has been only 3 per cent. a year, when it -has been nearer 50 per cent., is to manipulate public opinion, the most -potent of all the "laws of trade," for a competing supply cannot be got -easily, often not at all. - -A committee of citizens were invited by the representatives of the gas -companies to meet them to verify the statements of the companies as to -the unprofitableness of the business, and the inexpediency of municipal -self-supply. But when the committee wanted to know what had been the -real cost of the private pipe lines, on the $6,000,000 nominal capital -of which the people were expected to pay dividends, they could not get -any satisfaction. The companies would only give an estimate. To the -request for more definite information, the reply of both companies -was, "We have not got the books of the contractors; we have never -had them. We have no means of knowing the actual cost of the Toledo -plant, or any books to show it.[550] We have no papers or documents in -regard to the construction of this line." It came to light later that -one of the companies in the oil trust had constructed the pipe line -for the gas company, and at a price approximating the large figures -claimed. The company that built this pipe line is a ring within the oil -and gas ring, always on hand for such contracts and at like margins -of profit, and it is owned almost wholly by the principals of the -combination.[551] The people--mostly Ohioans--who took the minority 40 -per cent. of stock of the gas company were really the "simple greens." -All that was paid for this construction by those who were members -both of the inside ring and the gas company came back to them; their -associates in the minority paid, but got nothing back. It was from the -latter came the profits of this contract to the insiders. - -The people of Dayton had a similar experience. Their natural-gas -company demanded an advance to 25 cents a thousand, and met a committee -of the people to prove that the demand was proper. But it would not let -the people know what the actual investment was to make which good it -sought to tax the people. The books containing the construction account -were "not accessible." "The actual cost to construct the plant is what -we most desired to know," the committee reported. As at Toledo, so at -Dayton; all private enterprise would let its customer-subjects know was -what it wanted them to pay; information to show what they ought to pay -"was not accessible." What the profits were elsewhere can be guessed at -from the fact that in Pennsylvania $36 a year was charged in most of -the towns for cooking-stoves. In Toledo the charge was $19.50 a year. - -Almost every day after the pipe line had been decided on the people saw -something done, showing how well founded their apprehensions had been. -The power to discriminate in rates the people saw used by the private -companies for selfish and anti-public purposes, precisely as they had -foreseen it would be. When the fight for and against the city pipe -line was on, one of the gas companies sought to enlist the strong men -in their support by making them special rates, pursuing the tactics of -divide and conquer. Manufacturers with influence useful in controlling -public sentiment were conceded special rates. Others were given to -understand that any lack of "loyalty" would be followed by punishment. -So effective were these alternating methods of boodling and bulldozing -that the council committee on gas, in a subsequent investigation, found -it almost impossible to obtain any information from manufacturers as -to their use of natural gas for fuel. What little they did secure was -under injunctions of secrecy. The committee found that some were made -to pay twice, some three, and some even four times as much as was paid -by neighbors for like service. The only rule for charging seemed to be -to favor those who had "influence." This was using municipal franchise -just as the franchise of the highways had been used in their behalf by -the railways. An assembly of divines could not be trusted with such -power over their fellows. - -After the Fostoria incident the people of Toledo had another -illustration given them of how wisely they had builded. The gas supply -of the people of Columbus, Ohio, was shut off arbitrarily and suddenly -in midwinter--January, 1891--and they were informed that the company -would supply them with no more gas unless the City Council would raise -the price to 25 cents a thousand feet from 10 cents. The gas had not -failed. The caverns that discharge gas at 25 cents a thousand will let -it come just as freely at 10 cents. The council had fixed the price -at 10 cents, and the company had accepted it. The demand for a higher -price was close upon an increase in the capital stock of the Columbus -company from $1,000,000 to $1,750,000. More stock called for more -dividends, and this was one way to get it--to strike this sudden blow, -and then to say, after the manner of Silas Wegg, "Undone for double -the money!" It was for the power to do this at Toledo, to preserve the -power of doing it everywhere else, that hell and earth were being moved -in Toledo to prevent the people from serving themselves and setting an -example to the rest of America. In the same way the gas was turned off -at Sidney, Ohio, and not turned on again until, upon the application of -the mayor, the company was ordered to do it by the courts. "There is a -great deal of suffering here," the press reported, "and it is feared -that several deaths will result from exposure." - -The people did not fail to comprehend the significance of criticisms -in the Toledo organ on the municipal water supply. Monopoly must go on -conquering and to conquer, or be overborne by the ever-recuperating -resentment which rises against it, freshened with each new day. Nature -hates monopoly, says Emerson. The studied attack on the city water -works was believed to be meant to prepare the people to intrust that as -well as the gas supply to the trust's "sound business men" and "private -enterprise." - -Finding that the council would not bend to the demands as to rates, -and that the people were too resolute to be in any way diverted from -their pipe line, Toledo was given some such doses as could be ventured -upon of the Fostoria and Columbus medicine. The company shut gas off -from those who would not pay the increased rate. It deprived public -institutions of their fuel. It refused to supply gas to a new public -school whose building was planned for natural gas. As the city's pipe -line was not completed, the children had to go cold. The winter of -1891-2 was the first winter the city's pipe line was in operation. With -the first cold snap, at the end of November, great distress and danger -were brought upon the people by a lawless act, done secretly by some -unknown person to the city's pipe line. One of the main pipes in the -gas-field, through which flowed the product of two of the largest gas -wells, was disconnected, so that its gas could no longer reach Toledo. -Who did this was never discovered.[552] - -Defeat, final and irrevocable, crowned the unvarying series of -defeat which the private companies had suffered everywhere and in -everything--in public meetings, in the Legislature, in the gas-fields, -at the polls, in the courts, in the sale of the bonds, and in the -competition with the city. The City Council of Toledo, advised by its -lawyers that it could recover damages from those responsible for the -losses brought upon the city by the opposition to its pipe line, has -had suit brought for that purpose. April 14, 1893, City Solicitor -Read began proceedings to recover $1,000,000 damages from members of -the oil combination and the various individuals who had been used as -stalking-horses in the campaign. At the next meeting of the Common -Council several citizens of the "influential" persuasion assisted the -mayor in trying to coax and bully the council to abandon the suit, but -without success. The council were threatened with a financial boycott -to prevent the sale in future of any of the bonds of the city, but it -refused to be terrorized. - -April 8, 1893, the natural-gas trustees of Toledo had the happiness -of being able to give formal notice to the city auditor that no taxes -need be levied to pay the interest on the gas bonds, as it "can easily -be met from the revenues derived from the sale of natural gas." The -city pipe line was on a paying basis at last. Toledo had vindicated -its claim to be a free city. The completion of the enterprise had -been delayed three years. A loss of not less than two million dollars -had been laid on the city, but its victory was worth many times that. -Toledo's victory showed the country, in full and successful detail, -a plan of campaign of which Columbus had merely given a hint. It was -not a local affair, but one of even more than national importance, for -the oil combination has invaded four continents. This struggle and its -results of good omen will pass into duly recorded history as a warning -and an encouragement to people everywhere who wish to lead the life of -the commonwealth. - - NOTE.--For the year ending December 31, 1893, the city trustees report - that they sold gas to the amount of $139,066. The city owns 5433 acres - of gas territory, and has 85 wells, 73 miles of pipe outside the city, - and 91 miles in the city. Since the gas began to flow the sales have - amounted to $388,540. Out of the receipts the debt has been reduced - $60,000, besides refunding $67,000 to those who advanced the money for - piping the streets. While doing this the plant has been considerably - enlarged. The city accomplished this while charging the people but - 15 cents a thousand, while the gas companies of the trust charged - 25 cents a thousand. Had the city been permitted to act without - obstruction, the cost of the gas plant would have been long since - fully paid, and the price of gas made still lower.[553] - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -"YOU ARE A--SENATOR" - - -How to control the men who control the highways? - -The railroads have become the main rivers of trade and travel, and to -control them has become one of our hardest problems in the field where -politics and industry meet. The Duke of Wellington exhorted Parliament -"not to forget, in legislating upon this subject, the old idea of the -King's Highway." But here, as well as there, the little respect paid -by the Legislature at first to this idea soon vanished. In England, as -well as in America, the State, in giving some citizens the right, for -their private profit, to take the property of others by force, legally, -for railways, began by limiting strictly the power so acquired. Then, -passing under the control of that which it had created, the State -abandoned its attempts to control. Now the State is retracing its -way, and for many years has been struggling painfully to recover its -lost authority. In the first English charters there were the minutest -regulations as to freight and passenger charges, and the right of -citizens generally to put their own cars on the tracks was sacredly -guarded. - -The railroads became too strong to submit to this, and the success with -which the teachings of Adam Smith were applied to the abolition of -the old-fashioned restraints on trade bred a furor against any social -control of industry. These limitations were left out of new charters, -and for fair play were revised out of the old charters. After a brief -dream of this _laissez faire_, England began, in 1844, investigating -and legislating, and, after nearly thirty years of experiments and -failures, established the railway commission in 1873. This was a step -forward, but has not proved the solvent it was expected to be. The -expense of getting a decision from the commission and the courts to -which the road can appeal from the commission has frightened people -from making complaints. "A complainant," says Hadley, "is a marked man, -and the commission cannot protect him against the vengeance of the -railroads. A town fares no better ... even the [British] War Department -is afraid. It has grievances, but it dares not make them public for -fear of reprisals."[554] - -The course of events in the United States was much the same. The first -railroad powers were carefully limited. The early charters regulated -the charges, limited the profits, gave citizens the right to put their -private carriages on the road, and reserved to the State the right to -take possession of the railroad upon proper payment. But as early as -1846 the railroads had grown strong enough--in the revision of the -Constitution of New York, for example--to secure an almost complete -surrender of these public safe-guards.[555] - -But it was seen immediately in America, as in England, that the new -institution could not be left in the uncontrolled hands of individuals. -It created simultaneously two revolutions, each one of the most -momentous in modern civilization. It made the steam-engine master in -transportation, as it had already become in manufacturing. It made the -public highways the private property of a few citizens. An agitation -arose among the people--to-day stronger because more necessary than -ever--and they began to seek what they have not yet found: means of -regulating the relations between new rich and new poor, and protecting -the private interests of all from the private interests of the few who -had this double sovereignty. As early as 1857 New York established a -commission for the regulation of the railways. But the railroads within -a year procured a law abolishing it, bribing the leading commissioner -to make no opposition in consideration of receiving from them $25,000, -the whole amount of his salary for five years. "I was the attorney -of the Erie Railway at that time; I specially used to attend to -legislation that they desired to effect or oppose.... I remember the -appointment of that commission.... We agreed that if they" (the leading -railroad commissioner) "would not oppose the repeal of the law we would -pay $25,000, and have done with the commission; it was embarrassing.... -The law was repealed, and we paid the money, I think." "If the -commission had been a useless one," said the counsel of the New York -Chamber of Commerce before the Legislative Committee, "the railroads -would not have parted with their money to get rid of it."[556] - -Thirty of the States and Territories of the Union had established -commissions or passed laws to regulate the railroads before Congress, -in 1887, used its power under the Constitution to regulate commerce -among the States, and passed the Interstate Commerce law, establishing -the National Interstate Commerce Commission, in the hope that it might -protect the people. Congress did not act until 1887, although for years -different sections of the public, in their efforts to find a cure for -the new evils which had come with the new good, had sought to set in -action their representatives in Washington. The "Granger movement" of -1871, 1872, and 1873, with its "Granger legislation" by the States -against the railroads, is one of the never-to-be-forgotten waves of -public commotion over this problem which took on its acutest form in -the oil regions. Illinois, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, -Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Iowa established railway commissions, or -put stringent regulations on the statute-books at this time. Public -opinion did not cease to demand action by the national government -under the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate -commerce, and became clamorous. Petitions poured in by the hundreds, -public meetings were held, chambers of commerce and boards of trade and -anti-monopoly conventions passed resolutions of urgency. This was one -of the main issues in the election of the 44th Congress. - -Representative Hopkins, of Pennsylvania, rose in his place in the -House of Representatives on May 16, 1876, and asked unanimous consent -to offer a resolution for the appointment of a committee of five -to investigate the charges that "many industries are crippled and -threatened with extreme prostration" by the discrimination of the -railroads, and to report a bill for the regulation of interstate -commerce. This was the first move to reopen in Congress the great -question, first on the order of the day both in England and in America, -which had been smothered by the Committee of Commerce of 1872. It -required unanimous consent to bring the resolution before the House. - -"Instantly," said Representative Hopkins, in describing the occurrence -afterwards,[557] "I heard the fatal words 'I object.' The objector was -Mr. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland." Other members appealed to Mr. Payne -to withdraw his objection. - -The Speaker of the House: "Does the gentleman from Ohio withdraw his -objection?" - -Mr. Payne: "I do not." - -In a private conference which followed between Representative Payne -and Representative Hopkins, the former said, as Mr. Hopkins relates: -"What he objected to in my resolution was the creation of a special -committee; but if I would again offer it and ask that it be referred -to the Committee of Commerce he would not object. I thought perhaps -there was something reasonable in his objection. A special committee -would probably require a clerk, which would be an expense. He looked to -me so like a frugal Democrat, who had great confidence in the regular -order of established committees and did not want the country to be -taxed for clerks attending to the business of special committees--I say -that he so impressed me that, as the record will show, I adopted his -suggestion." - -When the Committee of Commerce to which the investigation was -accordingly referred began its investigation, a member of the oil -combination, not then, as later, a member of the Senate, took his seat -by the ear of the chairman, who was from his State, "presiding," as -the oil producers said in a public appeal, "behind the seat of the -chairman."[558] The financial officer of the oil combination was called -as a witness, but refused to answer the questions of the committee as -to the operations of the company or its relations with the railroads. -The vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad also refused to answer -questions. On the plea of needing time to decide how to compel these -witnesses to answer, the committee let the railroad vice-president -go until he should be recalled. But the committee never decided, and -the witnesses were never recalled. The committee never reported to -Congress, made no complaint of the contempt of its witnesses, and the -investigation of 1876, like that of 1872, came to a mute and inglorious -end. - -When Representative Hopkins applied to the clerk of the committee for -the testimony, he was told, to his amazement, that it could not be -found. "Judge Reagan," he relates,[559] "who was a stanch friend of the -bill"--for the regulation of the railroads--"and very earnest for the -investigation, and who at the time was a member of the committee, told -me that it had been stolen."[560] - -Eight years after "I object" the people of Ohio were a suppliant before -the Senate of the United States. They believed that their dearest -rights had been violated, and they prayed for redress to the only body -which had power to give it. Officially by the voice of both Houses of -the State Legislature and the governor, unofficially by the press, by -the public appeals of leading men, by the petitions of citizens, press, -leaders, and people, regardless of party, the commonwealth asserted -that the greatest wrong possible in a republic had been done their -members, and sued for restitution. They declared it to be their belief -that against their will, as the result of violation of the laws, a man -had taken their seat in the Senate of the United States who was not -their senator, that they had been denied representation by the senator -of their choice; and they demanded that, in accordance with immemorial -usage, the evidence they had to offer should be examined, and their -right of representation in the Senate of the United States restored -to them, if it should be found to have been taken from them. After -the Legislature had examined sixty-four witnesses, the Ohio House of -Representatives resolved that "ample testimony was adduced to warrant -the belief that ... the seat of Henry B. Payne in the United States -Senate was purchased by the corrupt use of money." The Ohio Senate -charged that "the election of Henry B. Payne as Senator of the United -States from Ohio ... was procured and brought about by the corrupt use -of money, ... and by other corrupt means and practices." - -Both Houses passed with these resolutions an urgent request for -investigation by the Senate of the United States.[561] - -Mr. Payne's election by the Legislature was a thunder-clap to the -people of Ohio. They did not know he was a candidate. Who was to be -United States Senator was of course one of the issues in the election -of the Ohio Legislature of 1884, and the Democratic voters who elected -the majority of that Legislature had sent them to the State Capitol to -make George H. Pendleton or Durbin Ward senator. One of the leading -newspaper men of the State testified: "I went over the entire State -during the campaign.... Out of the eighty-eight counties I attended -fifty-four Democratic conventions and wrote them up, giving the -sentiment of the people as nearly as I could, and during that entire -canvass I never heard a candidate for the Legislature say that he was -for Henry B. Payne for United States Senator; but every man I ever -talked with was either for George H. Pendleton or General Ward. I think -out of the Democratic candidates throughout the State I conversed with -at least two-thirds of them."[562] As was afterwards stated before the -Senate of the United States by the representatives of the people of -Ohio, "He was in no wise publicly connected with the canvass for the -Senate, nor had the most active, honorable, and best-posted politicians -in the State heard his name in connection with the senatorial office -until subsequent to the October election [of the Legislature]. He was -absolutely without following."[563] - -The Democratic constituencies sent their legislators to vote for -Pendleton and Ward, but between the receipt and the execution of -this trust from the people a secret charm was put to work of such a -potency that the people woke up to find that the representative who -had betrayed them in Congress in 1876 was their senator, instead of -one of their real leaders. The people had been digging oil wells for -twenty years that all the value might flow into the bank accounts of a -few interceptors; they had been building railroads and pipe lines that -their business and property might be transported into the same hands; -they had organized agitation and conducted a national anti-monopoly -campaign all over the country, only to see the men who were to have -been investigated take command of the inquiry. The people had had -enough such experience not to be surprised that when they started to -make a beloved leader senator it was their enemy who came out of the -voting mill with the senatorial toga upon his shoulders. But terrible -was the moral storm that broke forth out of the hearts of the people -of Ohio. The votes they had thrown, like roses to garland the head -of a hero, had been transformed as they went, by a black magic, into -missiles of destruction, and had fallen upon him like the stones that -slew Stephen. - -The press, without regard to party, gave voice to the popular wrath. -Scores of the Democratic newspapers of Ohio went into mourning. One of -them said: "The whole Democratic Legislature was made rotten by the -money that was used to buy and sell the members like so many sheep." -Many representative Democrats of the State privately and publicly -declared their belief in the charges of corruption. Allen G. Thurman, -who had been a senator and representative at Washington, said: "There -is something that shocks me in the idea of crushing men like Pendleton -and Ward, who have devoted the best portion of their lives to the -maintenance of Democracy, by a combination against them of personal -hatred and overgrown wealth.... I want to see all the Democrats have -a fair chance according to their merits, and do not want to see a -political cutthroat bossism inaugurated for the benefit of a close -party corporation or syndicate." Again he said: "Syndicates purchase -the people's agents, and honest men stand aghast."[564] - -It was the "irony of fate" that this Legislature, like the 44th -Congress, had been specially elected to represent opposition to -monopolies. Of course the Legislature that had done this thing was not -to be persuaded, bullied, or shamed into any step towards exposure or -reparation. But the people, usually so forgetful, nursed their wrath. -They made the scandal the issue of the next State election, and put -the Legislature into other hands. The new Legislature then forwarded -formal charges to the Senate of the United States, and a demand for an -investigation. The State of Ohio made its solemn accusation and prayer -for an investigation through all the organs of utterance it had: the -press of both parties; honored men, both Republican and Democratic; -both Houses of the State Legislature and its senator whose seat was -unchallenged--an aggregate representing a vast majority of the people -of the State. The Hon. John Little and the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, -former Attorney-General of Ohio, both members of Congress, had been -delegated to present the case of the State. They made formal charges, -based on evidence given under oath or communicated in writing by -reputable citizens, who were willing to testify under oath. None of -the matter was presented on mere hearsay or rumor.[565] No charge -was made to connect Senator Payne personally with the corruption. His -denials and those of his friends of any participation by him were -therefore mere evasions of the actual charge--that his election had -been corruptly procured for him, not by him. The substance of their -accusation, as contained in their statement and the papers forwarded by -the Legislature, was as follows:[566] - -That among the chief managers of Mr. Payne's canvass, and those who -controlled its financial operations, were four of the principal -members in Ohio of the oil trust: its treasurer, the vice-president -of one of its most important subordinate companies, its Cincinnati -representative, and another--all of whom were named. - -That one of these four, naming him, who was given the financial -management of the Payne campaign at Columbus, carried $65,000 with -him, "next to his skin," to Columbus to use in the election, as he had -stated to an intimate friend whose name would be given. - -That the cashier of the bank in Cleveland, where the treasurer of the -oil combination kept one of his bank accounts, would testify that this -money was procured on a check given by this treasurer of the oil trust -to another of its officials, and passed over by him to its Cincinnati -agent, who drew out the cash. - -That the back room used by the Payne manager at Columbus as his office -displayed such large amounts of money in plain view that it looked like -a bank, and that the employe who acted there as his clerk stated upon -his return home that he had never seen so much money handled together -in his life. - -That a prominent gentleman, going to the room used by the Payne -managers for a "converter," had said that he saw "canvas bags and coin -bags and cases for greenbacks littered and scattered around the room -and on the table and on the floor ... with something green sticking -out," which he found to be money. - -That members who had been earnest supporters of Pendleton were taken -one by one by certain guides to this room which looked like a bank, -and came out with an intense and suddenly developed dislike of -civil-service reform (Mr. Pendleton's measure), and proceeded to vote -for Mr. Payne; and that these conversions were uniformly attended with -thrift, sudden, extensive, and so irreconcilable with their known means -of making money as to be a matter of remark among their neighbors; and -that "the reasons for the change (of vote) were kept mainly in this -room, passed by delivery, and could be used to buy real estate." - -That this use of money in large amounts to procure the sudden -conversions of Pendleton legislators to Payne would be shown by -numerous witnesses, generally Democrats, several of them lawyers of -great distinction and high ability. - -That the editor and proprietor of the principal Democratic journal -in Ohio had stated, as was sworn to, that he had spent $100,000 to -elect Payne, and that it cost a great deal of money to get those -representatives and senators to vote for Payne, and they had to be -bought. "It took money, and a good deal of it, to satisfy them," and -he complained that the oil trust had not reciprocated in kind. This -statement was made by one of his editorial writers, who after making -it was discharged. The latter subsequently put it into the form of an -affidavit. - -That Senator Pendleton would testify that more than enough of the -legislators to give him the election had been pledged to him. - -That the number of members of the Ohio Senate and House of -Representatives who had been paid money to vote for Mr. Payne was so -great that without their votes and influence his nomination would have -been out of the question. - -That a legislator who had been violently opposed to Payne, then changed -and became violently rich, had acknowledged that the treasurer of -the oil trust, out of gratitude for what he had done, had "loaned" -him several thousand dollars--"a case," said the representative of -Ohio before the United States Senate, "of a man becoming well-to-do by -borrowing money." - -That legislators who were so poor before the election that everything -they had was mortgaged, and they had to beg or borrow funds for their -election expenses, became so prosperous after their sudden conversion -to Payne that they paid off their debts, rebuilt their houses, -furnished them handsomely, deposited large amounts in the banks, or -opened new bank accounts, bought more property, and that the reasons -they gave for this new wealth were demonstrably untrue--or impossible. - -That a member of the Legislature, a State senator, had himself stated -that he had received $5000 to vote for Payne,[567] and had offered the -same amount to an associate if he would do the same; and that after the -election this member opened a new bank account, depositing $2500 in his -wife's name, who immediately transferred it to him. - -That another member of the Legislature, who changed suddenly after his -election to the Legislature, and just before the caucus, from a warm -advocacy of one of the recognized candidates to the support of Payne, -when directly charged with having taken a bribe, did not deny it, but -"became exceedingly sick, white as a sheet, and answered not. He went -away and laid in bed two days." - -That, contrary to all the precedents of Ohio politics, the caucus of -the majority party was not held until the night before election, so as -to leave no time between the caucus and the election. - -That, also contrary to the precedents, the nomination was made, not, -as usual, by open vote, but by secret ballot and without debate, on -the demand of the Payne managers and contrary to the protests of the -opponents, so that it could not be known to the public who the Payne -men were. - -That this knowledge was made sure to the Payne managers, who were -to pay for the votes, by the ingenious device of requiring each -purchased legislator to use a coupon ballot furnished by them, the -corresponding stub of which they kept. These legislators were not paid -for their votes unless the torn edges of the coupon ballot voted by -them corresponded with the edge of the stub in the possession of the -managers. - -That responsible men would testify that they had received confessions -from members of the Legislature that they had been bribed with money to -vote for Mr. Payne. - -That two members of the Legislature who had been elected as -anti-monopolists became supporters of Mr. Payne, and were heard -discussing together the amount of money they had received, and -quarrelling because one had received more than the other. - -That a member of the Legislature which was corrupted, standing on the -floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, pointed out members who -had been purchased to vote for Payne, saying: "These members were paid -to vote in the senatorial fight," holding a little book in his hand in -which he had the names and amounts; but although he made the charges -openly and defiantly, and although the same charges were made in -Republican and Democratic papers, no investigation was ordered. Three -attempts to have an investigation made by the Legislature in which the -bribery occurred failed. - -That a correspondent of a leading Cincinnati daily, sitting on the -floor of the House, daily charged that the election was procured by -bribery, talked about it generally, and dared the House to investigate -or the accused to sue for libel, and that no such step was taken by -either. - -That a memorandum of the names of the legislators who sold themselves, -and the amounts they received, had been furnished from a responsible -source. - -That on the eve of the election money was sent by draft to twenty-four -of the Democratic candidates for the Legislature, with the promise -of more the next day, and with the statement that thanks for both -remittances were due to one of the prominent members of the oil trust, -who was named, and two others of Payne's managers, "they paying most -of it themselves." - -That before the election of the Legislature one of the Payne managers -sent large sums of money amounting to $10,000, or $12,000, perhaps -$13,500--the treasurer of the oil trust "and other wealthy Democrats -contributed it-- ... into different parts of the State." - -That the managers of the election absented themselves from the State -during the legislative investigation, and remained out of reach until -it closed. - -That during the two and a half years which had passed since these -specific charges of bribery had been put into circulation, there had -been no demand for investigation on the part of those whose reputation -and honor were concerned, but there had been a manifest effort to -prevent investigation. - -That in addition to these offers of evidence the case against Mr. Payne -would be greatly strengthened by new and additional testimony from -responsible sources. - -Testimony was taken by the Legislature that an ex-Lieutenant-Governor -of Ohio, afterwards Consul-General of the United States at Frankfort, -Germany, had been in the room of Payne's manager, had seen that he was -using money to procure the election, and had so told Mr. Payne before -the election, and that Mr. Payne's reply--"You don't suppose I would -endorse anything of that kind, do you?"--showed that he had understood -the use of money referred to to be an improper use, thereby fastening -upon Mr. Payne, if true, the knowledge that his agents were corrupting -the Legislature. - -During this deluge of charges Mr. Payne made no denial. - -After the investigation had been ordered by the State Legislature, -Senator Payne made an offer to the committee to submit all his private -papers and books of accounts to their examination--an empty offer, -because it was not charged that the corruption had been done by him, -but for him by others. These latter made no such offer, but fled from -the jurisdiction of the Legislature. When the representatives of the -people of Ohio appeared before the committee of the United States -Senate on elections, with the offer to prove under oath the foregoing -charges, he remained voiceless. He did not rise in his place in the -Senate to deny these accusations, as every other senator since the -Senate began had done. He did not go before the committee, nor send -before them any witness, or make any explanation. When the Senate -committee decided to recommend the Senate not to investigate, and the -representatives of Ohio begged the committee to reconsider, Senator -Sherman declared that he heartily agreed with every word of the appeal, -but Senator Payne still kept silent. The records of Congress show that -his sole utterance or appearance in this matter in Congress was to make -the motion that the papers forwarded by the Ohio Legislature should be -sent, as was the routine, to the Committee on Elections. In doing this -he did more than abstain from the utterance of a word which could be -in any way construed as a demand for investigation. He delivered what -was, in effect, an appeal to his fellow-senators not to investigate. He -attacked the Legislature for sending the report of its investigation -to Congress, characterizing "this proceeding--the transmission of -the testimony here--as an attempt to circulate and give currency to -baseless gossip and scandal, after everything substantial in the way of -a charge had been discredited and disproved." In conclusion he left the -matter to the committee "for such disposition of it as they may find to -be in accordance with dignity and justice." - -The Legislature which made the investigation selected as the reason for -ordering it the fact that a well-known citizen had just repeated in -an open letter in the public prints the charges of bribery which had -been made already hundreds of times. When this citizen was called upon -to testify before the Legislature he stated that, as his information -was derived from others, he had no personal proof to offer of his own -knowledge that bribery had been committed. Referring to this, Mr. Payne -said to his colleagues of the Senate: - -"Thus fell all that the investigation was originally based upon."[568] - -This was not true. The witness furnished the committee with the names -of the men on whose authority he had spoken, and through whom evidence -based on personal knowledge could be procured as to the truth of -the charges.[569] Therefore the statement, "Thus fell all that the -investigation was originally based upon," so far as it was believed by -the senators, deceived them. The State Legislature could not compel -the witnesses to testify. Only the United States Senate could do this, -and it was deterred from doing so by this concealment of the fact that -the investigation, instead of falling because of no basis, had struck -firmer ground. The proffer of evidence was of such a character that, -as has been well said, none of the lawyers of the Senate committee -who voted against recommending investigation "would have failed to -recommend thorough investigation of such an incident if it had been -relevant to an alleged title set up against a private client."[570] -But the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections--Senators Pugh, -Saulsbury, Vance, and Eustis voting against Hoar and Frye--recommended -the Senate not to investigate, and the Senate adopted this report. - -No one had expected this. The unbroken precedents of the Senate had -made it a matter of course in public expectation that the investigation -would be made. A convention of Ohio editors, sending a memorial for -a reconsideration, said: "No instance has yet arisen in the history -of the Senate where specific and well-supported charges of bribery in -a senatorial election, preferred by the Legislature of a State, have -not been promptly investigated by the Senate. In fact, so jealous has -the Senate been of its own integrity and honor that it has heretofore -promptly ordered investigations upon the memorials of citizens, and in -other cases upon the memorial of individual members of a Legislature -charging fraud in senatorial elections." In so doing the Senate, to -adopt the language used by the chairman of the Committee on Elections, -Senator Hoar, declared that "it is indifferent to the question -whether its seats are to be in the future the subject of bargain -and sale, or may be presented by a few millionaires as a compliment -to a friend."[571] "This matter never can be quieted," said Senator -Sherman in the debate in the Senate. "There are six or seven men who -are known--I could name them--who, if they were brought before this -Committee on Privileges and Elections, would settle this matter forever -one way or the other in my judgment." - -The Senate decided that such a charge, accompanied by such offers of -proof, did not deserve its attention. The trial of "even a criminal -accusation," said the minority of the committee, "requires only the -oath of the accuser who is justified if he have probable cause." -The minority, Senators Hoar and Frye, further said: "It will not be -questioned that in every one of these cases there is abundant probable -cause which would justify a complaint, and compel a grand-jury or -magistrate to issue process and make an investigation. Is the Senate to -deny to the people of a great State, speaking through their Legislature -and their representative citizens, the only opportunity for a hearing -of this momentous case which can exist under the Constitution? The -question now is not whether the case is proved--it is only whether it -shall be inquired into. That has never yet been done. It cannot be done -until the Senate issues its process. No unwilling witness has ever yet -been compelled to testify; no process has gone out which should cross -State lines. The Senate is now to determine, as the law of the present -case, and as the precedent for all future cases, as to the great crime -of bribery--a crime which poisons the waters of republican liberty -in the fountain--that the circumstances which here appear are not -enough to demand its attention. It will hardly be doubted that cases -of purchase of seats in the Senate will multiply rapidly under the -decision proposed by the majority of the committee."[572] - -The debate upon the recommendation of the committee not to investigate -was impassioned. Senator Hoar said: "The adoption of this majority -report ... will be the most unfortunate fact in the history of the -Senate." When the vote of the Senate not to investigate was announced, -Senator Edmunds turned to his neighbor in the Senate and summed up the -verdict of posterity in these words: "This is a day of infamy for the -Senate of the United States." - -The same Legislature which sent Senator Payne to the Senate defeated -the bill to allow the Cleveland independent refiners to build a pipe -line to furnish themselves with oil. The defeat of the bill was -accomplished by a lobby whose work was so openly shameless that it -was characterized by the Ohio press "as an indelible disgrace to the -State." The bill was one of many attempts which have been made by -the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania, without success, to get from -their Legislature the right to build pipe lines. It has been tried to -get laws to regulate the charges of the existing lines, but without -success. The history of the pipe-line bills in these legislatures -for the past ten years has been a monotonous record of an unavailing -struggle of a majority of millions to apply legal and constitutional -restraints to a minority of a few dozens. The means employed in the -Ohio Legislature of 1885 to defeat a bill giving equality in pipe-line -transportation to refiners in competition with the oil trust, which -owned the existing pipe-lines, were of such a sort that that body has -gone into the history of the State as the "Coal-oil Legislature." It -is stated by Hudson, in his _Railways and the Republic_, that the -Democratic agent of the bribery openly threatened to publish the list -he had of the members of the Legislature he had purchased, and that in -consequence of this threat proceedings which had been begun against him -for outraging the House by appearing on the floor in a state of gross -intoxication were abandoned.[573] - -In a debate about combinations in trade and industry--trusts--in the -United States Senate in 1888, the sore scandal of this senatorial -election of 1884 was disinterred. - -"If there be such a trust," said Senator Hoar, referring to the -oil trust, "is it represented in the cabinet at this moment? Is it -represented in the Senate? I want to know the facts about these five or -six great trusts which are sufficient in their power to overthrow any -government in Europe, if they existed in those nations, that should set -itself against them--the coal, the sugar, the whiskey, the cotton, the -fruit, the railroad transportation of this country, controlled by these -giant chieftains." - -Senator Payne defended the oil trust and himself. "Even at this date," -he said, "it seems that that company is represented as being guilty of -all sorts of unlawful and improper things. Such allegations without -proof to sustain them I regard as unworthy of an honorable man or an -honorable senator.... The Standard Oil Company," he continued, "is a -very remarkable and wonderful institution. It has accomplished within -the last twenty years, as a commercial enterprise, what no other -company or association of modern times has accomplished." He went on to -declare that he "never had a dollar's interest in the company." But the -charge which he and it would never allow to be investigated was that -the company had a great many dollars' interest in him. "The majority of -the stockholders are very liberal in their philanthropic contributions -to charity and benevolent works," he pleaded; "but it contributed," he -said, "not one dollar or one cent directly or indirectly to my election -to this body." During the demand for investigation he uttered no such -denial to be taken as a challenge. - -The senator made what Senator Hoar properly called a "very remarkable -admission" concerning the part taken in elections by the oil -combination. "When a candidate for the other House in 1871," Senator -Payne said, "no association, no combination in my district did more -to bring about my defeat, and went to so large an expense in money to -accomplish it, as the Standard Oil Company." - -The oil trust, then, does take part in elections, and as a company -spends larger sums of money than any other "institution, association, -combination ... to accomplish the defeat" of candidates for Congress! - -Then Mr. Payne said: "There never has been a national election at which -those two gentlemen--one of them was my own son--have not contributed -very liberally." He named the two men who were, as Senator Hoar showed, -among the most influential and important managers of his election to -the Senate. - -Senator Hoar closed the debate with these unanswered and unanswerable -words: "A senator who, when the governor of his State, when both -branches of the Legislature of his State, complained to us that a -seat in the United States Senate had been bought; when the other -senator from the State rose and told us that that was the belief of -a very large majority of the people of Ohio, without distinction of -party, failed to rise in his place and ask for the investigation which -would have put an end to those charges, if they had been unfounded, -sheltering himself behind the technicalities which were found by some -gentlemen on both sides of this chamber, that the investigation ought -not to be made, but who could have had it by the slightest request on -his part, and then remained dumb, I think should forever after hold his -peace."[574] - -The election of this senator was meant to be only the prelude to his -nomination and election as President of the United States. This was -publicly and authoritatively declared by the men who were charged with -having spent money to buy the Legislature for him. One of these was -the proprietor of the most influential Democratic daily in Ohio, and -that journal in a leading editorial, double leaded to make it more -prominent, declared this to be the purpose of Payne's friends. The New -York _Sun_ of May 27, 1884, followed, also in double-leaded editorials, -under the caption in staring black type of the name of the Senator, -and said: "Henry B. Payne is looming up grandly in the character of -a possible and not altogether improbable successor to Mr. Tilden as -the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. The fact that the Ohio -delegation at Chicago in July is sure to be solid for Payne is of -peculiar importance and significancy. Everybody can see what it may -amount to." - -Concurrently with these formal announcements came the news from all -parts of Ohio that the Payne party were hard at work to control the -election of the delegates who were to represent Ohio in the National -Democratic Convention at Chicago in July. But the managers of this -Presidential campaign found that they had gone too far. The election -for senator had excited so fierce an anger over the whole country that -it had become perfectly plain that Senator Payne was not "available." -The education of the American public was still incomplete. It could see -senatorships bought and endure it, but the Presidency--"not yet." - -The use this senator made of his seat throws light where none is -needed. Again, in 1887, the great question of 1876 of the control of -the highways came up before Congress. The agitation of nearly twenty -years had come to a point. Thirty of the States and Territories of -the Union had established commissions or passed laws to regulate -the railroads. Congress had before it the Interstate Commerce bill -forbidding discriminations, and creating the Interstate Commerce -Commission as a special tribunal to prevent and punish the crime. There -had been investigation, debates, amendments, meetings of conference -committees of both Houses. It was proposed to "recommit" the bill to -prevent its passage for an indefinite time. Mr. Payne voted "Yes." Then -the question before the Senate is, Shall the bill become a law? Senator -Payne's name is called. He votes: - -"No." - -It is the same question as in 1876, and the same vote. Against the -investigation, first, and then the legislation, his word is: - -"I object." - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -FOR "OLD GLORY" AND AN--APPROPRIATION - - -In 1891 Congress passed the Postal Subsidy law for paying a higher than -the market rate of compensation to capitalists who would carry the -mails in vessels built in America, of American materials, and manned by -Americans. No contracts were made by the Post-office Department under -the law for the mails between Europe and America, for there were no -such capitalists and no such boats in that quarter. - -In May of the next year, 1892, a bill was whizzed through Congress -almost without debate, in which the forms of the principal -beneficiaries-to-be of the law of 1891 loomed into view. The subsidy -law gave its bonus only to vessels that could fly the American -flag because American built and manned. This new act exempted from -these conditions the two principal steamers of the Inman, now -the International, line--the _City of New York_ and the _City of -Paris_--provided the company built two other steamers that fulfilled -the requirements of the subsidy law. The sequel disclosed that their -owners had a well-laid plan to build more than two other steamers to -get the rich rewards of the subsidy law. The steamers and the company -were not named. That was not needed. The bill was drawn with such -limitations as to size, speed, ownership, etc., that these were the -only two vessels which could come under its provisions. The bill was -introduced in the House by a prominent Democrat, and in the Senate by -a prominent Republican. It was passed by both Houses regardless of -party distinctions. The Secretary of the Navy urged the bill upon the -naval committees of Congress. He had begun to do so in his first report -to Congress and subsequent communications, in which he referred by -name to the vessels which were masked in this legislation. The head -of the line and other owners were members of the oil combination. -The president of the steamship company has been the president of the -pipe-line branch of the oil trust--its largest single interest--from -the time of its organization in 1881.[575] This exemption from the -law was engineered through the Senate by one who had hitherto always -been conspicuously strenuous in refusing to abate his opposition to -admitting to American registry any ship not built in America, of -American materials, by American labor, but who now had suffered some -sea change. - -Ordinary citizens who want to get the profits of carrying the American -mails must build their boats in American ship-yards; but the syndicate -got members of Congress to grant them by law that which all others must -earn. - -The enactment of the Postal Subsidy law and the exemption of these -steamers by special law were the first two parts of a progressive -programme. The third step was the negotiation of contracts with the -Postmaster-General for the prizes of subsidy. Immediately upon the -passage of this special legislation the Postmaster-General went through -the necessary but empty parade of advertising for bids for a service -for which there could be only one possible bidder. The awarding of -contracts to the steamship company so "fortunate in competing" was -announced in the press in October, 1892. - -The Postmaster-General dated the contracts 1895--three years ahead. -They run for ten years from that time. An iron-clad, or, better than -iron-clad, law-clad contract was thus secured, giving a complete -monopoly of the mail business between America and Europe until A.D. -1905, five years into the twentieth century. The legislation of May -contemplated the construction of two new boats. The contracts secured -from the Postmaster-General showed that the line intended to build -five, and obligated the government to pay subsidies to all of them, as -well as to the two foreign-built steamers given by special legislation -the right to fly the American flag. By these contracts the company, -after the completion of its new steamers in about three years, will -exclusively carry every bag of mail that leaves America for Europe. -Meanwhile the mails are to be given to its two steamers now running, -the _Paris_ and the _New York_, whenever they are in port. This has -been frequently done in the past on account of their speed, but the -compensation for this, under the law and the new contracts, has been -made much greater than the price hitherto paid. With but one or two -exceptions the mails on all the routes where subsidy is given--to South -America, Havana, China, Europe--were carried before the subsidy law -on the same ships as now. Except a very trifling saving in time, the -only change the law has made here is that the gains of the carriers -have been swelled at the cost of the taxpayers. The American shippers -carrying the mails at the regular weight rates were making a profit. -The Post-office, under the new deal, gets only what it has been -getting--the carriage of the mails; but the steamship company gets a -great deal more. This is the "pleasure of making it cheap" applied to -the postal service. - -By this procession of moves the company secured profitable contracts -ten years ahead on present ships, the _Paris_ and the _New -York_--although these had not yet done as much as fly the American -flag in compliance with the special legislation in their behalf--and -on future ships that were not yet built or contracted for. All was in -the future--the American registry for the _Paris_ and the _New York_, -the building of the new steamers required by the special legislation. -But one thing was got in hand, and was not in the future tense--the -contract with the American Post-office, binding it to pay millions a -year. The privileges conferred by this legislation were so valuable -that, as Senator Frye stated in debate, its recipients to gain them -were to forfeit $105,000 due them from the British Government. - -The American registry would be a capital advertisement to catch the -American tourist. Travelling, says Emerson, is a fool's paradise, and -the shifting population of that paradise would never stop to think -out the fraud in the appeal to their patriotism. Much was made in the -sentimental Senate of the privilege the law would give Americans of -going abroad in their own ships under their own flag. The press was -used shrewdly and widely to gain the favor of the public for these -incursions into their Treasury. Pages of advertising, in the dress -of news-matter, were put into prominent journals, telling in glowing -phrases what a great thing Congress, the Postmaster-General, and the -steamship company were doing for the people. The same editorial on -the promised restoration of American maritime supremacy would appear -as original in journals thousands of miles apart. As the panorama of -journalism moved along with its daily shift any observer could see the -methodical and business-like way in which the syndicate "inspired" -the press. Articles about the "great steamship line" appeared on -the same date in the papers of different cities, giving the same -facts in the same order, and nearly the same words, following "copy" -evidently supplied from a common source. One day these chimes all -sing the immeasurable superiority of Southampton over Liverpool as -a port for Americans; another day the unspeakable sagacity of the -Postmaster-General in giving this company the mails is the tune; and -again the ding-dong tells how, but for the syndicate and its subsidy, -the American flag--"Old Glory"--would be seen no more on the seas. The -average citizen who reads "his" paper is no doubt duly impressed. - -"Old Glory on the seas!" cried the excitable metropolitan editors. "The -dear old flag!" "America again Queen of the seas!" "A new era is about -to dawn on our long-neglected commerce!" Our long-absent flag is about -to reappear, but not, as in the old days, as the symbol of a people's -commerce. It signalizes the commerce of syndicates. The democratic idea -of a chance for all has been abandoned for the aristocratic idea of the -favored few. "Poor indeed in spirit must be the American," said the -New York _Tribune_, "who will not hail with satisfaction and pride the -early prospect of the reappearance of the flag in English, French, and -Belgian ports." Poor, fortunately, it was replied, are many Americans -in the spirit which taxes all the people out of an industry in which -they once led the world, and then taxes them to give that same industry -as an exclusive privilege to a syndicate--and such a syndicate! - -There was a rapturous chorus from the press because American materials -and American labor are to be employed in the construction and use of -the new vessels to be built for subsidies. When American labor was free -to employ itself and American materials with no subsidies, American -boats did absolutely the whole packet business between England and -America.[576] - -Now American seamanship must remain content to be employed to such -an extent and on such terms as may suit the interests of a few men, -under whose captainship the once glorious expansion of our commerce -on the seas is replaced by a system limited on every side. Limited by -the expensiveness of entering the occupation: a special bill has to -be passed through Congress in each case to confer the right to fly -the American flag on ships bought abroad, and for this the merely -legitimate expenses are heavy--trips to Washington, appearances before -committees and departments, with expert representatives. Limited by -their small number: instead of thousands building and running new -ships, a score. Limited by their capital: great, it is still much less -than the aggregate, if all had a chance. Limited by the narrowness of -view and enterprise inevitable with a few, however capable: everybody -knows more than anybody. Limited by the lack of diversity in opinion -and interests: with many men of many minds, of varying forecasts and -moods and gaits, the currents of industry are kept fuller and steadier -than is possible under a clique rule. Limited by selfishness: the -few will inevitably come to regard the ocean-carrying business as -"belonging to us," like oil, and with their crushing wealth will treat -as "black-mailers" intruders with new ships and new methods. Limited by -the impossibility the subsidy system imposes upon the average citizen -of competing against the government--against himself multiplied by -all his fellow-citizens. Limited by corruption: when this subsidy -bill was under discussion, Representative Blount, of Georgia,[577] -called attention to the methods by which previous legislation of the -same sort, "to build up the American merchant marine and increase the -commerce of the country," had been sought from Congress. Quoting from -the report made to Congress in 1874-75 by Representative Kasson, of -Iowa, he showed that the Pacific Mail Company, to get a subsidy, had -disbursed $703,000 among the members and officers of Congress and other -persons influential in legislation. "Yankee maritime enterprise," this -is called. The great captains, Bursley, Anthony, Delano, Dumaresq, -Comstock, Eldridge, Nye, Marshall, Holdredge, Morgan, and other sturdy -Americans who led the nautical world wherever speed, safety, and -courage were called for, outsailing competition even from the land -where "Blake and mighty Nelson fell"[578]--they had a manlier idea -of enterprise than being supported at the public expense in floating -poor-houses miscalled floating hotels. - -The few men who are the beneficiaries of taxes paid by the many will -be powerful and shrewd enough to get other dispensations or benefits, -post-office contracts, naval contracts, or modifications of the strict -terms of their agreement, and with this help from the taxpayer they can -do business at a figure which, though very remunerative to themselves, -will drive the unaided citizen competitor out of the business. Honest -citizens cannot ask for such favors. Poor men could not get them. - -It was the old spirit of rebate which sought and gave the preference. -Nothing could make such legislation respectable but the extension of -its benefits to all Americans owning such ships. But no such extension -was contemplated. The law gave a privilege not to the American flag, -but to the owners of the American flags of these two steamers. "There -is little probability," Senator Frye was reported as saying, December -22, 1892, in the New York _Tribune_, friendly to him and to the policy -of subsidy, "of the passage of any more laws giving the privilege of -an American registry to vessels upon the building of which no American -labor has been expended. The twin steamers _City of New York_ and _City -of Paris_ have set a fashion of which they will be the only exponents." - -There is a pool of the steamers between America and Europe called the -North Atlantic Steamship Association. At its meeting in December, -1892, this association discussed plans for reducing the number of -trips, increasing passenger rates, withdrawing excursion rates to -the World's Fair, and discontinuing the steerage traffic. This was -duly followed by the announcement in March, 1893, for which it was -presumably a preparation, that steerage traffic was renewed, but at -an increase of rates. Passenger rates of the higher class have also -been raised. Agreements to restrict the number of ships; pools to put -up rates; steamship wars to destroy competitors; the use of "pull" -to procure from the admiralty, sanitary, naval, immigration, and -other governmental bureaus, here and abroad, regulations ostensibly -for public convenience, really to make business, as nearly as can -be, impossible for others; lobbies to buy legislation for private -interests--all these may be expected to replace the magnificent and -manly rivalries of the days when the unbribed flag floated on its own -breath in every sea. - -Under the policy of subsidy--the policy of aristocracy, exclusion, -scarcity, corruption, war, and loss of liberty--the contest for -maritime and commercial supremacy becomes a contest between the subsidy -lobbies in Washington and at Westminster, Paris, and Berlin. If the -duke who is at the head of one of the great English steamship lines -obtains an increase of subsidy, the maritime dukes in America will -call on Congress not to shame itself by doing less for Americans than -Parliament has done for Englishmen. If all the English and American -lines pass under one ducal yoke--following the internationalization -of other syndicated businesses of Great Britain and America--one -hidden hand will manage for one purse the make-believe duel between -Parliament and Congress, while the uninitiated people glare across the -ocean at each other, and each inspired press calls on its government -not to allow its commercial supremacy to be destroyed by vulgar and -unpatriotic economy. In advocacy of subsidy--breeder of sea-dogs, -naval contractors, of war, and of treasury-suckled syndicates to fan -its flames--the Secretary of the Navy wrote to the Chairman of the -Senate Committee on Commerce in this case, "A fleet of such cruisers -would sweep an enemy's commerce from the ocean." All through the press, -from New York to Texas and the Pacific coast, every possible change of -phrase is rung to fire the American heart with "jingo" exhortations to -subsidize private steamers so as to increase our fighting kennel. - -The "American idea" is that individuals as well as corporations, poor -men as well as rich ones, small towns as well as large ones, one -maritime State as well as another, should be encouraged to follow the -sea. The old woman who thanked God, upon her first sight of the sea, -that at last she had seen something there was enough of, lived before -subsidies were invented and the sea shrank to be too small for all the -people. - -The contracts made with the International Company bind the -government to pay it $4.00 a mile for fifty-two trips a year (3162 -miles each) between New York and Southampton for the ten years -(1895-1905)--$657,696 a year, and $6,576,960 for the ten years; and the -same rate a mile for the same number of trips a year (of 3350 miles -each) between New York and Antwerp for ten years--$696,800 a year, and -$6,968,000 for the ten years. This makes an income from the mails alone -of $1,354,496 a year on the not-to-exceed $10,000,000 which the company -will have invested. At the end of the ten years it will have received -from these government contracts alone its whole investment, and more -than one-third in addition. The American taxpayer will receive for his -share the profit and pleasure of being forbidden to send his letters -to Europe by faster and cheaper boats, when these appear, as they have -already begun to do. The trial trips of new steamers of other lines -show them to be faster than the vessels we have bound ourselves to. -"The American principle" used to be to send all mails by the fastest -ships. Now, to develop the "American merchant marine," we relieve it -from all necessity of competing in speed, or anything else, with the -foreign marine. - -With such legislation and contracts in hand, any syndicate could -go to the banks and borrow at the lowest rates every cent of the -millions it needed to carry out its plans. It need not invest a dollar -of its own. Good enough "collateral" for borrowing would be this -privilege--practically a capital of millions got from the government -for nothing. Done for favored citizens, this is "the development of our -national resources"; done for the whole people, it would be "socialism" -or something more dreadful. Thus guaranteed dividends by the forced -contributions of the American people, this company, if threatened with -competition by other lines, old or new, can lower freights and fares -to rates at which others cannot live. The subsidies are a reserve fund -on which it can subsist while doing other business below cost. The -vision of this will deter other capitalists from building vessels, as -they have been frightened out of building tank-cars. The company can, -by a war of rates, force the sale to it of such vessels as it wants -out of the present Atlantic fleet. The scheme, which has progressed -so smoothly through the various stages of the Postal Subsidy law--the -exemption by special legislation of the two steamers from their foreign -disabilities, the negotiation of the contracts for subsidies until A.D. -1905 for steamers yet unborn--is an entering wedge, the broad end of -which may easily grow to be a monopoly of the transatlantic--and why -not transpacific?--traffic and travel. - -And in future legislation, tariffs, and contracts, what bulwark -of the people would avail against the Washington lobby of these -combined syndicates of oil, natural gas, illuminating gas, coal, -lead, linseed-oil, railroads, street-railroads, banks, ocean and -lake steamships and whalebacks, iron and copper mines, steel mills, -etc.? These beggars on horseback--the poor we will always have with -us as long as we give such alms--are forever at the elbows of the -secretaries, representatives, senators. The people who pay are at work -in their fields, out of sight, scattered over thousands of miles. - -Having evaded, by the complaisance of Congress, the requirements of -the subsidy law in the case of its two non-American steamers, the -company sought to be relieved by the Secretary of the Treasury from the -necessity of manning its boats with Americans, as stipulated by the -law. It was unwilling to sacrifice the foreign captains in its employ, -as the despatches said, "for the untried men of American citizenship," -regardless that one of the strongest promises of the subsidy givers -and takers was to recall to the sea the American citizenship banished -thence. The company had already driven its foreign-built boats through -the law, why not its foreign captains? It applied to the Treasury -Department for permission to retain them. To furnish a ground for such -a ruling, the foreign captains had given notice of their "intention" -to become citizens. They could not become citizens for five years, and -the courts hold that such a declaration does not meet the requirements -of the law that the officers of United States vessels shall be citizens -of the United States. The ruling asked for was refused by Assistant -Secretary of the Treasury Nettleton. The question was not dropped. -Some months later (December 2, 1892) the Washington despatches of -the Philadelphia _Ledger_ and the New York _Herald_ reported that -"Secretary Foster of the Treasury is disposed to accede to the wishes -of the company, if it can possibly be done within the law," and in the -New York _Tribune_ we read that "he is inclined to the view that an -exception might safely be made in this case." - -The raising of the American flag on these steamers--one at New York -and the other at Southampton--in the spring of 1893, was made a state -ceremony in both countries. The President of the United States came on -specially from the capital to honor the occasion, though this had never -been done before when the American flag was raised on vessels admitted -to foreign registry. The American minister left the embassy at London -to officiate at Southampton. The vessels were announced to be under -American captains transferred from other ships owned by the same men. -But the Society of American Marine Engineers and the Brotherhood of -Steamboat Pilots discovered that other officers--the foreign engineers -of the vessels--had been retained, though they were foreigners. The -former began an agitation for the protection of their legal rights. -Remonstrances from every important branch of the two societies from San -Francisco to New York were forwarded to the President of the United -States and the Secretary of the Treasury of the new administration -which had just gone into office. Counsel were employed to present -their case. It was found that one of the last official acts of the -out-going Secretary of the Treasury had been the order authorizing the -issue of licenses to foreign engineers. Attempts to procure a copy -of this order from the department have failed. Engineers have always -been considered to be officers. If they are such, this exemption was -a violation of the statutes of the United States which require that -officers shall be American. It reversed all the decisions which hold -that declaration of an intention to become a citizen does not make one -legally a citizen, for that would give foreigners, as in this case, the -advantages of citizenship without its duties; and indefinitely, for the -intention might never be executed. The order of the Secretary makes a -precedent upon which foreign captains may be employed--the objection -being the same in either case--and their reappearance may therefore -be confidently looked for. The appropriation once got, "Old Glory" is -hauled down. - -An "American Seaman" wrote the New York _World_ that when he offered -himself for employment on the boat which had just replaced with so much -pomp the British flag with the American he was almost laughed at, and -was told there had been ninety men on board that morning on the same -errand. All got the same answer, "We don't want you. We employ all -our hands on the other side." The articles circulated throughout the -country to create public opinion in favor of these subsidies dwell much -on the "glory" and advantage of having Americans in command of these -vessels with a full American force under them. But the subsidy secured, -we see these American vessels, which may be called upon to take part in -a war with Great Britain, are manned by British engineers and British -seamen. The lower compensation they are accustomed to will help keep -down the cost of manning the other vessels to be built for the line. - -The secretary by whom this was done was he who, as president of a -subordinate corporation of the oil combination, had been the commanding -officer at the front in the great battle with Toledo.[579] When he -was nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Payne made -himself conspicuous by soliciting support among the Democrats for the -confirmation of this Republican. "He could not be chosen to the Toledo -Council from any ward to-day," said the New York _Times_, February -23, 1891, "so bitter is the feeling against him," and the same paper -declared that his defeat in Ohio as a candidate for Congress in 1890 -was entirely due to his connection with the oil combination. But though -of so little political power that he could not command a majority of -the votes in his own Congressional district, there was influence behind -him which could get the head of his party and the government to put -him in the seat illustrious with the memory of such men as Alexander -Hamilton and Salmon P. Chase. "The objection to Governor Foster as -Secretary of the Treasury, that he was an associate in business of the -members of the great oil trust," said the New York _Press_, "President -Harrison did not regard as serious enough to have any weight." It -was pointed out by the Buffalo _Courier_ editorially, February 23, -1891, and other papers, that the oil trust, which Mr. Foster had been -serving, "is not only a heavy exporter but a heavy importer, especially -of tin plate, and is an extensive claimant for rebates of duty on the -tin of cans in which oil is exported." - -An item of Associated Press news in December, 1892, says that the -Secretary of the Treasury has just decided that the oil combination -shall be paid by the Treasury a drawback of the duties it has paid on -imported steel hoops for barrels in which it exports oil. "It isn't -pleasant," said the New York _World_, editorially, February 23, 1891, -"to have a Secretary of the Treasury who holds intimate relations -with the oil trust." It is through the Secretary of the Treasury -that the company receives the mail subsidies of millions a year. All -the statistics and official publications with regard to the "decline -of American shipping" and "foreign competition with American oil," -and about the tariff, as on oil, coal, steel, tin, etc., and many -other financial and commercial matters of pecuniary concern to them, -are under the charge of the Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury -Department's Commissioner of Navigation, in 1892, sends circulars to -the boards of trade and chambers of commerce all over the country, -calling attention to the small amount of money paid by our government -to American steamers for the mails, and advocating the establishment of -a merchant marine and naval reserve on the principle adopted by Great -Britain--_i.e._, the payment of subsidies. - -When Senator Hoar, speaking of the oil combination in the debate on -the Payne case,[580] asked, sharply: "Is it represented in the Cabinet -at this moment?" he referred to the Secretary of the Navy. Subsidy had -not then insinuated itself into the policy of the government; but when -that came, the uses of a Secretary of the Navy were clear enough. It -was by the influence of the Secretary of the Navy that the subsidies -for these steamships of the oil trust were got through Congress. It -is the Secretary of the Navy who passes upon the speed of the ships -receiving subsidies; and his findings are binding upon the Post-office -Department which awards the contracts and upon the Treasury Department -which pays. In the rush of the closing hours of the session of 1889-90 -of the Fifty-first Congress, upon the urgent recommendation, made in -person to the Naval Committee, of the same Secretary of the Navy who -had pushed through the subsidy special legislation we have described, -$1,000,000 was appropriated for the purchase of nickel ore. It is an -emergency, said the senator who spoke for the Naval Committee to the -Senate. The nickel was to be bought by the Secretary of the Navy; when -and where was at his discretion. The ore was to be used for alloying -steel in the manufacture of armor plate. The same Congress took off the -duty of hundreds of dollars a ton on nickel imported. The only nickel -mine of importance in America was then at Sudbury, Canada. In pressing -the appropriation through Congress it was stated that the mine, like -the steamship company subsidized later, was owned by "our citizens." -After investigation in Cleveland, New York, Washington, and Canada, the -_Daily News_ of Chicago declared that the appropriation of $1,000,000 -and the abolition of the duty were done in the interest of members of -the oil combination; that they were "our citizens" who were the owners -of the nickel mine at Sudbury; that they had sent an able lobbyist to -Washington to secure the legislation; and that, in anticipation of his -success, the product of the mine had been withheld for a year from -the market, until ore to the value of millions had accumulated. It -was said that by April 1, 1890, there were 5000 tons on the dump, the -duty on which, at the old rate, would have been $1,500,000. Whether -these statements were correct or not--and in the absence of official -investigation it is impossible to tell--the narrative answers fully -the purpose of giving the uninitiated public an idea of the relations -that may exist between public departments and private syndicates with -great profit--but not to the department. The appropriation was passed -September 29, 1890. The books of the Navy Department show that the -Secretary thereupon made contracts with the Canadian Copper Company, by -which, up to June 15th following, it sold the government $321,321.86 -worth of nickel. A litigation arising among its stockholders in the -spring of 1893 disclosed among them no less close a connection of the -oil trust than the senator from Ohio who had served it in Congress from -1876 to 1891. - -The message of a Republican President in 1892 commended the special -legislation in favor of the two steamers, and urged Congress not to -fail to appropriate money to pay them their subsidies. The Democratic -Postmaster-General, who now stands between the United States and these -carriers of the foreign mails, is one of the firm of distinguished -counsel who defended the interests of some of the owners of this -steamship line in the conspiracy trial at Buffalo.[581] He is to -give them the vouchers upon which the millions a year of subsidies -are to be paid, and he may be called upon to consider new contracts. -In the Presidential campaign of 1892 the head of the oil trust was -prominent on one side figuring among the officers of great political -mass-meetings in New York, while the associate referred to by Senator -Hoar was the active manager of the political fortunes of the other -party. This is not a solitary instance. The great man who testified -twenty-one years ago that he was a Republican in Republican districts, -a Democrat in Democratic districts, but everywhere an Erie man, has now -an army of imitators. The people had this authoritatively explained to -them while they were dazedly watching the speculation in sugar-trust -stock in Wall Street and the Senate rise and fall with the manipulation -of the sugar tariff in committee. The president of the sugar-trust, -before a special committee of the United States Senate, testified -that this "politics of business" was the custom of "every individual -and corporation and firm, trust, or whatever you call it."[582] Asked -if he contributed to the State campaign funds, he said: "We always -do that.... In the State of New York, where the Democratic majority -is between 40,000 and 50,000, we throw it their way. In the State of -Massachusetts, where the Republican party is doubtful, they probably -have the call.... Wherever there is a dominant party, wherever the -majority is very large, that is the party that gets the contribution, -because that is the party which controls the local matters"--which -include the elections to Congress and the Presidential election.[583] -Federal judges find the sugar trust not subject to the anti-trust -law.[584] The Attorney-General has not got decisions in the suits -against it for refusal to answer Census questions. Congress forces -the people to buy sugar of it only, and at its price. The Secretary -of the Treasury drafts for a committee of Congress a tariff like that -the trust needs. Our President is the head of the "dominant party that -gets the contribution," and he joins the sugar lobby by recommending, -unofficially, legislation in its favor.[585] - -By what law gives it, and by what law does not take from it, the sugar -trust can issue $85,000,000 of securities on $10,000,000 of property, -and collect $28,000,000[586] a year of profits. Control of government, -with its Presidents, Congress, Federal Judges, Attorney-Generals, -and Cabinet Secretaries, would be a great prize. Probably none of -the trust's "raw material" would be so cheaply bought as this if it -could be purchased by campaign contributions of a few hundred thousand -dollars. In an interview in the New York _Herald_ of March 25, 1894, -the debonair president of the trust, to shame the objections of -picayune souls, cries, "Who cares for a quarter of a cent a pound?" The -answer is not far to seek. He does. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - -"THE COMMODITY IS NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE" - - --_Lord Coke._ - - -Three hundred years ago Lord Coke, in the "Case of the -Monopolies,"[587] declared these to be the inevitable result of -monopoly: the price of the commodity will be raised; the commodity is -not so good as before; it tends to the impoverishment of artisans, -artificers, and others. - -In 1878 and 1879, when railway presidents were saying "No" to every -application of the few remaining independents for passage along the -road to market,[588] and the oil combination was supreme from the -well to the lamp, a concerted protest was made against its oil by -commercial bodies representing trade all over Europe. An international -congress was held specially to consider means for the protection of the -European consumer, by the interposition of the governments of Europe -and America, or by commercial measures. In the archives of the State -Department at Washington are the documents in which this episode can be -read.[589] At this moment of triumph over all rivals, "even what was -classed as superior brands was a poor article."[590] The English trade -met in London, in January, 1879, and remonstrated. One of the delegates -stated that a small dealer who bought of him had written, threatening -to commit suicide on account of the trouble this poor oil was giving -him.[591] The American consul at Antwerp, under date of February 19, -1879, called the attention of the State Department to the congress -about to be held to consider the serious complaints which had been made -of late against American refined petroleums. He gave the warning that -unless there was an improvement the Belgian government would interfere -for the protection of the people with regulations which would greatly -embarrass the export trade from America. A bill was introduced into the -German Reichstag to protect the people of Germany against the flood of -bad oil from America. Against those dealing in oil dangerous to human -safety it provided penalties from fines to loss of citizenship and -penal servitude. - -At the congress which met at Bremen in February were represented all -the European nations of any importance except France, which imports -only crude, and does all its refining at home. It was an indignation -meeting. The consul at Bremen wrote the State Department, under date -of February 27, 1879, an account of it. It was "very important," -he said. "Delegates were present from the chambers of commerce of -Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Breslau, Christiania, Copenhagen, Danzig, -Frankfort-on-Main, Hamburg, Koenigsberg, Lubeck, Mannheim, Nuernberg, -Rostock, Rotterdam, Stettin, Trieste, Moscow, and Vienna." - -The "united refiners," to explain away the faults of their oil, sent -a representative to the congress who was one of the inspectors of the -State of New York, in the pay of the people, but using his official -prestige in behalf of a private interest. The consul at Bremen names -the two chief points made in the defence: First, that the refined oil -was bad because half the crude then produced in America was from the -Bradford field, "and is so different in quality from the so-called -Parker oil that the same quality of refined oil cannot be made--at -any rate, by the ordinary processes hitherto in use." Second, that -the wicks in common use were poor. That the inferior quality of the -Bradford oil was not the real reason was proved by the fact that -the refined oil manufactured and exported by the refineries of the -combination from the crude of the other fields deteriorated at the same -time and as much.[592] The Bremen congress knew this. It was at this -precise moment--though this the Bremen congress did not know--that the -combination was tying up a great inventor and hauling his apparatus to -the junk-yard to prevent the test of a new method for making better -and cheaper oil.[593] Its members would have had the benefit of it if -successful, but with the spirit which men who seek exclusive control -always exhibit, they did not want to change. - -The congress declined to treat with any respect the excuses that were -offered. It declared "that the complaints regarding the inferior -quality of much of the petroleum recently received from America, and -especially of the different brands of the" oil combination, were "fully -justified." It consequently demanded from the American refiners, and -especially from the oil combination, "First, that they give greater -care to the refining of crude oil than they have recently done, in -order that the petroleum may in the future be again as free as it -formerly was from acids and heavy oils, that inferior qualities may no -longer be shipped to Europe, and that the consumer may again receive -the former customary good quality." - -The superiority of its barrels was specially mentioned by the head -of the oil combination to explain why all competitors failed. "All -its advantages," he said in court in Cleveland, "are legitimate -business advantages, due to the very large volume of supplies which -it purchases, its long continuance in the business, the experience it -has thereby acquired, the knowledge of all the avenues of trade, the -skill of experienced employes, the possession and use of all the latest -and most valuable mechanical improvements, appliances, and processes -for the distillation of crude oil, and in the manufacture of its own -barrels, glue, etc., by reason of which it is enabled to put the oil on -the market at a cost of manufacture much less than by others not having -equal advantages." But the Bremen congress made a special attack on the -"barrels" and "glue." It complained that "the continental petroleum -trade has suffered heavy losses on account of inferior barrels," -and demanded that the oil combination should "only use barrels of -well-seasoned, air-dried, split (not sawed) white oak staves and -heads." It even particularized that the barrels should be "painted with -blue linseed-oil paint, and supplied with double, strong head-hoops," -and "more carefully glued, and not filled until the glue is thoroughly -dry." - -"They were substantially without competition," was said in explanation -of the poor quality of the product sent to Europe, and also "to all -parts of this country. The quality of the oil which they sent was not -a matter of first-class importance for them to retain their business." -It was "a negligence which came in a great measure from the absence of -competition." This witness was asked by the lawyer of the combination -if he meant the committee to understand that it "was committing suicide -by furnishing a continuously deteriorating article of oil to the -consumer." - -"They were not committing suicide, because they had the business in -their own hands almost exclusively at that time."[594] - -This was in 1879, and the complaints of the quality of American oil -sent abroad continue to this day. Export oil, the Interstate Commerce -Commission say, in 1892, "is an inferior oil."[595] - -One of the means by which a market was found for American oil in -Scotland was the lowering of the British requirements in 1879 as to -quality, from a flash-test of 100 deg. to one of 73 deg., so that the more -explosive American oil, until then debarred, could be legally sold -to the people of Great Britain. The oil made in Scotland was "a very -superior article--very good indeed."[596] There were two ways of -getting the market: to meet the Scotch manufacturer with as good an -oil, or to induce the government to permit the sale of something -inferior. The latter policy was adopted. The government was induced -to permit the sale to private consumers of oil that would give off -an inflammable gas at a temperature of 73 deg.--a lower temperature than -often exists in living-rooms. Meanwhile the government continued to -insist upon oil that would stand a test of 105 deg. for its own use in the -navy and 145 deg. in its light-houses. The absurdity of this legal test -was proved by Mr. T. Graham Young, son of Mr. James Young, founder of -the Scotch oil industry, in a letter to the Glasgow _Herald_ of May -12, 1894. He showed by the records that the year before there had been -sixty days in London in which the temperature had gone above 73 deg.. The -government, that is, gave its sanction to the sale of oil which might -explode at a heat below that ordinarily reached in an English summer! -Commenting on the strange fact that the Scotch oil companies did not -move against the change of test which had put them and the British -consumer at the mercy of this explosive American oil, Mr. Young said: -"It is generally understood that they are precluded from doing so by an -agreement with the foreign producers. I hold a letter from one of the -interested parties ... stating that for the above reason he could not -discuss the matter." In discussing this matter, the Glasgow _Herald_ -notes that even patient and poverty-struck India complains of the "very -poor quality" of the oil sent there. - -The Scotch papers are continually printing indignant comments on this -action of the British government, and wondering inquiries as to the -influence by which so injurious a change in the regulations for public -protection could have been effected. The Scotch manufacturers are -continually agitating to have the coroners in England and Ireland, and -the procurators-fiscal in Scotland, make particular inquiry in all -cases of fatal lamp explosions into the flash-point of the oil and its -origin--whether American or Scotch. At the December, 1892, meeting of -the Society of Chemical Industry of Great Britain it was declared that -about three hundred deaths a year occurred in England and Wales from -lamp accidents, due to the explosiveness of the American oil sold -under this reduction of the test. - -The agitation against this dangerous oil has been increasing in Great -Britain year by year. The subject has been investigated by the Glasgow -Chamber of Commerce, which found that many serious accidents to life -and property had resulted from the use of this oil, and at its meeting -of May 14, 1894, the chamber voted to petition the government to raise -the test again to 100 deg.. The Manchester and Edinburgh chambers of -commerce took similar action. A number of other bodies have taken the -subject up, and the government has had to promise to make an inquiry. - -The statistics show that last year nearly one in five (19.3 per cent.) -of the fires in London and more than one in eight (13.24 per cent.) -of the fires in Liverpool came from kerosene. The oil used in those -cities is principally the cheap American article sold under the lowered -test of the English law. But in Glasgow, where most of the oil burned -is that of the Scotch manufacturers, who, by agreement, sell no lower -quality than 100 deg. test, the number of fires from kerosene is less than -two in a hundred (1.7 per cent.). At a meeting of representatives of -the leading insurance companies of Edinburgh and Glasgow, June 20, -1894, experiments were made with the American, Russian, and Scotch -oils. The American was found to be the most explosive, and some of -it flashed at 69 deg.. A lighted match thrown into this oil heated to -88 deg. started an instantaneous blaze; thrown into Scotch oil it was -extinguished. Experts testified that the cost of making the oil safe -would be about a farthing a gallon, and that if the Americans, whose -"self-interest" and "private enterprise" are not equal to a voluntary -effort, were compelled by law to furnish a better illuminant, their -profits would be greater, not less. - -A rich field for investigation is concealed beneath the elaborate -system of State inspection, by which the people have sought to protect -themselves from being tempted by deceptive prices to buy a sure death. -We have seen in several places how the State inspectors are in the -employ, at the same time, of the State and the seller, whom it is -their duty to watch for the State.[597] Evidence abounds at every turn -of the use of inspectors and inspection laws to embarrass and even -suppress the smaller refiners. One of the latest instances is a new -law in Tennessee, which puts special difficulties in the way of oil -reaching the State by river, the avenue to which independent refiners -are forced by the discriminations of the railroad. We saw an inspector -of the State of New York appear at the Bremen congress as the avowed -representative of the "united refineries," complaints of whose bad oils -occasioned the congress. - -By one of those coincidences in which the world of cause and effect -abounds, the Fire Marshal of Boston, in the same year in which Joshua -Merrill described his fruitless efforts to continue the manufacture of -a first-class oil,[598] found it necessary to warn the people against -the dangerous stuff they were burning in their lamps. In his report in -1888 he called attention to the fact that one-tenth, nearly, of all the -fires in Boston the preceding year had been caused by the explosion of -kerosene or by its accidental combustion. He got samples of the oil -used in a number of the places where fires had occurred from explosion, -and had them analyzed by professors of the Institute of Technology in -Boston and of the School of Mines of Columbia College in New York. They -found them to be below the quality required by the State. Singularly -enough, one of the State oil inspectors, examining similar samples, -declared them to be above the standard of the State. The Boston -_Herald_, discussing the matter, pointed out that the oil inspectors -were paid by the owner of the oil. This, it said, placed inspectors -practically under the oil combination, which has ways, it continued, of -making things unpleasant for inspectors who make reports unsatisfactory -to it. The fire marshal's conclusion in all the cases he investigated -of these fires by explosion was: "I have felt warranted in every -instance in attributing the blame to the inferior quality of kerosene -used."[599] - -The European protest of 1879 followed close upon the success of the -comprehensive campaign of 1878[600] "to overcome competition." The -warning from the Fire Marshal of Boston in 1888 and the success of the -movement, begun in 1885,[601] to shut the independents of Oil City and -Titusville out of Boston and New England came close together. These are -not coincidences merely. They are cause and effect. - -It is known that a practice has grown up among the oil inspectors -of the States of allowing certain refiners to brand their own oil -as they please, or letting it go to market unbranded. This permits -the sale of unbranded and therefore illicit and presumably dangerous -oil. Charges that inspectors in Iowa loaned their stencils to the oil -combination to do its own branding were made formally in writing, in -1890, by one of the deputy inspectors, in the form required by law, -to the governor of the State. The law provides that charges so made -shall be investigated by the governor. No investigation was made, -but the inspector was removed just as he was about to lay before a -grand-jury documentary evidence of this and other violations of the -law. This inspector declared publicly that inspectors were in the -habit of leaving their official stencils with companies in the oil -combination, and allowing them to put any brand they chose on any oil. -He refused to continue this practice, nor would he brand barrels until -they were filled. The representative of the combination in that State -used every device except force, the inspector says, to induce him to -conform to the practice. "Don't you know," this representative said, -"that if you leave us your brand and get into trouble you will have -the oil combination back of you? You will be taken care of." In his -formal complaint to the governor, this inspector declared that this -representative said in substance to him: "You are the only fool among -the inspectors. We have the stencils of the inspectors at every other -point where we want them." - -The law put upon the governor the duty to investigate upon receiving -written complaint. But when written complaint was formally made, and -that not by an ordinary citizen, but by one of the sworn officials of -the State, the governor demanded that the inspector back up his charges -with the affidavits of witnesses--that is, the governor demanded that -the inspector, who had no power, should make the investigation. This -put an end to the whole matter. The inspector could not make the -investigation, and the governor would not. The same governor refused -to allow the written charges to be seen, although they are public -documents, and they remained invisible as long as he held office. -Only a few weeks after the removal of this inspector, the State oil -inspector was sued for heavy damages by the owner of a barn which had -been burned down through the explosion of bad oil. The ground of the -suit was that the inspector, having failed to inspect and condemn this -oil, as he should have done, was liable on his bond to the State. The -press of Iowa commented freely on the probable connection between -destructive fires, like this one, and the custom of allowing the oil -ring to inspect itself, by which it was given the opportunity to put -inferior and dangerous oils on the market with the brand of the State -on them as good. As far as the case has been carried, up to date, the -Iowa courts have sustained the claim and held the inspector in damages. - -That which is an uninvestigated charge in Iowa is an officially -ascertained fact in Minnesota. The demonstration in the latter case -amounts practically to confirmation for the former, since the parties -in interest, the motive, and the opportunity are identical. An -investigation was made of the conduct of the State oil inspector by the -Committee on Illuminating Oils of the Minnesota Senate, in 1891. The -committee say in their report, which was adopted by the Senate: - -"The testimony further shows that stencils were left with different -oil companies by the State inspector or his deputy, by which the -companies caused their barrels containing oil to be branded by their -own employes, without the supervision of any State official. It appears -that after the arrangement for the payment of the inspectors' and -deputies' salaries by the oil companies was made, the attitude of the -inspector towards his duties may be summed up in a few words of his -testimony: 'I am under no obligation to the State of Minnesota. The -Standard Oil Company paid me.'"[602] - -The methods covered by the general phrases of the Minnesota Senate -Committee were described in detail by a "commissioner" of the Omaha -_Daily Bee_, which found the same things being done in Nebraska. The -_Bee_ in 1891 made an elaborate investigation of the manner in which -the oil inspection of Nebraska was executed. Its reporter passed -incognito by the guardians of the portals of the warehouse of companies -belonging to the oil trust in Omaha, and stood by while barrels were -filled with uninspected oil and loaded on the cars for shipment to -various points. That the people who bought the oil might know their -lives were safe, each barrel bore the brand of approval provided by -law, as follows: - - Approved. Flash Test 105 deg. - - ........................... - _State Inspector of Nebraska_. - - By ........................ - _Deputy_. - -But there was no inspector present, and the barrels were all branded -beforehand and while empty, in defiance of the law and public safety. -The reporter stayed until the cars were loaded, the doors closed, -and saw the trains pull out. It is from this warehouse that the -greater part of the barrelled oil consumed in Nebraska is forwarded. -At the warehouse of the same company in Nebraska City the reporter -found the same thing going on, and there, too, he found the official -stencil-plates of several of the State oil inspectors lying at hand -on the tanks, waiting to be used at the pleasure of the employes of -the company to brand the desired government guarantee on any oil, -regardless of what it was. The Illinois _State Journal_ found the same -practice permitted in Springfield by the oil inspector in February, -1894. The _Bee_ reporter describes how tanks, once branded, came and -went, were filled and emptied and filled again for months, with no -inspection of the oil in them. Often the tanks were not even branded. - -The Omaha _Daily Bee_ of November 24, 1891, gives a careful analysis -of the recently amended inspection law of Nebraska. It shows that in -many important points the law has been changed so as to put the safety -of the people in the power of the combination which supplies almost -all the oil used in the State. The standard required has been lowered. -The liability to a charge of manslaughter for death resulting from bad -oil has been changed to a liability for damages. The method of making -the tests has been changed for the worse. No provision has been made -for the protection of travellers by the inspection of oil used by -the railroads, although accidents and serious ones, from the use of -dangerous oil were frequent in the trains and at stations.[603] The -_Bee_ said editorially of the oil combination that it had "managed, by -its shrewdness in enacting this law, to make Nebraska the refuse tank -for its rejected Eastern oil, and at the same time to crowd out of the -State about all opposition." By means of this lowering of the test, oil -that was too poor to pass in Iowa could be sent on to Nebraska and sold -there. The _Bee_ gives instances where this was done. - -The _Bee_ continued its investigations in 1893. It declared, December -5, 1893, that the inspection law, imperfect at best, was "being still -further annulled by the open defiance of the leading oil companies." It -declared "the leading violator" to be one of the principal companies -in the oil combination. In a later issue the _Bee_ printed the result -of tests made for it of oils purchased in the principal towns of -the State. In almost every such case these showed that oils which -were below the test were being sold to the people as good under the -guarantee of the State. Some of them were "as safe for household use as -dynamite," the _Bee_ stated. It said editorially, December 15, 1893, -that it had in its possession a letter from the secretary of the Iowa -State Board of Health affirming that oil condemned by the State of Iowa -is shipped to Nebraska. The oil inspector of the State made a vigorous -denial, but the _Bee_ refused to withdraw its statements. Its tests, -it said, had been made by competent chemists. A suit is now pending -in San Francisco, brought by the New Zealand Fire Insurance Company -against the oil combination. It is charged that it sold low-test oil, -that its inflammability caused fire and destruction of a dwelling -insured by the insurance company, which was compelled to pay the loss. -Some power, certainly not originating among the people, has for years, -in States where the inspection laws required a high quality of oil, -been at work procuring a reduction of the test. In some cases this -has been accomplished only after persistent lobbying for years, as in -Michigan. The test in Michigan has been lowered by legislation, as -in Nebraska, and with similar results. The reports of the Michigan -State Board of Health show that as the standard was lowered, fires and -deaths from explosions increased. The Detroit _Tribune_ of December 27, -1891, says that the reduction of the test in Michigan and Nebraska is -due to the avarice of the producers (refiners) and nothing less than -criminal carelessness of the legislators. The dangerous constituents of -petroleum, such as naphtha and gasolene, are indistinguishable by the -eye of the buyer from kerosene. They can be as easily mixed with it as -hot and warm water with cold. These reductions of the test in various -States permit mixtures more hazardous than dynamite to be sold to the -people, lulled into reliance upon the State inspectors. "The advantage -to the oil company," says the Detroit (Michigan) _Times_ of April 30, -1891, "is obvious. Naphtha and gasolene are worth, perhaps, three cents -a gallon. Kerosene is worth three times as much. A test which allows -one quart of kerosene and three quarts of gasolene to constitute a -gallon of merchantable illuminating oil will enable a few more colleges -to be endowed, though increasing the death-roll in a notable degree." - -One of the demands of those who are conducting the agitation, noticed -elsewhere, for the admission of American oils free into Canada is -that the standard of Canadian oil inspection be lowered. This, says -the Hamilton (Ontario) _Spectator_, will open the Canadian market to -the low-test and dangerous oils made by the American combination, and -"restore the old order of lamp explosions, with the consequent loss of -life and property." - -An unwritten chapter of this story is the experience of the Ohio -oil producers, and the use of the inferior oil of the Ohio field to -adulterate oils made from Pennsylvania petroleums. - -Lord Coke's dictum about the decrease of quality never had a more -spectacular illustration than was given at Oil City and Titusville -on Sunday, June 5, 1892. Oil Creek was high with rains. A dam burst -and made the creek a flood. Its waters ate away the insufficient -foundations of tanks, and rivers of naphtha and gasolene and kerosene -overran the river of water for miles. A spark did the rest. Oil -refineries took fire, tanks exploded. There were two raging seas--water -beneath, fire above. Men, women, children, animals, property were -swept along in their intermingled waves. From every overturned tank -and blazing refinery fresh streams of oil flowed into the sea of -flame, which climbed the hills for the victims the other sea could not -reach. Those who escaped drowning breathed in a more dreadful death. -It was a volcano and deluge in one. It was one of the most terrible -catastrophes of our times. Even the scare-heads of the newspapers could -not exaggerate its horrors. The governor of the State made a public -appeal for help. The coroner's jury held an inquest at Oil City upon -fifty-five bodies at one sitting. It declared the cause of the calamity -to have been the gross carelessness of the owners and custodians of a -tank of naphtha, in permitting it, while filled with 15,000 barrels of -naphtha, to stand without proper protection from fire and water. The -tank was shown, by the testimony, to have stood on sand within a few -feet of the creek and without safeguard. It was shown that complaints -had been made to the managers of the refinery, which was one of the -subsidiary companies of the oil trust, about this tank and others -before the disaster, but without avail. The coroner's jury laid the -blame where it belonged--upon the company whose tank gave way. Its -verdict said: "The naphtha which caused this awful destruction of life -and property ... was stored in a tank located on the bank of Oil Creek, -on the Cornplanter Farm, near McClintockville, where it was built about -four years previous to this time. At the time of its construction the -tank was from twenty to thirty feet from ordinary high-water mark in -the creek, but this distance has been gradually reduced by the action -of the water prior to this flood to between six and ten feet, and -this flood further washed away the ground up to and under the tank, a -distance of from fifteen to twenty feet. A part of the tank bottom, -thus being left without support, tore out, allowing the naphtha to -escape into the creek. The evidence of the watchman, James Marsh, -shows that he realized danger from the undermining of the tank, for he -made a feeble effort previous to this flood to protect it by throwing -loose stones between the tank and the creek. The jury find from the -evidence that all persons owning and having in custody this tank and -its contents were guilty of gross carelessness in permitting it, while -filled with naphtha, to stand without proper protection from fire and -water." - -The company which owned this tank belonged to the oil combination. -It was, strange to say, one of the tanks of the Keystone refinery, -to which Matthews, the Buffalo independent, had turned for a supply -of crude oil when all other sources failed,[604] and which had been -thereupon bankrupted and taken into the combination seven years before. -Here was one fruit of that victory over competition. The coroner's -jury at Titusville reprobated in the strongest terms the folly of -storing oil in tanks within reach of high-water. It called upon -"citizens and officials, ... for the common good of all," to do what it -said was "entirely practicable: to so locate and guard and construct -oil-tanks and other receptacles of inflammable petroleum products that -they cannot be floated away, or the contents floated out of them by -water," and that "in case of flood and fire lives and private property -cannot be endangered by them." Although here and all over the oil -regions the business was under the control of one combination, and -had been so since early in the seventies, the Titusville jury, less -courageous than that of Oil City, declared that it could "attach no -blame to any one in particular for the present loss of life," because -this "custom of storing and manufacturing oil and its products, -regardless of endangering the lives and property of others, had been -allowed to grow up here as well as all over the oil regions." These -verdicts have been followed by suits now pending in the Pennsylvania -courts, claiming heavy damages from the oil combination as responsible -for the disaster and the loss of life and property. - -The Oil City and Titusville disaster is but a provincial affair -compared with the metropolitan avalanche of ruin which is all ready -to move upon the cities on New York Bay from the refineries and tanks -along its shores. Several condensed oceans of unignited fire are -waiting for such accident as happens almost every day to some gas-works -or refinery or tank-car. On creeks running into the East River, on bays -opening from the New Jersey shore into the greater bay, in tanks whose -contents would overlay the whole sheet of water from the Narrows to -Hell Gate and Spuyten Duyvil, these volcanoes are dozing, and they are -light sleepers. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - -"TO GET ALL WE CAN" - - -Are the combinations, trusts, syndicates of modern industry organized -scarcity or organized plenty? Dearness or cheapness? "They are doing -their work cheaper," said one of the oil combination of himself and his -associates, "than any rival organization can afford to do it, and that -is their policy, and by that only will they survive."[605] - -"We think our American petroleum is a very cheap light. It is our -pleasure to try to make it so," said its head.[606] - -"Our object has always been to reduce rates, and cheapen the product, -and increase its consumption by making the lowest price possible to the -consumer," said another.[607] - -Even if this were true-- But is it true? - -The then president of the United Pipe Lines of the oil combination, who -was also president of a subordinate corporation, was a witness in 1879 -in the suit brought by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His refinery, -he stated, did nothing but make the oil. "It is taken and sold by -another organization"--the oil combination. "We agree to take the same -prices that they take for their oil. It is kind of pooled--the sale of -the oil." The "agreement," he said, is "simply to hold up the price of -refined oil, ... to get all we can for it ... under some arrangement by -which they keep the price up to make a profit." Not only was the price -fixed under the agreement "to get all we can," but the combination, as -at Cleveland,[608] fixed the amount to be produced. The subordinate -company was allowed to have nothing to do with the business--except to -do the work, and to do only as much as its superior chose to permit. -Other refiners, in the same investigation, were shown to be sufferers -from the same kind of "grip." Asked what other concerns besides his -of Oil City were in this arrangement, he named the principal ones of -Titusville, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York. - -"These companies were all acting in concert, were they?" - -"So far as sales of refined oil were concerned, I think they were." - -Capitalists are usually supposed to be hard of heart and head, -suspicious, great sticklers for "black and white," and careful to -have all that is due them "nominated in the bond." This arrangement, -by which this witness and his associates put themselves entirely at -the disposal of others--as to how much they should manufacture, what -freight they should pay, what price they should receive, etc.--was not -in writing. - -"It is a verbal one."[609] - -The purchase of the refineries at Baltimore by the oil combination -in 1877, under the name of the Baltimore United Oil Company, was -immediately followed by an advance in price. The Baltimore _Sun_, in -December, 1877, said: "The combination has already begun to exert -its influence on the market. Oil for home consumption was yesterday -quoted at 14 cents, having raised from 11-1/2 cents, the quotation -on Wednesday. The combination will not make contracts ahead, which -might be interpreted to mean an intended advance in price." In Buffalo -the manager of one of the properties of the oil combination said in -evidence: "My son is on a committee, he told me, that regulates the -price of oil."[610] While the trust had the trade of Buffalo to itself, -it held the price of oil at a high rate. "In Buffalo there were then no -rival works," said State's Attorney Quinby to the jury who were trying -its representatives for conspiracy against a competing refinery, "and -we were paying for kerosene 18 cents a gallon. To-day, with the little -Buffalo company in the market making kerosene, you can get it for 6 -cents a gallon." - -This Buffalo competitor was a very modest affair, insignificant in -capital and resources, but it cut down the price of oil as far away as -Boston. It established there an agent who "went around" and "cut the -prices down," and then the agent of the combination "went around and -cut the prices further," as its Boston employe described it. He was -instructed, he said, "to follow them down, ... only not to sell at a -loss." Before this competitor came he had been selling oil as high as -20 cents a gallon. "We got the price down to 18 cents, and got down -then, I believe, to 8 cents, so that I have been selling them since -then at 8 cents."[611] Eight cents, then, was not at a loss--since -he had been told "not to sell at a loss"--and yet these passionate -pilgrims of cheapness had been making the Boston buyer pay 20 cents! -"I have been selling since at 8 cents," he says. This testimony was -given in 1886; the reduction to 8 cents from 20 was made in 1882. Four -years' consumption of this oil had been given to the buyer in Boston at -8 cents a gallon instead of 20, in consequence of the entrance of so -insignificant a competitor. - -When a member of the trust was testifying before the New York courts, -he referred to the competition of the independent of Marietta as "his -power for evil." Asked to define what he meant by his phrase "power -for evil," he said, "It was to make prices that would be vexatious -and harassing." He was asked if it harassed the oil trust, and the -corporations connected with it, to have prices in any part of the -country lower than they fixed. - -"Lower than a reasonable basis." - -"What they consider a reasonable basis?" - -"Yes."[612] - -That we can understand. But we cannot understand what the president of -the trust meant when he said, "We like competition," for that would -imply a natural proclivity for fellowship with the power of evil. - -"Who fixes the price of oil in New York?" was asked of one of the -witnesses before the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. That -was done, he said, by the selling agent of the oil combination. He "has -the price marked in the New York Produce Exchange daily--the price at -which they will sell oil."[613] When the vice-president of the company -representing the trust in St. Louis and the Southwest was on the stand -before the Interstate Commerce Commission, he was asked what was the -price of oil in the territory in which he was operating. The price of -oil in tank-cars, in Arkansas, he said, "is now and has been during -about three years or more--since Mr. Rice commenced shipping by water -to Little Rock--10 cents per gallon. The average price, independent of -competition, which I suppose is what you want, in the State of Texas is -about 13 cents per gallon in bulk, covering the whole State of Texas. -The average price per barrel would be about 17 cents, and the average -price in cases about 20 cents."[614] - -"Since Mr. Rice commenced shipping by water to Little Rock;" "the -average price independent of competition in Texas"--these are telltale -phrases. Where the combination was "independent of competition" the -price was one-third greater. - -The committee of Congress which investigated trusts in 1889 gathered -a great deal of sworn evidence--the details of which remained -uncontradicted, and which were met only by general statements like -those quoted at the head of this chapter--showing how extortionate -prices had been charged until competition appeared, that in all cases -a war of extermination had been made upon those competitors, and that -when their business was destroyed prices were put up again. Losses in -competitive wars were merely investments from which to draw dividends -in perpetuity. The "cheapness" of the combination followed the -cheapness of competitors, and was merely a feint, one of the approaches -in a siege to overcome the inner citadel of cheapness, a strategic -cheapness to-day on which to build dearness forever. This battle of -prices is shown in a table covering fifty towns in Texas, Mississippi, -Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, for three to five -years. The appearance of competitive oil, for instance, cut the prices -of oil from 15 cents a gallon down to 10 in Paris, Texas; from 25 to -15 in Calvert, Texas; from 22 cents to 10 in Austin, Texas; from 16 to -5 in Little Rock, Arkansas--evidently a war price; from 16 to 8-1/2 -in Huntsville, Alabama; from 16 to 8 in Memphis, Tennessee, and so -on.[615] The committee of Congress submit pages of evidence of the -reimposition of high prices the moment competition was killed off. -If the combination found a rival dealer out of oil for only a day it -"popped the prices up 3-1/2 cents."[616] "One day," wrote one of the -dealers, "oil is up to 20 cents and over, and when any person attempts -to import here, other than the vassals 'of the oil combination,' it is -put down to 7 cents a gallon."[617] - -Prices were frequently put higher after the war than before. In the -debate in the Canadian Parliament last year on the proposal to reduce -the Canadian tariff, supported by a strong lobby from the American -oil trust, it was shown by affidavits that at Selma, Alabama, oil -was reduced during the "war" against outside refiners to 8 from 15 -cents. After "competition was overcome," in the language of the South -Improvement Company contract, the price was put up, not to 15 cents -where it had been, but to 25 cents. In the same debate a large number -of affidavits were exhibited showing how the price charged by the oil -trust in America varied in places near each other in arbitrary and -extraordinary ways, as 7 cents a gallon at Port Huron, Michigan, and -14-1/2 cents at Bay City, only a few miles distant. Under the rule of -the trust prices are on a mechanical basis everywhere, from the retail -markets to the seaboard, where the refined, the manufactured article, -is quoted at a lower price than the crude, its raw material.[618] - -In the report of the tenth United States census in 1886, on the -necessaries of life, the retail price of kerosene is given for -thirty-five places. At a few of these there was competition; there -the price was 12-1/2 to 15 cents a gallon. At all other points it -ranged from 20 to 25 cents. Such a tax on the 400,000,000 gallons of -oil consumed in this country is the only kind of income-tax that is -"American." - -Application was made in May, 1894, by the Central Labor Union of New -York City to the Attorney-General of the State to vacate the charter of -the principal corporation in the oil trust. In the argument to support -it, it was shown that New York consumers were then paying twice as much -for their lamp-oil as the people of Philadelphia, and three times as -much as the foreign consumer buying in New York for export. - -The trust, notwithstanding its powers of "producing the very best oil -at the lowest possible price," compels dealers to sign away their -rights to buy oil where they can buy it the cheapest or best. When -opposition is encountered from any of the retailers in a town the plan -of campaign of its "war" is very simple. Some one is found who is -willing for hire to sell his oils at a cut price until the rest are -made sick enough to surrender. Then contracts are made with all the -dealers, binding them to buy of no one else, and prices are put up to a -point at which a handsome profit is assured. After this competitors can -find no dealer through whom to sell, and the consumer can get no oil -but that of the monopoly. Price and quality are both thenceforth such -as the combination chooses to make them. There are bargains in oil, -but one party makes both sides of them. "We do not wish to ruin you -without giving you another chance," said an agent of the combination -gently to a merchant who persisted in selling opposition oil. "Look at -this map; we have the country divided into districts. If you insist on -war we will cut the prices in your territory to any necessary extent -to destroy you, but we lose nothing. We simply make a corresponding -advance in some other district. You lose everything. We cannot by any -possibility lose anything." - -Only by thus contracting themselves out of their rights could these -"free" merchants get oil with which to supply their customers. "Their -agent," wrote a dealer of Hot Springs, Arkansas, "has made threats to -some of our merchants that they must or shall buy oil from them and -no one else, or if otherwise they would come here and ruin them--by -fair means if they could, by underhand ways if necessary." Another -firm in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, wrote that the agent of the combination -had called upon them and several of the other large dealers to make -a "contract, ... and, failing to do so, in a short time he threatens -opening a retail house," as at Columbus.[619] Another wrote, December -13, 1886, from Navasota that the monopoly "will not sell unless you -sign an obligation to buy from them and them only."[620] - -This maintenance of prices until some "power for evil" appears with -lower rates, then wars to kill, and raising of prices if the war -ends in victory--these phenomena of cheapness continue to date. Many -chapters could be filled with accounts of these wars of which record -has been kept. To merely name the battle-fields would require pages. -When the combination, through its agents, attacked Toledo in the courts -for undertaking the municipal supply of natural gas, it "urged," as -it is quoted in the language of the decision, "that the main object -and primary purpose of the act is to enable the city to supply its -individual inhabitants with fuel for private use and consumption at -a cheaper rate than they can obtain it from other sources." The act -of the Legislature gave Toledo "a power for evil." At Denver oil was -sold at 25 cents a gallon until an independent company began refining -the petroleum which abounds in the Rocky Mountain basin. During the -Colorado war of 1892 all the familiar tactics--cut rates, espionage, -and all--were employed. This continued after the dissolution of the -trust as before, showing that its change of name and form meant no -real change. In Pueblo and Colorado Springs the price was put down -to 5 cents a gallon from 25 cents. In Denver the price was made 7 -cents. Spotters followed the wagons of the independent company to spy -out its customers, and get them, by threats or bribes, to sign away -their right to buy where they could buy cheapest. The comments of the -local press did credit to the inspiriting mountain air of the American -Switzerland. The complaint recently filed with the Interstate Commerce -Commission by a dealer of the Pacific coast charges that, among other -discriminations injurious to the public, the rates between the Pacific -coast and Colorado were so manipulated that the oil found in the Rocky -Mountains and refined in Colorado could not be shipped to California -and the other Pacific states. Consumers there had to buy the oil of the -trust hauled all the way from Cleveland or Chicago. When an independent -refiner ran the blockade into New York, in 1892, and began selling to -the people from tank wagons, the price fell in New York, Brooklyn, -and Jersey City from 8 and 8-1/2 to 4 and 4-1/2 cents. The St. Louis -_Chronicle_ of May 19, 1892, reports a reduction of the price of the -best grade of oil to 5 cents a gallon--"the fortieth reduction," it -says, made since an independent company "entered the field three years -ago, at which time the price was 14-1/2 cents," as it would be still -but for competition. - -War has been made on poor men, paralytics, boys, cripples, widows, -any one who had the "business that belongs to us." An instance taken -from abroad will be the last. The combination between the American and -the Scotch refiners, formed several years ago, fixed the price of the -principal product, scale, at threepence a pound in 1892. The break-up -in that year was followed at once by a decline from threepence to -twopence. This is a saving to the public of $1,000,000 a year. "All -the relative products," says the London _Economist_, November 12, 1892, -"have practically collapsed in value." Candles, for instance, declined -20 cents a dozen, "and the finer qualities were sold at the same rate -as the commoner sorts." - -These are the facts, to fit the phrase of one of the monopoly who -described to Congress how it "bridges it to the consumer at the lowest -reasonable rate." The "bridge to the consumer" spans 1872 to 1894 and -Europe and America, but it is not a bridge of cheapness.[621] - -To prove that oil is cheaper than it was is not to prove that it is -cheap. - -Anything begins to be dear the moment the power to fix the price has -been allowed to vest in one. The question whether our monopolies have -made things cheap or dear in the past pales before the exciting query, -What will they do in the future, when their power has become still -greater, or has passed by death, descent, or sale into hands less -shrewd and greedier? Such power never moves backward. Says President -Andrews, of Brown University, in the article quoted below: "When a -commodity is turned out under such conditions, cost no longer regulates -the price. This is done quite arbitrarily for a time, the seller's whim -being perhaps sobered a little by his memory of old competitive rates. -Slowly caprice gives way to law; but it is a new law--that of man's -need. Prices go higher and higher till demand, and hence profit, begins -to fall off; and they then play about the line of what the market will -bear, just as they used to about that of cost. The producer can be more -or less exacting, according to the nature of the product. If it is a -luxury, the new law may not greatly elevate prices above the old notch. -If it is a necessity, he may bleed people to death." - -"At any reasonable price, say three or four times the present selling -price of refined oil, it is the cheapest light in the world, and if -the prices were advanced to 20 cents a gallon the sales would be as -large as they are now at 7-1/2 cents," wrote Vice-president Cassatt, -of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to the Pennsylvania Legislature, in 1881, -opposing the Free Pipe Line bill. The possibilities here were touched -upon by the New York committee of 1888: "What the trust's course would -have been if, instead of increased production, it had been required to -deal with the problem of a constantly diminishing or stationary volume -of oil, is an interesting subject for speculation. Certain it is that -the trust has the power to put up prices, even if it fails to exercise -it. If, in the future, the field producing the commodity manufactured -and sold by this combination of corporations shall fail to increase its -present product, or shall return a diminished quantity, the oil trust -will be able to fix the price of the product of its refineries in this -country, if not in the world."[622] - -It was not great capital which put this industry in the possession of -these enthusiasts for "all the little economies." The same universal -forces of cheapness which have been at work everywhere have been at -work upon the cost of the instrumentalities of production, and put -machinery, transportation, raw material, and market agencies within -reach of moderate capital. Such great capital is wasteful capital. It -operates through agents at great distances, attenuating incentives -to energy and care. Many practical men, real refiners, who have been -forced to give up their business to refiners of railroad privileges, -have testified to the same effect as the manufacturer who said to -Congress in 1872: "I believe a refinery of 100 barrels can be run -cheaper than the larger establishments."[623] - -If production on a natural scale, directed by the eye of the owner, -were not more economical than production mobilized from the metropolis -by salaried men hundreds of miles away, the independent refiners -and producers of Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio would not have -been able to survive at all. It was said in one of the Buffalo -papers by one of these independent refiners: "There are several -well-equipped independent refineries in operation at the present time -in Pennsylvania and Ohio oil-fields where the refiner has his own -crude oil, his own pipe line, and produces his own natural gas for -fuel purposes. It is needless to say that an experienced and skilful -refiner operating under such favorable conditions can manufacture at -less cost per barrel than any trust with a long list of pensioners and -burdened with the control of two political parties and the maintenance -of numerous city mansions, stock farms, and theological seminaries." - - NOTE.--The claims of the oil combination to the credit of having - cheapened oil have been subjected by competent men to statistical - tests. President Andrews, of Brown University, shows that from 1861 to - 1872, inclusive--_i.e._, before any combination whatever existed--the - net annual percentage of decrease in the price of refining oil and - carrying it to tide-water--that is, the difference between the cost - of the petroleum at the wells and of the refined at New York--was - 10-4332/10000 cents; from 1873 to 1881, inclusive, the trust's infirm - and formative period, the decrease was 7-8897/10000 cents; from 1882 - to 1887, inclusive, the years of its full maturity and vigor, the - decrease was only 2-2879/10000 cents.[624] - - The New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ (April 4, 1892) made a - similar study with similar results. It finds that under competition - in the refining of oil the difference between crude at the wells and - refined oil at New York was reduced from 13.45 cents per gallon in - 1872 to 6.02 cents per gallon in 1881; under the reign of the trust - the difference was 5.84 in 1891--greater than in 1882, when the trust - began operations, when it was only 5.77. It concludes: "It has been - claimed that the oil trust has been a benefit to this county; that the - economies which it has introduced in the transportation and refining - of oil have been shared with the consumer, and that the enormous - wealth which it has accumulated during the past ten years has been - widely distributed. Not one of these claims has any substantial basis - in fact." - - The comparisons of cheapness are made on the wholesale price at New - York of "export oil"--an inferior, almost a refuse product. Its price - must meet that made by the Russians. These comparisons, therefore, - really shed no light on the price movements of oil going into - consumption throughout the country. But the trust really gets the - retail price on all its domestic output. A full statistical statement - of the price movement in retail markets cannot be had; nor even of - the wholesale, for the combination has lately adopted a policy of - suppressing the wholesale quotations of the higher grades of oil for - domestic consumption. Comparisons, therefore, built on the export - price of this poor oil at New York, though good as far as they go, are - of oils of a low illuminating power. Comparisons that would really - show the part played by the combination as a true merchant--one who - discovers and distributes abundance for all at a fair price for his - service--can only be made by such illustrations as we have been giving - from its utterances, plans, and actions. But for monopoly an average - price of 5 cents a gallon could prevail throughout the United States, - with a saving of hundreds of millions to the people. - - Trust prices are artificial prices, independent of supply and demand, - and in their perfection superior even to panic. This is illustrated by - the comparison below, made by Mr. Byron W. Holt: - - - COMPARATIVE PRICES OF STAPLES DURING THE CURRENT DEPRESSION - - ------------------------------+---------------+-------------+------------- - | | |Per cent. of - |April 28, 1893 |July 20, 1894|Decline since - | | |April 28, - | | |1893 - ------------------------------+---------------+-------------+------------- - Wheat, No. 2, red | 0.76-3/8 | 0.56-1/2 | 26 - Corn, No. 2, mixed | .50 | .47-1/2 | 5 - Cotton, middling upland | .07-13/16 | .07-1/16 | 10 - Wool, Ohio and Pennsylvania, X| .28 | .18 | 36 - Pork, mess, new |21.00 |14.00 @ 14.25| 33 - Butter, creamery | .30 @ 33 | .17 | 45 - Sugar, raw, 96 deg. | .03-15/16 @ 4| .03-3/16 | 18 - Sugar, granulated | .05-1/16 | .04-5/16 | 15 - Petroleum, refined, gal. | .0555 | .0515 | 7 - Pig Iron, Bessemer, Chicago |14.50 @ 15.00 |11.25 @ 11.50| 23 - Steel Rails, Chicago |30.00 @ 32.00 |25.00 @ 27.00| 16 - Steel Beams, Chicago | .02 | .01-1/2 | 25 - | | | - | June 30, 1892 |June 30, 1894|June 30, 1892 - Coal, Bituminous, Pittsburg |$ 1.07 | 0.86 | 20 - Coal, Anthracite, New York | 4.15 | 4.15 | 00 - ------------------------------+---------------+-------------+------------- - - The prices of four of these products--granulated sugar, petroleum, - steel rails, and anthracite coal--are controlled by strong - trusts. These prices have declined, since the beginning of the - depression--about May 1, 1893--not quite 10 per cent. Prices of the - other ten products have declined 24 per cent. - - Under free conditions prices of manufactured articles would decline - faster than prices of farm products. Cost of production can be lowered - faster in machine or factory products than in farm products. Under the - influence of trusts the natural order is not only reversed, but prices - of farm products have declined more than twice as fast as prices of - factory or trust products. Trust influence is conspicuous in the cases - of sugar and coal. The price of raw sugar, in which there is no trust, - has declined 5 per cent. since June 30, 1891. The price of granulated - has advanced 4 per cent. The president of the trust admitted to - Congress in 1894 that it had advanced the price 3/8 of a cent a pound. - Cost of refining has declined since 1891. There being no well-defined - trust in bituminous coal, its price has declined 30 per cent. since - 1891. The price of anthracite coal has advanced 2 per cent. in the - same time, because the producers have "regulated" production. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - -ALL THE WORLD UNDER ONE HAT - - -"This business belongs to us." This was the reply the president of the -oil combination made to a neighbor who was begging to be allowed to -continue the refinery which he had successfully established before his -tardier but more fortunate competitors had left their produce stores, -lumber-yards, and book-keepers' stools. He could remember, the neighbor -told the New York Legislature, before there was any such company as -theirs, and when the president of the poor man's light was still in the -commission business opposite him and his refinery. He described how -the president left this commission business, and "commenced to build -a refinery there of a small capacity.... He used to say to me, 'What -is a good time to sell?' and 'What is a good time to hold?' as he said -he thought I knew." The day came when the neighbor who had been first -found that the last was to be first. He was making $21,000 to $22,000 -a year, but he had "to sell or squeeze." He had several conversations -with the new-comer who had been so successful in learning when it was -"a good time to hold." To save his livelihood, "I did almost condescend -to tease him," he testifies. But the only reply he could get was: We -have freighting facilities no one else can get.[625] This business -belongs to us. Any concern that starts in this business we have -sufficient money to lay aside a fund to wipe it out. "They went on just -as if it did belong to them, and there were others started before he -did in it which I thought it belonged to quite as much as it did to -him.... I am wiped out and made a poor man.... I think they are making -a profit out of my ruin." - -His refinery had been giving him a profit of $21,000 to $22,000 a -year. It had cost him $41,000, but he had to sell it for $15,000. This -purchase of $41,000 for $15,000 was one of "the little economies" to -which the trust ascribes its success. It was not a "good time to sell," -but he sold. Part of the "squeeze" put upon him was the rebate given to -the buyer. He could not have got the rebate if he had applied for it, -but he would not apply for it. "I made application for lower freights, -but not for any drawbacks; I did not suppose that was the right way to -do business."[626] - -"This business belongs to us." This remark was not prophecy, but -history. It was in 1878, and the claim had been already made good. -The New York Legislature, in 1879, reported that the speaker and his -associates had control of 90 or 95 per cent. of the industry. "It has -absorbed and monopolized this great traffic, which ranks second on the -list of exports of our country."[627] This conclusion was based on the -evidence of officers and stockholders.[628] Their shadow grew no less. -The Interstate Commerce Commission found in 1890 that they "manufacture -nearly 90 per cent. of the petroleum and its products in the United -States."[629] - -"Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." For the -perfection of this triumph no trifle has been disdained, from the well -in the mountain to the peddler's cart in the city. The bargemen of the -Alleghany, the coasters of the sea-shore, and the stern-wheelers of -the Western rivers all had to go one way. "We drove out the shipments -in the schooners from Baltimore and Washington, and we stopped almost -the shipments by river down the Mississippi by boat," said one of the -successful men. His plan had been so thorough as even to seek to -"drive off the river schooners."[630] - -The last stage in their economic development--that in which the people -of the oil region lose the ownership of the oil lands and become hired -men--is already far along. Although at first the oil combination -owned no oil lands to speak of--"It does not own any oil wells or -land producing oil, and never did," its president said, in 1880; "an -infinitesimal amount," he said later[631]--it has of late years, -through corporations organized for that purpose, been a heavy buyer and -leaser of the best oil lands in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, -and the West. - -Monopoly anywhere must be monopoly everywhere. At the beginning it was -enough to control the railways; by these the pipe lines, refineries, -and markets were got. These were secured, only to find that it was -vital to control the source of supply. The producers once gave an -illustration of what it would be for the sole buyer to come to the -market and find that the oil he must have was not on sale at his -price.[632] "We have during the past year," one of the combination -said, in 1891, before a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature, -"invested a very large amount of money, and have induced our friends to -come forward with new capital to engage in the business of producing -oil."[633] By the policy of becoming producers the combination has -changed its position from that of mere intermediary--though one as -irresistible as a toll-gate keeper--to that of absolute owner. The -spectre it has seen rise before it, of the producers organized as one -seller to meet it as the only buyer, has been laid to rest. - -"We are pushing into every part of the world, and have been doing -so," the president told the New York Legislature in 1888.[634] Their -tank-steamers go to all the ports of Europe and Asia, and their -tank-wagons are as familiarly seen in the cities of Great Britain and -the Continent as of America. An agitation of extensive proportions was -begun in 1893 in the press of Canada and in the Dominion Parliament -to admit American oil at a lower duty. There was no popular demand -for such a step. No general reduction of the tariff was proposed. The -movement was simultaneous in the press of different parts of Canada, -and it was promoted by papers as important as the Toronto _Globe_ -and Montreal _Star_. It was resisted with desperation by the 20,000 -persons who are employed in the Canadian oil industries, the growth of -thirty-two years--"not a rich, gay, bloated population, rioting with -the plunderings of the farmers, revelling in all kinds of luxuries, -making merry with their friends," says a newspaper correspondent, who -visited them in December, 1892, "but a hard-working community, in which -all live comfortably; few are rich." - -This opposition was successful with the Dominion Parliament in that -year, and it refused to admit American oil at a lower tax. But the -finance minister then, by executive action, did in part what the -Legislature had refused to do. By lowering the inspection duty and -changing custom-house conditions he made a considerable reduction in -the tax. The agitation to reduce the tariff was not relaxed, and was -finally successful in 1894, when Parliament lowered the duties on oil, -and to that extent surrendered the Canada producers and refiners to -their American competitors. - -The Scotch refiners, some of whom have been in business forty years, -have become as loyal subjects of an American ruler as of their own -queen. They make only as much as he allows, and sell at the price he -fixes. He has demanded year by year a greater proportion of their -business.[635] In 1892 they were notified that they must reduce their -output by 10 per cent.[636] The Scotch, anxious for the accelerating -future, begged that the "arrangement" might be made for three years -instead of one. But this was denied them. The agent from America who -brought them their orders would promise no more than "to place the -matter in a favorable light before his colleagues in America."[637] -By October of that year the capital of the Scotch companies, held -mainly by small investors, had shrunk $5,000,000 in value. But to this -item the London _Economist_ adds the consolation that "that powerful -organization"--the American--"has for years professed the kindliest -feelings for the Scotch producers." Dr. Johnson said that much may be -made of a Scotchman if caught young. The American caught him old. - -The disturbance fell heaviest, as always, on the working-men. -"Reduction in wages is now being effected," writes the managing -director of the oldest and largest of the Scotch companies in the -_Economist_. "Another 10 per cent. reduction in miners' wages has been -resolved upon," the _Economist_ announces in its issue of October 8, -1892. - -One of the causes that contributed to the downfall of the Scotch -refiners was the fact that the British government reduced the test -required for illuminating oil. This new regulation opened the British -markets to a flood of cheap oil from America.[638] The Scotch oil is -better made and more expensive. "We cannot tell," said a correspondent -of the Glasgow _Herald_, "what powerful interest the American oil -combination did not bring to bear on our government. The public had -then no champion, and as a rule never have on these occasions." - -The unkindest cut of all is that it was from the Scotch manufacturers -themselves that their American rival and ruler learned the secrets of -the industry it is now absorbing on the instalment plan. In one of its -publications it has told how its "experts visited the great shale works -in Scotland, and studied their methods," and how "the consequence was -that extensive works were erected."[639] - -The economic development of Germany is not so much behind that of -Great Britain and America as to seem uninviting to the unhasting -but unresting American. Some years ago enterprising German importers -invested a large amount of capital in tank-steamers, because they -thought these solved the problem of the transportation of petroleum. -When the Americans refused to supply them any longer with oil for their -steamers to carry, they saw that there was more in this problem than -they had guessed. Importers who had no steamers found one day that -American enterprise had secured practically all of them, and had very -decided notions as to whom cargoes should be taken. The heads of two or -three of the largest houses boarded a steamer for New York, and came -back stockholders in a German-American company which controls most of -the German business, as the Anglo-American company controls that of -Great Britain. "If the great company with unlimited capital cares to -lose money, it can drive us from the field," was the explanation of -the head of one of the largest German concerns, as quoted in the Weser -_Zeitung_. - -At the beginning of the next year some Holland firms were invited into -the same shelter, and became the "fittest"; and then followed the -Belgian and the Scandinavian countries. The Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_ -of June 18, 1891, described the line of march: "One group of business -men after another is thus made superfluous and pushed aside. First -the wells, pumps, and refineries in America, then the American export -trade, then the private freight vessels adapted for transportation of -petroleum, then the European import trade, then the export trade from -European ports, and, finally, this over-powerful company threatens to -seize the entire retail trade in petroleum. It is a world monopoly." -Hundreds of boatmen engaged in a flourishing river trade in Germany -were driven out by tank-boats. If they had changed to tanks, they -would have been dependent on their opponent for the oil to fill -them. Importers in barrels were cut off by a change which the German -government made in the tariff on barrels. The Americans were also -helped by an increase in the German tariff on Russian oil of 50 per -cent., which made it so much the more difficult for it to compete with -American oil. As one way to kill competition where it still existed, -all statistics were suddenly withheld by the German-American member of -the trust. Neither exports nor imports were known except to the ruling -company; all others were kept in the dark. - -This success in Germany has not been due to favoritism on the highways. -The extraordinary discrimination on railroads in America would be -impossible in Germany. With hardly an exception the railroads are under -the supervision of the State, and are very carefully controlled. Even -the private roads would not dare to give any but the open rates. In -Austria-Hungary, formerly, secret rates were in full swing, but the -system is now said to be destroyed. - -Prices have declined in Germany, and the people at large make few -complaints except about the quality of the American oil. It has become -more sooty than formerly. In the beginning it burns well, but it ends -with giving a very poor light. This has been conjectured to be due to -a mixture of the inferior Ohio oil with that of Pennsylvania; but "it -cannot be proved," the German chronicler reports.[640] "The working -people," says one of the Berlin papers, "will have to foot the bill, -and the working people only. The well-to-do and rich of to-day can have -other fuel and light, but to the oppressed working-man petroleum is as -great a necessity as his potatoes." The German papers, in casting about -for means of checkmating the increase of prices which they believe will -result from the consummation of this monopoly, advocate the use of -water-power and also wind-power to create electricity. - -The attention that has been attracted to the growth of this power does -not come from the public at large, but from those directly interested -and the sympathy and interest of the German "national economists." -The latter point out that the present cheap prices are "war prices." -They predict that as soon as the world monopoly is established and -all territory is under complete control a rise of prices will take -place. They are advocates of State monopoly as better than private -monopoly. If State monopolies prevent free competition, at least -they are able, they say, to give some compensation to those who are -hurt. In the tobacco monopoly hundreds of millions were set aside -by the German government for this purpose, but even that was not -considered sufficient. But this monopoly is a private affair. It -swallows the profits of all those whom it destroys. Numerous industries -have been ruined--importers, ship-owners, brokers, local dealers, -exporters, retailers, river boatmen, and numerous other trades--but -no one receives indemnity. The public opinion of the government, the -Reichstag, the national economists, the philanthropists, is active -in support of the middle class, but in spite of all this a whole -department of industry has been torn away from it. - -There are one or two "independents" in Germany whom, like the -independents in America, the trust has not yet been able to crush, -though it is turning the markets topsy-turvy for that purpose. The -_Pall Mall Gazette_ of June 18, 1894, notes that the trust is selling -refined oil in Europe at prices lower than those at which crude oil can -be delivered from America. - -The Austrian journals have been chronicling the absorption of the -principal refineries of Austria and Hungary by a combination, of which -the Rothschilds are the most important members, as they are of that -in Russia. This combination, which first appears in 1892, has by 1894 -accumulated a reserve of 3,000,000 gulden on a capital of 1,000,000 -gulden, and its profits for 1894 are expected to be 100 per cent. -The Prager _Lloyd_ of April 26, 1894, giving these and other facts, -adds that "the government of Austria as well as of Hungary takes the -ground that if a petroleum monopoly is to be formed it should be in the -hands of the State, not of a corporation, certainly not of a foreign -corporation, least of all an American one." - -This remedy of a State monopoly as an alternative to private monopoly, -as suggested in Austria and Germany, has as yet had few advocates in -America. Our public opinion, so far as there is any public opinion, -restricts itself to favoring recourse to anti-trust laws and to -boycotting the monopoly and buying the oil of its competitors. But -there are too few of these to go around, and they are shut out of most -of the markets. The shrewd monopoly is itself the most diligent caterer -to such American demand as there is for the "anti-monopoly" product. It -does business under hundreds of assumed names, and employs salesmen at -large salaries to push the sale of "opposition oil" in our disaffected -provinces. - -With the news from Germany came the announcement that similar control -had been obtained of the business of the firm at Venice which did -most of the oil business of Italy, and a new company had been formed, -of which the American "trustees" own a majority. In a letter sent to -Minister Phelps, at Berlin, a resident representative of the American -oil combination says, as quoted in the New York _Tribune_, October -5, 1891: "For the furtherance of our programme and as participators -in the large European investment which this programme involves, we -have sought and been fortunate enough to secure the co-operation of a -coterie of well-known merchants, who have been long and prominently -identified with the petroleum commerce of the Continent." The Societa -Italo-Americana del Petrolio (the Italian-American Oil Company) is in -Italy what the concerns just described are in the countries to the -north of it. The head of the oil combination was quoted by the New -York _Tribune_ of July 1, 1891, as saying: "The cable despatches are -substantially correct as regards our interest in the German and Italian -companies." - -The French government a year ago lowered the tariff on petroleum -one-half. This was followed, the French press reports, by the erection -of a refinery by the American trust at Rouen, and the purchase by it of -land in Marseilles, Cette, Bordeaux, and Havre for other refineries. -The machinery needed was shipped from America. Large offices were -opened at Paris by the American combination for the administration of -the industry in France, which was to be concentrated into its hands -like that of the rest of Europe. The sequel, if the _Frankfurter -Zeitung_, a prominent German commercial paper, is correctly informed, -is that the French refiners, as the Scotch did before them, have -come to terms with the American trust. It has agreed not to start up -its refineries in France, not to sell any refined oil in America for -shipments to France, and not to allow any American outsiders to compete -with the French refiners. - -There was a report in June, 1892, that a Dutch company had succeeded -in refining petroleum in Sumatra, one of the possessions of the -Netherlands' East India colonies, and selling it in India. The -solicitor of the trust, asked about it by the New York _Times_, June -5, 1892, said, "It cannot be true." The oil combination, he continued, -"has agents in the Netherlands' East India colonies and at Sumatra, and -it would certainly have heard of this corporation and its competition -if there was anything worth hearing." - -There are great oil-fields in Peru. Since the close of the war with -Chili there has been an active development of them, and the commercial -reports of San Francisco say that fuel oil is now being supplied from -this source to our Pacific States. This has not been done by the -Peruvians. It was an American who organized the oil industry of Peru. -The principal company was formed by the same expert who went years ago -from Pennsylvania to Russia to Americanize the oil interests of the -Caucasus. After he had succeeded in that task he went to Peru. He died -in the spring of 1894. At about the time of his death the newspapers, -by a coincidence that arrests attention, chronicled the departure from -New York of a well-known man who was going to Peru, as he stated in an -interview, to look after the interests of the members of the oil trust. -But there is no official information that they have any ownership or -control there. - -When one of the officers of the combination was before Congress, in -1888, he was asked if there had been any negotiations by his associates -with the Russian oil men. - -"We have never had any serious negotiations,"[641] he replied. - -The word "serious" was a slip. He withdrew it. "We have never had any" -was his revision. Three years later the same official, in a speech to -persuade the Pennsylvania Legislature that the pipe-line interests of -the oil country did not need the regulation by the State then under -debate, but were abundantly safeguarded by him and his associates, -said: "It may not be amiss for me to say that we have had, at different -times during the last several years, most flattering propositions -from people who are identified with the Russian petroleum industry, -to come there and join them in the development and introduction of -that industry. We have declined these offers, gentlemen, always and -to this day, and have held loyal to our relations to the American -petroleum."[642] - -There had been negotiations, after all! - -The reports of the United States consul-general at Berlin, in -1891, transmitted many interesting articles from the German papers -concerning the alliance which it was believed had been made between -the Rothschilds and the American oil combination. A company managed by -the great bankers has obtained a commanding position in the Russian -oil business, and the American and the Russian were even then said to -have divided the world between them. The Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_ -said: "Heretofore the two petroleum speculators have marched apart, -in order to get into their hands the two largest petroleum districts -in the world. After this has been accomplished they unite to fight -in unison, and to fix as they please the selling price for the whole -world, which they divide between themselves. So an international -speculating ring stands before the door, such as in like might and -capital power has never before existed, and everywhere the intelligible -fear prevails that within a short time the price of an article of use -indispensable to all classes of people will rise with a bound, without -its being possible for national legislation or control to raise any -obstacles."[643] - -But some of the closest European observers have seen reasons from -the beginning to believe that the Rothschilds are in the Russian oil -business only as the agents of the American combination. This is freely -asserted by the Continental press. The policy of the Rothschilds has -been never to engage in commercial enterprise on their own account. -The tactics used by the Rothschilds in oil have been an almost exact -reproduction of those of the combination in America. From the first -they gave the subject of freights their special attention. They showed -no ability for new or independent undertakings, but they tried, to use -the words of an Austrian-Hungarian consular report from Batoum in 1889, -"following the example of the combination in the United States, to get -the bulk of the Russian petroleum trade into their hands"; using the -large money power at their command for speculation, freely advancing -money for leases and delivery contracts, and specially acquiring all -the available means of transportation. The experience of the people of -Parker[644] is recalled by the statement that the Rothschild company -would leave hundreds of cars loaded with petroleum on the tracks for -weeks to prevent competitors from shipping and from filling their -contracts. When the city of Batoum, in 1888, refused to allow it to lay -pipes over the city lands to the harbor, it was with the enthusiastic -approbation of the agitated citizens. The authorities gave as their -reason that through large establishments of this kind the capitalists -gained a monopoly, crushing out smaller producers to the disadvantage -of all classes of the population. In the absence of official -investigations, a free press, and civilized courts--that knowledge -which is not only power but freedom--it is impossible for any one in -Russia, or out of it, to know the truth as to the relations of the -Rothschilds to the American monopoly. The latest news in the summer of -1894 is of a great combination of Russian and American oil interests, -under the direction of the Russian Minister of Finance, for a division -of territory, regulation of prices, and the like. Information of this -was given to the world by that minister's official organ in November, -1893. Thus says the Hanover (Germany) _Courier_ of November 11th: "With -the direct sanction of the Russian government the management of the -enormous wealth that lies in the yearly production of Russian petroleum -will be concentrated in the hands of a few firms.... The Russian -government lends its hand for the formation of a trust that reaches -over the ocean--a trust, under State protection, against the large mass -of consumers. This is the newest acquisition of our departing century." - -It was announced that, in pursuance of this plan, the Russians were to -be given exclusive control of certain Asiatic markets. The officers -of the American combination are not easily reached by newspaper men. -But when this news came long interviews with them were circulated in -the press of the leading cities, dwelling upon the "Waterloo" defeat -they had suffered, and reassuring the people with this evidence -that there was, after all, "no monopoly." The Russian interests are -dominated by the Rothschilds, and if the Rothschilds are, as these -European observers declare, merely the agents of the Americans, even -unsophisticated people can understand the cheerfulness with which the -trustees in New York dilate on their Waterloo at the hands of their -other self. Only this could make credible the report that the world has -been divided with the Russians by our American "trustees," who never -divide with anybody. In dividing with the Russians they are dividing -with themselves. - -Though it is reported that discriminations by the government railroads -of Russia were used to force the Russian producers into this -international trust, still, at worst, every Russian producer was given -by his government the right to enter the pool. But no similar right for -the American producer is recognized by our trust. It admits only its -own members. The others must "sell or squeeze." There is something -in the world more cruel than Russian despotism--American "private -enterprise." - -One of the conditions said to have been made by the Russian government -is the natural one that the American trust, as it has agreed to do for -the French, must protect its Russian allies from any competition from -America. Extinction of the "independents" has therefore become more -important than ever to the trust. The prize of victory over them is not -only supremacy in this country, but on four other continents. This will -explain the new zeal with which the suppression of the last vestige of -American independence in this industry has been sought the last few -months of 1893 and in 1894. Especially strenuous has been the renewal -of the attack on the pipe line the independents are seeking to lay to -tide-water, and which they have carried as far as Wilkes-barre.[645] - -That pipe line, as it is the last hope of the people, is the greatest -menace to the monopoly. The independents, as they have shown by the -fact of surviving, although they have to pay extraordinary freights and -other charges from which the trust is free, can produce more cheaply -than the would-be Lords of Industry, as free men always do.[646] By -means of this pipe line, suspended though it is at Wilkes-barre, are -now made the only independent exports of oil that go from America to -Europe. Once let the "outsiders" with their line reach the sea-shore -and its open roads to the coast of America and Europe, and it will be -a long chase they will give their pursuers. Everything that can be -brought to bear by market manipulation, litigation, and other means is -now being done to prevent the extension of this line, and to bankrupt -the men who are building it through much tribulation. The mechanical -fixation of values, by which the refiners who use this line to export -oil are compelled to meet a lower price for the refined in New York -than can be got for the crude out of which it is made, has been already -referred to, and, as shown above, the same prestidigitation of prices -is being resorted to in Europe against the independents of Germany. - -Early in 1894 the independent refiners and producers resolved to -consolidate with this pipe line some other lines owned by them in order -to strengthen and perfect the system, and put it in better shape to -be extended to tide-water. This consolidation was voted by a large -majority both of stock and stockholders. But a formidable opposition -to it was at once begun in the courts by injunction proceedings in -behalf of one man, a subordinate stockholder in a corporation of -which the control is owned, as he admitted in court, by members of -the oil trust.[647] The real litigant behind him, the independents -stated to the court, was the same that we have seen appear in almost -every chapter of our story, with its brigades of lawyers. "An unlawful -organization," the independents described it to the court, "exercising -great and illegal powers, ... and bitterly and vindictively hostile to -our business interests." They came into court one after the other and -described the ruin which had been wrought among them, telling the story -the reader has found in these pages. - -"It is our hope," they said, "when we once reach the salt-water that -there will be no power there controlling the winds and the waves, the -tides and the sun and moon, except the Power that controls everything. -When we once are there the same forces that guide the ships of this -monopoly to the farther shore will guide ours. The same winds that waft -them will waft ours. There is freedom, there is hope, and there is -the only chance of relief to this country.... Through three years of -suffering and agony we have attempted to carry on our purpose.... You -could have seen the blood-marks in the snow of the blood of the people -who are working out their subscription as daily laborers on that line -with nothing else to offer." - -The injunctions asked for by this opposition were granted by the lower -court, but the independents took an appeal to the Supreme Court of -Pennsylvania. They first placed their petition for the rehearing in the -hands of the chief-justice on Thursday, May 24th; on Monday, May 28th, -the petition was renewed before the full court; on Thursday, May 31st, -the court adjourned for the summer without taking any action upon the -petition. The court in July agreed to hear the case at the opening of -its next term, the first Monday of October. Section II. of Article I. -of the Constitution of Pennsylvania says: "All courts shall be open, -and every man, for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, -or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and -justice administered, without sale, denial, or delay." To guard against -the injustice which might arise by the granting of special injunctions -by the lower courts--like that granted in this case--which might -remain for months without remedy, the Legislature, in 1866, enacted -a law which reads as follows: "In all cases in equity, in which a -special injunction has been or shall be granted by any Court of Common -Pleas, an appeal to the Supreme Court for the proper district shall be -allowed, and all such appeals shall be heard by the Supreme Court in -any district in which it may be in session." - -As if there had not been enough to try these men, misfortune marked -them in other ways. The Bradford refinery of the president of their -pipe line was visited by a destructive fire during these proceedings -in court. The Associated Press despatches attributed the fire to -"spontaneous combustion," whatever that may be. But in another -newspaper an eye-witness described how he saw a man running about the -works in a mysterious way just before the flames broke out. On the same -day, by a coincidence, the main pipe of the independent line was cut, -and the oil, which spouted out to the tree-tops, was set on fire at a -point in a valley where the greatest possible damage would result, and -the telegraph wires were simultaneously cut, so that prompt repairs -or salvage of oil were impossible. The Almighty is said to favor the -heaviest battalions, and accident, if there is such a thing, seems to -have the same preference, as has been shown in many incidents in our -history, such as the mishaps to the Tidewater pipe line, and the Toledo -municipal gas line.[648] - -An intimation is given in the Continental press as to one of the -motives under which the Russian government acted in promoting the -alliance between the Russian and American oil men. It desired, it -is said, to secure the influence of the powerful members of the -oil combination in favor of certain plans for which Russia needed -co-operation in America. There has been nothing for which the Russian -government has so much needed "sympathetical co-operation" in America -as for the ratification of the Extradition Treaty. The Russian -government has obtained this ratification, and obtained it in a way -which indicated that some irresistible but carefully concealed American -influence was behind it. The New York _World_, in its editorial -columns of May 25, 1894, made the suggestion that the power behind -this treaty of shame was that of the oil trust, earning from the czar -the last link in its chain of world monopoly. It asked if it was the -influence of the oil combination that induced the Senate's consent -to this "outrageous treaty." "Was this one of the conditions upon -which that monopoly was permitted to secure its present concessions -from Russia? Did it wield an influence in the Senate like that -which the sugar trust has since exercised, though for an advantage -of a different kind?" The Philadelphia _Press_ points out that the -Russian government had long and unsuccessfully sought to obtain the -ratification of this treaty, but at last got it quickly and quietly. -Did the oil combination, it asks, "succeed in bartering the character -of this country as a political sanctuary for the monopoly of the -world's markets?" Seldom has any public measure been so universally and -so indignantly condemned in America as was this proposal to use the -powers of Anglo-Saxon justice to return men who were accused only, and -were, therefore, legally innocent, to be tried without jury, counsel, -publicity, or appeal. Never has public opinion availed less. The -Federal executive refused even to delay the ratification in deference -to the sentiment against it. Those who were active in the agitation -against the treaty found something inexplicable in the unresting -and unlistening relentlessness with which it was pushed through. -Napoleon said that in fifty years Europe would be all Russian or all -republican. Even he did not dream that republican America would become -Russianized before Europe. The San Francisco _Call_ of March 3, 1894, -discussing the report that a commercial treaty with China was under -consideration at Washington, says the negotiation is in the interest -of the oil combination. It warns the public that the trust is willing -to reopen the opium trade in reciprocity to China for better terms for -the admission of American petroleum. This free trade with China and -Russia in the souls and bodies of Russians, Chinese, and Americans -would add only another instance of the many manipulations of government -which this combination has successfully attempted in all parts of the -world--in the tariffs of France, Germany, Cuba, Canada, and our own -country; in the raising or lowering of the governmental requirements -as to explosiveness of oil sold the people in England and the United -States, and in the subsidy legislation by which it got from Congress -for its ocean steamers a privilege rigorously denied by law to all -other citizens. - -In this the oil trust is but an illustration. What it has done scores -of other combinations have accomplished, though not with equal -genius. The Hon. John De Witt Warner, member of Congress from New -York, has published a list of one hundred trusts which have been able -to influence the tariff legislation of the country in their favor. -The orgy of the sugar trust and Congress, out of which the tariff -bill of 1894 was born, was in the plain view of all the people. "The -appalling fact already disclosed," the New York _Daily Commercial -Bulletin_, the most important commercial and financial daily in the -United States, said in its editorial columns of June 4, 1894, "is -that for some months past the sugar trust has been the government of -the United States." The _Bulletin_ estimates that the profit to the -trust of one detail of the tariff bill postponing the duty on raw -sugar for six months will be $34,620,000. In all this our country is -not singular. The governments of Europe are used as the instruments -of profit for private enterprise to an extent which the people endure -only because they do not understand it. The latest instance is one of -the best. The _Investor's Review_ of London, England, in May, 1894, -calls attention to the fact that upon the accession of Lord Rosebery -to the Premiership of England the hitherto outspoken opposition of -the War Office to the Maxim gun had become entirely silent, and the -gun had been put into use in the army without competitive trial with -other machine-guns, some of them its superiors. "This is an unfortunate -fact for Lord Rosebery," says the _Investor's Review_, "because of his -relationship to the Rothschilds." This great house, the _Review_ says, -has "a strong pecuniary interest in the Maxim-Nordenfeldt Company," -and his lordship's affinities to the house "have not in the past been -confined to those of family relationship alone, but extend to community -of interests on the stock exchange." The _Review_ therefore appeals -to Lord Rosebery, for his own sake and the sake of the government "to -prove by his deeds that he not only has had nothing to do with it, but -will peremptory stop this crime." If not, the _Review_ hopes enough may -be made of the scandal to overthrow Lord Rosebery's government, for it -desires "to see a beginning made of the endeavor to purge Parliament of -the guinea-pig director, the stock-gambler and punter, and the whole -unclean brood of City 'bulls' and 'bears,' jobbers in patents, bribers -and bribed, who help to degrade public life." - -We of America are most sovereign when we sit in Constitutional -Convention by our representatives, and change the fundamental law -as we will. The Constitutional Convention gives us the unique power -of peaceful and perpetual revolution, to make bloody and spasmodic -revolutions unnecessary. Of all the inventions of that ablest group -of statesmen the world has seen--the founders of this government--this -is the greatest. The people of the State of New York are holding a -Constitutional Convention in 1894 to enlarge the garment of 1846 to -fit the growth of half a century. In that half-century the revolution -in society and industry which had been getting under headway ever -since the steam-engine and competition were invented has come to its -consummation. But the basic law of the Empire State has faced this -new world as changeless as the sphinx. Nearly half the other states -have made new constitutions, or amended the old ones to bring law into -line with life. Pennsylvania forbids the common carrier to become -the owner of coal-mines, or to consolidate with competing carriers, -or to give preference to any citizen. Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, -Colorado, and many other states have framed provisions to control -the abuse of industrial and highway power. The State of Washington -in its Constitution declares that "monopolies and trusts shall never -be allowed in this State," and it forbids any association "for the -purpose of fixing the price or limiting the production, or regulating -the transportation of any product or commodity." The manual of the -constitutions of the world prepared for the use of the New York -convention shows that fifteen of the states of the Union have in one -way or another recognized the revolution which has taken place in -the industrial economy of the people, and sought to meet it with the -necessary political safe-guards. - -When the delegates of the citizens of New York State meet in May, -1894, at Albany, in such a time to face such problems, the press -notes that a large proportion of them are corporation lawyers. The -place of president of the convention is secured by the chief counsel -of the oil trust. He is in Albany to resist the application to the -Attorney-General of the State to move for the forfeiture of the charter -of the principal corporation in the trust, and on his way he plucks the -presidency of the Constitutional Convention. "It is truly a momentous -event," he says in his opening speech, "when the delegates of many -millions of people gather together after an interval of fifty years -almost, for the purpose of revising and amending the fundamental law of -the State." The delegates thus momentously assembled, when they came to -choose the officer who was to wield over them a power as great as that -of the Speaker over the Federal House of Representatives, momentously -selected the most conspicuous attorney of the most conspicuous -embodiment of the forces with which the people are in conflict. The -president found words of kindly reference for many great questions--of -education, suffrage, city government, and the like--but for the great -questions of social power which fifteen states have found serious -enough for constitutional cognizance he had not a syllable. No plan or -even suggestion, great or little, for the new Constitution can reach -the convention direct. All must go to the appropriate committee, to be -smothered or reported, as the case may be. There are thirty of these -committees, and they are made up by the president of the convention, -who also designates their chairmen. Each committee has its subject, and -the subjects cover the bill of rights, the regulation of suffrage, the -control of corporations, the election of judges, future amendments of -the Constitution, and every other part of the organic law. Practically -the work of the convention will be the work of the committees, and the -committees are the work of one who is not only the attorney of the -oil trust, but is a part of the trust, a member of the organization. -"I happen to own one hundred shares in the Standard Oil Trust," he -said in his argument in Albany before the Attorney-General in behalf -of the trust. The trust has given formal notice that out of deference -to public opinion and the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and -in pursuance of an agreement with the late Attorney-General of New -York,[649] it had dissolved itself. But this distinguished member -disregards the dissolution, for reasons of personal convenience, as he -tells the Attorney-General. "I have never gone forward and claimed my -aliquot share." The character of this trust, of which the president -and organizer of the Constitutional Convention persists in being a -member to the extent of refusing to be "dissolved" out of it, has been -adjudicated. It was, the Supreme Court of Ohio said,[650] "organized -for a purpose contrary to the policy of our laws. Its object was to -establish a virtual monopoly ... throughout the entire country, and -by which it might not merely control the production but the price -at its pleasure. All such associations are contrary to the policy -of our State and void." A similar judgment has been passed upon the -trust by the judiciary of the State of which this president of the -Constitutional Convention, besides being an officer of the courts, -is a citizen. It was entered into, the Supreme Court of New York has -said,[651] "for the purpose of forming a combination whose object was -to restrict production, control prices, and suppress competition, and -the agreement was therefore opposed to public policy and void." And a -higher court, the highest in the State, the Court of Appeals, decided -in the sugar-trust, case that a trust was in avoidance and disregard of -the laws of the State. - -To the monopoly of oil, which was the starting-point, are being -added by its proprietors, one after the other, as we have shown, a -progressive series of other monopolies, from natural gas to iron. To -these assets is now to be added our bill of rights. The long fingers -of this power of mortmain reincarnate are long enough to reach from -its counting-room to the Constitutional Convention. The new Magna -Charta, to which the people look for help against void and unlawful -combinations, is to be drafted by committees made up by the attorney of -the chief of these void and unlawful combinations. The instrument which -is to protect the people against monopoly will come to them only after -every section has been exposed to the moulding touch of the greatest -monopoly in history. "This business belongs to us," and theirs is the -first and the last hand on the reins of the convention. The people can -vote on the Constitution after it is made, but the trust will see it -made. If the new Constitution is made so obnoxious that it is rejected, -as that of 1867 was, the old Constitution will do for the next fifty -years as for the last fifty. It is not monopoly that needs the revision. - -Is this the end? When before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the -head of the combination was asked: - -"The properties included in your trust are distributed all over the -United States, are they not?" - -"Oh, not all over the United States. They are distributed." - -"Are they not distributed, and are they not sufficiently numerous -to meet the requirements of your business from the Atlantic to the -Pacific, and from the Gulf to the northern boundary?" - -"Not yet."[652] - -The reply came in a tone and with a smile so significant that it was -answered by a comprehending laugh from the whole room--judges, lawyers, -reporters, spectators, and all. - -"Not yet!" - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - -"NOT BUSINESS" - - -This "business success" is the greatest commercial and financial -achievement of history. Its broad foundation was laid in the years -from 1872 to 1879, the severest time of panic for others the world -has known. A universal jaundice of ill-fortune has given its sallow -complexion to every one else. From the Alleghanies to the Caucasus -thousands of men have been somehow thrown out of work because so much -new work has come to the world. "At the flash of a telegraphic message -from Cleveland, Ohio," said the people of the oil regions in their -appeal to the Governor of Pennsylvania in 1878, "hundreds of men have -been thrown out of employment at a few hours' notice, and kept for -weeks in a state of semi-starvation." These men filled up many of the -insurrectionary ranks of the great railway strike of 1877, as the -employes of the Pennsylvania Railway declared in a public communication -at that time. The eight oil-producing counties of Pennsylvania were -said by the general council of the petroleum producers, in a public -address in 1879, to be "fast sinking beneath such financial distress -that resistance to threatened bankruptcy or servitude could not long -be made." They grew too poor to pay the counsel they employed to -help them in the courts, the legislatures, and before the executive -of Pennsylvania and Congress. "The universal complaint we find is -the poverty of the people, not their unwillingness to give." "I am -ashamed," said one of them in court, "to see our counsel every day on -account of the beggarly amounts I have paid them. A large number of -producers have subscribed that have not paid."[653] - -Men who were "frozen out" of their occupation in transporting or -refining oil took to digging wells. "That is the only thing they have -been allowed to do. They went on in a wild way, hunting new oil, and -when they found it they would develop it rapidly." This made oil fall -in price, and the more they produced the more they had to produce. The -wages of labor kept going down. They were lower in 1888 than they were -twenty-four years before. "A well-digger that I paid $6 a day and his -expenses twenty-four years ago is now working for $40 a month. That -is true of every department of the oil business so far as the wages -of workmen are concerned." "We were $10,000,000 poorer at the end of -1887 than at the beginning," said the association of oil producers of -Pennsylvania. Their executive committee the next year said the people -were on "the verge of bankruptcy."[654] - -The railroads were no happier than the laborers, the producers, the -manufacturers, or the merchants. As early as 1879 Vanderbilt II. -declared that the oil business of the railroads--worth $30,000,000 a -year--had been destroyed. - -"I think the business is gone."[655] - -In 1892 a number of refiners and producers of Pennsylvania, in a formal -appeal to Governor Pattison, asked him to investigate the causes -which were working "to the injurious depression if not the ultimate -destruction of a great industry." In the same year mutterings of a -turbulent discontent and threats of violence and the destruction of -property, repeating those of 1872, were heard again in Pennsylvania -and in Ohio, which had become an oil-producing State. "Many of the oil -producers," a member of their protective association in Ohio said, in -the spring of 1892, "are in a bad way. They are at that point that -they don't know just where their next sack of flour is coming from, and -I am not surprised at anything they may do." - -This area of low pressure, following the habit of American storms, made -itself felt abroad in bankruptcies and falling wages from Scotland -to Baku and beyond. Meanwhile the little nest-egg of nothing of the -group which came into the field in 1862 grew to $1,000,000 in 1870; to -$2,500,000 in 1872; to $3,500,000 in 1875; to $70,000,000 in 1882; and -in 1887 to a capital of $90,000,000, which the New York Legislature -reported in 1888, "according to the testimony of the trust's -president," to be worth "not less than $148,000,000."[656] Before -the trust was dissolved in name, in 1892, and the "trustees" betook -themselves to the greater seclusion of separate corporations, acting in -concert, its stock sold as high as 185, a valuation of $166,500,000 for -the whole. - -Its dividends had been $10,800,000 a year for several years. These -ducal incomes and the vaster sums accumulated as undivided profits -made themselves visible in the progressive _embonpoint_ of the -capitalization. In the six years (1876-81) preceding their taking the -veil as trustees their net earnings added up the total of $55,000,000. -In the next six years (to 1888) the dividends alone--not the net -earnings--were more than $50,000,000.[657] These did not absorb their -profits. In one year they spent $8,000,000 out of their profits for -construction, besides making the regular payments to stockholders.[658] - -"All this vast wealth," the New York Legislature said, "is the growth -of about twenty years; this property has more than doubled in value -in six years, and with this increase the trust has made aggregate -dividends during that period of over $50,000,000. It is one of the -most active," the report continued, "and possibly the most formidable -moneyed power on this continent."[659] - -"This is an immense property," says the Interstate Commerce -Commission," ... and it gives an immense power which is capable of -being so employed as to put all competitors at a great and perhaps -ruinous disadvantage."[660] - -For the first time the New York investigation of 1888 revealed that it -was only the beginning of the truth that these hundreds of millions -were controlled by "trustees." It now became known that some one or -more of the trustees owned personally more than half of every concern -in the trust, and of the best ones owned all. - -"These eight trustees control all these ninety millions of property -scattered over the United States?" the president of the trust was asked. - -"They have as trustees, and they have as individual owners both."[661] - -In corroboration of this testimony the trust furnished the New York -Senate Committee of 1888 a "list of corporations, the stocks of which -are wholly or partially held by the trustees of the Standard Oil -Trust." In this list, under the head of "New York State," appears -this: "Capital stock, $5,000,000. Standard Oil Company of New York, -manufacturers of petroleum products. Standard Oil Trust ownership, -entire."[662] But when the company was threatened with the forfeiture -of its charter by the proceedings before the Attorney-General in May, -1894, its president made oath as follows: "The Standard Oil Company of -New York never permitted its stock to be transferred to trustees."[663] - -Even this ownership by eight men is not the whole of the truth. The -eight trustees have a ruling power within themselves. An examination of -the personnel of the board at the beginning, middle, and end of its -career as a board shows four men always there. This agrees with the -remark reported in the press to have been made by the solicitor of the -trust upon its ostensible dissolution in 1892: "A majority of the stock -being held by four men." - -A friendly journal, the New York _Sun_, of April 25, 1889, in an -editorial paragraph concerning the wealth of one of the trustees, said: -"His regular income is twenty millions of dollars a year. That makes -him the richest man in the United States--perhaps the very richest in -the world." This is nearly three times the dividends paid in 1892 to -all its stockholders by the Bank of England. The Bank of England has -built up this earning power by two hundred years' work at the head of -the finances of the greatest empire of history. This American wins -thrice its dividend capability in less than a generation by contriving -and managing an institution which he says does not do any business. -Another entirely friendly paper, with sources of information of the -very best, put his income two years later at $30,000,000 a year.[664] -No denial of the _Sun's_ statement was attempted, and the _Sun_ never -withdrew or modified its figures. Shortly after the secretary of the -trust gave, in a public interview, a statement of the income of its -principal members. That of one of them he put at $9,000,000 a year; his -own at $3,000,000. - -This wealth is as much too vast for the average arithmetical -comprehension as the size of the dog-star, 400 times larger than the -sun. These incomes are sums which their fortunate owners could not -count as they received them. If they did nothing but stand all day at -the printing-presses of the Treasury Department while the millions -came uncrinkled out in crisp one-dollar greenbacks, or worked only at -catching the new dollars as they rolled out from the dies of the Mint, -they could not count them. If they worked eight hours a day, and six -days a week, and fifty-two weeks in the year, they could not count -their money. The dollars would come faster than their fingers could -catch them; the dollars would slip out of their clutch and fall to the -floor, and, piling up and up, would reach their knees, their middle, -their arms, their mouth, and Midas would be snuffed out in his own gold. - -Commodore Vanderbilt, Parton tells us, was forty-four years old before -he was worth $400,000. In the next thirty years he increased this to -over $100,000,000--perhaps twice that; no one knows. Vanderbilt had -to multiply this nest-egg of his forty-fourth year 250 times, but one -of these "trustees" will be a billionaire when he has turned himself -over only ten times. Poor's _Railroad Manual_ shows these men and their -associates to be presidents or directors in thousands of miles of -railroads, valued at hundreds of millions. Their names were prominent -in the railroad "deal" of 1892 and 1893, which had for its end to put -the whole of New England under one hand, controlling both its land -and water connections with the rest of the country. They stand at the -receipt of custom at the railroad gates to the oil regions; to the -coal-fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Illinois; -the copper, gold, and silver mines of the West; the iron mines of the -West and South; the turpentine forests and the lumber regions and -cotton fields; the food-producing areas of the Mississippi basin; the -grazing lands of the plains. They are owners in the principal steamship -line between America and Europe, and in the "whalebacks," which appear -destined to drive other models out of the freight traffic of the lakes, -and have begun to appear on the Eastern and Western oceans, to capture -the carrying business of the world. Every dollar for the construction -of a State building at the World's Fair was advanced by one of them, as -the principal journal of the State announced, and it referred to him as -"the man who breathes life into its East coast towns, and the lifting -of his pen by his hand is like turning upsidedown the horn of plenty." -They are "in" the best things--telegraphs, the gas supply of our large -cities, street-railways, steel mills, ship-yards, Canadian and American -iron mines, town sites. Ore dug out of their own iron mines at the -head of Lake Superior is carried over their own railroad to their own -furnaces and mills. It rolls along until that which began to move as -ore lies at the docks of their ship-yards as a finished vessel, cut -out of the mountains, as it were, at one cheap stroke, or is loaded in -the cars in some perfected shape of steel, as steam radiators or what -not. They feed entire mountain ranges into their mills with one hand, -and with the other despatch the product in their own cars and ships to -all markets. Betrayal, bankruptcy, broken hearts, and death have kept -quick step with the march of the conquerors in iron as in oil. They -are in the combination in anthracite coal, with which the acquisition -by an American syndicate of the Nova Scotia coal deposits is closely -connected. Theirs is the largest share in the natural-gas business -in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Indiana, Illinois. They are in the -combination which controls lead, from pig to white lead, and turpentine -and linseed-oil and paints. - -"Its members," it was said in the application to the Attorney-General -of New York, in 1894, for a forfeiture of one of their charters, "are -now presidents and directors in 33,000 miles of road, one-fifth of the -total mileage in the United States. Its surplus is invested in banking, -in natural and manufacturing gas companies, in iron ore beds and coal -beds and crude-oil production, in lead and zinc, in turpentine and -cotton-seed oil, in steel, in jute manufacture, in ocean steamships, in -palatial hotels, in street-railroads." - -Most of their interests are in public functions, railroads, pipe lines, -telegraphs, postal contracts, steamers, municipal franchises, and the -like; but it is impossible to know their full extent with our present -crude means for enforcing the truth that property is power and that -civilization endures no irresponsible anonymous power. The corporation -is an agency by which the capitalist can do business in ambuscade. -"They are all in our company," said the manager of a very important -public agency, "but their names do not appear." It is not out of -deference to the obsolete idea that such matters are private business -that all the details of their possessions are not given, but only -because they are not known. - -"There is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition," Daniel Webster -said; but he spoke of eloquence, not of the perfected modern commerce. -Selligue, the French genius to whose discoveries nothing of equal -importance has been added, is not dignified with an entry in the -encyclopaedias or biographical dictionaries. For "Colonel" Drake, who -struck oil, a pension had to be provided by his friends in the regions -which he had filled with fountains of wealth. Mr. Van Syckel, who first -proved the pipe line to be practicable, died in Buffalo, paralytic, -helpless, and poor. - -The "age of oil" could not have come without the oil well and the drill -and derrick, and these in America are the lineal descendants of the -first salt well, drilled and whittled out of the rocks by the Ruffner -brothers, in 1806, in the "Great Buffalo Lick" of the Kanawha. Their -first "drill" was a great sycamore-tree, four feet through, hollowed -out, set on end on the ground in the lick, and gradually lowered as -the earth and stone within were dug away by a man inside. When they -came to the rock, which they could not blast because it was under -water, they hung a roughly-made iron drill by a rope to a spring pole -and went inch by inch through the rock, "kicking down" the well. Metal -tubes were not to be had, but the Yankee whittler solved the problem -of tubing the well. Two slender strips of wood were whittled into two -long, thin, half tubes, and tied together. This is the genesis of the -bored "well" and the "drill and derrick."[665] It took eighteen months -to accomplish this, but the wonder is that it was done at all "without -preliminary study, previous experience or training, without precedent, -in a newly-settled country without steam-power, machine-shop, skilled -mechanics, suitable tools or materials." - -These almost-forgotten men, shrewd, patient, undauntable, were the -pioneers of the skilful well-borers who have gone forth from the -Kanawha wells all over the country to bore wells for irrigation on -the Western plains, for cities, factories, and private use, for salt, -for gas, for geological and mineralogical explorations, and for -oil. "Billy Morris," of the Kanawha borings, invented a tool simple -enough, but not so simple as to be described here, called the "slips" -or "jars," which has done more for deep boring than anything except -the steam-engine, and for which, considering the part played in the -life of man by oil, gas, water, brine, and other wells, we are told -he "deserves to be ranked with the inventors of the sewing-machine, -reaper, and cotton-gin."[666] But "Uncle Billy" made a free gift to the -well-diggers of the world of his invaluable "slips," and slipped into -poverty and an unknown grave. To Joshua Merrill, more than to any one -else, belongs the honor of bringing the manufacture of oil in America -to its perfection.[667] He made better oil than any one else, and he -loved his work. "I was thirty-two years in the oil business. It was -the business of my life."[668] But he had to dismantle his refinery, -and join the melancholy procession of two thousand years of scouts, -inventors, pioneers, capitalists, and toilers who march behind the -successful men. - -Yet, strange to say, these successful men did not discover the oil, -nor how to "strike" it. They were not the lucky owners of oil lands. -As late as 1888 they produced only 200 barrels a day--about 1 in every -3000--"an infinitesimal amount," their president said.[669] They did -not invent any of the processes of refining. They did not devise the -pipe line, and they did all they could to prevent the building[670] -of the first pipe line to the seaboard, and to cripple the successful -experiment of piping refined oil.[671] They own all the important -refineries, and yet they have built very few. They did not project -the tank-car system, which came before them,[672] and have used their -irresistible power to prevent its general use on the railroads, and -successfully.[673] They were not the first to enter the field in any -department. They did not have as great capital or skill as their -competitors.[674] They began their career in the wrong place--at -Cleveland--out of the way of the wells and the principal markets, -necessitating several hundred miles more of transportation for all of -their product that was marketed in the East or Europe.[675] They had -no process of refining oil which others had not, and no legitimate -advantages over others.[676] They did not even invent the rebate. They -made oil poor[677] and scarce[678] and dear.[679] - -The power to chalk down daily on the black-board of the New York -Produce Exchange the price at which people in two hemispheres shall buy -their light has followed these strokes of "cheapness": - -1. Freight rates to the general public have been increased, often to -double and more what is paid by a favored few.[680] - -2. The construction has been resisted of new lines of transportation by -rail,[681] - -3. And pipe.[682] This has been done by litigation,[683] by influence, -by violence,[684] even to the threatened use of cannon,[685] and by -legislation, as in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to prevent the right of -eminent domain from being given by "free pipe-line bills" to the people -generally. - -4. The cost of pipeage has been raised.[686] - -5. Rivers and canals have been closed.[687] - -6. Oil has been made to run to waste on the ground.[688] - -7. The outflow of oil from the earth has been shut down.[689] - -8. The outflow of human energy that sought to turn it to human use has -been shut down by restricting the manufacture by the combination and by -others, by contract,[690] dismantling,[691] and explosion.[692] - -9. High fees have been maintained for inspection,[693] and the -inspectors have been brought into equivocal relations with the -monopoly.[694] - -10. The general use of tank-cars and tank-steamers has been -prevented.[695] - -11. The people have been excluded from the free and equal use of the -docks, storehouses, and other terminal facilities of the railroads in -the great harbors of export.[696] - -12. Inventors and their better processes have been smothered.[697] - -13. Men have been paid more for spying than they could earn by -working.[698] - -14. "Killing delay" has been created in the administration of -justice.[699] - -All are poorer--oil-producers, land-owners, all labor, all the -railroads, all the refiners, merchants, all the consumers of oil--the -whole people. Less oil has flowed, less light shone, and there has -been less happiness and virtue. In every one of the few intervals, -says Hudson, during which oil could flow freely to Pittsburg, all the -businesses connected with it were active and expanding.[700] - -When the trust's secretary was asked for the proper name of the -combination, his reply was: "The Lord only knows; I don't." "An -indescribable thing," he said again.[701] - -"Do you understand the practical work of refining as a refiner?" he was -asked. - -"I do not.... I have not been inside a refinery in ten years."[702] - -"Two mills a ton a mile for five hundred miles would be a dollar a ton?" - -"I am not able to demonstrate that proposition." - -"You have some arithmetical knowledge?" - -"I cannot answer that question."[703] - -He could not state what proportion of the oil trade is now controlled -by the trust. He had never looked into that question. He did not know -who knows these things.[704] - -"You own the pipe line to New York?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"What does it cost you to do business on that pipe line?" - -"I do not know anything about it.... I have never been in the oil -regions but once in my life.... I am not a practical oil man.... For -perhaps eight years I have given absolutely no attention to the details -of our business."[705] - -Asked upon another occasion, before the Pennsylvania Legislature, about -the accounts of the company when he was its secretary, he said: - -"I am not familiar with the accounts."[706] - -"I am a clamorer for dividends. That is the only function I have," said -another trustee.[707] - -"When was your last rate given you, the rate at which you are now being -carried (on the New York Central)?" - -"I could not tell."[708] - -The secretary had testified that this associate attended to getting the -rates of freight; but the latter avowed that he could not remember "any -rate" that he had paid "at any time." But a little later he who could -not remember any rate he had ever paid was able to tell the committee, -off-hand, the exact rate of freight on oil by steamer from Batoum in -Russia to Liverpool, and knew the rate from the wells at Baku by rail -to the sea at Batoum![709] - -"Had you ever been interested in the refinery of oil in any manner when -you first became connected with the oil business?" another trustee was -asked. - -"Never." - -"Or the production of oil?" - -"Never." - -He was a railroad man, and had been taken into the combination for his -value as such; but when he was asked if he could tell any of the rates -of freight his company had paid, he said: - -"I cannot."[710] - -"What is your business and where do you reside?" another of the -trustees was asked by the State of New York. - -"I decline to answer any question until I can consult counsel."[711] - -"What is the capital stock?" was asked of another. - -"I do not know." - -"How much has the capital been increased since?" - -"I don't know." - -"Where are the meetings of the Standard Oil Company held?" - -"I don't know." - -"How many directors are there?" - -"I don't know." - -"Do they own any pipe lines?" - -"I don't know." - -"I don't know anything about the rates of transportation."[712] - -"What quantity of oil was exported by the different concerns with which -you were connected from the port of New York in 1881?" the president -was asked. - -"I do not know." - -"How many millions of barrels of oil were refined by such concerns in -the vicinity of New York in 1881?" - -"I don't know how much was refined." - -"Did not the concern with which you were so connected purchase over -8,000,000 barrels of crude petroleum in 1881?" - -"I am unable to state." - -He was asked to give the name of one refinery in this country, running -at the time (1883), not owned or substantially controlled by his -concern. "I decline to answer."[713] - -He was asked if he would say the total profits of his trust's companies -for the last year (1887) were not as much as $20,000,000. - -"I haven't the least knowledge on that subject."[714] - -Phrenologists are right. Memory is not to be ranked with the mental -attributes of the highest importance. The head of the New York Central -could not tell when a stock dividend of something like $46,000,000 had -been declared on one of his railroads--and a $46,000,000 dividend is -something worth remembering. "I don't know.... I don't remember."[715] -It is lucky for the rest of us that these great men forget something. - -One of the chiefs of the oil combination was a witness in Cleveland in -1887 in a suit by the State of Ohio against certain railroads. - -"What business in connection with the oil business is done in the -building in which the oil trust has its office in New York?" - -"I do not think I could state just what business is done in that -building, I am sure." - -Asked on the witness-stand in the Buffalo explosion case when it was he -formed the "trust" with $70,000,000 of capital, the president replied: -"I am unable to state," and he could not say where its articles of -agreement were, nor who has control of it. When questioned before the -Interstate Commission he could not tell within $25,000,000 how much -business they were doing a year.[716] - -These men keep no books. The whole arrangement is just a happy family, -like Barnum's monkeys, birds, cats, dogs, and mice in the same -cage. "It is a business of faith," one of the ruling four puts it. -Another was asked about the by-laws under which he and his associates -transacted their business. "I don't know that I have seen a copy," he -replied, and as to where it was he was able only to "suppose."[717] - -When the committee of the Legislature called for the books recording -the transactions of the trust and its attorneys and committees, there -were practically none to produce. All there was in the way of a record -of transactions of a magnitude beyond those of any other commercial -institution in this country or the world were a few pages of formal -entries from which nothing could be learned. The executive committee -received and passed upon the disbursements of money by the treasurer, -and the reports of sub-committees and of members, who had sweeping -powers of attorney, by which these countless millions were kept rolling -themselves up into more, but it never kept any records. - -"I have no knowledge of any formal record having been made," one of -them said. The reports were "either verbal or on pieces of paper.... -I think it was memorandums," he continued, and the memorandums were -"undoubtedly destroyed." They were transcribed into the records of the -trustees, he said, but the search of the committee showed that the -transcription was a "skeleton," consisting mainly of the mere phrase, -"Minutes of the executive committee approved." "The real minutes do not -appear upon the book," Senator Ives, of the committee, said. - -"There is no book to produce?" - -"There is no book." - -"And there is no memorandum?" - -"There is no memorandum."[718] - -"Does the trust keep books?" the "president" was asked by Congress. - -"No, we have no system of book-keeping." - -On further pressure he said that the treasurer had "a record to know -what money comes in." - -"You have never seen those books?" - -"I do not think I have ever seen those books." - -"Has any member of the nine" (trustees) "ever seen those books?" - -"I do not know that they have."[719] - -Simplicity is said to be always a characteristic of greatness. What -could be simpler, and so greater, than this? The elements of success -are only-- - -1. Not to know anything about the business. - -2. To keep no books. - -3. To have "a record to know what money comes in," and - -4. Never to look at it. - -Finally, the operations of these men have, in their own language, not -been "business." Its secretary told Congress that the "trust" was "not -a business corporation,"[720] and an associate declared in court that -it "cannot do business." The report of the New York Legislature shows -that on October 3, 1883, the president had by a formal instrument been -made the attorney of the trust to sign and execute all the contracts -made by it. The same instrument in express terms confirmed the -execution of contracts heretofore signed by him, showing that he had -been making contracts.[721] - -"Those gentlemen" (the members of the trust who hold its power of -attorney) "do actually execute contracts involving pretty large -amounts, sometimes without a formal resolution of the Board of -Trustees, do they not?" one of them was asked. - -"Undoubtedly they do."[722] - -Following their employers, the lawyers in the Pennsylvania Tax case for -the oil combination argued that its operations were not business within -the meaning of the tax law. If the "no money" of 1862 has become the -control, in one industry alone, of $160,000,000 in 1892 by methods that -are not "business," what are they? - - NOTE.--The principal members of the oil combination were heard - at great length in its defence before the committee of Congress - investigating trusts in 1888.[723] Their testimony has been frequently - used in our pages. But they felt that their case needed further - elucidation, and asked the committee to hear them again. The committee - declined to hear them again "explain or contradict," as they offered - to do, but by printing their communication gave them the benefit of - their denials and explanations.[724] Their offer was mainly to go - again over the ground that the "South Improvement Company never did - any business," that the combination "obtained no preferences" on the - railroads, that they had cheapened transportation, improved machinery, - made better oil at less cost, and so on. The chief officers and owners - had been heard on all these points to the extent of hundreds of pages - of testimony. But though it did not recall them to the witness-stand, - the committee, in addition to printing their communication, printed - most of the documentary evidence they desired to submit. This covered - nearly two hundred pages more.[725] - - The examination, which any one can make, of this record discloses an - interesting fact concerning the proof, and the trust's offer to prove, - which can best be shown in parallel columns: - - - TRUST'S OFFER TO PROVE. | THE PROOF. - | - It offered the evidence of the third|But the testimony of this witness - vice-president of the Pennsylvania |states that his connection with - Railroad to "show the South |the oil business of the Pennsylvania - Improvement Company never did any |Railroad--the principal railroad in - business, and its charter was |that scheme--did not begin until - repealed in 1872." |1873.[726] - | - It offered the same evidence to |But this witness stated that his - prove that the same rebates granted |road would give other shippers as - it by the contract of October 17, |low rates as to the oil combination, - 1877, "were also granted to every |"if they would guarantee the same - shipper who contracted to do _all_ |quantity--not otherwise--under that - his business over the Pennsylvania |contract";[727] and the contract - Railroad." |itself states that no other shipper - |should have the same rebate - |--"commission," it is called--unless - |his business gave the road "the same - |amount of profit you realized from - |our trade."[728] No shipper could get - |the same rates by giving "all his - |business." He must give "the same - |quantity"--a totally different - |proposition. - | - It offered the evidence taken in the|The evidence shows that this was - Buffalo Explosion case, to show that|what was sworn to: "I have now a - "C.B. Matthews testified falsely" |detective agency here" (Buffalo). "I - in testifying that it was sworn to |employed L---- B----. At the time - that the members of the oil |he was in my employ he was employed - combination on trial employed |at the works of the Buffalo - detectives in Matthews' refineries, |Lubricating Company" (Matthews' - and that the detective was some time|company). "He made reports to me.... - in Matthews' employ, and made his |I forwarded copies--one to New - report to the lawyer of the trust, |York, one to Rochester.... The one - and he got his pay from this lawyer.|forwarded to New York was addressed - |to" (the lawyer of the oil - |trust). "I met" (this lawyer, naming - |him) "at New York City, at No. 44 - |Broadway, which is the office of the" - |(oil trust). "I received my pay from" - |(him). "My instructions from" (him) - |"were in writing."[729] - | - It offered "to prove that C.B. |This was what "was proved by a - Matthews testified falsely in saying|witness," and referred to by - that it was proved by a witness" |Matthews. - that the Rochester representative of|"He" (the Rochester representative - the oil combination said that the |of the oil combination) - principal company in it "would sue |"said he thought they" (Matthews' - Matthews once a month, or once a |company) "would not survive.... By - week, if necessary, to squeeze him |the time they got through with all - out." |the suits that they" (the oil - |combination) "would bring, the - |Buffalo Lubricating Company would - |be pretty much used up.... He didn't - |know as they would gain anything - |really, but they would embarrass them - |by bringing these suits, and if it - |was necessary they would bring them - |once a month--yes, they would bring - |them once a week."[730] - - Similarly, throughout, the trust's offer to prove falls when - confronted with its own proof. Many more instances could be given, but - more than one instance is not needed. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - -THE SMOKELESS REBATE - - -With searching intelligence, indomitable will, and a conscience which -makes religion, patriotism, and the domestic virtues but subordinate -paragraphs in a ritual of money worship, the mercantile mind flies -its air-line to business supremacy. That entirely modern social -arrangement--the private ownership of public highways--has introduced a -new weapon into business warfare which means universal dominion to him -who will use it with an iron hand. - -This weapon is the rebate, smokeless, noiseless, invisible, of -extraordinary range, and the deadliest gun known to commercial warfare. -It is not a lawful weapon. Like the explosive bullet, it is not -recognized by the laws of war. It has to be used secretly. All the -rates he got were a secret between himself and the railroads. "It has -never been otherwise," testified one of the oil combination.[731] The -Chevalier Bayard declared proudly, as he lay on his death-bed, that he -had never given quarter to any one so degraded and unknightly as to -use gunpowder. Every one would close in at once to destroy a market -combatant who avowed that he employed this wicked projectile. - -The apparatus of the rebate is so simple that it looks less like a -destroying angel than any weapon of offence ever known. The whole -battery consists only of a pen and ink and some paper. The discharge is -but the making of an entry--but the signing of a check. But when the -man who commands this simple enginery directs it against a business -competitor you can follow the track of wreckage like the path of a -cyclone, by the ruins which lie bleaching in the air for years. The -gentlemen who employ it give no evidence of being otherwise engaged -than in their ordinary pursuits. They go about sedate and smiling, with -seemingly friendly hands empty of all tools of death. But all about -them as they will, as if it were only by wish of theirs which attendant -spirits hastened to execute, rivals are blown out of the highways, busy -mills and refineries turn to dust, hearts break, and strong men go mad -or commit suicide or surrender their persons and their property to the -skilful artillerists. - -"And in the actual practice of daily life," says Ruskin, "you will find -that wherever there is secrecy, there is either guilt or danger." "When -did you discover the fact that these rebates had been paid?" one of the -victims was asked. - -"We never discovered it as a fact until the testimony was taken in -1879.... We always suspected it; but we never knew of it of our -personal knowledge, and never would really have known it of our -personal knowledge.... I had no idea of the iniquity that was going -on."[732] - -Nothing so demolishing was ever so delicate and intangible as this, for -its essence is but a union of the minds of a railroad official and some -business friend, perhaps a silent partner, bent on business empire. The -model merchant, fortunate in having a friend willing so to use a power -sovereigns would not dare to use, walks the public way, strong in his -secret, and smiles with triumph as all at whom he levels his invisible -wand sicken and disappear. "He has the receipt of fern-seed. He walks -invisible." - -Men who hunt their fellow-men with this concealed weapon always deny -it, as they must. To use it has always been a sin, and has been made a -crime in every civilized State. Under United States law it is, since -1887, an offence punishable with imprisonment in the penitentiary.[733] -Moral ideals are not born in legislatures. When an act attains by a -law the distinction of being made a crime, it is already well on its -way to extinction. It is made infamous by law, because it has already -become infamous before the conscience and honor of men. It was not the -prohibition of highway privilege by the Constitution of Pennsylvania or -the laws of the United States which made the rebate an iniquity. This -legal volley is but a salute to the established conscience. - -The question most often pressed before all the many legislative and -judicial inquests held upon the dead bodies which strew every field of -the oil industry has been whether the extraordinary powers which the -invention of the locomotive and the transformation of public highways -into private property had given railways over the livelihoods of the -people had been used to make it impossible for any but a preferred few -to live. - -One of the successful men disposed of the evidence that these powers -had been so used by styling it before the committee of Congress of -1888 as the "worst balderdash," and before the New York Legislative -Committee of 1888 as "irresponsible newspaper statements," "a malignity -and mendacity that is little short of devilishness." The secretary of -the oil trust waved it away as "all this newspaper talk and flurry." -The president knows nothing about the existence of such privileges, -except that he has "heard much of it in the papers." And yet another of -the trust in the _North American Review_ of February, 1883, similarly -describes the accusation as "uncontradicted calumny," to which, he -regrets to say, "several respectable journals and magazines lent -themselves." - -After taking 3700 pages of evidence and sitting for months, the -committee of 1879 of the New York Legislature said in their report: -"The history of this corporation is a unique illustration of the -possible outgrowth of the present system of railroad management in -giving preferential rates, and also showing the colossal proportions to -which monopoly can grow under the laws of this country.[734] ... The -parties whom they have driven to the wall have had ample capital and -equal ability in the prosecution of their business in all things save -their ability to acquire facilities for transportation."[735] - -The committee of the Ohio Legislature which took the evidence of the -treatment of the Marietta independents by the railroads[736] is, so far -as the author knows, the only body of all the legislative and judicial -tribunals that have been investigating for the past thirty years which -has found the relations of the railroads and the oil combination to -be proper. It used the words "public," "uniform," "in accordance -with law," "equitable," "no special discriminations or privileges" -to describe the conduct of the common carriers in that case. But in -doing so it had to except from these exculpations the railroad which -originated the attack on the independent refiners, and the rates of -which controlled the others, as it was the initial road. It had also -to admit that the oil combination had received "better rates," but -defended them on the ground that its shipments were larger. These two -exceptions are doors wide enough to admit every possibility of the -rebate. The Secretary of State for Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania -made an investigation in 1878 on the complaint of citizens. He reported -to the Attorney-General that no case had been made out "beyond the -ordinary province of individual redress." He was hung in effigy by -the citizens, and the evidence he took remains, like that of the Ohio -Committee of 1879, a valuable repository of facts from which students -can draw their own conclusions. - -More than any others the wrongs of the oil industry provoked the -investigations by Congress from 1872 to 1887, and caused the -establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and more than -any others they have claimed the attention of the new law and the -new court. The cases brought before it cover the oil business on -practically every road of any importance in the United States--in -New England, the Middle States, the West, the South, the Pacific -coast; on the great East and West trunk roads--the Pennsylvania, the -Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central, and all their -allied lines; on the transcontinental lines--the Union Pacific, -the Central Pacific, the Southern Pacific; on the steamship and -railroad association controlling the South and Southwest. They show -that from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the -Gulf of Mexico, wherever the American citizen seeks an opening in -this industry, he finds it, like the deer forests and grouse moors -of the old country, protected by game-keepers against him and the -common herd. The terms in which the commission have described the -preferences given the oil combination are not ambiguous: "Great -difference in rates," "unjust discrimination," "intentional disregard -of rights," "unexcused," "a vast discrepancy," "enormous," "illegal," -"excessive,"[737] "extraordinary," "forbidden by the act to regulate -commerce,"[738] "so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no -discussion of it is necessary," "wholly indefensible," "patent and -provoking discriminations for which no rational excuse is suggested," -"obnoxious," "disparity ... absurd and inexcusable," "gross -disproportions and inequalities,"[739] "long practised," "the most -unjust and injurious discrimination ... and this discrimination inured -mostly to the benefit of one powerful combination."[740] - -This was what the Interstate Commerce Commission found all along the -record from 1887 to 1893. When one of those who got the benefits so -characterized was before the New York Legislature in 1888, he said: - -"I know of no discrimination in the oil traffic of any kind since the -passage of the Interstate Commerce Act." - -"Do you use any means for the purpose of avoiding the effect of that -new law?" - -"None whatever."[741] - -But the people have found that the explicit prohibitions of the -Interstate Commerce law were of no more protection to them than -the equally explicit prohibitions given long before by the State -constitutions and laws, the common law of the court, and by the still -older common law of right, which the statute was created to enforce. -The "unjust," "enormous," "illegal" differences in freights by which -the public was excluded were got from the railroads after, as before, -Congress, obedient to an aroused and universal demand, had passed a -special statute and created a special tribunal to prevent and punish -this special sort of crime. This is the adjudicated fact. - -This "uncontradicted calumny," "worst balderdash," "malignity -and mendacity," "irresponsible newspaper statements" proves upon -examination to be: - -1. Testimony of unimpeached and in many cases uncontradicted witnesses, -given under oath in legislative investigations and in court, subject to -examination and cross-examination and rebuttal. - -2. Reports of State legislative committees. - -3. Copies of the contracts.[742] - -4. Decision of courts, State and national.[743] - -The South Improvement plan of 1872 is still in unrelenting operation, -according to the latest news. A case is now pending before the -Interstate Commerce Commission,[744] in which charges of highway abuse -even more sensational than any of those we have seen judicially proved -are made against the thirty railroads by which the oil of Ohio, -Pennsylvania, and New York reaches the Pacific coast. A San Francisco -oil dealer is the petitioner for relief. He recites the discriminations -given the oil combination on the Pacific coast before the Interstate -Commerce law was enacted. These were admitted by the officials of -the roads before the United States Pacific Railway Commission of -1887. The traffic managers of the Southern Pacific testified that -the oil combination, "from the time it acquired the oil business on -this coast, had lower rates than the general tariff provided, or than -other shippers paid on coal oil."[745] The general freight agent of -the Central Pacific Railroad admitted that his road had the same -arrangement, and had accepted the business "at rates dictated" by the -oil combination.[746] The general traffic manager of the Union Pacific -Railroad said: - -"We have paid them a good deal in rebates." It was a "pretty large" -preference. - -"What was the effect on the small dealer?" - -"I should think it would be embarrassing to the small shipper!"[747] - -When the Interstate Commerce law went into force the oil combination -introduced a patented car for the transcontinental trade, which -it claimed the sole right to use. Though the new car was to the -disadvantage of the railroads, as it cost more to haul, the managers -gave it lower rates than any other car and carried it back free, while -they punished the shippers who gave them a lighter and better car by -charging them $105 for carrying that back. - -The San Francisco complainant goes on to charge that a plan was -concocted and put in operation by which rates were lowered whenever the -combination wanted to fill its warehouses on the Pacific coast, and as -soon as they were full were put back again. This lowering and raising -of rates was "to the public sudden and unexpected."[748] It was known -in advance only to the ring and the railroads. Before other shippers -could take advantage of the low rates they would be raised again. The -complaint recites that in pursuance of this plan, after the combination -had transferred to the Pacific coast at the end of 1888 from its -Eastern refineries all it needed for the next season's business, the -railroads advanced the rates from 82-1/2 cents a hundred pounds to -$1.25. The next May the railroads made a similar seesaw, and, he says, -in December, 1892, "are still making ... such arbitrary and sudden -reductions ... to the undue advantage" of the oil combination "and to -the detriment and injury of all other shippers." The San Francisco -merchant also charges that in the interest of the Eastern refineries -of the combination rates are made to prevent the large product of the -oil-fields and independent refineries of Colorado and Wyoming from -reaching the Pacific coast, "which needs them to furnish fuel for its -manufactories, as well as for light for its residents." Similarly we -find the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad charging $105 for a car-load -of cattle from Wyoming to Chicago, while for a car of 75 barrels of -oil the freight would be $348. In connection with these charges the -press published the telegrams, filling columns, which were said to have -passed between the officials of the railroads and the oil combination -in the negotiation of this arrangement. In one of these telegrams the -freight agent of the Southern Pacific explains the new deal. "He" (the -agent of the oil combination) "would stock up at the low rate, then -notify the association of railroads when to advance." The advance or -decline was to be "made at certain seasons of the year in accordance -with this supply on hand." When the negotiation was finished and the -plan was agreed to, a San Francisco agent of the oil combination is -said to have telegraphed to its officers in New York: "I think we have -managed this freight business pretty well from this long distance, -especially when you think that we have secured the 90-cent rate with -which to stock up from time to time." His telegram also discloses -that the arrangement extended to lead and linseed-oil, showing, what -is well known, that the combinations in these articles belong to the -members of that in oil. These charges are, it is to be remembered, -still unadjudicated, this published evidence is not yet substantiated. -But the arrangement which is charged is in exact pursuance of that -part of the South Improvement Company contract which bound the -railroads to "lower or raise the gross rates of transportation ... -for such times and to such extent as may be necessary to overcome -... competition."[749] And Attorney-General Olney has been publicly -informed[750] that during the summer of 1894 oil rates between -Pennsylvania and Colorado were put down from 75 cents a hundred to 25 -cents, and a few weeks later raised again to the old rate. Another -increase made the rates to Denver higher, for oil, than to the Pacific -coast. He has been asked to ascertain, judicially, if this shuffling -of rates was not made, like that complained of before the Interstate -Commerce Commission, to allow the oil trust "to stock up at the old -rate." His informants suggest that the same powers with which he has -brought railway employes to trial for infractions of the Interstate -Commerce law can be used against the railways. - -This is not all of the story. This patented car spoken of was a mere -aggregation of old elements, as the courts held, and the patent was -void. Advised by their lawyer that this would be the view the courts -would have to take, competitors of the combination in the business of -the Pacific coast, where they had been at the head until these new -tricks of trade came in, introduced a car of their own of the same -class. They thus became entitled to the same low rates and the same -free return of the car as their powerful rival. This put them again -on an equality in transportation. They had not been using these new -cars long before two of them, shipped as usual from the East, failed -to arrive. Their search for the missing cars put them in possession of -the interesting information that a litigation, of which they had had -no notice or knowledge whatever, had for some time been in progress, -and was at that moment at the point of decision. As their interests -had been entirely unrepresented, this decision would certainly have -been against them, and would have forever made impossible the use of -their cars on any railroad of the United States. This had been done -by an apparently hostile litigation by the oil combination against -the Southern Pacific Railroad. The former sued in the United States -courts for an injunction to forbid the railroad from hauling the -cars of the competitor, on the ground that they were an infringement -on its own patented cars. No notice was given the persons most -interested--the owners of the cars in question--whose business life -was involved, and they were not at first made parties to the suit. -The dummy defendant--the railroad--made no valid opposition, but with -great condescension admitted that all the averments of its antagonist -were true. The case was sent through the courts on a gallop to get -a decision. After that the merchants whose cars were the object of -the attack, as they had not been parties to the case, could not have -it reopened, and it would stand against them without possibility of -reversal. The firm found that a temporary injunction had been applied -for and had been granted; that this had been followed by proceedings to -make the injunction perpetual; that subpoenas had been issued, served, -and returned, and an order had been obtained from the court for taking -testimony. In place of the regular examiner of the court, a special -examiner had been appointed; he had begun taking evidence the same -day, and taking it privately. The testimony so taken had been sealed -and filed. The railroad had made its answer December 2d, the testimony -already taken was filed in court December 3d, making the case complete -for decision by the judges. December 4th the firm heard for the first -time of what was being done, and December 5th applied for the right to -take part, which saved them. To get such cases ready for a hearing in -the United States Circuit Court, where this was done, usually requires -a year. But in this instance it was done in two weeks! Only just as -the door of the court was closing irrevocably, as far as their rights -were concerned, did the firm get inside, and secure leave to have -their side represented. The whole fabric of the litigation fell at the -first touch. The temporary injunction against the use of their car was -dissolved, the permanent injunction was refused, the patent of the oil -trust's car was declared worthless, and this decision was upheld by the -United States Circuit Court of Appeals in February, 1893.[751] - -Meanwhile their oil, side-tracked in the Mojave Desert and elsewhere, -was being cooked to death, their customers were going elsewhere, and -they were being put to loss and damages which they are now suing to -have made good to them. "There are some equivocal circumstances in -the case," said Judge Hoffman, dissolving the injunctions in 1890. He -pointed out that the railroad made no objection to the injunction which -deprived it of business. This "tends to corroborate suspicions," he -said, suggested by other features of the case. The railroad persisted -in remaining in the case to the end, after the real parties in interest -came in, and, although codefendants with these parties, the road -manoeuvred for the benefit of the other side in a way which the Court -again said "had an equivocal appearance." The counsel for the firm, -in his brief for the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, pointed -out more causes for "suspicion." He showed the Court that the records -of the case had been mutilated in many places. All the mutilations -were in favor of the other side of the case. Who was the author of -the mutilations was not shown, but it was shown that the record had -been intrusted by the lower court to a representative of one of the -oil trust, to be printed and delivered to the Court of Appeals. "It -would be a very easy matter for a vicious attorney," said the lawyer -of the independents, "under such circumstances, to make changes -and alterations in the record that might not be noticed, but would -nevertheless greatly prejudice the case." - -When the victims of the smokeless rebate used the only property many -of them had left--their right of appeal to courts or Legislature -or executive officials--they were showered with abuse, as people -with "private grievances,"[752] "strikers and sore-heads," -"black-mailers,"[753] "moss-backs," ... "naturally left in the lurch" -... "people who came forward with envy and jealousy of the success" -of the oil combination,[754] "throttlers," "ravenous wolves," "hoary -old reprobate," "senile old liar," "public till-tapper," "plunderers," -"pestilence."[755] Such are a few of the blossoms of rhetoric -with which those who sought their rights in courts or before the -Legislature have been crowned. These witnesses have come forward all -through the period between 1872 and 1892, and from every point of -importance in the industry--New York, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Oil City, -San Francisco, Titusville, Philadelphia, Marietta, Buffalo, Boston, -Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans. They have come from every -province of the industry--the refineries, the oil fields, the pipe -lines, railroads, the wholesale and retail markets. Bound together -by no common tie of organization or partnership, they have, each and -all, exactly the same kind of story to tell. The substance of their -complaint--that one selected knot of men, members of one organization, -were given, unlawfully, the control of the highways, to the exclusion -and ruin of the people--has been sustained by the evidence taken by -every official investigation, and by the decision of every court to -which the facts have been submitted. - -As the counsel of the New York Chamber of Commerce before the New York -Legislative Committee of 1879 said: "Such a power makes it possible to -the freight agents of the railways to constitute themselves special -partners in every line of business in the United States, contributing -as their share of capital to the business the ability to crush out -rivals." Men who can choose which merchants, manufacturers, producers -shall go to market and which stay at home, have a key that will unlock -the door of every business house on the line; they know the combination -of every safe. - -In their appeal to the executive of Pennsylvania, the Petroleum -Producers' Union refer to the conduct of the railroad officials as -"inexplicable upon any ordinary hypothesis, or under any known theory -of railroad politics."[756] What the railroad managers did, we know; -why they did it, has never been judicially demonstrated. One of the -earliest intimations of the kind of lubricant used was given by the -anti-monopoly leader of the people in the Constitutional Convention -of Pennsylvania of 1872, who is now the legal leader of the oil -combination. He said: "I am told that discriminations are now made to -so great an extent as to be ruinous to certain companies unless the -railroad companies' officers are given a bonus. That is the evil under -which we labor. I do not know how to cure it, but it must be cured -somehow." Again he said: "It is charged--I do not make the charge -myself--but it is charged upon a railroad company running through the -oil regions that it will not, without delay, transport oil delivered to -the railroad station by the various pipe lines unless it is interested -in the pipe line.... It is said that whenever a new pipe line is -built, it is necessary that somebody connected with the particular -railroad company shall be presented with stock in the pipe line; -otherwise, it (the railroad company) will not furnish cars without -tedious and unnecessary delay. This is a discrimination which should be -stopped."[757] - -It is plain that the purpose of the discrimination was something -more than to shunt the control of the trade--more than "to maintain -the business" of the favorite. Ten cents a barrel difference would -have done that, for, as the Supreme Court of Ohio pointed out, that -alone amounted to a tax of 21 per cent. a year on the capital of the -"outsiders."[758] When 10 cents was enough, why was the tax made -22-1/2 cents, 25 cents, 64-1/2 cents up to $1.10? - -Some railroad men are known to have been stockholders in the oil -combination. "I think I owned--I guess I had $100,000 in it.... I don't -know anything at all about it"--the company--the head of the New York -Central admitted.[759] Who were the owners of certain shares of their -capital stock these men have always refused to divulge. In giving in -court a list of stockholders of one of their corporations one of the -officers uncovered only three-quarters of the stock. Who held the other -fourth he avowed he could not say, although the stock-book was in his -custody.[760] The dividends were paid to the vice-president, and by -him handed over to these veiled prophets. There was a similar mystery -about the owners of about $2,000,000 of the National Transit stock, the -concern which owns and manages the pipe lines. Asked for the names of -the owners of this portion, the "secretary" said: - -"It is a private matter.... I decline to answer."[761] - -The president of this pipe-line branch also refused to give Congress -this information.[762] This secrecy will couple itself at once in the -mind of the investigator with the charges just quoted, that railroad -officials had to be given backsheesh of pipe-line stock before their -roads would carry the oil of the pipe lines. - -The United States Senate Committee which investigated the cattle and -meat monopolies had a similar experience. Their report says: "The -secretary of the Union Stockyards testified at Chicago that when the -company was established the stock was subscribed by the railroads; but -when asked to show his stock-books he declined, after consultation with -the company's attorneys, and persisted in this refusal at Washington -City. For the purposes of our investigation it was not considered -necessary to ascertain in whose names the stock now stands, for we -were satisfied that whatever the ownership it would not appear in the -names of the railroad presidents, directors, and stockholders, who -are the real owners.... The refusal of the secretary, under direction -of his employers, to make public the list of stockholders must have -been because of the fact that the same men own the stockyards and the -railroads running to them, and they do not propose to submit their -books to scrutiny because they dread the truth.... This extraordinary -conduct on the part of the stockyards company is not alone in the chain -of evidence which shows complicity between the stockyards and the -railroads."[763] - -The smokeless rebate makes the secret of success in business to -be not manufacture, but manufracture--breaking down with a strong -hand the true makers of things. To those who can get the rebate it -makes no difference who does the digging, building, mining, making, -producing the million forms of the wealth they covet for themselves. -They need only get control of the roads. All that they want of the -wealth of others can be switched off the highways into their hands. -To succeed, ambitious men must make themselves refiners of freight -rates, distillers of discriminations, owners, not of lands, mines, and -forests--not in the first place, at least--but of the railway officials -through whose hands the produce must go to market; builders, not of -manufactories, but of privileges; inventors only of schemes to keep for -themselves the middle of the road and both sides of it; contrivers, not -of competition, but of ways to tax the property of their competitors -into their pockets. They need not make money; they can take it from -those who have made it. - -In the United States the processes of business feudalization are moving -more rapidly to the end than in any other country. In Chicago, the -youngest of the great cities of the youngest of the great nations, -there are fewer wholesale dry-goods stores in 1894 for a population of -1,600,000 than there were in 1860 for 112,172. In almost every one of -the meteoric careers by which a few men in each trade are rising to -supreme wealth, it will generally be found that to some privilege on -the railed highways, accomplished by the rebate, is due the part of -their rise which is extraordinary. A few cases of great wealth from -the increased value of land, a few from remarkable inventions like the -sewing-machine, are only exceptions. - -From using railroad power to give better rates to the larger man, it -was an easy step to using it to make a favorite first a larger man, -then the largest man, and finally the only man in the business. In -meat and cattle we see men rising from poverty to great wealth. From -being competitors, like other men, in the scramble, they get into the -comfortable seat of control of the prices at which the farmer must sell -cattle, and at which the people must buy meat.[764] Many other men -had thrift, sobriety, industry, but only these had the rebate, and so -only these are the "fittest in the struggle for existence." We find a -merchant prince of the last generation in New York gathering into his -hands a share of the dry-goods business of the country which appears -entirely disproportionate to his ability and energy, great though these -be. Is his secret a brain so much larger than his competitors' brains -as his business is greater than theirs? The freight agent of the New -York Central testified that he gave this man a special rate "to build -up and develop their business." - -"They were languishing and suffering?" - -"To a great extent."[765] - -"This," said the counsel for the Chamber of Commerce of New York before -the committee, "is deliberately making the rich richer and the poor -poorer, by taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich through the -instrumentality of the freight charge."[766] - -The officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad, by the use of rebates, -handed over the State of Pennsylvania to three coal-dealers, each of -whom had his territory, and was supreme in it, as would-be competitors -found out when they undertook to ship coal into his market. They made -a similar division of the iron and steel business. The rebate is the -golden-rule of the "gospel of wealth." We have already seen that the -secret of the few corporations which have become the owners of almost -every acre of the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania was the rebate.[767] - -Along one of the most important lines out of Chicago grain dealers who -had been buying and selling in an open market, building elevators, -investing capital and life, found five years ago market and railroad -and livelihood suddenly closed to them, and the work of thirty years -brought to an untimely end. The United States Interstate Commerce -Commission, and the United States District Attorneys co-operating with -it, broke down in the attempt to compel the railroad men who gave these -privileges of transportation, or the business men who received them, -to testify or to produce their books. The United States grand-jury in -Chicago, in December, 1890, proceeded against the shippers and the -railroad men. All of them refused to tell the rates given or received, -or to produce their books. - -Why do you refuse to answer? they were asked. - -Because to do so would incriminate us. - -Here, too, would-be successful men have gone gunning with the smokeless -rebate for control of the wheat and corn and all the produce of the -American farmer. Grain is fated to go the way that oil, hard coal, -cattle, and meat have already gone. The farmer may remain the nominal -owner of his farm under these circumstances, but he will be real owner -of nothing but the piece of paper title. - -First the product of the farm; then the farm. In America rises the -shadow of a coming land-ownership more concentrated, more cruel, with -the impersonal cruelty of corporate anonymity, than any the world has -yet seen. - -The grain broker who becomes, by favor of the general freight agent, -the sole shipper and warehouseman of grain along a line of railroad, -becomes thereby the sole buyer, and in the sole buyer of the produce we -have the fast-growing germ of the future sole buyer of the land. - -"Petroleum is the victim to-day," said the address, in 1872, of the -Petroleum Producers' Union "to all newspapers and boards of trade -opposing monopoly.... Coal, iron, cotton, breadstuffs, or live-stock -may be in the grasp of the monopoly to-morrow." The prediction is more -than half fulfilled. - -"I ran away from home, and went to California," said a prominent grain -merchant to the writer, "to escape being compelled to testify as to -the freight rates I was paying. But these decisions that we cannot be -forced to incriminate ourselves give me safe-conduct, and I am going -home to take all the rebates I can get." - -This is what is going on to-day in the "division of property" in -America. Our society is woven together by the steam shuttle that -moves between its farms and dinner-tables, its cotton-fields and -factories, thousands of miles apart, and the shuttle is crooked. -Out of $800,000,000 paid yearly in this country for the carriage of -freight, it was estimated in 1888, by one who knew, that $50,000,000 -to $100,000,000 goes to favored shippers.[768] As the result of -personal examination made as an expert for stockholders, he declared -that one of the great trunk lines had in the last twenty years thus -diverted to favorites of the managers $100,000,000 of the money of -the stockholders. Besides his yachts and trotters, every Captain of -Industry worth talking about keeps his stud of railway presidents and -general freight agents. - -Public opinion, as yet only in the gristle in these new questions, -turns upon first one and then another as the author of its -troubles--the soulless corporation, the combination of corporations, -railroad oppression, or what not. But the corporation is merely a -cover, the combination of corporations an advantage, the private -ownership of public highways an opportunity, and the rebate its perfect -tool. The real actors are men; the real instrument, the control of -their fellows by wealth, and the mainspring of the evil is the morals -and economics which cipher that brothers produce wealth when they are -only cheating each other out of birthrights. - -The success of the same men in Europe shows that railroad -discrimination is not the essence of their power, though it has -in America been the chief instrument. By their wealth and their -willingness to use it in their way they have become supreme. Supreme -even where, as in England and Germany, they had no such unjust and -crushing preference on the highways as in America. Back of highway -privilege, back of money power, back of trade supremacy gained by -these two means must be reckoned, as the essence of this phenomenon, -the morality--our morality--which not only allows but encourages men -to do each other to death, provided only the weapon be a bargain and -the arena a market. "Everything shall not go to market," says Emerson; -but everything does go to market. The millionaire is the modern hero, -says the New York _Evening Post_. The men who have found in the rebate -the secret of business success--and there are more of them than the -public guesses--have only extended a fiercer hand to the results all -were aiming at. They have used the smokeless rebate because it was the -best gun. But if that had not been ready to their hand, they would have -taken the next best. The course of conquest might have been slower, -but, unless checked by moral interventions, it would have reached the -same end. If society is founded on the idea that property belongs to -the strongest, these will sooner or later get all the property, by -bargains or by battles according to "the spirit of the age." - -The highest State and national courts and the Interstate Commerce -Commission of the United States have sustained the people in the -assertion of their rights, under the law, to come and go with free -and equal rights on the highways. The judges have solemnly warned -the guilty men that they must give up their "abhorrent" attempt to -drive citizens out of the industries of their choice, and to add the -property of the people to their vast estates. Although thus declared -in the right by the highest judges of the law and the fact, the people -are poor, defeated, and unsuccessful. Though thus warned by the -authoritative voice of the ministers of right and justice that their -purposes and practices are iniquitous and intolerable, the men who have -determined that whole provinces of American industry shall be theirs, -and theirs only, continue their warfare of extermination upon poor men -with methods practically unchanged. They evade or defy the laws of -the States and of the nation, and the decisions of the courts, State -and national. Guided by the advice of the skilfullest lawyers, they -persist in open violation, or make such changes in their procedure as -will nullify statute and decision without danger to them. For thirty -years the independents in the oil regions have had this reinforcement -of the law, and for thirty years, in spite of it, their rights have -been defiantly, continuously violated to the common ruin. The people -spend their lives passing about from field or factory, or shop or -office, to market, from market to court, from court to Legislature, -from Legislature to printing-office. They are the type of the time, -disturbed by the demand of the new tyranny of wealth for tribute from -their daily labors, and forbidden to rest until out of their suffering -a new liberty has been won--the industrial liberty, for which political -and religious liberty wait for their full realization. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - -THE OLD SELF-INTEREST - - -The corn of the coming harvest is growing so fast that, like the farmer -standing at night in his fields, we can hear it snap and crackle. -We have been fighting fire on the well-worn lines of old-fashioned -politics and political economy, regulating corporations, and leaving -competition to regulate itself. But the flames of a new economic -evolution run around us, and we turn to find that competition has -killed competition, that corporations are grown greater than the -State and have bred individuals greater than themselves, and that the -naked issue of our time is with property becoming master instead of -servant, property in many necessaries of life becoming monopoly of the -necessaries of life. - -We are still, in part, as Emerson says, in the quadruped state. Our -industry is a fight of every man for himself. The prize we give the -fittest is monopoly of the necessaries of life, and we leave these -winners of the powers of life and death to wield them over us by the -same "self-interest" with which they took them from us. In all this -we see at work a "principle" which will go into the records as one of -the historic mistakes of humanity. Institutions stand or fall by their -philosophy, and the main doctrine of industry since Adam Smith has been -the fallacy that the self-interest of the individual was a sufficient -guide to the welfare of the individual and society. Heralded as a final -truth of "science" this proves to have been nothing higher than a -temporary formula for a passing problem. It was a reflection in words -of the policy of the day. - -When the Middle Ages landed on the shores of the sixteenth century -they broke ranks, and for three hundred years every one has been -scurrying about to get what he could. Society was not highly developed -enough to organize the exploration and subjugation of worlds of new -things and ideas on any broader basis than private enterprise, personal -adventure. People had to run away from each other and from the old -ideas, nativities, guilds, to seize the prizes of the new sciences, the -new land, the new liberties which make modern times. They did not go -because the philosophers told them to. The philosophers saw them going -and wrote it down in a book, and have believed themselves ever since to -be the inventors of the division of labor and the discoverers of a new -world of social science. But now we are touching elbows again, and the -dream of these picnic centuries that the social can be made secondary -to the individual is being chased out of our minds by the hard light of -the crisis into which we are waking. - -"It is a law of business for each proprietor to pursue his own -interest," said the committee of Congress which in 1893 investigated -the coal combinations. "There is no hope for any of us, but the -weakest must go first," is the golden rule of business.[769] There is -no other field of human associations in which any such rule of action -is allowed. The man who should apply in his family or his citizenship -this "survival of the fittest" theory as it is practically professed -and operated in business would be a monster, and would be speedily -made extinct, as we do with monsters. To divide the supply of food -between himself and his children according to their relative powers of -calculation, to follow his conception of his own self-interest in any -matter which the self-interest of all has taken charge of, to deal as -he thinks best for himself with foreigners with whom his country is at -war, would be a short road to the penitentiary or the gallows. In trade -men have not yet risen to the level of the family life of the animals. -The true law of business is that all must pursue the interest of all. -In the law, the highest product of civilization, this has long been a -commonplace. The safety of the people is the supreme law. We are in -travail to bring industry up to this. Our century of the caprice of the -individual as the law-giver of the common toil, to employ or disemploy, -to start or stop, to open or close, to compete or combine, has been -the disorder of the school while the master slept. The happiness, -self-interest, or individuality of the whole is not more sacred than -that of each, but it is greater. They are equal in quality, but in -quantity they are greater. In the ultimate which the mathematician, the -poet, the reformer projects the two will coincide. - -Our world, operated by individual motive, is the country of the -Chinese fable, in which the inhabitants went on one leg. Yes, but an -"enlightened self-interest"? The perfect self-interest of the perfect -individual is an admirable conception, but it is still individual, -and the world is social. The music of the spheres is not to be played -on one string. Nature does nothing individually. All forces are -paired like the sexes, and every particle of matter in the universe -has to obey every other particle. When the individual has progressed -to a perfect self-interest, there will be over against it, acting -and reacting with it, a correspondingly perfect self-interest of the -community. Meanwhile, we who are the creators of society have got -the times out of joint, because, less experienced than the Creator -of the balanced matter of earth, we have given the precedence to the -powers on one side. As gods we are but half-grown. For a hundred -years or so our economic theory has been one of industrial government -by the self-interest of the individual. Political government by the -self-interest of the individual we call anarchy. It is one of the -paradoxes of public opinion that the people of America, least tolerant -of this theory of anarchy in political government, lead in practising -it in industry. Politically, we are civilized; industrially, not yet. -Our century, given to this _laissez-faire_--"leave the individual -alone; he will do what is best for himself, and what is best for him is -best for all"--has done one good: it has put society at the mercy of -its own ideals, and has produced an actual anarchy in industry which is -horrifying us into a change of doctrines. - -We have not been able to see the people for the persons in it. But -there is a people, and it is as different from a mere juxtaposition -of persons as a globe of glass from the handful of sand out of which -it was melted. It is becoming, socially, known to itself, with that -self-consciousness which distinguishes the quick from the dead and the -unborn. Every community, said Pascal, is a man, and every man, said -Plato, is a community. There is a new self-interest--that of the "man -called million," as Mazzini named him--and with this social motive the -other, which has so long had its own way, has now to reckon. Mankind -has gone astray following a truth seen only partially, but coronated -as a whole truth. Many civilizations must worship good men as gods -and follow the divinity of one and another before civilization sees -that these are only single stars in a firmament of humanity. Our -civilization has followed the self-interest of the individual to learn -that it was but one of the complex forces of self-interest. - -The true _laissez-faire_ is, let the individual do what the individual -can do best, and let the community do what the community can do best. -The _laissez-faire_ of social self-interest, if true, cannot conflict -with the individual self-interest, if true, but it must outrank it -always. What we have called "free competition" has not been free, only -freer than what went before. The free is still to come. The pressure -we feel is notice to prepare for it. Civilization--the process of -making men citizens in their relations to each other, by exacting of -each that he give to all that which he receives from all--has reached -only those forms of common effort which, because most general and most -vital, first demanded its harmonizing touch. Men joining in the labors -of the family, the mutual sacrifices of the club or the church in the -union of forces for self-defence and for the gains of co-operation on -the largest scale in labors of universal concern, like letter-carrying, -have come to be so far civilized. - -History is condensed in the catchwords of the people. In the phrases of -individual self-interest which have been the shibboleths of the main -activities of our last hundred years were prophesied: the filling up of -the Mississippi by the forest-destroying, self-seeking lumber companies -of the North; the disintegration of the American family--among the rich -by too little poverty, and among the poor by too much; the embezzlement -of public highways and public franchises into private property; the -devolution of the American merchants and manufacturers into the -business dependants--and social and political dependants, therefore--of -a few men in each great department of trade, from dry-goods to whiskey; -the devolution of the free farmer into a tenant, and of the working-man -into a fixture of the locomotive or the factory, forbidden to leave -except by permission of his employer or the public; and that melee of -injunctions, bayonets, idle men and idle machinery, rich man's fear of -poor man and poor man's fear of starvation, we call trade and industry. - -Where the self-interest of the individual is allowed to be the rule -both of social and personal action, the level of all is forced down -to that of the lowest. Business excuses itself for the things it -does--cuts in wages, exactions in hours, tricks of competition--on -the plea that the merciful are compelled to follow the cruel. "It is -pleaded as an excuse by those" (common carriers) "who desire to obey -the" (Interstate Commerce) "law that self-preservation drives them to -violate it because other carriers persist in doing so," says Senator -Cullom. When the self-interest of society is made the standard the -lowest must rise to the average. The one pulls down, the other up. That -men's hearts are bad and that bad men will do bad things has a truth -in it. But whatever the general average of morals, the anarchy which -gives such individuals their head and leaves them to set the pace for -all will produce infinitely worse results than a policy which applies -mutual checks and inspirations. Bad kings make bad reigns, but monarchy -is bad because it is arbitrary power, and that, whether it be political -or industrial, makes even good men bad. - -A partial truth universally applied as this of self-interest has been -is a universal error. Everything goes to defeat. Highways are used to -prevent travel and traffic. Ownership of the means of production is -sought in order to "shut down" production, and the means of plenty -make famine. All follow self-interest to find that though they have -created marvellous wealth it is not theirs. We pledge "our lives, our -fortunes, and our sacred honor" to establish the rule of the majority, -and end by finding that the minority--a minority in morals, money, and -men--are our masters whichever way we turn. We agonize over "economy," -but sell all our grain and pork and oil and cotton at exchanges where -we pay brokerage on a hundred or a thousand barrels or bushels or bales -of wind to get one real one sold. These intolerabilities--sweat-shops -where model merchants buy and sell the cast-off scarlet-fever skins -of the poor, factory and mine where childhood is forbidden to become -manhood and manhood is forbidden to die a natural death, mausoleums in -which we bury the dead rich, slums in which we bury the living poor, -coal pools with their manufacture of artificial winter--all these are -the rule of private self-interest arrived at its destination. - -A really human life is impossible in our cities, but they cannot be -reconstructed under the old self-interest. Chicago was rebuilt wrong -after the fire. Able men pointed out the avenues to a wider and better -municipal life, but they could not be opened through the private -interpositions that blocked the way. The slaughter of railway men -coupling cars was shown, in a debate in the United States Senate, to be -twice as great as it would be if the men were in active service in war. -But under the scramble for private gain our society on its railway side -cannot develop the energy to introduce the improved appliances ready to -hand which would save these lives, all young and vigorous. The cost of -the change would be repaid in 100-per-cent. dividends every year by the -money value alone to us of the men now killed and wounded. But we shall -have to wait for a nobler arithmetic to give us investments so good as -that. The lean kine of self-interest devour the fat kine. The railroad -stockholder, idolater of self-interest, lets himself be robbed--like -the stockholder of all the railroads in this story--either because he -is too rich to mind, too feeble to make himself heard, or too much -implicated elsewhere as principal in the same kind of depredation to -care or dare to stir what he knows to be a universal scandal. He has -become within himself the battle-ground of a troop of warring devils of -selfishness; his selfishness as a stockholder clutched at the throat by -his selfishness as a parasite, in some "inside deal," feeding on the -stockholder; some rebate arrangement, fast-freight line, sleeping-car -company, or what not. And, as like as not, upon this one's back is -another devil of depredation from some inner ring within a ring. Torn -at the vitals, the enlightened swinishness of our _leit-motif_ is -hastening to throw itself into the sea. - -We are very poor. The striking feature of our economic condition is -our poverty, not our wealth. We make ourselves "rich" by appropriating -the property of others by methods which lessen the total property of -all. Spain took such riches from America and grew poor. Modern wealth -more and more resembles the winnings of speculators in bread during -famine--worse, for to make the money it makes the famine. What we -call cheapness shows itself to be unnatural fortunes for a very few, -monstrous luxury for them and proportionate deprivation for the people, -judges debauched, trustees dishonored, Congress and State legislatures -insulted and defied, when not seduced, multitudes of honest men ruined -and driven to despair, the common carrier made a mere instrument for -the creation of a new baronage, an example set to hundreds of would-be -commercial Caesars to repeat this rapine in other industries and call it -"business," a process set in operation all over the United States for -the progressive extinction of the independence of laboring men, and all -business men except the very rich, and their reduction to a state of -vassalage to lords or squires in each department of trade and industry. -All these--tears, ruin, dishonor, and treason--are the unmarked -additions to the "price marked on the goods." - -Shall we buy cheap of Captain Kidd, and shut our ears to the agony -that rustles in his silks? Shall we believe that Captain Kidd, who -kills commerce by the act which enables him to sell at half-price, is -a cheapener? Shall we preach and practise doctrines which make the -Black Flag the emblem of success on the high seas of human interchange -of service, and complain when we see mankind's argosies of hope and -plenty shrink into private hoards of treasure, buried in selfish sands -to be lost forever, even to cupidity? If this be cheapness, it comes -by the grace of the seller, and that is the first shape of dearness, -as security in society by the grace of the ruler is the first form of -insecurity. - -The new wealth now administers estates of fabulous extent from -metropolitan bureaus, and all the profits flow to men who know -nothing of the real business out of which they are made. Red tape, -complication, the hired man, conspiracy have taken the place of the -watchful eye of the owner, the old-fashioned hand at the plough that -must "hold or drive." We now have Captains of Industry, with a few -aids, rearranging from office-chairs this or that industry, by mere -contrivances of wit compelling the fruits of the labor of tens of -thousands of their fellows, who never saw them, never heard of them, -to be every day deposited unwilling and unwitting to their own credit -at the bank; setting, as by necromancy, hundreds of properties, large -and small, in a score of communities, to flying through invisible -ways into their hands; sitting calm through all the hubbub raised in -courts, legislatures, and public places, and by dictating letters -and whispering words remaining the master magicians of the scene; -defying, though private citizens, all the forces and authorities of a -whole people; by the mere mastery of compelling brain, without putting -hand to anything, opening or closing the earth's treasures of oil or -coal or gas or copper or what not; pulling down or putting up great -buildings, factories, towns themselves; moving men and their money this -way and that; inserting their will as part of the law of life of the -people--American, European, and Asiatic--and, against the protest of -a whole civilization, making themselves, their methods and principles, -its emblematic figures. - -Syndicates, by one stroke, get the power of selling dear on one side, -and producing cheap on the other. Thus they keep themselves happy, -prices high, and the people hungry. What model merchant could ask -more? The dream of the king who wished that all his people had but one -neck that he might decapitate them at one blow is realized to-day in -this industrial garrote. The syndicate has but to turn its screw, and -every neck begins to break. Prices paid to such intercepters are not -an exchange of service; they are ransom paid by the people for their -lives. The ability of the citizen to pay may fluctuate; what he must -pay remains fixed, or advances like the rent of the Irish tenant to the -absentee landlord until the community interfered. Those who have this -power to draw the money from the people--from every railroad station, -every street-car, every fireplace, every salt-cellar, every bread-pan, -wash-board, and coal-scuttle--to their own safes have the further -incentive to make this money worth the most possible. By contracting -the issue of currency and contracting it again by hoarding it in their -banks, safe-deposit vaults, and the government treasury, they can -depress the prices of all that belongs to the people. Their own prices -are fixed. These are "regular prices," established by price-lists. -Given, as a ruling motive, the principles of business--to get the -most and give the least; given the legal and economic, physical and -mechanical control, possible under our present social arrangements, to -the few over the many, and the certain end of all this, if unarrested, -unreversed, can be nothing less than a return to chattel slavery. There -may be some finer name, but the fact will not be finer. Between our -present tolerance and our completed subjection the distance is not so -far as that from the equality and simplicity of our Pilgrim Fathers to -ourselves. - -Everything withers--even charity. Aristocratic benevolence spends -a shrunken stream in comparison with democratic benevolence. In an -address to the public, soliciting subscriptions, the Committee of the -United Hospitals Association of New York said, in December, 1893: "The -committee have found that, through the obliteration of old methods of -individual competition by the establishment of large corporations and -trusts in modern times, the income of such charitable institutions -as are supported by the individual gifts of the benevolent has been -seriously affected." - -Franklin pricked the bubble of the lottery by showing that to buy all -the tickets and win all the prizes was to be most surely the loser. Our -nascent common-sense begins to see that the many must always lose where -all spend their lives trying to get more than they give, and that all -lose when any lose. The welfare of all is more than the welfare of the -many, the few, or the one. If the few or the one are not fine enough -to accept this truth from sentiment or conscience, they can find other -reasons as convincing, though not as amiable. From the old regime of -France, the slave-holders of the South, the death-rate of tyrants, -the fear of their brothers which the rich and the great of to-day are -printing on their faces, in fugitive-slave treaties with Russia, and in -the frowning arsenals and armories building in our cities for "law and -order," they can learn how to spell self-interest. - -If all will sacrifice themselves, none need be sacrificed. But if one -may sacrifice another, all are sacrificed. That is the difference -between self-interest and other-self interest. In industry we have -been substituting all the mean passions that can set man against man -in place of the irresistible power of brotherhood. To tell us of the -progressive sway of brotherhood in all human affairs is the sole -message of history. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is not the phrase -of a ritual of sentiment for the unapplied emotion of pious hours; -it is the exact formula of the force to-day operating the greatest -institutions man has established. It is as secular as sacred. Only -by each neighbor giving the other every right of free thought, free -movement, free representation which he demands for himself; only by -calling every neighbor a friend, and literally laying down his life -for his friend against foreign invasion or domestic tumult; only by -the equalization which gives the vote to all and denies kingship to -all, however strong or "fittest"--only thus is man establishing the -community, the republic, which, with all its failings, is the highest -because the realest application of the spirit of human brotherhood. -Wonderful are the dividends of this investment. You are but one, and -can give only yourself to America. You give free speech, and 65,000,000 -of your countrymen will guard the freedom of your lips. Your single -offer of your right arm puts 65,000,000 of sheltering arms about you. -Does "business" pay such profits? Wealth will remain a secret unguessed -by business until it has reincorporated itself under the law which -reckons as the property of each one the total of all the possessions of -all his neighbors. - -Society could not live a day, the Bishop of Peterborough said, if -it put the principles of Christ into practice. There is no rarer -gift than that of eyes to see what we see. Society is society, and -lives its day solely by virtue of having put into actual routine and -matter-of-fact application the principles of Christ and other bringers -of the same message. Imperfect and faulty though the execution, it is -these principles which are the family, the tribe, the sect, the club, -the mutual-benefit society, the State, with their mutual services, -forbearance, and guarantees. The principles of Christ are the cause -and essence of society. They are not the ideal of which we dream; they -are the applied means with which we are working out our real life in -"the light of common day." They have not been so much revealed to us -by our inspired ones as best seen and best said by them. Insurance for -fire, accident, sickness, old age, death--the ills that flesh is heir -to--has the same co-operation for its innermost forces. Limited now by -the intervention of the selfishness of profit-seeking, it needs only to -be freed from this, and added, as in New Zealand, to the growing list -of the mutualities of the general welfare operated by the State to be -seen as what it is. The golden rule is the original of every political -constitution, written and unwritten, and all our reforms are but the -pains with which we strive to improve the copy. - -In the worst governments and societies that have existed one good can -be seen--so good that the horrors of them fall back into secondary -places as extrinsic, accidental. That good is the ability of men to -lead the life together. The more perfect monopoly makes itself the more -does it bring into strong lights the greatest fact of our industry, of -far more permanent value than the greed which has for the moment made -itself the cynosure of all eyes. It makes this fair world more fair to -consider the loyalties, intelligences, docilities of the multitudes who -are guarding, developing, operating with the faithfulness of brothers -and the keen interest of owners properties and industries in which -brotherhood is not known and their title is not more than a tenancy at -will. One of the largest stones in the arch of "consolidation," perhaps -the key-stone, is that men have become so intelligent, so responsive -and responsible, so co-operative that they can be intrusted in great -masses with the care of vast properties owned entirely by others and -with the operation of complicated processes, although but a slender -cost of subsistence is awarded them out of fabulous profits. The -spectacle of the million and more employes of the railroads of this -country despatching trains, maintaining tracks, collecting fares and -freights, and turning over hundreds of millions of net profits to the -owners, not one in a thousand of whom would know how to do the simplest -of these things for himself, is possible only where civilization -has reached a high average of morals and culture. More and more the -mills and mines and stores, and even the farms and forests, are being -administered by others than the owners. The virtue of the people is -taking the place Poor Richard thought only the eye of the owner could -fill. If mankind, driven by their fears and the greed of others, can do -so well, what will be their productivity and cheer when the "interest -of all" sings them to their work? - -This new morality and new spring of wealth have been seized first -by the appropriating ones among us. But, as has been in government, -their intervention of greed is but a passing phase. Mankind belongs -to itself, not to kings or monopolists, and will supersede the one as -surely as the other with the institutions of democracy. Yes, Callicles, -said Socrates, the greatest are usually the bad, for they have the -power. If power could continue paternal and benign, mankind would not -be rising through one emancipation after another into a progressive -communion of equalities. The individual and society will always be -wrestling with each other in a composition of forces. But to just -the extent to which civilization prevails, society will be held as -inviolable as the individual; not subordinate--indeed inaudible--as -now in the counting-room and corporation-office. We have overworked -the self-interest of the individual. The line of conflict between -individual and social is a progressive one of the discovery of point -after point in which the two are identical. Society thus passes from -conflict to harmony, and on to another conflict. Civilization is the -unceasing accretion of these social solutions. We fight out to an -equilibrium, as in the abolition of human slavery; then upon this new -level thus built up we enter upon the struggle for a new equilibrium, -as now in the labor movement. The man for himself destroys himself and -all men; only society can foster him and them. - -The greatest happiness of the greatest number is only the doctrine of -self-interest writ large and made more dangerous by multitude. It is -the self-interest of the majority, and this has written some of the -unloveliest chapters of history. There have never been slaves more -miserable than those of Sparta, where the State was the owner. American -democracy prepares to repeat these distresses of the selfishness of -the many, and gives notice to its railway employes of a new divine -right--"the convenience of the public"--to which they must forego every -right of manhood. No better definition of slave could be found than -one who must work at the convenience of another. This is the position -into which recent legal decisions and acts of the Federal executive -force railway men. These speak in the name of Interstate Commerce, but -their logic can be as easily applied by State judges to State commerce, -and all working-men are manifestly as necessary, each in his function, -to the convenience of the public as the men of the rail. The greatest -happiness of all must be the formula. When Lamennais said, "I love my -family more than myself, my village more than my family, my country -more than my village, and mankind more than my country," he showed -himself not only a good lover, but the only good arithmetician. - -Children yet, we run everything we do--love or war, work or leisure, -religion or liberty--to excess. Every possibility of body and mind -must be played upon till it is torn to pieces, as toys by children. -Priests, voluptuaries, tyrants, knights, ascetics--in the long -procession of fanatics a new-comer takes his place; he is called -"the model merchant"--the cruelest fanatic in history. He is the -product of ages given to progressive devotion to "trading." He is the -high-priest of the latest idolatry, the self-worship of self-interest. -Whirling-dervish of the market, self, friends, and family, body and -soul, loves, hopes, and faith, all are sacrificed to seeing how many -"turns" he can make before he drops dead. Trade began, Sir Henry Sumner -Maine tells us, not within the family or community, but without. Its -first appearances are on the neutral borderland between hostile tribes. -There, in times of peace, they meet to trade, and think it no sin -that "the buyer must beware," since the buyer is an enemy. Trade has -spread thence, carrying with itself into family and State the poison of -enmity. From the fatherhood of the old patriarchal life, where father -and brother sold each other nothing, the world has chaffered along to -the anarchy of a "free" trade which sells everything. One thing after -another has passed out from under the regime of brotherhood and passed -in under that of bargainhood. The ground we move on, the bodies we -work with, and the necessaries we live by are all being "exchanged," -by "rules fetched with cupidity from heartless schools," into the -ownership of the Jacobs of mankind. By these rules the cunning are -the good, and the weak and the tender the bad, and the good are to -have all the goods and the weak are to have nothing. These rules give -one the power to supply or deny work to thousands, and to use the -starvation terms of the men he disemploys as the measure of the cost -of subsistence of all workmen. This must be near the end. The very -churches have become mercantilized, and are markets in which "prophets" -are paid fancy prices--"always called of God," as Milton said, "but -always to a greater benefice"--and worshippers buy and sell knee-room. - -Conceptions of duty take on a correspondingly unnatural complexion. -The main exhortations the world gives beginners are how to "get -on"--the getting on so ardently inculcated being to get, like the -old-man-of-the-sea, on somebody's back. "If war fails you in the -country where you are, you must go where there is war," said one of the -successful men of the fourteenth century to a young knight who asked -him for the Laws of Life. "I shall be perfectly satisfied with you," I -heard one of the great business geniuses of America say to his son, "if -you will only always go to bed at night worth more than when you got up -in the morning." The system grows, as all systems do, more complicated, -and gets further away from its first purposes of barter of real things -and services. It goes more under the hands of men of apt selfishness, -who push it further away from general comprehension and the general -good. Tariffs, currencies, finances, freight-rate sheets, the laws, -become instruments of privilege, and just in proportion become puzzles -no people can decipher. "I have a right to buy my labor where I can buy -it cheapest"--beginning as a protest against the selfish exclusions of -antiquated trade-guilds outgrown by the new times--has at last come to -mean, "I have a right to do anything to cheapen the labor I want to -buy, even to destroying the family life of the people." - -When steaming kettles grew into beasts of burden and public highways -dwindled into private property administered by private motives for -private ends, all previous tendencies were intensified into a sudden -whirl redistributing wealth and labors. It appears to have been -the destiny of the railroad to begin and of oil to lubricate to its -finish the last stage of this crazy commercialism. Business colors the -modern world as war reddened the ancient world. Out of such delirium -monsters are bred, and their excesses destroy the system that brought -them forth. There is a strong suggestion of moral insanity in the -unrelieved sameness of mood and unvarying repetition of one act in the -life of the model merchant. Sane minds by an irresistible law alternate -one tension with another. Only a lunatic is always smiling or always -weeping or always clamoring for dividends. Eras show their last stages -by producing men who sum up individually the morbid characteristics -of the mass. When the crisis comes in which the gathering tendencies -of generations shoot forward in the avalanche, there is born some -group of men perfect for their function--good be it or bad. They need -to take time for no second thought, and will not delay the unhalting -reparations of nature by so much as the time given to one tear over the -battle-field or the bargain. With their birth their mission is given -them, whether it be the mission of Lucifer or Gabriel. This mission -becomes their conscience. The righteous indignation that other men feel -against sin these men feel against that which withstands them. Sincere -as rattlesnakes, they are selfish with the unconsciousness possible to -only the entirely commonplace, without the curiosity to question their -times or the imagination to conceive the pain they inflict, and their -every ideal is satisfied by the conventionalities of church, parlor, -and counting-room. These men are the touchstones to wither the cant of -an age. - -We preach "Do as you would be done by" in our churches, and "A fair -exchange no robbery" in our counting-rooms, and "All citizens are -equal as citizens" in courts and Congress. Just as we are in danger -of believing that to say these things is to do them and be them, -there come unto us these men, practical as granite and gravitation. -Taking their cue not from our lips, but from our lives, they better -the instruction, and, passing easily to the high seats at every table, -prove that we are liars and hypocrites. Their only secret is that they -do, better than we, the things we are all trying to do, but of which in -our morning and evening prayers, seen of all men, we are continually -making believe to pray: Good Lord, deliver us! When the hour strikes -for such leaders, they come and pass as by a law of nature to the -front. All follow them. It is their fate and ours that they must work -out to the end the destiny interwoven of their own insatiate ambition -and the false ideals of us who have created them and their opportunity. - -If our civilization is destroyed, as Macaulay predicted, it will not -be by his barbarians from below. Our barbarians come from above. Our -great money-makers have sprung in one generation into seats of power -kings do not know. The forces and the wealth are new, and have been -the opportunity of new men. Without restraints of culture, experience, -the pride, or even the inherited caution of class or rank, these men, -intoxicated, think they are the wave instead of the float, and that -they have created the business which has created them. To them science -is but a never-ending repertoire of investments stored up by nature for -the syndicates, government but a fountain of franchises, the nations -but customers in squads, and a million the unit of a new arithmetic of -wealth written for them. They claim a power without control, exercised -through forms which make it secret, anonymous, and perpetual. The -possibilities of its gratification have been widening before them -without interruption since they began, and even at a thousand millions -they will feel no satiation and will see no place to stop. They are -gluttons of luxury and power, rough, unsocialized, believing that -mankind must be kept terrorized. Powers of pity die out of them, -because they work through agents and die in their agents, because what -they do is not for themselves. - -Of gods, friends, learnings, of the uncomprehended civilization they -overrun, they ask but one question: How much? What is a good time -to sell? What is a good time to buy? The Church and the Capitol, -incarnating the sacrifices and triumphs of a procession of martyrs -and patriots since the dawn of freedom, are good enough for a -money-changer's shop for them, and a market and shambles. Their -heathen eyes see in the law and its consecrated officers nothing but -an intelligence-office and hired men to help them burglarize the -treasures accumulated for thousands of years at the altars of liberty -and justice, that they may burn their marbles for the lime of commerce. - -By their windfall of new power they have been forced into the position -of public enemies. Its new forms make them seem not to be within the -jurisdiction of the social restraints which many ages of suffering -have taught us to bind about the old powers of man over man. A fury -of rule or ruin has always in the history of human affairs been a -characteristic of the "strong men" whose fate it is to be in at the -death of an expiring principle. The leaders who, two hundred years ago, -would have been crazy with conquest, to-day are crazy with competition. -To a dying era some man is always born to enfranchise it by revealing -it to itself. Men repay such benefactors by turning to rend them. Most -unhappy is the fate of him whose destiny it is to lead mankind too -far in its own path. Such is the function of these men, such will be -their lot, as that of those for whom they are building up these wizard -wealths. - -Poor thinking means poor doing. In casting about for the cause of -our industrial evils, public opinion has successively found it in -"competition," "combination," the "corporations," "conspiracies," -"trusts." But competition has ended in combination, and our new wealth -takes as it chooses the form of corporation or trust, or corporation -again, and with every change grows greater and worse. Under these -kaleidoscopic masks we begin at last to see progressing to its terminus -a steady consolidation, the end of which is one-man power. The -conspiracy ends in one, and one cannot conspire with himself. When this -solidification of many into one has been reached, we shall be at last -face to face with the naked truth that it is not only the form but the -fact of arbitrary power, of control without consent, of rule without -representation that concerns us. - -Business motived by the self-interest of the individual runs into -monopoly at every point it touches the social life--land monopoly, -transportation monopoly, trade monopoly, political monopoly in all -its forms, from contraction of the currency to corruption in office. -The society in which in half a lifetime a man without a penny can -become a hundred times a millionaire is as over-ripe, industrially, as -was, politically, the Rome in which the most popular bully could lift -himself from the ranks of the legion on to the throne of the Caesars. -Our rising issue is with business. Monopoly is business at the end of -its journey. It has got there. The irrepressible conflict is now as -distinctly with business as the issue so lately met was with slavery. -Slavery went first only because it was the cruder form of business. - -Against the principles, and the men embodying them and pushing them -to extremes--by which the powers of government, given by all for all, -are used as franchises for personal aggrandizement; by which, in the -same line, the common toil of all and the common gifts of nature, -lands, forces, mines, sites, are turned from service to selfishness, -and are made by one and the same stroke to give gluts to a few and -impoverishment to the many--we must plan our campaign. The yacht of -the millionaire incorporates a million days' labor which might have -been given to abolishing the slums, and every day it runs the labor -of hundreds of men is withdrawn from the production of helpful things -for humanity, and each of us is equally guilty who directs to his own -pleasure the labor he should turn to the wants of others. Our fanatic -of wealth reverses the rule that serving mankind is the end and wealth -an incident, and has made wealth the end and the service an accident, -until he can finally justify crime itself if it is a means to the -end--wealth--which has come to be the supreme good; and we follow him. - -It is an adjudicated fact of the business and social life of America -that to receive the profits of crime and cherish the agents who -commit it does not disqualify for fellowship in the most "solid" -circles--financial, commercial, religious, or social. It illustrates -what Ruskin calls the "morbid" character of modern business that -the history of its most brilliant episodes must be studied in the -vestibules of the penitentiary. The riches of the combinations are -the winnings of a policy which, we have seen, has certain constant -features. Property to the extent of uncounted millions has been changed -from the possession of the many who owned it to the few who hold it: - -1. Without the knowledge of the real owners. - -2. Without their consent. - -3. With no compensation to them for the value taken. - -4. By falsehood, often under oath. - -5. In violation of the law. - -Our civilization is builded on competition, and competition -evolves itself crime--to so acute an infatuation has the lunacy of -self-interest carried our dominant opinion. We are hurried far beyond -the point of not listening to the new conscience which, pioneering in -moral exploration, declares that conduct we think right because called -"trade" is really lying, stealing, murder. "The definite result," -Ruskin preaches, "of all our modern haste to be rich is assuredly and -constantly the murder of a certain number of persons by our hands every -year." To be unawakened by this new voice is bad enough, but we shut -our ears even against the old conscience. - -We cannot deal with this unless we cleanse our hearts of all -disordering rage. "The rarer action is in virtue rather than in -vengeance." Our tyrants are our ideals incarnating themselves in men -born to command. What these men are we have made them. All governments -are representative governments; none of them more so than our -government of industry. We go hopelessly astray if we seek the solution -of our problems in the belief that our business rulers are worse men in -kind than ourselves. Worse in degree; yes. It is a race to the bad, and -the winners are the worst. A system in which the prizes go to meanness -invariably marches with the meanest men at the head. But if any could -be meaner than the meanest it would be they who run and fail and rail. - -Every idea finds its especially susceptible souls. These men are -our most susceptible souls to the idea of individual self-interest. -They have believed implicitly what we have taught, and have been the -most faithful in trying to make the talent given them grow into ten -talents. They rise superior to our half-hearted social corrections: -publicity, private competition, all devices of market-opposition, -private litigation, public investigation, legislation, and criminal -prosecution--all. Their power is greater to-day than it was yesterday, -and will be greater to-morrow. The public does not withhold its favor, -but deals with them, protects them, refuses to treat their crimes as it -treats those of the poor, and admits them to the highest places. The -predominant mood is the more or less concealed regret of the citizens -that they have not been able to conceive and execute the same lucky -stroke or some other as profitable. The conclusion is irresistible that -men so given the lead are the representatives of the real "spirit of -the age," and that the protestants against them are not representative -of our times--are at the best but intimators of times which may be. - -Two social energies have been in conflict, and the energy of reform has -so far proved the weaker. We have chartered the self-interest of the -individual as the rightful sovereign of conduct; we have taught that -the scramble for profit is the best method of administering the riches -of earth and the exchange of services. Only those can attack this -system who attack its central principle, that strength gives the strong -in the market the right to destroy his neighbor. Only as we have denied -that right to the strong elsewhere have we made ourselves as civilized -as we are. And we cannot make a change as long as our songs, customs, -catchwords, and public opinions tell all to do the same thing if they -can. Society, in each person of its multitudes, must recognize that the -same principles of the interest of all being the rule of all, of the -strong serving the weak, of the first being the last--"I am among you -as one that serves"--which have given us the home where the weakest -is the one surest of his rights and of the fullest service of the -strongest, and have given us the republic in which all join their labor -that the poorest may be fed, the weakest defended, and all educated -and prospered, must be applied where men associate in common toil as -wherever they associate. Not until then can the forces be reversed -which generate those obnoxious persons--our fittest. - -Our system, so fair in its theory and so fertile in its happiness and -prosperity in its first century, is now, following the fate of systems, -becoming artificial, technical, corrupt; and, as always happens in -human institutions, after noon, power is stealing from the many to the -few. Believing wealth to be good, the people believed the wealthy to -be good. But, again in history, power has intoxicated and hardened its -possessors, and Pharaohs are bred in counting-rooms as they were in -palaces. Their furniture must be banished to the world-garret, where -lie the out-worn trappings of the guilds and slavery and other old -lumber of human institutions. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV - -AND THE NEW - - -We have given the prize of power to the strong, the cunning, the -arithmetical, and we must expect nothing else but that they will use it -cunningly and arithmetically. For what else can they suppose we gave -it to them? If the power really flows from the people, and should be -used for them; if its best administration can be got, as in government, -only by the participation in it of men of all views and interests; if -in the collision of all these, as in democracy, the better policy is -progressively preponderant; if this is a policy which, with whatever -defects, is better than that which can be evolved by narrower or more -selfish or less multitudinous influences of persons or classes, then -this power should be taken up by the people. "The mere conflict of -private interests will never produce a well-ordered commonwealth of -labor," says the author of the article on political economy in the -_Encyclopaedia Britannica_. The failure of monarchy and feudalism and -the visibly impending failure of our business system all reveal a -law of nature. The harmony of things insists that that which is the -source of power, wealth, and delight shall also be the ruler of it. -That which is must also seem. It is the people from whom come the -forces with which kings and millionaires ride the world, and until -the people take their proper place in the seat of sovereignty, these -pseudo owners--mere claimants and usurpers--will, by the very falsity -and iniquity of their position, be pushed into deceit, tyranny, and -cruelty, ending in downfall. - -Thousands of years' experience has proved that government must begin -where it ends--with the people; that the general welfare demands that -they who exercise the powers and they upon whom these are exercised -must be the same, and that higher political ideals can be realized -only through higher political forms. Myriads of experiments to get -the substance of liberty out of the forms of tyranny, to believe -in princes, to trust good men to do good as kings, have taught the -inexorable truth that, in the economy of nature, form and substance -must move together, and are as inextricably interdependent as are, -within our experience, what we call matter and spirit. Identical is the -lesson we are learning with regard to industrial power and property. We -are calling upon their owners, as mankind called upon kings in their -day, to be good and kind, wise and sweet, and we are calling in vain. -We are asking them not to be what we have made them to be. We put power -into their hands and ask them not to use it as power. If this power is -a trust for the people, the people betrayed it when they made private -estates out of it for individuals. If the spirit of power is to change, -institutions must change as much. Liberty recast the old forms of -government into the Republic, and it must remould our institutions of -wealth into the Commonwealth. - -The question is not whether monopoly is to continue. The sun sets every -night on a greater majority against it. We are face to face with the -practical issue: Is it to go through ruin or reform? Can we forestall -ruin by reform? If we wait to be forced by events we shall be astounded -to find how much more radical they are than our utopias. Louis XVI. -waited until 1793, and gave his head and all his investitures to the -people who in 1789 asked only to sit at his feet and speak their mind. -Unless we reform of our own free will, nature will reform us by force, -as nature does. Our evil courses have already gone too far in producing -misery, plagues, hatreds, national enervation. Already the leader is -unable to lead, and has begun to drive with judges armed with bayonets -and Gatling guns. History is the serial obituary of the men who thought -they could drive men. - -Reform is the science and conscience with which mankind in its manhood -overcomes temptations and escapes consequences by killing the germs. -Ruin is already hard at work among us. Our libraries are full of the -official inquiries and scientific interpretations which show how our -master-motive is working decay in all our parts. The family crumbles -into a competition between the father and the children whom he breeds -to take his place in the factory, to unfit themselves to be fathers in -their turn. A thorough, stalwart resimplification, a life governed by -simple needs and loves, is the imperative want of the world. It will be -accomplished: either self-conscious volition does it, or the slow wreck -and decay of superfluous and unwholesome men and matters. The latter -is the method of brutes and brute civilizations. The other is the -method of man, so far as he is divine. Has not man, who has in personal -reform risen above the brute method, come to the height at which he can -achieve social reform in masses and by nations? We must learn; we can -learn by reason. Why wait for the cruder teacher? - -We have a people like which none has ever existed before. We have -millions capable of conscious co-operation. The time must come in -social evolution when the people can organize the free-will to choose -salvation which the individual has been cultivating for 1900 years, -and can adopt a policy more dignified and more effective than leaving -themselves to be kicked along the path of reform by the recoil of their -own vices. We must bring the size of our morality up to the size of our -cities, corporations, and combinations, or these will be brought down -to fit our half-grown virtue. - -Industry and monopoly cannot live together. Our modern perfection of -exchange and division of labor cannot last without equal perfection of -morals and sympathy. Every one is living at the mercy of every one else -in a way entirely peculiar to our times. Nothing is any longer made by -a man; parts of things are made by parts of men, and become wholes by -the luck of a good-humor which so far keeps men from flying asunder. -It takes a whole company to make a match. A hundred men will easily -produce a hundred million matches, but not one of them could make one -match. No farm gets its plough from the cross-roads blacksmith, and -no one in the chilled-steel factory knows the whole of the plough. -The life of Boston hangs on a procession of reciprocities which must -move, as steadily and sweetly as the roll of the planets, between its -bakeries, the Falls of St. Anthony, and the valley of the Red River. -Never was there a social machinery so delicate. Only on terms of love -and justice can men endure contact so close. - -The break-down of all other civilizations has been a slow decay. It -took the Northerners hundreds of years to march to the Tiber. They -grew their way through the old society as the tree planting itself on -a grave is found to have sent its roots along every fibre and muscle -of the dead. Our world is not the simple thing theirs was, of little -groups sufficient to themselves, if need be. New York would begin to -die to-morrow if it were not for Illinois and Dakota. We cannot afford -a revulsion in the hearts by whose union locomotives run, mills grind, -factories make. Practical men are speculating to-day on the possibility -that our civilization may some afternoon be flashed away by the tick of -a telegraph. All these co-operations can be scattered by a word of hate -too many, and we left, with no one who knows how to make a plough or a -match, a civilization cut off as by the Roman curse from food and fire. -Less sensitive civilizations than ours have burst apart. - -Liberty and monopoly cannot live together. What chance have we against -the persistent coming and the easy coalescence of the confederated -cliques, which aspire to say of all business, "This belongs to us," -and whose members, though moving among us as brothers, are using -against us, through the corporate forms we have given them, powers -of invisibility, of entail and accumulation, unprecedented because -impersonal and immortal, and, most peculiar of all, power to act as -persons, as in the commission of crimes, with exemption from punishment -as persons? Two classes study and practise politics and government: -place hunters and privilege hunters. In a world of relativities -like ours size of area has a great deal to do with the truth of -principles. America has grown so big--and the tickets to be voted, and -the powers of government, and the duties of citizens, and the profits -of personal use of public functions have all grown so big--that the -average citizen has broken down. No man can half understand or half -operate the fulness of this big citizenship, except by giving his whole -time to it. This the place hunter can do, and the privilege hunter. -Government, therefore--municipal, State, national--is passing into the -hands of these two classes, specialized for the functions of power by -their appetite for the fruits of power. The power of citizenship is -relinquished by those who do not and cannot know how to exercise it to -those who can and do--by those who have a livelihood to make to those -who make politics their livelihood. - -These specialists of the ward club, the primary, the campaign, the -election, and office unite, by a law as irresistible as that of the -sexes, with those who want all the goods of government--charters, -contracts, rulings, permits. From this marriage it is easy to imagine -that among some other people than ourselves, and in some other -century than this, the off-spring might be the most formidable, -elusive, unrestrained, impersonal, and cruel tyranny the world has -yet seen. There might come a time when the policeman and the railroad -president would equally show that they cared nothing for the citizen, -individually or collectively, because aware that they and not he were -the government. Certainly such an attempt to corner "the dear people" -and the earth and the fulness thereof will break down. It is for us -to decide whether we will let it go on till it breaks down of itself, -dragging down to die, as a savage dies of his vice, the civilization -it has gripped with its hundred hands; or whether, while we are still -young, still virtuous, we will break it down, self-consciously, as the -civilized man, reforming, crushes down the evil. If we cannot find a -remedy, all that we love in the word America must die. It will be an -awful price to pay if this attempt at government of the people, by the -people, for the people must perish from off the face of the earth -to prove to mankind that political brotherhood cannot survive where -industrial brotherhood is denied. But the demonstration is worth even -that. - -Aristotle's lost books of the Republics told the story of two hundred -and fifty attempts at free government, and these were but some of -the many that had to be melted down in the crucible of fate to teach -Hamilton and Jefferson what they knew. Perhaps we must be melted by the -same fierce flames to be a light to the feet of those who come after -us. For as true as that a house divided against itself cannot stand, -and that a nation half slave and half free cannot permanently endure, -is it true that a people who are slaves to market-tyrants will surely -come to be their slaves in all else, that all liberty begins to be -lost when one liberty is lost, that a people half democratic and half -plutocratic cannot permanently endure. - -The secret of the history we are about to make is not that the world is -poorer or worse. It is richer and better. Its new wealth is too great -for the old forms. The success and beauties of our old mutualities -have made us ready for new mutualities. The wonder of to-day is the -modern multiplication of products by the union of forces; the marvel -of to-morrow will be the greater product which will follow when that -which is co-operatively produced is co-operatively enjoyed. It is the -spectacle of its concentration in the private fortunes of our day which -reveals this wealth to its real makers--the whole people--and summons -them to extend the manners and institutions of civilization to this new -tribal relation. - -Whether the great change comes with peace or sword, freely through -reform or by nature's involuntary forces, is a mere matter of detail, -a question of convenience--not of the essence of the thing. The change -will come. With reform, it may come to us. If with force, perhaps not -to us. But it will come. The world is too full of amateurs who can play -the golden rule as an aria with variations. All the runs and trills -and transpositions have been done to death. All the "sayings" have -been said. The only field for new effects is in epigrams of practice. -Titillation of our sympathies has become a dissipation. We shed a daily -tear over the misery of the slums as the toper takes his dram, and our -liver becomes torpid with the floods of indignation and sentiment we -have guzzled without converting them into their co-efficients of action. - -"Regenerate the individual" is a half-truth; the reorganization of the -society which he makes and which makes him is the other half. Man alone -cannot be a Christian. Institutions are applied beliefs. The love of -liberty became liberty in America by clothing itself in the complicated -group of structures known as the government of the United States. Love -is a half-truth, and kissing is a good deal less than half of that. -We need not kiss all our fellow-men, but we must do for them all we -ask them to do for us--nothing less than the fullest performance of -every power. To love our neighbor is to submit to the discipline and -arrangement which make his life reach its best, and so do we best love -ourselves. - -History has taught us nothing if not that men can continue to associate -only by the laws of association. The golden rule is the first and last -of these, but the first and last of the golden rule is that it can -be operated only through laws, habits, forms, and institutions. The -Constitution and laws of the United States are, however imperfectly, -the translation into the language of politics of doing as you would be -done by--the essence of equal rights and government by consent. To ask -individuals to-day to lead by their single sacrifices the life of the -brother in the world of business is as if the American colonist had -been asked to lead by his individual enterprise the life of the citizen -of a republic. That was made possible to him only by union with others. -The business world is full of men who yearn to abandon its methods and -live the love they feel; but to attempt to do so by themselves would be -martyrdom, and that is "caviare to the general." "We admire martyrdom," -Mazzini, the martyr, said, "but we do not recommend it." The change -must be social, and its martyrdoms have already begun. - -The new self-interest will remain unenforced in business until we -invent the forms by which the vast multitudes who have been gathered -together in modern production can organize themselves into a people -there as in government. Nothing but this institutionalization will save -them from being scattered away from each other again, and it can be -achieved only by such averaging and concessions and co-operations as -are the price of all union. These will be gains, not losses. Soldiers -become partners in invincibility by the discipline which adopts an -average rate of march instead of compelling all to keep step with the -fastest and stay with the strongest. Moralists tell men to love each -other and the right. How, by doing what things, by leaving what undone, -shall men love each other? What have the ethicals to say upon the -morality of putting public highways in private hands, and of allowing -these private hands to make a private and privileged use of them? If -bad, will a mere "change of heart," uninstitutionalized, change them? - -New freedoms cannot be operated through the old forms of slavery. The -ideals of Washington and Hamilton and Adams could not breathe under -kingly rule. Idle to say they might. Under the mutual dependence of -the inside and outside of things their change has all through history -always been dual. Change of heart is no more redemption than hunger -is dinner. We must have honesty, love, justice in the heart of the -business world, but for these we must also have the forms which will -fit them. These will be very different from those through which the -intercourse of man with man in the exchange of services now moves to -such ungracious ends. Forms of Asiatic and American government, of -early institutions and to-day's, are not more different. The cardinal -virtues cannot be established and kept at work in trade and on the -highways with the old apparatus. In order that the spirit that gave -rebates may go to stay, the rebate itself must go. If the private -use of private ownership of highways is to go, the private ownership -must go. There must be no private use of public power or public -property. These are created by the common sacrifices of all, and -can be rightfully used only for the common good of all--from all, by -all, for all. All the grants and franchises that have been given to -private hands for private profit are void in morals and void in that -higher law which sets the copy for the laggard pens of legislatures and -judges. "No private use of public powers" is but a threshold truth. The -universe, says Emerson, is the property of every creature in it. - -No home so low it may not hope that out of its fledglings one may grow -the hooked claw that will make him a millionaire. To any adventurer -of spirit and prowess in the Italy of the Renaissance might come -the possibility of butchering or poisoning his way to a castle or a -throne. Such prizes of power made the peninsula a menagerie of tyrants, -murderers, voluptuaries, and multitudes of misery. We got republican -liberty by agreeing each with the other never to seek to become kings -or lords or dukes. We can get industrial and economic liberty only by a -like covenant never to let ourselves or any one else be millionaires. - -There can be no public prosperity without public virtue, and no public -virtue without private virtue. But private cannot become public except -by organization. Our attempts at control, regulation, are but the -agitations of the Gracchi, evidencing the wrong, but not rising to the -cure. We are waiting for some genius of good who will generalize into -one body of doctrine our partial truths of reform, and will help us -live the generalization. Never was mankind, across all lines of race, -creed, and institutions, more nearly one in discontent and restless -consciousness of new powers and a new hope and purpose, never more -widely agitated by influences leading in one direction, never more -nearly a committee of the whole on the question of the day. Never -before were the means for flashing one thought into the minds of the -million, and flashing that thought into action, what they are to-day. -The good word or good deed of Chicago in the morning may be the -inspiration of Calcutta before nightfall. The crusades were but an eddy -in comparison with the universal tide waiting for another Peter the -Hermit to lead us where the Man who is to rise again lies in the hands -of the infidel. - -Our problem can be read from its good side or its bad, and must be read -from both, as: Business has become a vice, and defeats us and itself; -or, Humanity quickens its step to add to its fellowships the new -brotherhood of labor. The next emancipation, like all emancipations, -must destroy and build. The most constructive thinker in history -said, Love one another; but he also drove the money-changers from the -temple, and denounced the scribes and Pharisees, and has been busy for -nineteen hundred years pulling down tenements unfit for the habitation -of the soul. We see something new and something old. Old principles -run into mania, a wicked old world bursting into suicidal explosion, -as Carlyle said of the French Revolution. New loves, new capabilities, -new institutions, created by the expansion of old ideals and new -opportunities of human contact. Our love of those to whom we have been -"introduced" is but unlocking a door through which all men will pass -into our hearts. What makes men lovable is not the accident of our -knowing them. It is that they are men. Before 1776 there were thirteen -patriotisms in America. - -The bishops of Boswell's day had no ear for the lamentations of the -victims of the slave-trade, but there came a new sympathy which rose -superior to their divine displeasure that this commerce of Christian -merchants should be attacked. We are coming to sympathize with the -animals, and Queen Victoria contributes money to a hospital for the -succor of decayed old gentlemen and lady cats. By-and-by royal hearts -may widen to include men and women evicted in Ireland, or--worse -fate--not evicted from Whitechapel. The spirit that defended the -slave-trade now finds its last ditch behind the text, The poor ye -have with you always. But a new sympathy rises again, like that which -declared that the poor should be free of the slave-trade and slavery, -and declares that the poor shall be freed from starvation of body, -mind, and soul. Slave-trade, slavery, poverty; the form varies, but -against them all runs the refusal of the human heart to be made happy -at the cost of the misery of others, and its mathematical knowledge -that its quotient of satisfactions will increase with the sum of the -happiness of all. - -The word of the day is that we are about to civilize industry. -Mankind is quivering with its purpose to make men fellow-citizens, -brothers, lovers in industry, as it has done with them in government -and family, which are also industry. We already have on our shelves -the sciences--hygienic, industrial, political, ethical--to free the -world almost at a stroke from war, accidents, disease, poverty, -and their flowing vices and insanities. The men of these sciences -are here at call praying for employment. The people, by the books -they read, show themselves to be praying to have them put at work. -If we who call ourselves civilization would for one average span -devote to life-dealing the moneys, armies, and genius we now give -to death-dealing, and would establish over the weaker peoples a -protectorate of the United States of Europe and America, we would take -a long step towards settling forever the vexed question of the site of -the Garden of Eden. - -"Human nature," "monotony," and "individuality" are the lions which -the reformer is always told will stop the way to a better world. "You -cannot change human nature." There are two human natures--the human -nature of Christ and of Judas; and Christ prevails. There is the human -nature which seeks anonymity, secrecy, the fruits of power without -its duties; and there is the human nature which rises against these -and, province by province, is abolishing them from human affairs. Men -have always been willing to die for their faith. The bad have died as -bravely as the good, Charles I. with as smooth a front as Sir Harry -Vane. In this readiness to die lies folded every loyalty of life. - -"You would make the world a dead level of monotony." Good society does -not think it monotonous that all its women should at the same time dust -the streets with long-tailed gowns, or that its men should meet every -night in funereal black and identical cut, but it shrinks from the -monotony of having all share in reforms which would equalize surfeit -and starvation. "Good society" is still to come, and it will find some -better definition of "monotony" than a fair share for all--a better -definition of variety than too much for ourselves at the cost of too -little for all others. Shall we choose the monotony of sharing with -every one under George III. or Alexander II. the denial of all right to -participate in the supreme power, or shall we choose the monotony of -sharing with every fellow-citizen the right to become President?--the -monotony of being forbidden to enter all the great livelihoods, some -syndicate blocking each way with "This business belongs to us"? Or the -monotony of a democracy, where every laborer has equal rights with all -other citizens to decide upon the administration of the common toil for -the common welfare, and an equal right with every other to rise to be a -Captain of Industry? Such are the alternatives of "monotony." We have -made an historic choice in one; now for the other. - -And "individuality." "You are going to destroy individuality." We can -become individual only by submitting to be bound to others. We extend -our freedom only by finding new laws to obey. Life outside the law is -slavery on as many sides as there are disregarded laws. The locomotive -off its tracks is not free. The more relations, ties, duties, the -more "individual." The isolated man is the mere rudiment of an -individual. But he who has become citizen, neighbor, friend, brother, -son, husband, father, fellow-member, in one, is just by so many times -individualized. Men's expanding powers of co-operation bring them to -the conscious ability to unite for new benefits; but this extension of -individuality is forbidden in the name of individuality. There are two -individualities: that of the dullard, who submits to take his railroad -transportation, his light, his coal, his salt, his reaping-machine at -such prices and of such quality as arbitrary power forces upon him, and -that of the shrewder man who, by an alliance of the individualities of -all, supplies himself at his own price. - -Time carries us so easily we do not realize how fast we move. This -social debate has gone far beyond the question whether change there -must be. What shall the change be? is the subject all the world is -discussing. Exposure of abuses no longer excites more than a languid -interest. But every clear plan how things might be rearranged raises -the people. Before every revolution marches a book--the _Contrat -Social_, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. "Every man nowadays," says Emerson, -"carries a revolution in his vest-pocket." The book which sells more -copies than any other of our day abroad and at home, debated by all -down to the boot-blacks as they sit on the curb-stones, is one calling -men to draw from their success in insuring each other some of the -necessaries of life the courage to move on to insure each other all -the necessaries of life, bidding them abandon the self-defeating -anarchy which puts railroad-wreckers at the head of railroads and -famine-producers at the head of production, and inspiring them to share -the common toil and the fruits of the toil under the ideals which make -men Washingtons and Lincolns. You may question the importance of the -plan; you cannot question the importance of its welcome. It shows the -people gathering-points for the new constitution they know they must -make. - -In nothing has liberty justified itself more thoroughly than in the -resolute determination spreading among the American people to add -industrial to political independence. It is the hope of the world that -good has its effects as well as evil, and that on the whole, and in -the long-run, the seed of the good will overgrow the evil. "Heaven has -kindly given our blood a moral flow." Liberty breeds liberties, slavery -breeds slaveries, but the liberties will be the strongest stock. If -the political and religious liberties which the people of this country -aspired to set up had in them the real sap and fibre of a better life -than the world had yet known, it must certainly follow that they -would quicken and strengthen the people for discovery and obedience -in still higher realms. And just this has happened. Nowhere else has -the new claim to tax without representation been so quickly detected, -so intelligently scrutinized, and so bravely fought. Nowhere else has -this spreading plague of selfishness and false doctrine found a people -whose average and general life was pitched on so high a level that they -instantly took the alarm at its claims over their lives and liberties. -It has found a people so disciplined by the aspiration and achievement -of political and religious rights that they are already possessed of -a body of doctrine capable, by an easy extension, of refuting all the -pretensions of the new absolutism. At the very beginning of this new -democratic life among the nations it was understood that to be safe -liberty must be complete on its industrial as well as on its political -and religious sides. This is the American principle. "Give a man power -over my subsistence," said Alexander Hamilton, "and he has power over -the whole of my moral being." To submit to such a power gives only the -alternative of death or degradation, and the high spirit of America -preferred then, as it prefers now, the rule of right, which gives life. - -The mania of business has reached an acuter and extremer development -in America than elsewhere, because nowhere else have bounteous nature -and free institutions produced birthrights and pottages so well worth -"swapping." But the follies and wickedness of business have nowhere -been so sharply challenged as in free America. "Betake yourself to -America," said Carlyle to a friend beginning a literary career; "there -you can utter your freest thoughts in ways impossible here." It is to -this stern wakefulness of a free people that the world owes it that -more light has been thrown in America than in any other country on the -processes of modern money-making. A free press, organ of a free people, -has done invaluable service. The legislatures have pushed investigation -after investigation into the ways in which large masses of the people -have been deprived, for the benefit of single men or groups of men, -of rights of subsistence and government. Through the courts the free -people have pursued their depredators by civil and criminal process, by -public and private prosecutions. Imperfect and corrupt, these agencies -of press, courts, legislatures have often been; they have still done a -work which has either been left undone altogether in other countries, -or has been done with but a fraction of our thoroughness. - -It is due to them that there exists in the reports of legislative -investigations, State and national, in the proceedings of lawsuits and -criminal trials, in the files of the newspapers, a mass of information -which cannot be found in any other community in the world. There is in -these archives an accumulation of the raw material of tragedy, comedy, -romance, ravellings of the vicissitudes of human life, and social -and personal fate, which will feed the fires of whole generations of -literary men when once they awake to the existence of these precious -rolls. In these pigeon-holes are to be found keys of the present and -clews to the future. As America has the newest and widest liberty, it -is the stage where play the newest and widest forces of evil as well as -good. America is at the front of the forward line of evolution. It has -taken the lead in developing competition to the extreme form in which -it destroys competition, and in superfining the processes of exchange -of services into those of the acquisition of the property of others -without service. - -The hope is that the old economic system we inherited has ripened so -much more rapidly than the society and government we have created that -the dead matter it deposits can be thrown off by our vigorous youth and -health. "It is high time our bad wealth came to an end," says Emerson. -It has grown into its monstrous forms so fast that the dullest eye can -separate it from the Commonwealth, and the slowest mind comprehend its -mischievousness. In making themselves free of arbitrary and corrupt -power in government the Americans prepared themselves to be free in all -else, and because foremost in political liberty they have the promise -of being the first to realize industrial liberty--the trunk of a tree -of which political liberty is the seed, and without which political -liberty shrinks back into nothingness. - -"The art of Italy will blossom over our graves," Mazzini said when, -with true insight, he saw that the first artistic, first literary task -before the Italians was to make their country free. Art, literature, -culture, religion, in America, are already beginning to feel the -restrictive pressure which results from the domination of a selfish, -self-indulgent, luxurious, and anti-social power. This power, mastering -the markets of a civilization which gives its main energies to markets, -passes without difficulty to the mastery of all the other activities. -When churches, political campaigns, the expounding of the law, -maintenance of schools and colleges, and family life itself all depend -on money, they must become servile to the money power. Song, picture, -sermon, decrees of court, and the union of hearts must pass constantly -under stronger control of those who give their lives to trade and -encourage everybody else to trade, confident that the issue of it all -will be that they will hold as property, in exclusive possession, to be -doled out on their own terms, the matter by which alone man can live, -either materially or spiritually. - -In America, where the supreme political power and much of the -government of church and college have been taken out of traditional -hands and subjected to the changing determinations of popular will, it -has inevitably resulted that the State, church, and school have passed -under this mercantile aristocracy to a far greater extent than in -other countries where stiffer regimes under other and older influences -still stand. Our upper classes--elected, as always, by the equipoise -of effort and opinion between them and the lower classes--are, under -this commercial system, the men who trade best, who can control their -features and their consciences so that they can always get more than -they give, who can play with supply and demand so that at the end of -the game all their brethren are their tributaries for life. It is the -birthright-buying minds that, by the adoption of this ideal, we choose -for our rulers. The progressive races have altered their ideals of -kings with the indescribable advantage of being ruled by Washingtons -and Lincolns and Gladstones instead of Caligulas and Pharaohs. We -have now to make a similar step forward in another part of life. The -previous changes expressed outwardly an inner change of heart. The -reformer of to-day is simply he who, with quicker ear, detecting that -another change of heart is going on, goes before. - -Another great change is working in the inner mind of man, and will -surely be followed by incorporation in institutions and morals and -manners. The social head and heart are both being persuaded that too -many are idle--rich and poor; too many are hurt in body and soul--rich -and poor; too many children are "exposed," as in the old Greek and -Roman market-places; too many are starving within reach of too much -fertile waste; too many passions of envy, greed, and hate are raging -among rich and poor. There is too much left undone that ought to be -done along the whole scale of life, from the lowest physical to the -highest spiritual needs, from better roads to sweeter music and nobler -worship. It cannot be long, historically speaking, before all this -new sense and sentiment will issue in acts. All will be as zealously -protected against the oppression of the cruel in their daily labor -as now against oppression from invader or rioter, and will be as -warmly cheered in liberty to grow to their fullest capabilities as -laborers--_i.e._, users of matter for the purpose of the spirit--as -they are now welcomed to the liberty of the citizen and the worshipper. -Infinite is the fountain of our rights. We can have all the rights we -will create. All the rights we will give we can have. The American -people will save the liberties they have inherited by winning new ones -to bequeath. - -With this will come fruits of new faculty almost beyond calculation. -A new liberty will put an end to pauperism and millionairism and the -crimes and death-rate born of both wretchednesses, just as the liberty -of politics and religion put an end to martyrs and tyrants. The new -liberty is identical in principle and purpose with the other; it is -made inevitable by them. Those who love the liberties already won must -open the door to the new, unless they wish to see them all take flight -together. There can be no single liberty. Liberties go in clusters like -the Pleiades. - -We must either regulate, or own, or destroy, perishing by the sword -we take. The possibility of regulation is a dream. As long as this -control of the necessaries of life and this wealth remain private -with individuals, it is they who will regulate, not we. The policy -of regulation, disguise it as we may, is but moving to a compromise -and equilibrium within the evil all complain of. It is to accept the -principle of the sovereignty of the self-interest of the individual and -apply constitutional checks to it. The unprogressive nations palter -in this method with monarchy. But the wits of America are equal to -seeing that as with kingship and slavery so with poverty--the weeding -must be done at the roots. Sir Henry Sumner Maine says mankind moves -from status to contract; from society ruled by inherited customs to -one ruled by agreement, varied according to circumstances. Present -experience suggests the addition that the movement, like all in -nature, is pendulous, and that mankind moves progressively from status -to contract, and from this stage of contract to another status. We -march and rest and march again. If our society is settling down to an -interval of inertia, perhaps ages long, we must before night comes -establish all in as much equality and comfort as possible. - -The aspirations are not new. We have had them since Plato. The -knowledge of means for realizing them is not new. We have had it since -Aristotle, and the history of civilization is but the record of the -progressive embodiment of the ideals in institutions for the life -together--sexual, social, spiritual. What is new in our moment is that -mankind's accumulating forces are preparing for another step forward -in this long processional realization of its best possible. Nothing -so narrow as the mere governmentalizing of the means and processes of -production. It is only the morally nerveless who ask government to -do that which they will not rise to do. The conversion which is now -working itself out within us, and perhaps is more nearly born than we -suspect ("We shall not live to see slavery abolished," said Emerson, in -1859) is making itself felt on all sides of our life. In manners, in -literature, in marriage, in church, in all, we see at work the saving -ferment which is to make all things new by bringing them nearer to -the old ideals. George Sand was revolted by the servile accent of the -phrase of her day, "Madame est servie." Society has grown to the better -fellowship her finer ear found wanting in these words, and is now told -it is dinner, not madame or monsieur, that is served. - -We are to have, of course, great political changes. We are to apply -the co-operative methods of the post-office and the public school to -many other common toils, to all toils in which private sovereignty has -become through monopoly a despotism over the public, and to all in -which the association of the people and the organization of processes -have been so far developed that the profit-hunting Captain of Industry -may be replaced by the public-serving Captain of Industry. But we are -to have much more. We are to have a private life of a new beauty, of -which these are to be merely the mechanical exhibitions on the side -of politics. We are to move among each other, able, by the methodical -and agreed adherence of all, to do what the words of Lamennais mean, -instead of being able, as now, in most things, to afford only an -indulgence in feeling them. We are to be commoners, travellers to -Altruria. - -We are to become fathers, mothers, for the spirit of the father and -mother is not in us while we can say of any child it is not ours, and -leave it in the grime. We are to become men, women, for to all about -reinforcing us we shall insure full growth and thus insure it to -ourselves. We are to become gentlemen, ladies, for we will not accept -from another any service we are not willing to return in kind. We are -to become honest, giving when we get, and getting with the knowledge -and consent of all. We are to become rich, for we shall share in the -wealth now latent in idle men and idle land, and in the fertility of -work done by those who have ceased to withstand but stand with each -other. As we walk our parks we already see that by saying "thine" to -every neighbor we say "mine" of palaces, gardens, art, science, far -beyond any possible to selfishness, even the selfishness of kings. -We shall become patriots, for the heart will know why it thrills to -the flag. Those folds wave the salute of a greater love than that of -the man who will lay down his life for his friend. There floats the -banner of the love of millions, who, though they do not know you and -have never seen you, will die for you and are living for you, doing -in a thousand services unto you as you would be done by. And the -little patriotism, which is the love of the humanity fenced within our -frontier will widen into the reciprocal service of all men. Generals -were, merchants are, brothers will be, humanity's representative men. - -There is to be a people in industry, as in government. The same rising -genius of democracy which discovered that mankind did not co-operate in -the State to provide a few with palaces and king's-evil, is disclosing -that men do not co-operate in trade for any other purpose than to -mobilize the labor of all for the benefit of all, and that the only -true guidance comes from those who are led, and the only valid titles -from those who create. Very wide must be the emancipation of this new -self-interest. If we free America we shall still be not free, for the -financial, commercial, possessory powers of modern industrial life are -organized internationally. If we rose to the full execution of the -first, simplest, and most pressing need of our times and put an end -to all private use of public powers, we should still be confronted by -monopolies existing simply as private property, as in coal-mines, oil -lands. - -It is not a verbal accident that science is the substance of the word -conscience. We must know the right before we can do the right. When it -comes to know the facts the human heart can no more endure monopoly -than American slavery or Roman empire. The first step to a remedy is -that the people care. If they know, they will care. To help them to -know and care; to stimulate new hatred of evil, new love of the good, -new sympathy for the victims of power, and, by enlarging its science, -to quicken the old into a new conscience, this compilation of fact -has been made. Democracy is not a lie. There live in the body of the -commonalty the unexhausted virtue and the ever-refreshened strength -which can rise equal to any problems of progress. In the hope of -tapping some reserve of their powers of self-help this story is told to -the people. - - - - -APPENDIX - -PARTIAL LIST OF TRADE COMBINATIONS, OR TRUSTS, ACHIEVED OR ATTEMPTED, -AND OF THE COMMODITIES COVERED BY THEM[770] - - - I.--LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER - - Boilers, for house heating. - - Candle-makers, Great Britain, United States. - - Coal: anthracite, bituminous. - - Coke. - - Electric: carbon points, 1885; - candles,1888; - electric goods, national, 1887; - lighting, United States, Great Britain, 1882; - light-fixtures, national, 1889. - - Gas: illuminating and fuel, local, sectional, national; fixtures, - national; pipes, 1875; natural. - - Gasoline stoves, 1894. - - Governors of steam-boilers. - - Hot-water heaters, 1892. - - House furnaces, 1889. - - Kerosene, 1874. - - Kindling wood, Boston, 1891. - - Matches: United States; Great Britain; - Canada; - Sweden; - international, 1894. - - Paraffine. - - Petroleum and its products, 1874. - - Radiators, steam and hot-water, Western, 1891. - - Scotch mineral oil, 1888. - - Steam and hot-water master fitters, national, 1889. - - Stearine. - - Stove-boards, zinc, national, 1890. - - Stoves and ranges, 1872. - - Stoves, vapor, national, 1884. - - -II.--CHEMICALS - - Acids: acetic, citric, muriatic, nitric, sulphuric, American, 1889; - oxalic, Great Britain, 1882. - - Alkali Union, England, 1888. - - Alkaloids, United States. - - Alum, sectional, 1889. - - Ammonia, 1889. - - Bismuth salts, United States. - - Bleaching-powder, England, 1888. - - Boracic acid, United States. - - Borax: United States; - Great Britain, 1888. - - Chemical Union, England, 1890. - - Chloroform, United States. - - Drug manufacturers: United States; - Canada, 1884. - - Iodine, England, 1890. - - Iodoform, United States, 1880. - - Lime, acetate of, 1891. - - Mercurials: as calomel, corrosive sublimate, etc., United States. - - Nitrates, Chili, 1884. - - Paris-green, 1889. - - Potash: bichromate of, Great Britain; - bichloride of, United States; - chlorate, prussiate, Great Britain, 1888. - - Quinine, international, 1893. - - Rochelle salts, United States. - - Saltpetre. - - Santonine, United States. - - Soda, bichromate, United States; carbonate, - caustic, England, 1888; - nitrate of, Chili and England, 1884. - - Strychnine. - - Sulphur, Italy. - - Ultramarine: United States; Germany, 1890. - - Vitriol, 1889. - - -III.--METALS - - Aluminum, national, 1888. - - Barbed wire, 1881. - - Brass: sectional, 1884; - rolled and sheet, sheet German silver, copper rivets and burrs, copper - and German-silver wire, kerosene-oil burners and lamp trimmings, and - braised brass tubing. - - Copper: cold, bolt, rolled, sheet, 1888; - ore, Lake Superior, 1879; - international, 1887; - bath-tubs, boilers, sinks, and general ware, 1891; - wire. - - Iron: founders; galvanized, national, 1875; - malleable, national, 1882; - manufacturers, Germany, 1887; - nuts, 1884; - ore, Germany, 1884, Atlantic coast, 1886, Michigan, 1882, Southern, - 1884, Northwestern, 1887, Lake Superior, 1893; - pig, Eastern, Southern, 1883, national, 1889; - pipes, steam and gas, 1884; - wrought iron, 1887; - sheet, enamelled, Germany, 1893; - structural, national, 1881; - tubes, 1884; - wire-cloth, national, 1882; - Russian, 1893. - - Lead: pig, pipe; - sheet-lead, 1888; - white, national, 1884. - - Mica, national, 1887. - - Nickel. - - Quicksilver, California. - - Silver and lead smelters. - - Steel: armor-plate, Bessemer beams (in - existence nearly thirty years), castings, 1894; - galvanized; rails (see traffic and travel); - rods, United States and Germany, 1888; - rolling-mills. - - Tin: jobbers; American, national, 1883; - English, 1889. - - Zinc. - - -IV.--SOME OTHER INSTRUMENTS AND MATERIALS OF INDUSTRY - - Alcohol. - - Axes and axe-poles. - - Belting, leather, rubber. - - Blankets (press), American Papermakers' Felt and Jacket Association. - - Bobbins, spools, and shuttles, 1886, for cotton, woollen, silk, and linen - mills. - - Bolts, 1884. - - Boxes, wooden, local, 1885; - Western and Southern. - - Bridge-builders: Eastern, 1886; - Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, 1889. - - Butchers' skewers and supplies, Western, 1889. - - Carpet yarns, Eastern, 1889. - - Cash-registers, national, 1890. - - Celluloid, lythoid, zylonite, Eastern, 1890. - - Chains, national, 1883. - - Color trust, Great Britain, 1889. - - Cordage: rope, twine, United States, 1875; - England, 1892. - - Corks. - - Cotton duck, national, 1891. - - Cotton-seed oil, national, 1884. - - Creels, for cloth and woollen mills, national, 1893. - - Damasks, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Emery wheels, national. - - Felting. - - Fibre, indurated, pails, bowls, measures, water-coolers, filters, etc., - national, 1888. - - Files, 1875. - - Fire-brick, 1875. - - Fish-oil, menhaden, New England, 1885. - - Forge companies, national, 1889. - - Glass bottles: beer, United States, 1884; - green glass, English bottle manufacturers, 1889. - - Glass: flint, Western, 1891; - crown, cylinder, unpolished; - plate, French, 1888; - German, 1887; - international, 1890; - window, 1875; - sectional, national, international, 1884. - - Glass, plate, Underwriters, 1894. - - Glue. - - Gutta-percha. - - Hardware manufacturers, 1884. - - Label printers. - - Leather: belting, national; board, national, 1891; - hides, Northwestern, 1888; - morocco, Eastern, 1886; - patent, national, 1888; sole, 1893; - Tanners' Association, 1882; - Oak Harness Leather Tanners, national, 1890. - - Linen mills, Eastern, Western, 1892. - - Linseed oil: local, 1877; - national, 1887; - dealers, Canada, 1892. - - Manilla, international, 1887. - - Oil: lubricating, 1874; - for curing leather; menhaden; - safety burning oil for miners. - - Onyx, Mexican, 1890. - - Paper: local, sectional, national; - bags, Eastern and Western, 1887; - book and newspaper; boxes, national, 1883; - card-board, 1890; - flour sacks, 1887; - straw; tissue, 1892; - wrapping, Western, 1878, Eastern, 1881; - writing, national, 1884. Papermakers' trust in Great Britain to check - the operation of the Alkali trust, 1889; - Papermakers' Felt and Jacket Association, national; - rags, Eastern, 1883; - wood-pulp, Western, 1890; - New York, Canada, Eastern, 1891. - - Pitch, national, 1887 or earlier. - - Planes, carpenters'. - - Pumps, national, 1871. - - Rubber: belting, 1875; - electric web goring (for shoes), national, 1893; - gossamers, 1887; - hose, 1875; - importers, national, 1882; - manufacturers, national, 1882; - Brazil producers, 1890; - stamps and stencils, national, 1893. - - Sandpaper, emery and emery cloth, flint, garnet, ruby, sand cloth, - national, 1887. - - Saws, national, 1890. - - Scales. - - Screws: machine, 1887; - wood, national, international. - - Seed Crushers' Union, England, 1889. - - Sewer pipe, 1875. - - Sewing-machines, 1885. - - Sewing-machine supplies, New York and New England, 1883. - - Spirits. - - Straw braid. - - Straw-board, 1887. - - Tacks, 1875. - - Talc mills, New York, 1893. - - Tar, national, 1886. - - Teasel, national, 1892. - - Textile manufacturers, Pennsylvania, 1886--embracing dress goods, - ginghams, upholstery goods, woollens, yarns, chintzes, worsteds, damasks. - - Tools, edge, American Axe and Edged Tool Company, national, 1890. - - Turpentine, Southern, 1892. - - Type founders, national, 1888. - - Washers, 1884. - - Watch-cases, 1886. - - Well tools, for oil, gas, and artesian wells, 1889. - - Wood, excelsior, shavings for packing, national, 1889. - - Wooden-ware, 1883 or earlier. - - Woodworking machines, 1891. - - Wool felt. - - Wrenches, 1875. - - -V.--TRAFFIC AND TRAVEL - -_The Road, Horse, and Wagon_ - - Bicycles, United States, 1893. Board of Trade formed to regulate prices. - - Bicycle tires. - - Bridge-builders, 1886. - - Buggy pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Carriage builders, national, 1884. - - Carriage hardware, 1884. - - Harness dealers, manufacturers, national, 1886. - - Liverymen's Associations, local, 1884. - - Paving: asphalt, 1886; - brick, Western, 1892; - pitch, national, 1887. - - Road-making machines, Western, 1890. - - Saddlery Association, national, 1891. - - Saddle-trees, Indiana, Missouri, 1892. - - Wagons, local, 1886. - - Wheels, Western, 1889. - - Whips, national, 1892. - - -_Shipping_ - - Ballast, Havana, 1882. - - Canal-boats, 1884. - - Cotton duck, sail-cloth, national, 1888. - - Ferries, New York and Brooklyn. - - Lake carriers, Hull pool, 1886. - - Lake Dock Trust. - - Marine insurance, 1883. - - Naval stores. - - Ocean steamers: European, Asiatic, and American; - German steamship companies, 1894. - - Pilotage, New York, San Francisco. - - Steamboats: in the Cincinnati and New Orleans trade, 1884; - forwarding lines along the Hudson River, 1891. - - -_Railroads_ - - Car-axles, 1890. - - Car-springs, steel, national, 1887. - - Cars, freight and cattle. - - Elevators, grain, local, Western, 1887. - - Express companies. - - Locomotives: national, 1892; - boiler flues, 1875; - tires, national, 1892. - - Railroad: pools, freight and passenger, sectional, national; - Eastern Railroad Association, of 800 railroads, to fight patents. - - Steel sleepers, 1885; - steel rails, national. - - Street railways, local, sectional. - - -VI.--BUILDING - - Asbestos, for paints, roofing, steam-pipe and boiler coverings, 1891. - - Beams and channels, iron and steel, national, 1875. - - Blinds: Northwestern, 1885; - national, 1888. - - Brass, gas, plumbing, steam, water goods, 1884. - - Brick: local, sectional, 1884; - Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Washington (State); - pressed brick, 1890. - - Cement: Mississippi valley, 1883; - Eastern, 1884; - Northwestern, 1884. - - Cornice-makers, national, 1884. - - Doors: Northwestern, 1885; - national, 1888. - - Fire engines, including hook and ladder trucks, hose-carriages, heaters, - carts, stationary pumps, and other supplies, United States and Canada, - 1892. - - Fire insurance. - - Glue, national, 1894. - - Gypsum stucco, Eastern, Northwestern, 1884. - - Hinges, 1875. - - Lime, Western, 1883. - - Lumber: California pine, 1883; - California redwood, 1883; - Chicago; Mississippi valley; - Northwestern, 1880; - Pacific coast, 1883; - poplar, 1889; - Puget Sound, 1883; - yellow pine, Southern, 1890, Eastern, 1891; - dealers, national, 1878. - - Nails: Pennsylvania, 1875; - Western Association, 1882; - Atlantic States Association, 1883. - - Paint. - - Plaster, national, 1891. - - Roofing: felt; - iron; - pitch, Vermont, national, 1887. - - Sanitary pottery. - - Sash, doors, and blinds, national. - - Sewer pipes, national, 1884. - - Stone: brown stone, Lake Superior, 1890, New York, 1884; - cut-stone quarry owners, Western, 1892; - free-stone; granite, national, 1891; - limestone, rubble, and flag, Illinois, 1884; - marble, Western dealers, 1885; - Vermont marble quarries, 1889; - sandstone, New York, 1883. - - Structural steel. - - Stucco, 1883. - - Varnish dealers, national, 1888. - - Wall-paper: national, 1879; international, 1882. - - -VII.--FARM AND PLANTATION - - Agricultural implements, manufacturers, dealers, 1891. - - Binders, Harvester Trust, 1883. - - Churns, 1884. - - Corn-harvesters, national, 1892. - - Cotton bagging, 1888. - - Cotton presses, local, 1892. - - Drain tile, Indiana, 1894. - - Fencing, barbed wire, national, 1881. - - Fertilizers: 1888; - guano; - menhaden oil, New England, 1885; - phosphate, South Carolina, 1887; - Canada, 1890; - Florida, 1891. - - Forks, national, 1890. - - Harrow manufacturers, national, 1890. - - Harvesting-machines, national, 1883. - - Hay-presses, national, 1889. - - Hay tools, Western and Northwestern, 1884. - - Hoes, national, 1890. - - Horse-brushes, prison-made, 1889. - - Jute grain bags, national, 1888. - - Mowers, national, 1883. - - Pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Paris green. - - Ploughs, Northwestern, 1884. - - Rakes, national, 1890. - - Reapers, 1883. - - Scythe-makers, national, 1884. - - Shovels, national, 1890. - - Snath manufacturers, national, 1891. - - Threshing-machines, national, 1890, 1891. - - Twine, binding, 1887. - - Vehicles. - - -VIII.--SCHOOL, LIBRARY, AND COUNTING-ROOM - - Blank-books, 1888. - - Envelopes, 1888. - - Lead-pencils, 1878. - - Lithographic printers, national, 1892. - - Novels (paper-covered "libraries"), 1890. - - School-books, national, 1884. - - School-furniture, national, 1892. - - Slates and slate-pencils, national, 1887. - - Subscription-books, local, sectional, 1892. - - Type-founders, national, 1888. - - Type-writers. - - Writing-paper, national, 1884. - - -IX.--"THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD" - - Ammunition, 1883. - - Arms, 1883. - - Cartridges, national, 1883. - - Dynamite, Germany. - - Fireworks, national, 1890. - - Gunpowder, national, 1875. - - Guns, 1883. - - Shot-tower companies, national, 1873. - - -X.--FOR THE PERSON - - Barbers, National Tonsorial Parlor Company, organized to establish - barber-shops in all the large cities of the United States, 1890. - - Buttons. - - Calico, England, 1891. - - Clothes-brushes, prison-made, 1889. - - Coat and cloak manufacturers: New York, 1883; - Chicago, 1893. - - Collars and cuffs, New York, 1890. - - Cotton: England, 1890; - Fall River; Southern mills, 1881; - thread (spool-cotton), 1888. - - Diamonds: mines in South Africa; - dealers in Europe, 1889. - - Dress-goods, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Furs. - - Ginghams, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Gloves, New York. - - Hats: fur, 1885; - woollen, national. - - Knit goods: New York, 1884; - Western, 1889. - - Jewellers, national. - - Laundries: Chicago; - Chinese Laundry Union, New York City, 1889; - St. Louis, 1893. - - Pocket-knives, national, 1892. - - Ribbons, national, 1892. - - Rubber boots and shoes, national, 1882. - - Seal-skin, national, 1892. - - Shirts: Troy, New York City, 1890. - - Shoe: manufacturers, national, 1887; - retailers, New England, 1885; - national, 1886. - - Silk: manufacturers, international. France, England, Italy, Germany, - 1888; - sewing, national, 1887; - ribbon, 1884. - - Trunks, national, 1892. - - Umbrellas, Eastern, 1891. - - Watch: - manufacturers, makers and jewellers, national, 1886; - National Association of Jobbers of American Watches and Cases, 1886. - - Woollens: - manufacturers, 1882; - worsteds, yarns, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - -XI.--SMOKING AND DRINKING - - Beer, United States Brewers' Association, 1861. - - Champagne, New York City, 1889; - France, 1891. - - Meerschaum pipes, New Jersey, 1892. - - Soda fountains, 1890. - - Spittoons, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Tobacco and cigars, local, sectional, national, 1882; - cigarettes, 1890. - - Waters, mineral, national, 1889. - - Whiskey and "domestic"--or artificial--brandy, rum, gin, and cordials made - in imitation of the genuine. - - Wine-growers, California, 1889. - - -XII.--"HOME, SWEET HOME" - -_In General_ - - Candles, coal, furnaces, gas, oil, matches, ranges, stoves, etc. (see - Light, Heat, and Power). - - Carpets: - Eastern, 1885; - Brussels, in-grain, 1888. - - Chairs: - cane, 1889; - manufacturers, Western, 1880; - seats, perforated, national, 1888. - - Furniture: - national, 1883; - Chicago manufacturers, 1886; - retailers, New England, 1888; - national, 1893. - - Hair-cloth, Rhode Island, 1893. - - Oil-cloth, table and stair, Oil-cloth Association, 1887. - - Pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Soap, national, 1890. - - Upholsterers' felt. - - Upholstery goods, textile manufacturers, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Window-shades, 1888. - - -_The Kitchen_ - - Boilers. - - Bottles. - - Brooms, 1886. - - Brushes, scrubbing, prison-made, 1889. - - Chopping-bowls, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Crockery, national, 1883. - - Fruit-jars, 1891. - - Glass-ware, 1883. - - Hollow-ware, prison-made, 1888. - - Keelers, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Kettles, prison-made, 1888. - - Lamp-chimneys, 1883. - - Measures, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Pans and pots, prison-made, 1888. - - Potato-mashers, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Pottery, yellow-ware, national, 1889. - - Sinks, copper. - - Stamped-ware, national, 1882. - - Tin-ware: - national, 1883; - English, 1889. - - Water-coolers, filters, pails, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Water-pails, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - -_Laundry_ - - Borax. - - Clothes-pins, New York, 1888. - - Clothes-wringers. - - Soap, national, 1890. - - Soda, 1884. - - Starch: - Western, 1882; - national, 1890. - - Washboards, New York, 1888. - - Wash-tubs, wooden-ware, national, 1884. - - Washing-machines, national, 1891. - - Water-tubs, fibre trust, national, 1888. - - Zinc, sheet, 1890. - - -_Dining-room_ - - Butter-dishes, 1886. - - China, England, 1888. - - Glass table-ware, 1889. - - Plated-ware. - - Silver-plated ware. - - Silver-ware, national, 1892. - - Table cutlery, national, 1881. - - Table oil-cloth, national, 1888. - - Tables, extension-tables, national, 1893. - - -_Parlor_ - - For carpets, furniture, upholstery, etc., see under "In General," above. - - Mantel lambrequin, wool felt, 1888. - - Music, books and instruments, Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, 1892. - - Organs, local, sectional, 1889. - - Parlor frame manufacturers. - - Parlor furniture, Western Association, 1886. - - Pianos, local, sectional, 1889; - national, 1893. - - Piano-covers, wool felt, 1888. - - Picture-frames, 1890. - - Rugs, Eastern, 1885. - - Table-covers, wool felt, 1888. - - Tapestries, Eastern, 1885. - - -_Bath-room_ - - Bath-tubs (see "Copper"). - - Sanitary-ware, 1889. - - Sponges, Florida, New York, 1892. - - -_Bedroom_ - - Chintzes, Pennsylvania, 1886. - - Looking-glass: - French silvered plate-glass, 1888; - German, national, 1887; - international, 1890. - - Spring beds, national, 1890. - - Wire mattress: - Northwestern, 1886; - national, 1890. - - -XIII.--"OUR DAILY BREAD" - - Bread, biscuit, crackers, local, sectional, national. - - Butter, local, 1889. - - Candy, local, national, 1884. - - Canned goods: - Western, 1885; - national, 1889; - California canned fruit, 1891. - - Cider and vinegar, national, 1882. - - Coffee, Arbuckle trust, 1888. - - Corn-meal, Western, 1894. - - Cotton-seed oil. - - Dairy Association, national, 1893. - - Eggs, local, in United States and Canada. - - Fish: - England, 1749 and before; - New York and New England, 1892; - salmon, Alaska, 1891; - salmon canners of the Pacific coast, 1893; - sardines, Eastern, 1885; - international, 1890; - sardine canneries, Canada, 1893. - - Flour: - United States, National Millers' Association, 1883; - winter wheat mills, national, 1888; - spring wheat mills of the United States; - millers of northeast England, 1889; - rye flour, local, 1891; - flour-mills of Utah and Colorado, 1892. - - Food Manufacturers' Association, United States, 1891. - - Fruit: - bananas, Southern, 1888; - California fruit-growers, 1892; - cranberries, Cape Cod, 1888; - England, 1884; - Florida, 1889; - foreign fruit, New York, 1884; - Fruit-trade Association, New York, 1882; - fruit-growers of the Eastern and Middle States against - commission-merchants, 1887; - preserves and jellies, Western, 1883; - American Preservers' Company, 1889; - prunes, California; - strawberry-growers, Wisconsin, 1892; - watermelons, Indiana, South Carolina, 1889. - - Grape-growers, northern Ohio, 1894. - - Grocers: wholesale, retail; local, sectional, national. - - Honey, local, 1888. - - Ice: - local, sectional, 1883; - artificial, Southern, 1889. - - Lard-refiners, Eastern, 1887. - - Meat and cattle: - beef, mutton, pork; - Butchers' National Protective Association; - Chicago packers; - Inter-mountain Stock-growers' Association, Utah, 1893; - International Cattle Range Association; - Live-stock Association, 1887; - Northwest Texas Live-stock Association, 1878; - Western Kansas Stock-growers' Association, 1883; - Wyoming Stock-growers' Association, 1874. - - Milk: - local, sectional, 1883; - condensed milk, New York, Illinois, 1891. - - Oatmeal, 1885; - Canada, 1887. - - Olive-oil. - - Oysters, local, 1890. - - Pea-nuts, 1888. - - Pickles, national, 1891. - - Produce: - Produce Commission-merchants, eight large cities--North, South, East, - West, 1883; - West, 1888. - - Raisins, California, 1894. - - Rice-mills, Southern, 1888. - - Salt: - rock; - English Salt Union, 1888; - international, United States and Canada, 1889; - Canada, 1891. - - Sugar: - Hawaii, 1876; - United States, 1887. - Glucose, national, 1883; - international, 1891. - - Wine, California, 1894. - - -XIV.--LIFE AND DEATH - - Artificial teeth, United States, 1889. - - Castor-oil, 1885. - - Cocoa-nut oil, American importers, 1881. - - Coffins, National Burial-case Association, 1884. - - Dental machines and supplies, United States, 1889. - - Drugs: - importers; - druggists, retail, sectional, national, 1883; - wholesale, sectional, national, 1884; - Canada, 1874; - manufacturers, national, 1884. - - Ergot, 1891. - - Glycerine, New York, 1888. - - Life insurance, 1883, - national, 1891. - - Patent medicines, national, 1884. - - Peppermint, local, 1887. - - Quinine, 1882. - - Tombstones, local, Brooklyn, Chicago, 1891. - - Vaseline. - - -XV.--MISCELLANEOUS - - Athletic clubs, 1893, to reduce charges made by prize-fighters for - exhibition. - - Base-ball, national, 1876. - - Billiard-tables and furniture, 1884. - - Bill-posters, United States, Canada, 1872. - - Dime museums, national, 1883. - - Landlords' Union, London, England, 1890. - - News-dealers, 1884; - newspapers, Associated Press, United Press; - sectional, national. - - Photographers, national, 1889. - - Playing-cards. - - Printers, show and job, 1893. - - Racing trust, jockey club, 1894. - - Retailers, 1891. - Small retail store-keepers of Kansas City protest against mammoth - department stores. - - Safes, national, 1892. - - Theatrical trust, Interstate Amusement Company, Springfield, Ill., 1894. - - Warehouses: - Brooklyn, 1887; - national, 1891. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote 1: Annual Report Attorney-General of the United States, 1893.] - -[Footnote 2: People of the State of New York _vs._ The North River -Sugar Refining Company. Supreme Court of New York--at Circuit (January -9, 1889). New York Senate Trusts, 1889, p. 278.] - -[Footnote 3: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 19.] - -[Footnote 4: References: - -1. Investigation by the Senate of Pennsylvania into the Anthracite Coal -Difficulties, 1871. - -2. Morris Run Coal Company _vs._ The Barclay Coal Company. Pennsylvania -State Reports, Vol. 68, p. 173. - -3. Report on the Coal Combination. New York Assembly Committee on -Railroads, 1878. - -4. Labor Troubles in Anthracite Regions, 1887-1888. House of -Representatives, 50th Congress, Second Session. Report No. 4147. - -5. New York Senate Investigation of the Coal Combination, 1892. - -6. Alleged Coal Combination. House of Representatives, 52d Congress, 2d -Session. Report No. 2278. January 18, 1893. - -7. Coxe Brothers & Co. _vs._ The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, -before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Report and Opinion of the -Commission. - -8. John C. Haddock _vs._ Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad -Company, before the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1890. - -9. Hocking Valley Investigation. General Assembly of Ohio, 1885. - -10. Trusts or Pools. Investigation by Legislature of Ohio, 1889. - -11. Alleged Combinations in Manufactures, Trade, etc. Dominion House of -Commons, 1888.] - -[Footnote 5: Richardson _vs._ Buhl _et al._ Michigan State Reports, -vol. lxxvii., p. 632.] - -[Footnote 6: Page ii.] - -[Footnote 7: Page xxii.] - -[Footnote 8: Coal Combination, Congress, 1893. Testimony of John C. -Haddock, pp. 242-261.] - -[Footnote 9: Same, p. iv.] - -[Footnote 10: Report, p. xlv.] - -[Footnote 11: Coal Combination, Congress, 1893, pp. iii., iv., vi.] - -[Footnote 12: Same, p. i.] - -[Footnote 13: Same. p. v.] - -[Footnote 14: Report, pp. xiv., xv., xlix.] - -[Footnote 15: Combinations, Canadian Parliament, 1888, pp. 5, 6, 7.] - -[Footnote 16: Report, p. lxx.] - -[Footnote 17: Investigation by the Senate of Pennsylvania into the -Anthracite Coal Difficulties, 1871.] - -[Footnote 18: Report, pp. lxx., and following.] - -[Footnote 19: Same, p. lxxvi.] - -[Footnote 20: Same, p. lxxvii.] - -[Footnote 21: Report, pp. ix., xciv., and following.] - -[Footnote 22: Same, p. xlv.] - -[Footnote 23: Same, p. xiii.] - -[Footnote 24: Coxe case before Interstate Commerce Commission, Coal -Combination, Congress, 1893, p. 183.] - -[Footnote 25: Same, p. v.] - -[Footnote 26: Whiskey Trust Investigation. Committee on the -Judiciary Report, March 1, 1893. 52d Congress, 2d Session, House of -Representatives, Report No. 2601, p. 16 and following.] - -[Footnote 27: Same testimony, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 28: Whiskey Trust Investigation, Congress, 1893, p. 62.] - -[Footnote 29: Whiskey Trust Investigation, Congress, 1893, pp. 14, 15.] - -[Footnote 30: Report of the Investigating Committee appointed by the -Legislature of Minnesota of 1891, to determine whether wheat was taken -without inspection from a public elevator in Duluth. April 7, 1892, p. -11.] - -[Footnote 31: Trusts, New York Senate, 1891, pp. 9, 11.] - -[Footnote 32: Meat Products, United States Senate, 51st Congress, 1st -Session, Report No. 829, 1890, p. 2.] - -[Footnote 33: New York Assembly, "Hepburn Report," 1879, p. 70.] - -[Footnote 34: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, p. 3.] - -[Footnote 35: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, pp. 1, 2.] - -[Footnote 36: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, p. 6.] - -[Footnote 37: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890, Testimony, pp. -464, 465.] - -[Footnote 38: Meat Products, United States Senate, 1890.] - -[Footnote 39: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888. Combinations, Canadian -Parliament, 1888.] - -[Footnote 40: F.H. Storer, _American Journal of Science_, vol. xxx., -1860.] - -[Footnote 41: Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 159.] - -[Footnote 42: Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 160.] - -[Footnote 43: Testimony of Simon Bernheimer, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3549 and following.] - -[Footnote 44: Petroleum and Its Products, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. Census, -1885, p. 93.] - -[Footnote 45: Same, p. 93.] - -[Footnote 46: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 214.] - -[Footnote 47: Titusville _Morning Herald_, March 20, 1872.] - -[Footnote 48: Testimony, Erie Investigation, New York Assembly, 1873, -p. 418.] - -[Footnote 49: Testimony of Simon Bernheimer, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3548.] - -[Footnote 50: Testimony, Freight Discriminations, Ohio House of -Representatives, 1879, pp. 184-5.] - -[Footnote 51: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 304.] - -[Footnote 52: Testimony, Pennsylvania Tax Case, 1883, p. 486.] - -[Footnote 53: This contract is printed in full in Exhibits, New -York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 418-51, and Trust Report, -Congress, 1888, pp. 357-61.] - -[Footnote 54: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 353.] - -[Footnote 55: Art. 2, sec. 3.] - -[Footnote 56: Art. 2, sec. 4.] - -[Footnote 57: Art. 2, sec. 5.] - -[Footnote 58: Art. 2, Sec. 4.] - -[Footnote 59: The same.] - -[Footnote 60: Art. 2, Sec. 8.] - -[Footnote 61: Art. 2, Sec. 5.] - -[Footnote 62: Art. 3.] - -[Footnote 63: Art. 4.] - -[Footnote 64: Exhibits, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, pp. 418-51.] - -[Footnote 65: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 1566.] - -[Footnote 66: Testimony, Erie Investigation, New York Assembly, 1873, -p. 300.] - -[Footnote 67: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 42.] - -[Footnote 68: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, p. -418.] - -[Footnote 69: Report of the Executive Committee of the Petroleum -Producers' Union, 1872, p. 23.] - -[Footnote 70: Testimony, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, p. 237.] - -[Footnote 71: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2525.] - -[Footnote 72: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2527.] - -[Footnote 73: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2525-35.] - -[Footnote 74: See ch. xxxii. for "the state of the business" -"unproductive of profit."] - -[Footnote 75: Standard Oil Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._ Court -of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, O. Affidavit of the President of the -Standard Oil Company.] - -[Footnote 76: 11 Harris.] - -[Footnote 77: Debates of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, -1873, v. 3, pp. 522-3.] - -[Footnote 78: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2766.] - -[Footnote 79: Report of Executive Committee of the Petroleum Producers' -Union, 1872.] - -[Footnote 80: See ch. xxxiii.] - -[Footnote 81: Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.] - -[Footnote 82: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 290.] - -[Footnote 83: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 420.] - -[Footnote 84: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 289.] - -[Footnote 85: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad Company _et al._, 1879, p. 707.] - -[Footnote 86: Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.] - -[Footnote 87: Exhibit A, Answer of Defendants, Case of Standard Oil -Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, Cleveland, 1880.] - -[Footnote 88: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 385.] - -[Footnote 89: Exhibit A, Answer of Defendants, Case of Standard Oil -Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, Cleveland, 1880, Section 7.] - -[Footnote 90: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 91: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 92: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 93: Same.] - -[Footnote 94: Same.] - -[Footnote 95: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 547.] - -[Footnote 96: Petition for Relief and Injunction, Standard Oil Company -_vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, etc.] - -[Footnote 97: Affidavits of the defendants.] - -[Footnote 98: _Combinations_, etc., S.C.T. Dodd, p. 25.] - -[Footnote 99: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 422.] - -[Footnote 100: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 772.] - -[Footnote 101: Affidavit of Levi T. Scofield.] - -[Footnote 102: Exhibit A, etc., Section 12.] - -[Footnote 103: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 388, 421.] - -[Footnote 104: Scofield _et al._ _vs._ Lake Shore and Michigan Southern -Railway Company, 43 Ohio State Report, p. 571.] - -[Footnote 105: See ch. xxvii.] - -[Footnote 106: See ch. xxvii.] - -[Footnote 107: See Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 800.] - -[Footnote 108: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad -_et al._, 1879, Testimony, p. 472.] - -[Footnote 109: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1879, Testimony, p. 490.] - -[Footnote 110: Report Executive Committee Petroleum Producers' Union, -1872.] - -[Footnote 111: See ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 112: Glasgow _Herald_, June 16, 1892.] - -[Footnote 113: Affidavit, Oct. 18, 1880, Case of Standard Oil Company -_vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, Cleveland, 1880.] - -[Footnote 114: Affidavit, Nov. 17, 1880.] - -[Footnote 115: Affidavit, Nov. 30, 1880.] - -[Footnote 116: Affidavit, May 1, 1880.] - -[Footnote 117: See chapter "Not to Exceed Half."] - -[Footnote 118: Affidavit, May 1, 1880.] - -[Footnote 119: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad -Company _et al._, Testimony, p. 751.] - -[Footnote 120: Exhibit A, Affidavit, October 18, 1880.] - -[Footnote 121: See ch. xxvii.] - -[Footnote 122: See ch. xviii. and following.] - -[Footnote 123: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.] - -[Footnote 124: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1693.] - -[Footnote 125: Rutter Circular, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.] - -[Footnote 126: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 127: Rutter Circular, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 363.] - -[Footnote 128: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1596.] - -[Footnote 129: Same, Report, p. 43.] - -[Footnote 130: Same, Testimony, p. 3429.] - -[Footnote 131: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2792-95.] - -[Footnote 132: Same, p. 2795.] - -[Footnote 133: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 445.] - -[Footnote 134: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 670.] - -[Footnote 135: Testimony of A.J. Cassatt, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -_vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 666, 669, 671.] - -[Footnote 136: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 137: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc., 1879, p. -665.] - -[Footnote 138: Appeal to the Executive of Pennsylvania, Trusts, -Congress, 1888, p. 354.] - -[Footnote 139: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 735.] - -[Footnote 140: Same, p. 672.] - -[Footnote 141: Same, p. 460.] - -[Footnote 142: See ch. vi.] - -[Footnote 143: Standard Oil Company _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._ -Affidavit of the treasurer of the Standard.] - -[Footnote 144: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 771-72.] - -[Footnote 145: For the full report of these remarkable interviews with -the President and Third Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad see -Testimony, Investigation Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, -1878, pp. 47 _et seq._, 60 _et seq._; Testimony, Commonwealth of -Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 160 _et -seq._, 204 _et seq._, 237 _et seq._] - -[Footnote 146: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 225-26.] - -[Footnote 147: Testimony, Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of -Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. 49, 59; Testimony, New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 710, 3548-56; Exhibits, same, p. 176; -Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et -al._, 1879, p. 247.] - -[Footnote 148: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, p. 712.] - -[Footnote 149: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -720.] - -[Footnote 150: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 445.] - -[Footnote 151: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 725-26.] - -[Footnote 152: Exhibits, pp. 453-514.] - -[Footnote 153: Testimony, pp. 174-207.] - -[Footnote 154: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 11.] - -[Footnote 155: Same, p. 352.] - -[Footnote 156: Same, p. 510.] - -[Footnote 157: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 420.] - -[Footnote 158: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 374.] - -[Footnote 159: Testimony, Discriminations in Freight Rates, Ohio House -of Representatives, 1879, pp. 181-85.] - -[Footnote 160: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -800.] - -[Footnote 161: Exhibits, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -238-45.] - -[Footnote 162: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, pp. -479-514.] - -[Footnote 163: This was always denied by the New York Central. "I never -heard of the American Transfer Company," Vanderbilt told the New York -Legislature. "I don't know that we ever paid the American Transfer -Company a dollar. If we did, I have no knowledge of it." New York -Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 1577.] - -[Footnote 164: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, p. 702. Same, Exhibits Nos. 45-47, pp. -732-33.] - -[Footnote 165: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad -_et al._, 1879, p. 691.] - -[Footnote 166: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -3666-69.] - -[Footnote 167: Same, p. 3959.] - -[Footnote 168: Same, p. 2664.] - -[Footnote 169: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 656-57.] - -[Footnote 170: Art. 1, sec. 4.] - -[Footnote 171: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 40-44.] - -[Footnote 172: Speech of Simon Sterne, counsel of the New York Chamber -of Commerce, before New York Assembly "Hepburn" Committee, 1879, p. -3964.] - -[Footnote 173: Testimony, same, p. 2772.] - -[Footnote 174: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 175: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 176: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 302, 314.] - -[Footnote 177: Testimony, same, Pipe Line Appendix, pp. 36-37; -Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. -19, 29.] - -[Footnote 178: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc., 1879, -Pipe Line Appendix, pp. 36-37; Investigation, Pennsylvania Secretary of -Internal Affairs, 1878, pp. 19, 29, 32, 42.] - -[Footnote 179: A History, etc. Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 690, 697, -705, 706.] - -[Footnote 180: Testimony of B.B. Campbell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -_vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, pp. 298-99.] - -[Footnote 181: Same, p. 300.] - -[Footnote 182: Testimony of B.B. Campbell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -_vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, p. 300.] - -[Footnote 183: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 78-79.] - -[Footnote 184: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 295.] - -[Footnote 185: Same, p. 212.] - -[Footnote 186: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 45.] - -[Footnote 187: Franklin B. Gowen, before House Committee of Commerce, -Washington, Jan. 27, 1880.] - -[Footnote 188: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -before Interstate Commerce Commission, pp. 299-300.] - -[Footnote 189: Same, pp. 521, 539.] - -[Footnote 190: Same, p. 534.] - -[Footnote 191: Franklin B. Gowen, before House Committee of Commerce, -Washington, Jan. 27, 1880.] - -[Footnote 192: Report, p. 45.] - -[Footnote 193: Franklin B. Gowen, before Pennsylvania House of -Representatives Committee on Railroads, Feb. 13, 1883.] - -[Footnote 194: See ch. xiii.] - -[Footnote 195: See ch. xxvi.] - -[Footnote 196: Testimony of General Freight Agent of Pennsylvania -Railroad (Logan, Emery, and Weaver _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad), McKean -County Court of Common Pleas, 1889.] - -[Footnote 197: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases -before the Interstate Commerce Commission, Deposition, pp. 531-34.] - -[Footnote 198: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme Oil Company, Supreme Court -of New York, Buffalo, May, 1888, before Judge Childs; Deposition of -David McKelvey.] - -[Footnote 199: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases; Interstate -Commerce Commission reports, vol. v., pp. 4, 5.] - -[Footnote 200: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 572.] - -[Footnote 201: Same, pp. 389-99.] - -[Footnote 202: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 658.] - -[Footnote 203: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 925.] - -[Footnote 204: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 205: New York _Independent_, March 17, 1893.] - -[Footnote 206: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -Nos. 153, 154, 163, Interstate Commerce Commission; Deposition of -General Freight Agent Pennsylvania Railroad, pp. 531, 534.] - -[Footnote 207: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 389.] - -[Footnote 208: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 27.] - -[Footnote 209: Same, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 210: Same, p. 27.] - -[Footnote 211: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 17.] - -[Footnote 212: Answer of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Testimony, -Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, p. 365.] - -[Footnote 213: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 256.] - -[Footnote 214: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Petition -and Complaint.] - -[Footnote 215: Same, Testimony, p. 367.] - -[Footnote 216: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 372.] - -[Footnote 217: Same, pp. 380, 382.] - -[Footnote 218: Same, p. 256.] - -[Footnote 219: National Oil Company, Limited, to Interstate Commerce -Commission, March 30, 1893.] - -[Footnote 220: _Combinations: Their Uses and Abuses_, by S.C.T. Dodd, -p. 26.] - -[Footnote 221: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 3688.] - -[Footnote 222: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 71.] - -[Footnote 223: Same, p. 426.] - -[Footnote 224: Same, p. 425.] - -[Footnote 225: _The Railways and the Republic_, by J.F. Hudson, p. 83.] - -[Footnote 226: See pp. 69-70.] - -[Footnote 227: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Nos. 153, -154, 163. Petition and Complaint, p. 4.] - -[Footnote 228: Interstate Commerce Commission, "In the Matter of -Relative Tank and Barrel Rates on Oil," 1888. Letter of G.B. Roberts.] - -[Footnote 229: See ch. v.] - -[Footnote 230: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 231: See below, and ch. xvii.] - -[Footnote 232: See ch. xxxiii.] - -[Footnote 233: Rice, Robinson & Witherop case, Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1890.] - -[Footnote 234: In the matter of Relative Tank and Barrel Rates on Oil. -Letter of President Roberts, Interstate Commerce Commission reports, -vol. ii., p. 365.] - -[Footnote 235: Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.] - -[Footnote 236: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Exhibits, -pp. 6, 7, 10.] - -[Footnote 237: Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.] - -[Footnote 238: Interstate Commerce Commission reports, vol. ii., p. -365.] - -[Footnote 239: Same.] - -[Footnote 240: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 462.] - -[Footnote 241: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 542, 543.] - -[Footnote 242: Same, p. 542.] - -[Footnote 243: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Petition -and Complaint.] - -[Footnote 244: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 44, 110, 393, 396.] - -[Footnote 245: Same, p. 401.] - -[Footnote 246: Same, p. 335.] - -[Footnote 247: See p. 145.] - -[Footnote 248: See ch. xv.] - -[Footnote 249: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 283-84.] - -[Footnote 250: Same, p. 283.] - -[Footnote 251: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, Interstate -Commerce Commission Reports, vol v., p. 415.] - -[Footnote 252: See chs. xv., xvi., xvii.] - -[Footnote 253: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 268-336.] - -[Footnote 254: Same, p. 476.] - -[Footnote 255: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 163, 461, 537.] - -[Footnote 256: Same, p. 267.] - -[Footnote 257: Same, p. 296.] - -[Footnote 258: Same, Testimony of General Freight Manager of the Lehigh -Valley Railroad, pp. 161-62.] - -[Footnote 259: Same, Testimony of General Freight Agent of the -Pennsylvania Railroad, pp. 523, 537.] - -[Footnote 260: Testimony of General Freight Agent of the Pennsylvania -Railroad in Nicolai and Brady _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, -before Interstate Commerce Commission, Jan. 28, 1888.] - -[Footnote 261: The new rates prohibited the traffic. Testimony, -Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, pp. 97, 110, 139, 141, -146-48, 383-84, 393, 396, 397, 400, 401, 402.] - -[Footnote 262: Decision in Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, -Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. 131.] - -[Footnote 263: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 283.] - -[Footnote 264: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 265: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 36.] - -[Footnote 266: Same, p. 270.] - -[Footnote 267: Same, p. 221.] - -[Footnote 268: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 269: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -Mr. Confer, June 17, 1891, p. 12.] - -[Footnote 270: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 237-38.] - -[Footnote 271: Same, Report and Opinion of the Commission.] - -[Footnote 272: Same.] - -[Footnote 273: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 127-28.] - -[Footnote 274: Report of Senate Select Committee, Interstate Commerce, -49th Congress, 1st Session, 1886, p. 214.] - -[Footnote 275: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -p. 252.] - -[Footnote 276: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 20, 45, 75, 128-29, 175-77.] - -[Footnote 277: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 304-5.] - -[Footnote 278: Same, p. 486.] - -[Footnote 279: Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. -131.] - -[Footnote 280: Testimony, Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases, -pp. 188, 193, 446, 466, 467.] - -[Footnote 281: See chs. xvi, and xvii.] - -[Footnote 282: Rice cases, Nos. 184, 185, 194. Interstate Commerce -Commission Reports, vol v., p. 193.] - -[Footnote 283: Same.] - -[Footnote 284: George Rice _vs._ The St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. -_et al._, and same _vs._ Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. -_et al._ Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. v., p. 660.] - -[Footnote 285: See chap. ix.] - -[Footnote 286: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 695.] - -[Footnote 287: Same, p. 69.] - -[Footnote 288: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 449.] - -[Footnote 289: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 7, 19, 27, 28.] - -[Footnote 290: See ch. xviii.] - -[Footnote 291: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 64.] - -[Footnote 292: New York _Tribune_, June 29, 1889.] - -[Footnote 293: United States Department of the Interior. "Petroleum," -by Joseph D. Weeks, p. 300. Annual Oil Supplement to _Oil City -Derrick_, 1893 and 1894.] - -[Footnote 294: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 68.] - -[Footnote 295: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 387.] - -[Footnote 296: Same, p. 405.] - -[Footnote 297: Same, p. 449.] - -[Footnote 298: Annual Oil Supplement to _Oil City Derrick_, Jan. 2, -1893.] - -[Footnote 299: Trusts, Congress, 1888. p. 52.] - -[Footnote 300: Same, p. 67.] - -[Footnote 301: Same, p. 29.] - -[Footnote 302: Same, p. 65.] - -[Footnote 303: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 304: See ch. xxiii.] - -[Footnote 305: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3482.] - -[Footnote 306: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 330.] - -[Footnote 307: Testimony of P.M. Shannon, J.W. Lee, T.B. Westgate, in -the case of J.J. Carter _vs._ Producers and Refiners' Oil Co., Ld., -Court of Common Pleas, Crawford County, Pa., May, 1894.] - -[Footnote 308: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 309: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, _ex rel._ Bolard and Dale -_vs._ National Transit Co., Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, -Pa., December, 1893.] - -[Footnote 310: See ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 311: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, p. 527.] - -[Footnote 312: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania -Legislature on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883. Testimony of -Auditor-General Schell, p. 11 _et seq._, pp. 394-95, and of Corporation -Clerk, same, p. 58 _et seq._] - -[Footnote 313: Same, pp. 60, 61, 62.] - -[Footnote 314: Same, pp. 374, 383.] - -[Footnote 315: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, pp. 68, 69, 70, 381.] - -[Footnote 316: Proceedings of Joint Committee Pennsylvania Legislature -on Standard Oil Company and its Taxes, 1883, pp. 53, 70, 81-85.] - -[Footnote 317: Appeal of Standard Oil Company to the Court of Common -Pleas of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, June 20, 1881.] - -[Footnote 318: Trusts, Congress, 1886, p. 707.] - -[Footnote 319: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 143, 196, 476.] - -[Footnote 320: Same, pp. 316-17.] - -[Footnote 321: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 229, 478.] - -[Footnote 322: Same, pp. 478-79.] - -[Footnote 323: Same, pp. 228-29.] - -[Footnote 324: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 163, 185.] - -[Footnote 325: Same, p. 631.] - -[Footnote 326: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 267-70, 762-63.] - -[Footnote 327: Same, pp. 310, 789.] - -[Footnote 328: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 640-43, 830.] - -[Footnote 329: Same, p. 231.] - -[Footnote 330: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 229-30, 284-95.] - -[Footnote 331: Same, p. 498.] - -[Footnote 332: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 343.] - -[Footnote 333: Same, p. 500.] - -[Footnote 334: Same, pp. 339-41.] - -[Footnote 335: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 502-6.] - -[Footnote 336: Same, pp. 297, 310, 315, 327.] - -[Footnote 337: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., pp. 467, 521.] - -[Footnote 338: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 661.] - -[Footnote 339: Same, F.B. Gowen, p. 650.] - -[Footnote 340: Proceedings of the Joint Committee of the Pennsylvania -Legislature, etc., p. 713.] - -[Footnote 341: Hudson's _Railways and Republic_, p. 465.] - -[Footnote 342: "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, Special -Agent, U.S. Census, 1885, p. 93.] - -[Footnote 343: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme Oil Company. Tried in the -Supreme Court at Buffalo, N.Y., May 14, 1888.] - -[Footnote 344: _The Early and Later History of Petroleum_, by J.G. -Henry, 1873, p. 186.] - -[Footnote 345: "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, Special -Agent, U.S. Census, 1885, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 346: Trusts, Congress, 1888, Testimony of Joshua Merrill, p. -566.] - -[Footnote 347: Trusts, Congress, 1888, Testimony of Joshua Merrill, pp. -567-69.] - -[Footnote 348: Same, p. 568.] - -[Footnote 349: Same, p. 568.] - -[Footnote 350: Same, p. 570.] - -[Footnote 351: Supreme Court of New York: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme -Oil Company. Tried at Buffalo, New York, May 14, 1888.] - -[Footnote 352: Testimony, same.] - -[Footnote 353: Testimony, same.] - -[Footnote 354: Supreme Court of New York: Samuel Van Syckel _vs._ Acme -Oil Company. Tried at Buffalo, New York, May 14, 1888.] - -[Footnote 355: Testimony, same.] - -[Footnote 356: See ch. xxi.] - -[Footnote 357: Samuel Van Syckel died in Buffalo, March 3, 1894, aged -83.] - -[Footnote 358: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 573.] - -[Footnote 359: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 28.] - -[Footnote 360: Testimony, same, pp. 5, 41, 42, 124, 141, 162, 166, 170.] - -[Footnote 361: Testimony, same, p. 129.] - -[Footnote 362: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 12, 34, 172.] - -[Footnote 363: See ch. xviii.] - -[Footnote 364: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 129.] - -[Footnote 365: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 579.] - -[Footnote 366: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 33, 40-42.] - -[Footnote 367: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -pp. 49, 51, 56.] - -[Footnote 368: Same, pp. 159, 163.] - -[Footnote 369: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 169.] - -[Footnote 370: Same, pp. 249-50.] - -[Footnote 371: Same, p. 250.] - -[Footnote 372: Railroad Freights, Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, -p. 260.] - -[Footnote 373: Same, p. 116.] - -[Footnote 374: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 574.] - -[Footnote 375: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 577-78.] - -[Footnote 376: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 377: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 578. Hardy and another _vs._ -Cleveland and Marietta Railroad _et al._, Circuit Court, Ohio, E.D., -1887. _Federal Reporter_, vol. xxxi., pp. 689-93.] - -[Footnote 378: 49th Congress, 1st Session, Report of the Senate Select -Committee on Interstate Commerce, p. 199.] - -[Footnote 379: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 534, 535.] - -[Footnote 380: Same, pp. 730-38.] - -[Footnote 381: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 743.] - -[Footnote 382: Same, p. 729.] - -[Footnote 383: Same, p. 732.] - -[Footnote 384: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 416-20.] - -[Footnote 385: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 442-43.] - -[Footnote 386: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 524-30.] - -[Footnote 387: Same, p. 620.] - -[Footnote 388: Same, pp. 534-36.] - -[Footnote 389: Same, p. 533.] - -[Footnote 390: Same, p. 536.] - -[Footnote 391: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 729.] - -[Footnote 392: Same, p. 534.] - -[Footnote 393: Same, p. 730.] - -[Footnote 394: Same, p. 733.] - -[Footnote 395: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 735.] - -[Footnote 396: Same, p. 535.] - -[Footnote 397: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 578.] - -[Footnote 398: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 579-80.] - -[Footnote 399: Same, p. 584.] - -[Footnote 400: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, p. 147.] - -[Footnote 401: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 682-83.] - -[Footnote 402: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -1887, Nos. 51-60, p. 57.] - -[Footnote 403: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 529-32.] - -[Footnote 404: Supreme Court of Ohio: the State, _ex rel._, _vs._ The -Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway Company. The State, -_ex rel._, _vs._ The Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railway -Company, 47 Ohio State Reports, p. 130.] - -[Footnote 405: Testimony, Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, p. 384.] - -[Footnote 406: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 397, 398, 615-17.] - -[Footnote 407: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 622.] - -[Footnote 408: Same, pp. 586, 676. Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate -Commerce Commission, Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 391-92.] - -[Footnote 409: Same, pp. 676-77.] - -[Footnote 410: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 119.] - -[Footnote 411: Trusts, Congress, 1880, p. 520.] - -[Footnote 412: Trusts, Congress, 1880, pp. 410-11.] - -[Footnote 413: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 599.] - -[Footnote 414: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 688-89.] - -[Footnote 415: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 416: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 607.] - -[Footnote 417: Same, p. 678.] - -[Footnote 418: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, p. 29.] - -[Footnote 419: "Petroleum and Its Products," by S.F. Peckham, U.S. -Census, 1885, p. 92.] - -[Footnote 420: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 614.] - -[Footnote 421: See ch. xxiv.] - -[Footnote 422: Testimony, Rice cases, Interstate Commerce Commission, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 144.] - -[Footnote 423: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 587, 675, 680. Rice cases, -Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 487-88. For similar preferences to the palace -cattle-car companies, see report on "Meat Products," United States -Senate, 1890, p. 18.] - -[Footnote 424: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 477.] - -[Footnote 425: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 675, 679-87.] - -[Footnote 426: Same, p. 682.] - -[Footnote 427: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 47.] - -[Footnote 428: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 675.] - -[Footnote 429: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, pp. 108-9.] - -[Footnote 430: Same, p. 120.] - -[Footnote 431: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 432: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 674.] - -[Footnote 433: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 480.] - -[Footnote 434: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 674.] - -[Footnote 435: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 531-33.] - -[Footnote 436: Same, pp. 646-47.] - -[Footnote 437: Same, pp. 668-85.] - -[Footnote 438: Rice cases, Nos. 51-60, p. 65.] - -[Footnote 439: Same, p. 131.] - -[Footnote 440: Same, pp. 128-29, 143-47, 239.] - -[Footnote 441: Same, p. 109. Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 675-76.] - -[Footnote 442: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 688.] - -[Footnote 443: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 689.] - -[Footnote 444: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 598-99. Testimony, Rice -cases, Nos. 51-60, 1887, p. 28.] - -[Footnote 445: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 622.] - -[Footnote 446: See p. 205.] - -[Footnote 447: See p. 206.] - -[Footnote 448: Brundred, _et al._ _vs._ Rice, decided November 1, 1892, -49 Ohio State Reports.] - -[Footnote 449: See p. 219.] - -[Footnote 450: For the decisions in these Rice cases see Interstate -Commerce Commission Report, vol. i., p. 503; same, p. 722; vol. ii., p. -389; vol. iii., p. 186; vol. iv., p. 228; vol. v., p. 193, and same, p. -660.] - -[Footnote 451: The State of Ohio _ex rel._ David K. Watson, -Attorney-General, _vs._ The Standard Oil Company, _N.E. Reporter_, vol. -xxx., p. 279; 49 Ohio State Reports, p. 317.] - -[Footnote 452: Rice _vs._ Standard Oil Trust. New York Court of -Appeals--Case on Appeal, 1888.] - -[Footnote 453: Testimony, Trusts, New York, 1888, pp. 385-87.] - -[Footnote 454: People of the State of New York _vs._ Everest _et -al._ Court of Oyer and Terminer, Erie County, February, 1886, court -stenographer's report. This item is omitted in the transcript of -evidence furnished by the oil trust to the Committee of Congress -investigating trusts in 1888. See Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 801.] - -[Footnote 455: See p. 52.] - -[Footnote 456: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 814, 882, 883.] - -[Footnote 457: Same, p. 815.] - -[Footnote 458: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 1135.] - -[Footnote 459: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 816.] - -[Footnote 460: Same, p. 816.] - -[Footnote 461: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 817, 872-74.] - -[Footnote 462: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 818, 873.] - -[Footnote 463: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 820.] - -[Footnote 464: See p. 64.] - -[Footnote 465: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 854.] - -[Footnote 466: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 826.] - -[Footnote 467: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 821-22.] - -[Footnote 468: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 824-25.] - -[Footnote 469: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 825-26.] - -[Footnote 470: See ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 471: History, etc., Petroleum Producers' Unions. Trusts, -Congress, 1888, pp. 690-716.] - -[Footnote 472: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 942.] - -[Footnote 473: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 814-15.] - -[Footnote 474: Same, p. 834.] - -[Footnote 475: Same, p. 847.] - -[Footnote 476: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 842.] - -[Footnote 477: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 821.] - -[Footnote 478: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 842-43.] - -[Footnote 479: Same, pp. 843-44.] - -[Footnote 480: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 823.] - -[Footnote 481: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 844.] - -[Footnote 482: Same, p. 825.] - -[Footnote 483: Same, p. 845.] - -[Footnote 484: Same, p. 844.] - -[Footnote 485: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 2049. The last statement -is omitted in the transcript furnished by the trust for the Congress -Trust Report of 1888.] - -[Footnote 486: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 911.] - -[Footnote 487: Court Stenographer's Report, pp. 454-55.] - -[Footnote 488: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 2164.] - -[Footnote 489: Testimony, Rice cases, before Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1887, Nos. 51-60, p. 367. Testimony, Trusts, New York -Senate, 1888, pp. 571, 577, 578, 579, 658. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 295.] - -[Footnote 490: Testimony, Alleged Discriminations in Railroad Freights, -Ohio House of Representatives, 1879, pp. 36-39.] - -[Footnote 491: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 410.] - -[Footnote 492: Court Stenographer's Report.] - -[Footnote 493: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 871.] - -[Footnote 494: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 456, 571.] - -[Footnote 495: Court Stenographer's Report, p. 892.] - -[Footnote 496: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 869.] - -[Footnote 497: Same, p. 825.] - -[Footnote 498: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 902.] - -[Footnote 499: Same, pp. 905-41.] - -[Footnote 500: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 939.] - -[Footnote 501: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 932-33, 937.] - -[Footnote 502: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 816.] - -[Footnote 503: See chs. xxii. to xxvi.] - -[Footnote 504: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 847.] - -[Footnote 505: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 424.] - -[Footnote 506: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 849.] - -[Footnote 507: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 847.] - -[Footnote 508: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 429, 894.] - -[Footnote 509: Same, p. 894.] - -[Footnote 510: Testimony, Stenographic Report, p. 895. This passage -also is omitted in the transcript furnished the committee of Congress -by the counsel of the trust.] - -[Footnote 511: See p. 214.] - -[Footnote 512: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 533; see also p. -734.] - -[Footnote 513: See ch. xxv.] - -[Footnote 514: Report of Citizens' Committee on City of Toledo and Its -Natural Gas Bonds, p. 5.] - -[Footnote 515: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 5.] - -[Footnote 516: Chs. xiv and xxi.] - -[Footnote 517: State, _ex rel._, _vs._ City of Toledo, 48th Ohio State -Reports, p. 112.] - -[Footnote 518: _Federal Court Reporter_, vol. xxxix., pp. 651-54.] - -[Footnote 519: Report of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company, -January 7, 1889.] - -[Footnote 520: Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, pp. 36-37.] - -[Footnote 521: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 3.] - -[Footnote 522: See ch. xxix.] - -[Footnote 523: See ch. xx.] - -[Footnote 524: October 19, 1889.] - -[Footnote 525: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, pp. 6-7.] - -[Footnote 526: Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 527: City of Toledo and Its Natural Gas Bonds, p. 3.] - -[Footnote 528: Toledo Natural Gas Trustees' Report, 1890, p. 7.] - -[Footnote 529: Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 8.] - -[Footnote 530: "Constitutional History as Seen in the Development of -American Law." Lecture by D.H. Chamberlain. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New -York.] - -[Footnote 531: Report of the Toledo Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, pp. -8-9.] - -[Footnote 532: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 659.] - -[Footnote 533: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 428.] - -[Footnote 534: See p. 99.] - -[Footnote 535: See p. 206.] - -[Footnote 536: Annual Report of Natural Gas Trustees, 1890, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 537: Toledo _Blade_, February 7 and 27, 1889.] - -[Footnote 538: New York _Sun_ of March 31, 1891.] - -[Footnote 539: New York _Tribune_, April 23, 1889.] - -[Footnote 540: From _Life of William Lloyd Garrison, Told by His -Children_, vol. iii., ch. i., p. 12.] - -[Footnote 541: Petition of the Isaac Harter Company _vs._ the -Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company, Court of Common Pleas, Seneca -County, Ohio, June 16, 1890.] - -[Footnote 542: Annual Report of the Toledo Natural Gas Trustees, 1891, -p. 6.] - -[Footnote 543: See p. 250 and ch. xxxi.] - -[Footnote 544: See p. 154.] - -[Footnote 545: See p. 250.] - -[Footnote 546: See p. 21.] - -[Footnote 547: Annual Report of the Natural Gas Trustees of Toledo, -1891, p. 4.] - -[Footnote 548: Report to Stockholders, Northwestern Natural Gas -Company, January 7, 1889.] - -[Footnote 549: Report to Stockholders, Toledo Natural Gas Company, -January, 1889.] - -[Footnote 550: See ch. xxxii.] - -[Footnote 551: See p. 113.] - -[Footnote 552: See chs. ix. and xxxi.] - -[Footnote 553: See ch. xxx.] - -[Footnote 554: _Railroad Transportation_, by Arthur T. Hadley. G.P. -Putnam's Sons, 1886.] - -[Footnote 555: Speech of Simon Sterne, New York Assembly "Hepburn" -Report, 1879, pp. 98-118.] - -[Footnote 556: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2723-24 and p. 3900.] - -[Footnote 557: New York _Herald_, January 19, 1884.] - -[Footnote 558: Appeal to the Executive of Pennsylvania by the Petroleum -Producers' Union, 1878. Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 354.] - -[Footnote 559: New York _Herald_, January 19, 1884.] - -[Footnote 560: See ch. vii.] - -[Footnote 561: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 1.] - -[Footnote 562: Testimony, Appendix to the Journal of the House of -Representatives of the State of Ohio, 67th General Assembly, 1886, vol. -lxxxii., p. 499.] - -[Footnote 563: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 60.] - -[Footnote 564: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, pp. 77, 78.] - -[Footnote 565: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 58.] - -[Footnote 566: Same, pp. 37, 40, 66; Miscellaneous Document No. 106, -United States Senate, 49th Congress, 1886, pp. 32, 46, 214, and -_passim_.] - -[Footnote 567: Report No. 1490, United States Senate, 49th Congress, -1886, p. 50.] - -[Footnote 568: Miscellaneous Document 106, United States Senate, 49th -Congress, 1886, p. 18.] - -[Footnote 569: Miscellaneous Document 106, United States Senate, 49th -Congress, 1886, pp. 81-82.] - -[Footnote 570: _The Payne Bribery Case and the United States Senate_, -by Albert H. Walker.] - -[Footnote 571: Minority Report of Senators Hoar and Frye, 49th -Congress, 1st Session, Senate, No. 1490, p. 34.] - -[Footnote 572: Same, pp. 38, 39.] - -[Footnote 573: Hudson's _Railways and the Republic_, p. 467.] - -[Footnote 574: _Congressional Globe_, September 12, 1888, pp. -8520-8604.] - -[Footnote 575: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 395.] - -[Footnote 576: Speech of John M. Forbes, Boston, April 30, 1889.] - -[Footnote 577: Congress Record, 51st Congress, 2d Session, p. 3651.] - -[Footnote 578: Mr. John M. Forbes, in _Fossils, Free Ships, and -Reform_.] - -[Footnote 579: See p. 307.] - -[Footnote 580: See p. 386.] - -[Footnote 581: See chs. xviii.-xxi.] - -[Footnote 582: Senate Report No. 485, 53d Congress, 2d Session, June -21, 1894.] - -[Footnote 583: Supplemental Report of Senator W.V. Allen, of the -Senate Special Committee (ordered May 17, 1894) to Investigate Alleged -Attempts at Bribery by the Sugar Trust.] - -[Footnote 584: United States _vs._ E.C. Knight & Co., _et al._ United -States Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, March 26, 1894, 60 -_Federal Reporter_, p. 34.] - -[Footnote 585: Letter of President Cleveland to Hon. W.L. Wilson, -Chairman House Committee of Ways and Means, July 2, 1894, read to the -House of Representatives July 18, 1894.] - -[Footnote 586: New York _Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin_, -Sept. 21, 1893.] - -[Footnote 587: II. Coke, 84.] - -[Footnote 588: See ch. viii.] - -[Footnote 589: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, Exhibits, pp. -614-19.] - -[Footnote 590: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3678.] - -[Footnote 591: Same, p. 3683.] - -[Footnote 592: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -3684.] - -[Footnote 593: See ch. xiv., "I Want to Make Oil."] - -[Footnote 594: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, pp. -3683-94.] - -[Footnote 595: Titusville and Oil City Independents' cases. Interstate -Commerce Commission Reports, vol. v., p. 415.] - -[Footnote 596: Testimony, New York Assembly, 1879, p. 3678.] - -[Footnote 597: See pp. 216, 320.] - -[Footnote 598: See p. 188.] - -[Footnote 599: Second Annual Report, Fire Marshal of Boston, May, 1888, -p. 9.] - -[Footnote 600: See p. 84.] - -[Footnote 601: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 602: Journal of the Senate of Minnesota, March, 1891, p. 716.] - -[Footnote 603: Omaha _Daily Bee_, November 24, 27; December 5, 13, 21, -1891.] - -[Footnote 604: See p. 291.] - -[Footnote 605: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 670.] - -[Footnote 606: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 389.] - -[Footnote 607: Same, p. 317.] - -[Footnote 608: See p. 62.] - -[Footnote 609: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, pp. 369-85, 435, 534-35.] - -[Footnote 610: Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company _vs._ Everest _et al._ -Supreme Court Erie Co., N.Y., 1886.] - -[Footnote 611: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 846-47.] - -[Footnote 612: Testimony in the case of George Rice _vs._ Trustees of -the Standard Oil Trust, New York Court of Appeals, 1888.] - -[Footnote 613: Testimony, Independent Refiners' Associations _vs._ -Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad Company _et al._, p. 401.] - -[Footnote 614: Testimony, George Rice _vs._ Louisville and Nashville -Railroad _et al._, cases 51-60, p. 425.] - -[Footnote 615: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 609-10.] - -[Footnote 616: Same, p. 732.] - -[Footnote 617: Same, p. 735.] - -[Footnote 618: See chs. xii. and xxxi.] - -[Footnote 619: See ch. xxii.] - -[Footnote 620: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 734, 745.] - -[Footnote 621: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 372.] - -[Footnote 622: Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 12.] - -[Footnote 623: See ch. xi.] - -[Footnote 624: President E. Benjamin Andrews, of Brown University, -"Trusts According to Official Investigation," _Quarterly Journal of -Economics_, January, 1889, p. 146.] - -[Footnote 625: See ch. xiv.] - -[Footnote 626: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2623-40.] - -[Footnote 627: Same, Report, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 628: Testimony, same, pp. 2615, 2696.] - -[Footnote 629: George Rice _vs._ Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad -_et al._ Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. iv., p. 228.] - -[Footnote 630: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 528-29.] - -[Footnote 631: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 386, 425.] - -[Footnote 632: See pp. 56-57.] - -[Footnote 633: Before the Pennsylvania Legislature, Harrisburg, -February 19, 1891. Harrisburg _Daily Patriot_, February 25, 1891.] - -[Footnote 634: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 422.] - -[Footnote 635: _Scotsman_, October 7, 1892.] - -[Footnote 636: _Pall Mall Gazette_, January 27, 1892.] - -[Footnote 637: _Standard_, Shoe Lane, January 26, 1892.] - -[Footnote 638: See p. 408.] - -[Footnote 639: _Combinations_, by S.C.T. Dodd, 1888, p. 31.] - -[Footnote 640: _Die Monopolisirung des Petroleum Handels und der -Petroleum Industrie_, by E.F. Scemann. L. Simeon, Berlin.] - -[Footnote 641: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 792.] - -[Footnote 642: Harrisburg _Patriot_, February 25, 1891.] - -[Footnote 643: Translation from the Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_, June -12, 1891. Report of Consul-General Edwards, of Berlin.] - -[Footnote 644: See p. 106.] - -[Footnote 645: See ch. xii.] - -[Footnote 646: See chs. xi. and xxx.] - -[Footnote 647: Testimony of J.J. Carter in the case of J.J. Carter -_vs._ Producers and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited. Court of Common -Pleas, Crawford County, Pa., May Term, 1894.] - -[Footnote 648: See pp. 111, 366.] - -[Footnote 649: Affidavit of the President of the Standard Oil Company -of New York before the Attorney-General, May, 1894.] - -[Footnote 650: State of Ohio _ex rel._ David K. Watson, -Attorney-General, _vs._ Standard Oil Company of Ohio. 49 Ohio State -Reports, p. 317.] - -[Footnote 651: Rice _vs._ Trustees of the Standard Oil Trust. Supreme -Court, Special Term, Part I. Andrews, Judge. Reported in the New York -_Law Journal_, April 26, 1894.] - -[Footnote 652: Testimony, Rice _vs._ Louisville and Nashville Railroad -_et al._, before Interstate Commerce Committee, p. 366.] - -[Footnote 653: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 577.] - -[Footnote 654: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 18, 38, 65, 89, -111.] - -[Footnote 655: W.H. Vanderbilt, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, -1879, pp. 1597, 1669. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 218.] - -[Footnote 656: Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 9.] - -[Footnote 657: Same, pp. 9, 10.] - -[Footnote 658: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, p. 679.] - -[Footnote 659: Report, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 9, 10.] - -[Footnote 660: Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. i., p. 722.] - -[Footnote 661: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 398, 407, -411, 412, 415, 419-43, 594.] - -[Footnote 662: Same, p. 571.] - -[Footnote 663: Before the Attorney-General of New York. In the matter -of the application of the Central Labor Union and others to the -Attorney-General to have him apply to the Supreme Court for leave to -begin action against the Standard Oil Company of New York to vacate the -charter thereof. Affidavit, president Standard Oil Company, May, 1894.] - -[Footnote 664: New York _Mail and Express_, November 12, 1890.] - -[Footnote 665: Dr. J.P. Hale, of Charleston, West Virginia, in the -volume prepared by Prof. M.L. Maury, and issued by the State Centennial -Board, on the resources of the State. Quoted by S.F. Peckham, United -States Census, 1885, p. 6.] - -[Footnote 666: _Petroleum and Its Products_, by S.F. Peckham, U.S. -Census, 1885, p. 7.] - -[Footnote 667: S. Dana Hayes, quoted in Henry's _Early and Later -History of Petroleum_, p. 186.] - -[Footnote 668: Testimony, Joshua Merrill, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. -570.] - -[Footnote 669: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 386, 425.] - -[Footnote 670: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 82.] - -[Footnote 671: See p. 165.] - -[Footnote 672: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 258.] - -[Footnote 673: See chs. xi. and xvii.] - -[Footnote 674: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44. -Testimony, same, pp. 2623, 2645. Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. -223-26, 542, 543, 548.] - -[Footnote 675: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 43. -Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 213.] - -[Footnote 676: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 712. -Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et -al._, 1879, p. 302.] - -[Footnote 677: See p. 405.] - -[Footnote 678: See pp. 61, 153.] - -[Footnote 679: See p. 420.] - -[Footnote 680: See pp. 49, 217.] - -[Footnote 681: See p. 306.] - -[Footnote 682: See p. 108.] - -[Footnote 683: See pp. 111, 291, 446.] - -[Footnote 684: See p. 291.] - -[Footnote 685: See p. 162.] - -[Footnote 686: See pp. 118-27.] - -[Footnote 687: See pp. 97, 224.] - -[Footnote 688: See pp. 106, 164.] - -[Footnote 689: See pp. 107, 154.] - -[Footnote 690: See pp. 62, 79.] - -[Footnote 691: See pp. 42, 72, 188.] - -[Footnote 692: See p. 251.] - -[Footnote 693: See p. 216.] - -[Footnote 694: See pp. 216, 413.] - -[Footnote 695: See pp. 189, 228, 437.] - -[Footnote 696: See pp. 102, 140.] - -[Footnote 697: See pp. 182-98.] - -[Footnote 698: See p. 298.] - -[Footnote 699: See pp. 149, 447.] - -[Footnote 700: _Railways and the Republic_, by J.F. Hudson, p. 77.] - -[Footnote 701: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, pp. 637-42.] - -[Footnote 702: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 298.] - -[Footnote 703: Same, p. 784.] - -[Footnote 704: Same, p. 295.] - -[Footnote 705: Same, pp. 295, 778-80.] - -[Footnote 706: Investigation of Relations of Standard Oil Company to -the State, 1883, p. 473.] - -[Footnote 707: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2665.] - -[Footnote 708: Same, p. 2667.] - -[Footnote 709: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 296, 322, 787, -788.] - -[Footnote 710: Same, p. 365.] - -[Footnote 711: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2603.] - -[Footnote 712: Same, pp. 2604-14.] - -[Footnote 713: Testimony, Corners, New York Senate, 1883, pp. 929, 931, -932.] - -[Footnote 714: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 417.] - -[Footnote 715: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -1636.] - -[Footnote 716: Testimony, Rice cases, 51-60, Interstate Commerce -Commission, 1887, pp. 366, 368.] - -[Footnote 717: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 455, 577.] - -[Footnote 718: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, pp. 576-89.] - -[Footnote 719: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 391, 392.] - -[Footnote 720: Same, p. 294.] - -[Footnote 721: Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 658.] - -[Footnote 722: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 580.] - -[Footnote 723: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 266, 287, 314, -365, 387, 395, 526, 537, 565, 627, 768, 790, 799.] - -[Footnote 724: House of Representatives, 50th Congress, 2d Session. -Report No. 4165, Part II., Appendix C, p. 33.] - -[Footnote 725: Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 174-210, 801-951.] - -[Footnote 726: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, printed in Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 195.] - -[Footnote 727: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, printed in Trusts, Congress, -1888, p. 206.] - -[Footnote 728: Same, p. 208.] - -[Footnote 729: Testimony in Buffalo Explosion case, printed in Trusts, -Congress, 1888, p. 894.] - -[Footnote 730: Deposition of Albert N. Reynolds, Buffalo Lubricating -Oil Company, Limited, vs. Everest & Everest. Supreme Court, New York, -Erie County, City of Buffalo, August 29, 1884.] - -[Footnote 731: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2668.] - -[Footnote 732: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 215, 223, 226.] - -[Footnote 733: Interstate Commerce Law, sec. 10.] - -[Footnote 734: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. 40-41.] - -[Footnote 735: New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. 44.] - -[Footnote 736: See p. 202.] - -[Footnote 737: Rice _vs._ Louisville and Nashville Railroad _et al._ -Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. i., p. 722. Trusts, -Congress, 1888, pp. 675-84.] - -[Footnote 738: Scofield _vs._ Lake Shore and Michigan Southern -Railroad. Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. ii., p. 90.] - -[Footnote 739: Rice, Robinson and Witherop _vs._ Western New York and -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._ Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, -vol. iv., p. 131.] - -[Footnote 740: Same.] - -[Footnote 741: Testimony, Trusts, New York Senate, 1888, p. 597.] - -[Footnote 742: South Improvement Company, p. 45; American Transfer -Company, p. 99; Rutter Circular, p. 85; Contract with Pennsylvania -Railroad in 1877, p. 89; Contract with New York Central and Lake Shore -and Michigan Central Railroads, 1875 and 1876; New York Assembly -"Hepburn" Report, 1879, Exhibits, p. 175; Contract with the Erie road, -same, p. 573; Contract in the "Agreement for an Adventure" case, p. 62.] - -[Footnote 743: See pp. 69, 130, 146, 149, 151, 208, 219, 224, 239.] - -[Footnote 744: Wm. C. Bissel _vs._ Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe -Railroad Company _et al._] - -[Footnote 745: Testimony, United States Pacific Railway Commission -Report, 1887, p. 3301.] - -[Footnote 746: Same, p. 3581.] - -[Footnote 747: Same, pp. 1132-33.] - -[Footnote 748: Sec pp. 49, 200, 218.] - -[Footnote 749: See p. 48.] - -[Footnote 750: Titusville _World_, July 12, 1894.] - -[Footnote 751: Standard Oil Company _vs._ Southern Pacific Railroad and -Whittier, Fuller & Co., 48 _Federal Reporter_, p. 109.] - -[Footnote 752: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, p. -2753.] - -[Footnote 753: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 333, 534.] - -[Footnote 754: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -2656-57.] - -[Footnote 755: See pp. 145, 319, 320.] - -[Footnote 756: Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 354.] - -[Footnote 757: Debates, Constitutional Convention to amend the -Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1872, vol. viii., pp. 261, 262.] - -[Footnote 758: See p. 69.] - -[Footnote 759: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -1314-15.] - -[Footnote 760: Testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._ -Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, p. 529.] - -[Footnote 761: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, pp. 367-68.] - -[Footnote 762: Same, p. 396.] - -[Footnote 763: Report of the United States Senate Committee on Meat -Products, 51st Congress, 1st Session, 1890, No. 829, p. 18.] - -[Footnote 764: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -397, 781, 825, 924, 1383. United States Senate Report on Meat Products, -p. 23.] - -[Footnote 765: Testimony, New York Assembly "Hepburn" Report, 1879, pp. -808-9.] - -[Footnote 766: Same, speech of Simon Sterne, p. 3996.] - -[Footnote 767: See pp. 13, 19.] - -[Footnote 768: Franklin B. Gowen, before the United States Senate -Interstate Commerce Committee, March, 1888.] - -[Footnote 769: Testimony, Trusts, Congress, 1888, p. 215.] - -[Footnote 770: See page 4.] - - - - -INDEX - - - Abusive language, use of, 319, 485. - - Acme Oil Company, Samuel Van Syckel _vs._, 187. - - Adams, H.C., quoted on municipal monopolies, 322. - - Adulteration of liquors, 27. - - Advice of counsel, 249. - - Alcohol in industry and politics, 20. - - Allen, W.V., supplemental report on sugar-trust bribery, 404. - - American, early, refiners of petroleum, 39. - - American Transfer Company receives from 20 to 35 cents per barrel on all - oil shipped by competitors, 99; - the South Improvement Company reappears in, 100; - false map of, before New York Legislature, 101. - - Andrews, E. Benjamin, on prices under monopoly, 428; - on oil-trust prices, 430 _n._ - - Anonymous circulars, in war against Toledo, 327. - - Artificial liquors, 27. - - Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad _et al._, William C. Bissell - _vs._, 479. - - Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and South Improvement Company, 48, - 50; - war of 1877, 88. - - Attorney-General, of Pennsylvania, management of tax-case against - Standard Oil Company by, 170-81; - of United States, on monopoly, 37; - report for 1893, 3, 6; - cases against the sugar trust, 404. - - Austria, refineries of, consolidated, 439. - - - Bad oil, 405-19. - - Baltimore and Ohio, and railroad war of 1877, 88; - closes Baltimore to independent shippers, 102; - withdraws rates, 221; - freight agent escapes from Congress, 222. - - Baltimore closed to independent shippers by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, - 102; - sale of refineries at, 421. - - Bank of England's income compared with an American millionaire's, 459. - - Bankers indemnified for withdrawing bids on Toledo bonds, 336. - - Bankruptcy of oil refineries in 1873, 60; - 1879-92, 455-70. - - _Baptist_, the _National_, quoted, 341. - - Barrel shipments better for railroads than tanks, 138, 231; - destroyed by railroads, 138. - - Barrett, Judge, defines monopoly, 3; - on sugar trust, 3, 4. - - Batoum refuses Rothschild permission to lay pipe line, 443. - - Baxter, Judge, decision on rebates paid oil combination, 207. - - _Bee_, Omaha _Daily_, investigates oil inspection of Nebraska, 414. - - Beef, combination of packers of, 33, 36; - price of, under combination, 35. - - Belgium, 437. - - Bernheimer, Simon, testimony as to abundance of capital for early - refiners, 41. - - "Big Four" combination, 35. - - Binney, E.W., quoted, 40. - - Biscuit Association, 30. - - Bissell, William C., _vs._ Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad - _et al._, 479. - - Black-mail, when competition is, 215. - - Blind-billing, 229; - shippers benefited by, deny, 231. - - Blount, Representative, on subsidies and bribery, 394. - - Bolard & Dale _vs._ National Transit Company, 165. - - Bonds not to refine, 79, 80. - - Books, natural-gas companies will not show, 363; - oil trust keeps none, 469. - - Boston, South Improvement Company rates to, 47; - fire marshal on bad oil, 411; - prices of oil reduced from 20 to 8 by competition, 422. - - Boycott, of butchers by packers' combination, 35; - how working-men were punished for, 287. - - Boyle, P.C., Ohio _vs._, 324. - - Bread Union in London, 30. - - Bremen, Congress of Chambers of Commerce, 406. - - Bribery of jurors, 286; - of Congress by Pacific Mail Steamship Company, 394. - - British government lowers test on oil, 436. - - Brooklyn, consolidation of street-railways, 5. - - Brundred _et al._ _vs._ Rice, 239. - - Buffalo, explosion in Matthews' refinery, 250; - pipe line to, destroyed, 291; - prices reduced by competition, 421. - - Buhl, Richardson _vs._, 10. - - _Bulletin_, New York _Daily Commercial_, on oil-trust prices, 430 _n._; - on sugar trust, 32, 449. - - Burdick bill, Pennsylvania Legislature, 126. - - Burial Case, National Association, 37. - - Business, politics of, 403; - "this belongs to us," 432; - golden rule of, 495; - runs into monopoly, 512. - - Butchers, independent, refused cars by Erie Railroad, 35; - National Protective Association, 34. - - Butterworth, Benjamin, represents Ohio before the United States Senate in - the Payne matter, 376. - - Buyer, the only, refuses to buy, 106; - only one, in Ohio, 107. - - - _Call_, San Francisco, on commercial treaty with China, 449. - - Campaign contributions from trusts, 403. - - Campbell, B.B., averts outbreak at Parker, 106. - - Canada oil interests attacked by American combination, 12; - retail coal-dealers' associations, 15; - Grocers' Guild, 30; - Parliamentary debate on American oil prices, 424; - Parliament reduces tariff in 1894, 435; - finance minister favors American oil trust, 435. - - Canadian Copper Company, litigation among stockholders, 403. - - Canal, independent shippers escape by, 96; - tank-boats for, 96; - railroad war against, 97. - - Cancer, hospital for, endowed, 181. - - Capital, of combinations, 4; - easy for early refiners to get, 41; - of oil combination, 457. - - Carlyle, Thomas, on literary freedom in America, 529. - - Cars, refusal of, by railroads to independent shippers, 12, 91, 94, 106. - - Carter, J.J., _vs._ Producers' and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited, - 164, 446. - - Cassatt, A.J., testimony concerning railroad war of 1877, 88; - on lower rates to Standard Oil Company, 94, 472; - on refusal of cars and rates, 94; - on cheapness of oil, 428. - - Cattle combination, 5, 33; - traffic, railroad preferences in, 33; - decline in prices of, 34; - shippers discriminated against by the railroads, 36. - - Cattle Range Association, International, 34. - - Census, United States, on petroleum, 39; - sugar trust refuses to answer questions, 404. - - Charity decreases under monopoly, 502. - - Cheapness of oil, 420; - under the trusts, 431 _n._; - how produced, 464-65; - analysis of, 500. - - Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, charges for oil and cattle - compared, 481. - - Chicago, number of dry-goods stores in, in 1894, 488; - Union Stock Yards, secrecy as to ownership of its stock, 487. - - China, commercial treaty with, 449. - - Church and wealth, 294. - - Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway, Ohio _vs._, 220; - "mistakes," 234. - - Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railway, Ohio _vs._, 220. - - Circulars, anonymous, in war against Toledo, 327. - - Clamorer for dividends, 101. - - Clarion County, Pennsylvania, indictment of members of Standard Oil - Company, 170, 258; - Supreme Court of Pennsylvania interferes, 180. - - Clark, Horace F., on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Cleveland, disadvantages of, for the oil business, 53, 464; - starting-point of the founders of the oil combination, 44; - South Improvement Company rates to, 46; - pipe line to, 65; - pioneer refiner, 73; - crude oil carried to, free for oil combination, 85. - - Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, Handy _vs._, 206-8. - - Cleveland, President, on sugar tariff, 404. - - Clinton, De Witt, on petroleum, 38. - - Coal, combination, capital of, 4; - in Nova Scotia, 5, 11, 461; - State, national, and judicial investigations, 9; - bituminous lands bought by railroads, 11; - anthracite monopolized by railroads, 11, 14; - freights on, higher in 1893 than in 1879, 13; - independent producers crushed by railroad discriminations, 13; - miners oppressed by coal companies, 16, 17; - price of, advanced by combination, 14, 431 _n._; - extortion of anthracite monopoly, 14; - combination between American and Canadian dealers, 15; - retail associations of dealers, 15; - dealers terrorized, 15; - miners, freedom under competition, 16; - miners' strike in Pennsylvania in 1871, 16; - policemen in Pennsylvania, 18. - - Coffin combination, 37. - - Coke, Lord, on monopolies, 405. - - Collusion between oil trust and railroads, 143, 482-4. - - Colorado, oil war in, 427; - prevented by railroads from shipping its oil to Pacific States, - 427, 481. - - Columbus, Miss., war on merchants of, 300; - Ohio, gas shut off, 365. - - Combinations, capital of, 4. - - Communipaw, monopoly of terminals at, 142. - - Competition, impossible in the meat and cattle business, 36; - oil combination likes, 87; - when it is black-mail, 215; - cuts price, 281, 294; - power for evil, 422. - - Congress, investigation of South Improvement Company suppressed, 45; - bribing by Pacific Mail Steamship Company, 394. - - Conspiracy, adoption of, 277. - - Constitutional amendments concerning trusts, 451; - convention of New York, 1894, 451. - - Contract to restrict refining, 62; - to shut down oil flow, 153; - between dealers and the oil combination, 425. - - Corners, 4. - - Cotton-seed oil, rates on, 232. - - Court records gone in Cleveland, 83; - mutilated transcript for Congress, 244, 267; - records mutilated in California, 484. - - Coxe Brothers & Company _vs._ the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, 19. - - Cracker-bakers' meeting, 30. - - - Dayton, experience with natural-gas company, 364. - - Deaths from bad oil, in Michigan, 416; - in Great Britain from explosiveness of American oil, 410. - - Delay, before Interstate Commerce Commission, 147, 149, 150; - in legal procedure in New York, 285; - of Pennsylvania Supreme Court in acting on appeal of independents, 447. - - Democratic party and sugar trust, 404. - - Detectives and coal-dealers, 15; - railroads as, 48; - in Wall Street, 334. - - Detroit _Times_, on reduction of oil test, 416; - _Tribune_, on reduction of oil test, 416. - - Dewar, Thomas S., letter of United States Commissioner of Internal - Revenue to, 26. - - Discrimination in favor of oil combination, "wanton and oppressive," 207; - of 333 per cent., 217; - called "a vast discrepancy," 219; - Supreme Court of Ohio on, 219; - against Rice, Interstate Commerce Commission on, 227; - charges of, sustained by Interstate Commerce Commission, 235; - by natural-gas company in rates for gas, 365; - no, by German railroads, 438; - inures to the benefit of one powerful combination, 478. - (See Freight Rates, Railroads, Rebates.) - - Dismantling of petroleum refineries, 42, 72; - Joshua Merrill's refinery, 188. - - Disorder, public, in oil regions, 43, 54; - in Pennsylvania, 1878, 105, 106; - in Pennsylvania and Ohio, 456. - - Dividends of oil trust, 246; - of sugar trust, 32, 33, 404. - - Dodd, S.C.T., on "parent of trust system," 8; - in Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1872, 55; - on pipe lines, 117; - on pipe-line rates, 125; - on bonuses to railroad officials, 486. - - Drake, E.L., strikes oil, 40; - pensioned, 462. - - Dressed-beef men, railroad rates to, 36. - - Dynamite, and the whiskey trust, 21; - in the "shut-down" of 1887, 154; - threats of, against Toledo City pipe - line, 357; - oil that is as dangerous as, 416. - - - Electricity, 9. - - Elevators, combination of Northwestern railroads with, 5, 31; - State erection and operation of, recommended by Minnesota - Legislature, 31. - - Embargo on sales of oil, 1872, 56. - - Emery, Jr., Hon. Lewis, testifies as to "immediate shipment," 104. - - Eminent domain, use of, by railroads, 97. - - Empire Transportation Company, 87. - - Engineers, Society of American Marine, protest against foreign - engineers, 399. - - England oil trade meets to protest against poor American oil, 405. - - Equality, railroad idea of, 86. - - Erie Canal used by independent shippers, 96. - - Erie Railroad, refuses cars to independent butchers, 35; - New York Legislature investigates, 43; - and South Improvement Company, 48, 50; - refuses rates to competitor of South Improvement Company, 52; - railroad war of 1877, 88; - its oil-cars owned by oil combination, 92; - payments to American Transfer Company, 99; - contract with Standard Oil Company, 102; - renews broken promises of equal rates, 119; - invites independent refiners to rebuild, 119; - refuses to ship independent oil to seaboard, 140; - sends armed force against independent pipe line, 161; - gives land to oil trust's pipe lines, 162; - destroys line by force, 291. - - "Evening" pool of cattle-shippers, 33. - - Everest _et al._, People of the State of N.Y. _vs._, 244. - - _Examiner_, The, quoted, 341, 345. - - Expert testifies about pipe-line pool, 86; - false maps of American Transfer Company, 101. - - Explosions, in distillery, 21; - during "shut-down," 154; - in Buffalo refinery, - 250; - Louisville, 252; - Rochester, 252. - - Explosiveness of petroleum gases, 282; - of American oil compared with Scotch and Russian, 410. - - Extradition treaty between Russia and America, 448. - - - False accounts, 64. - - Fellows _et al._ _vs._ Toledo _et al._, 314. - - Field code of New York, 285. - - Fires from bad oil, in Great Britain, 410; - in Boston, 411; - in Iowa, 413; - in Michigan, 416; - in San Francisco, 416; - at Oil City and Titusville, June 5, 1892, 417; - in Bradford refinery, 447. - - Fish, 32. - - Flour, dearer, wanted, 30. - - Forbes, John M., speech on free ships, 393. - - Foster, Charles, as Secretary of the Treasury favors retention of - foreign captains, 398; - issues license to foreign engineers, 399; - his part in the war on Toledo, 400. - - Fostoria, Ohio, Sunday raid on the flour-mill, 348. - - Foucon, Felix, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 39. - - France, manufactures coal-oil in 1845, 38; - government of, lowers oil tariff, 440; - oil refiners of, make terms with American oil trust, 441. - - Free breakfast-table, 32. - - Freight rates on coal, 13; - discriminations investigated by Ohio Legislature, 44; - 8 cents a barrel less than nothing on oil, 88; - rates advanced by pipe and rail, 122; - rates increased at instance of oil combination, 132; - rate 88 cents to oil combination, $1.68 to competitors, 210; - increased 333 per cent. to one shipper, 217. - (See Rebates, Discriminations.) - - Freight-handlers strike, 296. - - Fruit, 32. - - Frye, William P., on subsidy to International line, 391, 395. - - Furnaces, 9. - - - Gas, 9; - natural, 9, 305. - - Geologist, State, of Ohio, takes sides in Toledo contest, 329. - - Germany changes oil tariff, 437; - the German-American Oil Company, 437; - decline in prices, 438; - independents in, 439. - - Gladden, Rev. Washington, on oil trust, 344. - - Good society, 527. - - Gospel Cars, 237. - - Government and monopoly, 311. - - Governors, steam-boiler, 9. - - Gowen, Franklin B., on war against Tidewater, 108, 110; - admits surrender of Tidewater Pipe Line, 112; - severs connection with Tidewater, 114; - speech before Pennsylvania Legislature, 1883, 115; - on Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 181; - on yearly loss of railroad revenue by rebates, 491. - - Grand Trunk saves independent oil refiners, 136. - - Granger movement, 371. - - Great Britain, Railway Commission of 1873, 369; - government lowers test of oil, 408. - - Griffin, C.P., representative of Toledo in State Legislature, 333. - - Grocers' Guild, Canadian Parliament on, 30. - - - Haddock, John C., testimony of, 13. - - Hadley, A.T., on British railroads, 370. - - Hale, J.P., quoted, 462. - - Hamilton, Alexander, on power over subsistence, 529. - - Hancock, Erie stops independent pipe line, 162. - - Handy _vs._ Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, 206. - - Harter, the Isaac Harter Company _vs._ the Northwestern Ohio Natural-gas - Company, 349. - - Hatch, Edward, quoted, 255, 281. - - Haul, long and short, 221, 222, 223. - - Heaters, hot-water and steam, 9. - - _Herald_, Boston, on relations of oil combination and State - inspectors, 411. - - Hermann, Von, on Paris Exhibition of 1839, 39. - - Highway, ownership of, is ownership of all, 12. - - Hoar, George F., on oil trust in the President's Cabinet, 401. - - Holland, 437. - - Hopkins, Representative, moves for investigation of railroads by - Congress, 372. - - Human nature, 526. - - - Illinois Central Railroad, "mistakes," 234. - - Immediate shipment, 104. - - Improvement companies of Pennsylvania, 55. - - Income of members of oil trust, 459. - - _Independent_, the New York, quoted, 348. - - Independents, rates withdrawn from, by Pennsylvania Railroad, 90; - Pennsylvania Railroad refuses cars to, 91; - Pennsylvania Railroad increases rates to, 91; - crushed by oil combination's use of railroad terminals, 102; - promised equal rates again, 119; - invited to rebuild by the railroads, 119; - attacked by Pennsylvania Railroad after being invited to rebuild, 120; - survive attack by railroad and oil-trust pool, 128; - appeal to Interstate Commission, 1888, 128; - discrimination against, 130; - freight rates to, increased at suggestion of oil combination, 132; - forced to close their works, 135; - saved by Grand Trunk Railroad, 136; - lose trade of New England, 1888, 136; - forced to sell oil to combination, 140; - prevented by railroads from using tank-cars, 140; - exactions suffered by, at the seaboard, 141; - appeal to Interstate Commerce Commission against delay, 148; - lose five years' business, 149; - get tank-cars and terminals, 151; - project pipe line to the seaboard in 1887, 152; - in 1892, 160; - pipe line stopped by Erie cannon at Hancock, 162; - survival - of, delays Russian-American division of world's oil market, 445; - delay of Pennsylvania Supreme Court in acting on appeal of, 447; - in Germany, 439. - - Indianapolis People's Trust, 320. - - Individuality, 527 - - Industry, new law of, 12. - - Inspection, State, used to end competition, 215, 216. - - Inspectors, State, also in employ of those they inspect, 216, 411; - of oils in New York represent oil combination in Bremen congress, 406; - in Iowa, charged with allowing sellers to brand oil, 412; - sued in Iowa for damages for passing bad oil, 413; - in Minnesota, investigated by State Senate, 413; - in Illinois, 415; - in Nebraska, 414-16. - - International steamship line subsidized, 389-400. - - Interstate Commerce Commission, on coal rates, 13; - Pennsylvania independent coal-mine operators appeal to, 19; - decision on coal rates disregarded by the Pennsylvania railroads, 19; - on pool of oil combination with Tidewater Pipe Line, 113; - refuses to require production of secret contract between railroad and - pipe line, 124; - bullied by counsel of Pennsylvania Railroad, 124; - orders reduction of freight rate on barrels in South, 130; - decision misapplied by Pennsylvania Railroad, 131; - interview with Pennsylvania Railroad officials, 132; - correspondence with president of Pennsylvania railroad, 132; - orders discrimination stopped, 139; - on monopoly of terminal facilities, 142; - chairman on collusive relations of oil trust and railroads, 143; - witnesses refuse to appear before, 145; - refrains from decision in case of Pennsylvania Railroad, 146; - decision in Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, 1890, 147; - delays for two years decision against Pennsylvania Railroad, 147; - grants Pennsylvania Railroad rehearings for two years, 148; - railroads disobey orders of, 149; - decision against Pennsylvania Railroad, 1892, 149; - brings independents no help, 149; - proceedings before, by railroads as only preliminary to litigation in - the courts, 150; - cannot decide after three years' hearings, 150; - grants Pennsylvania Railroad further delay, 150; - George Rice lets cases before, go by default, 151; - theatre for litigation and delay, 160; - calls discrimination "a vast discrepancy," 219; - decides refusal to give rates "illegal," 224; - on discriminations against Rice, 227; - on "astonishingly low" rates, 232; - on "mistakes" of railroads, 234; - sustains charges of discrimination, 235; - on control of industry by the oil combination, 433; - on immense power of oil combination, 458; - describes preferences given to the oil combination, 478. - - Interstate Commerce law, only conviction under, 19; - disobeyed by railroad managers, 218; - opposed by Senator Payne, 388; - Senator Cullom on railroads' excuses for violating, 498. - - Investigation, of South Improvement Company by Congress, in 1872, not - continued, 60; - of railroad discriminations by Congress, suspended, 1876, 71; - testimony stolen, 373. - - _Investors' Review_, of London, on English government jobbery, 450. - - Iowa, Governor of, refuses to investigate charges of violation of - inspection law, 412. - - Iron, railroads buying iron lands, 12; - interests of members of oil combination, 461. - - Italy, 440. - - - Jackson, Judge H.E., sustains Toledo, 315. - - Joy, Professor, on explosiveness of naphtha, 253. - - Judge, Federal, quashes indictment - against secretary of whiskey trust, 22; - of Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, charged with violating the law, 181; - fixes damages in Van Syckel's case at 6 cents, 195; - excludes evidence against oil trust members, 268; - rules out evidence concerning oil trust, 273; - orders acquittal of members of oil trust, 278; - how made, 296; - decides anti-trust law not applicable to sugar trust, 404. - - Jurors bribed to petition for mercy, 286. - - Justice, delay of, 149. - - - Kanawha salt-wells, 462. - - Karns, General S.D., suggests pipe-lines, 41. - - Keystone refinery, 291; - causes Oil City disaster, 418. - - King's horses and king's men, 198. - - Knight, E.C., _et al._, United States _vs._, 404. - - - _Laissez-faire_, true, 497. - - Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad and South Improvement - Company, 48, 50; - contract with the oil combination, 69; - Scofield _et al._ _vs._, 70; - railroad war of 1877, 88; - contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, 89; - gives its oil traffic to competing pipe line, 127. - - Lamennais quoted, 507. - - Lands, ownership changes, of coal, 11; - of oil, 434. - - Laugh, the, 257-71. - - Law, Anti-trust, 3, 6, 404; - Pennsylvania Free Pipe-Line, worthless, 57; - delays of, 285; - of oil inspection, how changed in Nebraska, 415. - (See Interstate Commerce). - - Lawson, J.D., _Leading Cases Simplified_, 181. - - Lawsuits, threats of, 278, 289; - to cripple competition, 290. - - Lawyers, officers of the court, 114; - relations of, to law-breakers, 249; - pamphlet against Toledo issued by, 354. - - Leases, oil and gas, rights claimed under, 306. - - Leather, 5. - - Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, Coxe Brothers & Co., _vs._, 19; - railroad war of 1877, 88. - - Little, John, represents Ohio before the United States Senate in the - Payne matter, 376. - - Locomotives, 9. - - Louisville and Nashville Railroad turns another screw, 213; - "mistakes" of, 234. - - - _Mail_, New York, on income of members of oil trust, 459. - - Mails, slower under subsidy, 397. - - Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, on trade, 507; - on contract and status, 533. - - Marcy, W.L., in Buffalo explosion case, 259. - - Marietta, freight rates raised against refiners at, 200. - - Market, for oil, becomes erratic, 42; - manipulation by oil trust, 104, 164, 420, 439; - only one buyer, 104. - - Matches, 9; - combination, Supreme Court of Michigan on, 10. - - Mather, People _vs._, 277. - - Matthews, C.B., experiences of, 243-98. - - Matthews, Hon. Stanley, 67; - on the rebates of the oil combination, 69. - - Maxim gun, English War Office opposition to, silenced, 450. - - McClellan, Gen. G.B., on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Meat combination, 5; - at Chicago, 33. - - Medicine, adulterated liquors for, 27. - - Merrill, Joshua, 39; - testimony before Congress, 188; - appeals to Railroad Commission of Massachusetts, 189; - pioneer in oil, 463. - - Michigan State Board of Health on fires and deaths from bad oil, 416. - - Mileage paid to preferred shippers, 233. - - Millers' national conventions, 30. - - Millionaires, abolition of, 312, 524. - - Minnesota Legislature recommends State elevators, 31; - Senate investigation of oil inspectors, 413. - - "Mistakes," by railroads not corrected, 138; - always in favor of preferred shippers, 223, 234. - - Monopoly, defined by Federal courts, 3; - Judge Barrett defines, 3; - difference of definitions, 3, 6; - defined by United States Attorney-General, 37; - of Standard Oil Company, Supreme Court of Ohio on, 70; - ignorance of the public is the real capital of, 117; - must control all, 298; - and government, 311; - Lord Coke on, 405; - E. Benjamin Andrews on price manipulation, 428; - State, advocated by national economists in Germany, 438; - of oil in Germany, 438; - Ohio Supreme Court and New York Supreme Court pronounce Standard Oil - Trust a, 453; - and industry, 518; - and liberty, 519. - - Monotony, 527. - - Monthly reports required by the oil combination, 62; - from producers in "shut-down," 155; - of competitors' shipments, 212. - - Morris, "Billy," inventor of the "slips," 463. - - Municipal enterprise better and cheaper than private, 360. - - Mutilation of court records, 83, 244, 267, 484. - - - National Transit Company, 87; - controls pipe-line business, 113, 114; - owned by oil combination, 113; - president of the oil combination denies connection with, 114; - Bolard & Dale _vs._, 165; - secrecy as to ownership of its stock, 487. - - Natural-gas company owned by Standard Oil Trust, 337. - - Navy, Secretary of, urges subsidy, 389; - and nickel appropriation, 402; - relations to subsidy, 402. - - Netherlands, East India colonies, 441. - - Nettleton, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, rules against - retaining foreign captains, 398. - - New England, trade in, lost by independent refiners, 136. - - Newport News and Mississippi Valley Railroad, "mistakes," 234. - - Newspapers controlled by oil combination, 160. - (See Press.) - - New York Central Railroad, and South Improvement Company, 48, 49; - refuses rates to competitors of South Improvement Company, 52; - war of 1877, 88; - contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, 89; - oil cars of, owned by oil combination, 92; - payments to American Transfer Company, 99. - - New York, People of, _vs._ North River Sugar Refining Company, 3; - refiners do not dare to build large refineries, 107; - People of, _vs._ Everest _et al._, 244; - legal procedure, 285; - Railway Commission of 1857, 370; - in danger from refineries and tanks, 419; - Senate committee on oil trust and prices, 429; - Constitution of 1846 on railroads, 370; - Constitutional Convention of 1894, 451; - "Hepburn" legislative investigation on rebates, 476. - - New York and New England Railroad, oil trustee president of, 189. - - New Zealand Fire Insurance Company sues for losses by bad oil, 416. - - Nickel appropriation, 402. - - North River Sugar Refining Company, People of New York _vs._, 3. - - Northwestern Natural-gas Company, the Isaac Harter Company _vs._, 349. - - Notice, freights raised without, 136, 200. - - "Not yet," president of the oil trust, 454. - - Nova Scotia coal-mines, consolidation of, by American syndicate, - 5, 12, 461. - - - Ohio, oil-field, oil combination the only buyer of oil in, 107; - Supreme Court of, on discriminations, 219; - State of, _vs._ Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific - Railway, 220; - State of, _vs._ Cincinnati, Washington, and Baltimore Railway, 220; - _vs._ Standard Oil Company, 239, 453; - senatorial election of 1884, 373; - Legislature demands investigation of the election of Senator - Payne, 374; - Legislature defeats free pipe-line bill, 385; - State of, _vs._ City of Toledo, 314; - State of, _vs._ P.C. Boyle, 324; - distress among oil producers in 1892, 456; - Legislative report of 1879 on relations of railroads and oil - combination, 477. - - Ohio Oil Company _vs._ Toledo, Findlay and Springfield Railway, 306. - - Oil, Canada, 12; - Canada producers attacked by American combination, 12. - - Oil City fire, June 5, 1892, 417. - - Oil combination, parent of trust system, 8; - founders of, 44; - and South Improvement Company the same, 49; - president of, explains its origin, 53; - contracts with competitors to limit production, 61, 65; - requires monthly reports, 62; - insists on secrecy, 63, 65, 79; - use of spies by, 65, 298, 334; - contract in restraint of trade, 66; - profits of restraint of trade, 66, 67; - restricts its capacity one-half, 68; - rebates from the railroads, 69, 474-87; - scarcity the object of, 72; - control of transportation, 76; - buys out its widow competitor, 78; - puts her under bonds not to refine, 79; - binds competitors not to refine, 79, 80; - secret of success, testimony of president, 80; - value of the "works" of, 82; - issues $90,000,000 of stock on $6,000,000 of works, 82; - buys oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, 88; - owns oil cars of New York Central and Erie railroads, 92; - member of, denies, then admits, rebates, 95; - receipts from American Transfer Company, 100, 101; - owns United Pipe Lines, 101; - owns American Transfer Company, 101; - controls railroads' oil terminal facilities, 102; - uses railroad terminals to crush opposition, 102; - forces producers to sell below the market, 104; - will not pipe or buy oil, 106, 164; - shuts back Ohio oil wells, 107; - restricts production in Ohio, 107; - the only buyer of oil in Ohio oil-fields, 107; - and railroads fight the Tidewater Pipe Line, 108; - cuts prices of pipeage, 109; - speculates on its "advance knowledge" of cut in freight rates, 110; - enters into pool with Tidewater Pipe Line, 112; - owns National Transit Company, 113; - had no pipe line to seaboard, 116; - builds pipe line to seaboard, 116; - builds pipe lines from rebates given it by railroads, 116, 118; - and railroads advance rates, 118; - secret contract of 1885 with Pennsylvania Railroad, 120; - guarantees Pennsylvania Railroad 26 per cent. of the oil traffic, 121; - and Pennsylvania Railroad advance rates, 122; - pool with Pennsylvania Railroad, 123; - advances pipe-line rates, 125, 126; - Interstate Commerce Commission, on discrimination in favor of, 130; - gets New England business of independents, 137; - controls seaboard terminals of railroads, 142; - keeps Oil City and Titusville refineries closed, 143; - prompts railroad litigation before Interstate Commerce Commission, 144; - makes contract with producers to shut down wells, 153; - compels subordinate companies to make monthly reports, 155; - opposes piping of refined oil, 165; - owns $40,000,000 in 1883 in Pennsylvania, 166; - Pennsylvania tax case, 166; - Clarion County indictment, 170; - member of, admits rebates, 188; - president New York and New England Railroad is member of, 189; - prevents trial of Van Syckel's process of refining, 191; - member of, forecloses mortgage on Solar refinery, 193; - "another way of getting rid" of competitors, 200; - makes money by closing its refineries, 201; - how its earnings are pooled, 201; - its freight rates lowered while competitors' rates are raised, 202; - gets rebate of 25 cents out of 35 cents in freight, paid by - competitor, 206; - not popular in the South, 209; - competes with grocers, 214, 300; - relations to State inspectors, 216, 413; - denies receipt of discriminating rates, 219; - Supreme Court of Ohio oil monopoly of, 220; - denies blind-billing, 231; - denies receipt of mileage, 234; - denies discriminations, 235; - pleasant relations with competitors, 243; - dividends of, 246; - political power of, 260, 372-404; - and press, in Pennsylvania, 160; - in Buffalo, 298; - in Toledo, 317, 327; - defeated in suits on patents, 290; - brings suits to embarrass competitors, 290; - buys from the court suits against itself, 293; - refuses to meet competitive prices, 299; - abandons suit against Toledo in United States Supreme Court, 331; - detectives of, in Wall Street, 334; - evangelical and explosive, 358; - natural-gas companies, profits of, at Toledo, 362; - spends money in elections, 386; - members of, interested in subsidy legislation, 390; - acts with both political parties, 403; - defence before Bremen congress, 406; - its success explained by the president, 407; - has State inspectors in its pay, 411; - restricts production, 420; - buys Baltimore refineries, 421; - binds dealers not to buy of its competitors, 425; - oil made scarce by, 68, 420-29; - price of oil under, 67, 420-29, 431 _n._; - drives out schooners, 433; - controls 90 per cent. of industry, 433; - pushing into every part of the world, 434; - owns no oil lands in 1880, 434; - large buyer of oil lands, 434; - favored by Canadian government, 435; - in Germany, 437; - sells refined oil in Europe cheaper than crude, 439; - in France, 440; - denial of negotiations with Russian oil-men, 442; - admits negotiations with Russian oil-men, 442; - reasons for war upon independents, 455; - and Extradition Treaty with Russia, 448; - prosperous during panic, 455; - growth of capitalization of, 457; - produces "infinitesimal amount" of oil, 463; - not an inventor, producer, pioneer, or capitalist, 464; - produces poverty, 464-65; - principals of, not practical oil-men, 466, 467; - members of, deny rebates, 476; - secrecy as to ownership of certain shares, 487. - - Oil, regions, early prosperity of, 42, 43; - public disorder in, 43; - producers refuse to sell to members of South Improvement Company, 56; - running on the ground, 91, 105, 106, 164; - European congress on poor quality of American, 406; - test of, lowered in Great Britain, 408; - financial distress in 1879-92, 455-56. - - - Pacific Mail Steamship Company, report on bribery of Congress by, 394. - - Pacific Railway officials admit rebates, 480. - - Packers' Combination at Chicago investigated by Congress, 33. - - Paint, to conceal numbers of tank-cars, 235. - - _Pall Mall Gazette_ on prices of refined and crude oil, 439. - - Panics in oil, 43. - - Parker district, on verge of civil war, 106. - - Pastor, visit from the, 294. - - Payne, Henry B., objects to investigation of railroads, 70, 372; - election of, to the Senate of the United States, 374; - candidate for President, 387; - votes against Interstate Commerce Commission bill, 388; - solicits Democratic votes in the Senate for confirmation of - Republican nominee, 400. - - Peckham, S.F., United States Census report on petroleum, 39, 41; - on railroads and tank-cars, 228. - - Pennsylvania, Constitution of 1873 disobeyed by the railroads, 18; - Legislature nullifies Constitution in interest of railroads, 18; - uprising of 1872, 54; - Constitutional Convention, 1873, 54; - Commonwealth of, _vs._ Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 1879, 94; - Secretary of Internal Affairs hung in effigy, 105; - Attorney-General brings tax suit against Standard Oil Company, 169; - Legislature investigates Standard Oil Company tax case, 176; - Supreme Court of, delays hearing on appeal of independents, 447; - Constitution on railroads, 451; - Secretary of Internal Affairs on relations of railroads and oil - combination, 477. - - Pennsylvania Railroad and South Improvement Company, 48; - and Improvement Company charters, 55; - put under bond not to refine, 79; - keeps faith "some months," 84; - reaches out for control of oil trade, 87; - carries oil at eight cents a barrel less than nothing, 88; - sells its refineries and pipe lines, 88; - contracts to give a tenth of all oil freights to oil combination, 89; - pledges not to compete with oil combination, 89; - withdraws rates from independent refiners, 90; - officials threaten independent pipe lines, 91; - officials recommend "fix-up" with the oil combination to independent - shippers, 90, 91; - increases rates, refuses cars, to independent shippers, 91; - refuses to haul cars owned by independent shippers, 92; - refuses a business of ten thousand barrels of oil a day, 93; - Commonwealth of Pennsylvania _vs._, 1879, 94; - pays American Transfer Company three months' back pay, 99; - refuses to furnish cars to oil producers, 106; - officials testify to war on Tidewater Pipe Line, 109; - discriminations against refineries using the Tidewater, 110; - Titusville and Oil City Independent Refiners' Associations - _vs._, 118, 165; - renews broken promises of equal rates, 119; - makes war on refiners it invited to rebuild, 120; - secret contract of 1885, with oil combination, 120; - guaranteed 26 per cent. of seaboard oil traffic by oil - combination, 121; - refuses to produce contract with oil combination, 121; - and oil combination advance rail and pipe rates, 122; - oil rates of, extortionate, 123; - counsel of, bullies Interstate Commerce Commission, 124; - perverts decision of Interstate Commerce Commission, 131; - increases rates to barrel shippers, 131; - ignores directions of Interstate Commerce Commission, 133-34; - refuses to haul tank-cars for independents, 140; - Interstate Commerce Commission delays for two years to enforce - law against, 147; - gets another rehearing from Interstate Commerce Commission, 150; - said to run Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 181; - divides the coal business of Pennsylvania among three dealers, 490. - - Perth Amboy, independent shipments from, 135. - - Peru, 441. - - Petroleum, combination in, 38-493; - De Witt Clinton's suggestion, 38; - early manufacture of, 38, 44; - Reichenbach's prediction, 38; - in exhibitions of 1839 and 1851, 39; - early American refiners, 39; - early American manufacturers ready for new supply of oil, 40; - price of, in 1862, 40. - - Petroleum Producers' Union, report of General Council of, on attempts to - lessen production of oil, 153. - - Phantom Party, in McKean County, 105. - - Philadelphia, Sharpless _vs._, 315. - - Phillips, Wendell, on Pennsylvania Railroad, 147. - - Piano-makers' combination, 5. - - Pilots, Brotherhood of Steamboat, protest against foreign engineers, 399. - - Pioneer refiner of Cleveland, 73. - - Pipe lines, origin of, 41; - first laid by Van Syckel, 41; - Pennsylvania Free Pipe Line law worthless, 57; - to Cleveland, 65; - number of, in 1874, 84; - Eighty per cent. of, died in 1874-5, 84; - pool of 1874, 86; - frozen out, 87; - bankrupt, bought up by oil trust, 87; - Equitable Pipe Line proposed, 91; - independent, threatened by Pennsylvania Railroad, 91; - United Pipe Lines, owned by the oil combination, 101; - industry closed to the people, 1877, 104; - refuse to carry oil unless sold to oil combination, 104; - of oil combination refuse to pipe, 106; - Tidewater, first to seaboard, 107; - rates cut by oil combination in war with Tidewater, 109; - to seaboard not built first by the oil combination, 116; - competitors of the railway, 116; - New York _Sun_ on, 117; - pool with railroads, 121; - cost of service, 122; - rates of, advanced by oil combination, 125, 126; - profits of, 126; - rates higher under the oil combination, 125, 126; - independent, to seaboard projected in 1887, 152; - in 1892, 160; - oil combination lays, upon railroad right of way, 162; - refuse to take oil, 1893, 164; - independent, transport refined oil, 165; - built by George Rice, 208; - independent, destroyed by Erie Railroad by force, 291; - Toledo builds better than private company, 360; - bill for free, defeated by the Ohio Legislature, 385; - independent, and Russian-American monopoly, 445; - independent, consolidate in 1894, 446; - independent, cut, 447. - (See Tidewater Pipe Line). - - Policemen, coal and iron, 18. - - Politics of business, 403. - - Pool, steamship, 395; - for sale of oil, 420. - - Poor's _Railroad Manual_, railroad interests of members of oil - combination, 460. - - Pork, combination of packers of, 36. - - Postal subsidy law, passed, 389-400; - payment under, 396; - Postmaster-General makes subsidy contracts, 390; - his relations to those who receive postal subsidies, 403. - - Poverty, abolition of, 526. - - Premium on oil advanced, 144. - - President of the oil combination denies contracts with railroads, 51; - on "ways of making money you know nothing of," 52; - the "only party that would buy," 52; - offers 50 cents on the dollar, 52; - explains its origin, 53; - testifies about Southern Improvement Company, 59; - member of South Improvement Company, 60; - denies contracts to restrict competition, 61; - testifies to "very small profit," 67; - argues for restriction of production, 68; - denies that it gets cheaper freights, 70; - testifies as to secret of success, 80; - testifies that it likes competition, 87; - knew about freight rates, 96; - cannot recall discriminating freight rates, 96; - frequents office of Erie Railroad, 102; - denies pool with the Tidewater Pipe Line, 113; - sole attorney of the trust, 114; - denies any connection with National Transit Company, 114; - denies the "shut-down" of 1887, 158; - described by Van Syckel, 184; - interview about rebates on Rice's business, 207; - on pleasant relations with competitors, 243; - testifies the oil trust is not a manufacturing company, 272; - testifies to reports by subordinate companies, 274; - does not know about monthly reports by subordinate companies, 274; - explains its success, 407; - on its cheapness, 420; - in the commission business, 432; - on its ownership of oil lands, 434; - its properties "not yet" sufficiently numerous, 454; - testifies to shares in the trust owned by trustees individually, 458; - "does not know," 467-68; - made attorney of the trust, 470. - - President of the Standard Oil Company denies ownership of company by - Standard Oil Trust, 458. - - Press, and oil combination, 160, 298, 317, 327; - use of, to make subsidy popular, 392; - Philadelphia, on Russian Extradition Treaty, 448. - - Price of oil advances under restraint of trade, 66, 67; - under oil combination, 67, 420, 431 _n._; - manipulated by oil combination, 104; - in Ohio, 107; - in New York and Europe, 164; - higher for crude than for refined oil, 164; - manipulation of, 210; - lowered by competition, 281, 294; - advances after Baltimore consolidation, 421; - regulated by committee, 421; - in New York, fixed by oil combination, 423; - in Texas, independent of competition, 423; - evidence gathered by Congress, 423-24; - put higher after "wars" than before, 424; - fixation of, 425; - E. Benjamin Andrews on, 430 _n._; - New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ on, 430 _n._; - under trusts, 431 _n._; - decline in Germany, 438; - refined oil lower than crude, 439; - under monopoly, 502. - - Private enterprise and public, 311. - - Producers of oil, and South Improvement Company, 54; - organization in Pennsylvania, 56; - embargo broken, 57; - Union, report, 1872, 60; - forced to sell oil to trust, 104; - forced to sell below market price, 105; - lose their land, 434. - - Producers and Refiners' Oil Company, Limited, Carter _vs._, 164, 446. - - Production restricted, 72; - in Ohio, 107; - at Oil City and Titusville, 143; - by shut-down of 1887, 153, 157; - cheapness of, 217, 429, 445. - - Profits of natural-gas company, at Toledo, 362. - - Property, "is monopoly," 37; - of the combinations, 513. - - Prosperity, early, in oil regions, 42, 43. - - Public powers and property, private use of, 523. - - Publication of railroad tariff, how evaded, 230. - - Punishment nominal, 292. - - - Quality, deterioration of, under monopoly, 405-19; - of oil in Germany, 438. - - Quinby, District Attorney, 247-98. - - - Railroads, northwestern, combination with elevators, 5; - buying bituminous coal lands, 11; - buying iron and timber lands, 12; - refuse cars to independent coal shippers, 12; - crushing independent coal producers, 13; - monopolize anthracite coal, 11, 14; - raise freights to prevent settlement of coal strike, 1871, 16; - forbidden in Pennsylvania to own or operate coal-mines, 18; - disregard Interstate Commerce Commission's decision on coal rates, 19; - and elevators combined in Minnesota, 31; - northwestern, coerce grain buyers, 31; - northwestern, fix the price of wheat, 31; - give discriminating rates to dressed-beef men, 36; - contract with South Improvement Company, 45; - contract to overcome competition for preferred shippers, 48; - as detectives, 48; - advance freight rates on oil 100 per cent., 50; - grant special privileges to railroad directors, 54; - lobbying at Harrisburg, 55; - rebates to oil combination, 69; - facilities controlled by oil combination, 76; - carry crude oil to Cleveland for preferred shippers without charge, 85; - force Cleveland refiners into unnatural equality, 85; - how they equalize persons and places, 86; - make war on Pennsylvania Railroad for oil combination, 87; - of New York received $40,000,000 of public cash, 97; - tribute paid by, to American Transfer Company, 99; - pay American Transfer Company on oil not handled by it, 100; - officials members of American Transfer Company, 100; - oil terminal facilities transferred to oil combination, 101; - fight Tidewater Pipe Line for the oil combination, 108; - lose $10,000,000 in war against Tidewater Pipe Line, 109; - will not tell how low rates were made against Tidewater Pipe Line, 109; - give use of their lands to pipe lines of oil combination, 116; - give oil combination money to build pipe lines, 116, 118; - pool with pipe lines of the oil trust, 118; - officials drive business from railroads to competing pipe - line, 119, 134; - broken pledges of, to independent refiners, 119; - pool with pipe lines, 121; - make war on barrel-shippers, 129, 132; - carry tank-cars free, 131; - increase freight rate on barrels, 131, 132; - increase freight rates at instance of the oil combination, 132; - raise freights without legal notice, 136, 218; - vary rates according to destination beyond their lines, 137; - mistakes not corrected, 138; - destroy barrel shipments, 138; - promises of reparation unfulfilled, 139; - make rates that prohibit traffic, 139; - surrender terminals to oil combination, 140, 142; - relations with oil trust collusive, 143; - litigation before Interstate Commerce Commission prompted by - oil combination, 144; - disobey Interstate Commerce Commission's decision, 149, 218; - oppose new independent pipe line to seaboard, 160; - give use of lands to pipe lines of the oil trust, 162; - officials wasting stockholders' money in hopeless litigation, 163; - force Joshua Merrill out of business, 189; - consult with oil combination about raising rates against - independents, 200; - make rates that prohibit traffic at Marietta, 201, 203; - refuse rates to Marietta refiners, 202; - officials refuse to testify in Ohio in 1879, 202; - increase rates 333 per cent. to one shipper, 217; - deny discrimination, 218; - make their favorites "sole people," 219; - consult with preferred shippers as to freight rates to - competitors, 219; - refuse to answer letters of shippers, 220, 227; - charge more for the shorter hauls, 221, 222, 223; - "mistakes" for favored shippers, 223, 234; - officials refuse to testify before Congress, 224; - "illegal" refusal to give rates, 224, 227; - refuse to answer questions about tank-car rates, 228; - make charges regardless of quantity for preferred shippers, 229; - haul tank-cars free for preferred shippers, 229; - evasions of the law regarding publication of tariffs, 230; - misstate tank-car rates to shippers, 230; - make rates to preferred shippers "astonishingly low," 232; - refuse to give rates, 233; - pay preferred shippers mileage, 233; - conceal mileage from independent shippers, 233; - give Standard Oil Company 25 cents out of 35 cents freight paid - by George Rice, 206; - allegiance to the company, 203; - construction aided by Toledo, 313; - Commission of 1873, in Great Britain, 369; - regulation, Duke of Wellington on, 369; - and Constitution of New York of 1846, 370; - British, A.T. Hadley on, 370; - New York Commission of 1857, 370; - procure abolition of New York Railway Commission of 1857, 371; - State commissions to regulate, 371; - officials refuse to answer questions of Congress, 373; - prevent shipment of Colorado oil to Pacific states, 427; - no discrimination on German, 438; - Pennsylvania Constitution on, 451; - lose the oil business worth $30,000,000 a year, 456; - ownership of members of oil trust in, 460, 461; - rates to oil combination secret, 474; - preferences to oil combination described by the Interstate Commerce - Commission, 478; - officials admit rebates, 480; - shut off shipments of Colorado and Wyoming oil, 481; - collusive litigation between Southern Pacific Railroad and oil - combination, 483; - officials charged with receiving a bonus for giving rebates, 486; - officials owners of stock in Chicago Union Stockyards, 487; - tax the poor for the rich, 489; - give $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 rebates out of $800,000,000 freights - yearly, 491; - excuses for violating Interstate Commerce law, 498; - accidents to employes, 499; - rights of employes, 506. - - Ramsdell, Homer, on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Reading Railroad and railroad war of 1877, 88. - - Rebates, to South Improvement Company, 46; - equal to 21 per cent. a year on capital, 69; - Ohio Supreme Court decision on, 69; - to the oil combination, 69, 474-87; - denied by president of the oil combination, 96; - to Standard Oil Company, 96, 206; - to American Transfer Company, 100; - from railroads build pipe lines for oil combination, 116, 118; - to oil combination admitted, 188; - unknown to outside shippers, 475; - giving or receiving, a penitentiary offence, 475; - denied by members of the oil trust, 476; - to oil combination, summary of evidence of, 479; - admitted by officials of the Pacific railways, 480; - to A.T. Stewart & Co., 489; - given by Pennsylvania Railroad to three coal-dealers, 490; - refusal of givers and takers to testify in Chicago, 490; - $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year, 491. - - Refineries, petroleum, dismantling of, 42; - oil, put under contract to limit production, 61, 65; - shut down and pulled down, 71. - - Refiners, compelled to sell to South Improvement Company, 51; - put under bonds not to refine, 79; - New York, do not dare to build large refineries, 107. - - Refuse oil delivered to competitors, 291. - - Reichenbach on petroleum, 38. - - Reports by subordinate companies of oil trust, 274. - - Republican party and sugar trust, 404. - - Restriction, of competing refineries by oil combination, 61; - of its capacity to one-half by the oil combination, 68; - of production, by oil combination, 421; - in Scotland, 435. - - Rice, George, 199-242; - lets Interstate Commerce Commission cases go by default, 151; - _vs._ Brundred _et al._, 239; - cases before Interstate Commerce Commission, 239 _n._; - _vs._ Standard Oil Trust, 241; - _vs._ trustees of Standard Oil Trust, 453. - - Rice, Robinson, and Witherop case, 1890, before Interstate Commerce - Commission, 147. - - Richardson _vs._ Buhl _et al._, 10. - - River, interference with shipments by, 224; - shipments stopped by oil combination, 433; - trade in Germany appropriated by oil trust, 437. - - Rochester, explosion in Vacuum refinery, 250, 252. - - Rosebery, Lord, comments of _Investors' Review_, 450. - - Rothschilds, position in Russian oil industry, 443. - - Ruffner Brothers, 462. - - Russia, American oil combination in, 442; - every producer allowed to enter international trust, 444; - Minister of Finance organizes combination with American oil trust, 444; - why government of, favored American oil combination, 448; - treaty with, 448. - - Rutter circular, 85. - - - Salt, 32. - - Sanford case, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 54. - - Scandinavia, 437. - - Scarcity, the object of oil combination, 72; - Oil City and Titusville refineries kept closed, 142. - - _Schenck, U.P._, libel against the, 225. - - Scofield, Representative, resolution for investigation of South - Improvement Company, 56; - W.C., Standard Oil Company _vs._, 61, 89; - decision, 66; - _et al._ _vs._ Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company, 70. - - Scotch refiners in 1850, 39; - pool of, 72; - make superior article, 408; - precluded from discussing poor quality of American oil, 409; - pool with Americans broken in 1892, 427; - pool with American combination, 435; - compelled to reduce production, 435; - shrinkage of capital, 436. - - Scott, Thomas, on South Improvement Company contract, 50. - - Screw, turn another, 213. - - Seaboard, Tidewater, first pipe line to, 107. - - Seamen, American, not employed by American subsidized steamers, 400. - - Secrecy, insisted on by oil combination, 63, 65, 79; - in the increase of freights, 218, 474; - as to ownership of oil-trust stock, 487. - - Secretary, of oil combination, testifies before Ohio Legislature, 51; - testifies to "scarcely any profits," 67; - testifies to purchase of oil plant of Pennsylvania Railroad, 89; - not a practical oil-man, 465; - refused to give Congress names of owners of certain shares in its - pipe lines, 487. - - Seemann, E.F., Die _Monopolisirung des Petroleum Handels und der - Petroleum Industrie_, 438. - - Selligue, 38, 462. - - Senate, United States, the Payne scandal, 374-88. - - Sharpless _vs._ Philadelphia, 315. - - Shrouds, combination, 37. - - "Shut-down," of 1887, 72, 153; - advances prices of kerosene, 158. - - Silliman, Professor Benjamin, analyzes petroleum, 39; - on oil not monopolized, 40. - - Slave-trade, 525. - - Smith, Adam, 494. - - Socrates, the great are the bad, 506. - - South Improvement Company, investigated by Congress, 43, 45; - investigation suppressed, 45; - contract of railroads with, 45; - rebates, 46; - and oil combination, same, 49; - to have complete monopoly, 49; - compels refiners to sell to it, 51; - contracts not cancelled, 57; - charter repealed, 57; - arrangement still exists "in reality," 58; - President of Standard Oil Company on, 59; - plan of, reproduced, 85; - reappears in American Transfer Company, 100; - espionage in operation in 1880, 213; - charged to be now in operation in California, 479. - - South, oil combination not popular in the, 209. - - Southern Pacific Railroad Company and Whittier, Fuller & Co., Standard - Oil Company _vs._, 484. - - Speculation, in sugar-trust stock, 32, 403; - in oil, 42; - by oil combination, on advance knowledge of freight reduction, 110; - follows "shut-down" of 1887, 157. - - Spies, 65; - watch shipments, 212; - pay of, 298; - in war on Toledo, 334. - - Standard Oil Company, interview with president of, concerning South - Improvement Company, 59; - president of, testifies about Southern Improvement Company, 59; - _vs._ W.C. Scofield _et al._, 61, 89; - decision, 65; - contract with Lake Shore road decided to be "unlawful," 70; - Supreme Court of Ohio on its monopoly, 70; - and war of rates, 1877, 88; - contracts for rebate of one-tenth of all oil freights, 89; - lower rates by Pennsylvania Railroad to, 90, 94; - freight rate of 38 cents to, 95; - Erie contract with, 102; - independents forced to sell to, 141; - tax investigation, by Pennsylvania Legislature, 166; - members of, indicted in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, 170; - saved from trial by Supreme Court, 180; - members of, object to taking witness-stand, 171; - People of Ohio _vs._, 239; - sued by Toledo for $1,000,000 damages, 367; - spends money in elections, 386; - Senator Payne on the, 386; - pays State inspectors, 414; - owned by Standard Oil Trust, 458; - its president denies ownership by Standard Oil Trust, 458; - application to Attorney-General of New York for forfeiture of - charter of, 458; - _vs._ Southern Pacific Railroad and Whittier, Fuller Co., 484. - - Standard Oil Trust, purchase of works of widow competitor by three - trustees of, 80; - dissolution of, 240; - Rice _vs._, 241; - and the Buffalo explosion, 253-98; - not a manufacturing company, 272; - members of, ordered acquitted by the judge, 272-84; - trustees personally own majority of each company in, 273, 458; - controls every movement of subordinate companies, 274; - how it pools the control and profits of subordinate companies, 275; - owns natural-gas companies, 337; - counsel of, is president of the New York Constitutional - Convention, 452; - declared void by Supreme Court of New York, 453; - People of Ohio _vs._, 453; - Rice _vs._ Trustees of, 453; - Supreme Court of Ohio pronounces it a monopoly, and void, 453; - New York Legislature on formidable money power of, 457; - dividends, 457; - capital of, worth $148,000,000 in 1888, 457; - Interstate Commerce Commission on immense power of, 458; - keeps no books, 469; - operations not business, 470; - makes president its attorney, 470; - executes large contracts through attorneys, 470; - asks Congress to hear additional defence, 471; - discrepancy between the facts and its evidence, 471; - claims same rebates were granted to other shippers, 472; - its offer to prove to Congress that C.B. Matthews testified - falsely, 472; - its employment of detectives admitted by latter, 472; - its threats of litigation against competitors, 473; - member of, denies rebates, 478. - - Steamship, discrimination in favor of meat combination, 37; - pool, 395. - - Sterne, Simon, on oil terminals of Erie Railroad, 102; - on railroads taxing poor for the rich, 489. - - Stewart, A.T., & Co., rebate to, 489. - - St. Louis, forty reductions in oil prices in three years, 427. - - Stock watering in natural-gas companies at Toledo, 363. - - Stock Yards, Chicago, Union, 34. - - Storage, ordinances for, used to overcome competition, 215. - - Storer, F.H., on Selligue, 38. - - Stoves, 9; - Manufacturers, National Association, 10. - - Street-railways, Brooklyn, consolidation, 5. - - Strike of New York freight-handlers, 1882, 296. - - Subsidy, urged by Secretary of the Navy, 389; - voted by Congressmen of both parties, 389; - postal, 389-400; - press used to popularize, 392; - policy of limitations, 393; - got by bribery, 394; - advocated by United States Commissioner of Navigation, 401. - - Sugar trust, Judge Barrett's decision, 3, 4; - investigation by New York Legislature, 32, 33; - capital and dividends, 32, 33, 404; - contributes to Republican and Democratic parties, 403; - president testifies about campaign contributions, 403; - securities and profits, 404; - and government, 404; - and anti-trust law, 404; - president admits it has increased price, 431 _n._; - and tariff bill of 1894, 449. - - Sumatra, 441. - - _Sun_, New York, on income of members of oil trust, 459. - - Suppression, of congressional investigation, 1872, 45, 60; - 1876, 71; - evidence in Cleveland, 83. - - Supreme Court of Ohio, decision on rebates, 69; - of Pennsylvania, interferes to save members of Standard Oil Company - from trial, 180; - said to be run by Pennsylvania Railroad, 181; - of New York, on Standard Oil Trust, 453. - - Survival of the unfittest, 14. - - - Tank-boats for canal, 96. - - Tank-cars, origin of, 41; - carried free by railroads, 131; - less profitable to railroads than barrels, 138; - free carriage of 62 gallons in each, 139; - worse than powder, 139; - prohibitory discrimination against competitors', 189; - independent shippers cannot get rates, 228; - of preferred shippers, hauled free by railroads, 229; - numbers painted out, 235. - - Tank-steamers, German, refused oil, 437. - - Tariff, changes in Germany, 437; - lowered in France, 440; - and sugar trust, 404, 449; - and trusts, John De Witt Warner on, 449. - - Taxes, oil combination refuses to pay, in Pennsylvania, 166. - - Terminal facilities, of railroads, controlled by oil combination, 102; - surrendered by railroads to oil combination, 140, 142. - - Testimony, in Cleveland case disappears, 83; - mutilated transcript for Congress of Buffalo explosion case, - 244, 267, 298; - taken in Congressional investigation of 1876 stolen, 373. - - Thurman, Allen G., on the election of Senator Payne, 376. - - Tidewater Pipe Line, organized, 107; - rate of 10 cents per barrel made by railroads against, 108; - plugged, 111; - surrenders to the oil combination, 112. - - Timber lands, railroads buying, 12. - - Titusville fire, June 5, 1892, 417. - - Titusville and Oil City Independent Refiners' Associations _vs._ - Pennsylvania Railroad _et al._, 118-65. - - Toledo, Findlay and Springfield Railway _vs._ Ohio Oil Company, 306. - - Toledo, war upon, 305-68; - undertakes municipal supply of natural gas, 307; - municipal aid to railroads, 313; - People of Ohio _vs._, 314; - Fellows _et al._ _vs._, 314; - part of the oil combination in the war against, admitted, 339; - city natural-gas line, financial results, 359-68; - public enterprise builds better pipe line than private, 360; - gas shut off, 366; - brings suit against Standard Oil Company and others for $1,000,000 - damages, 367. - - Treasurer, of oil combination, denies purchase of oil plant of - Pennsylvania Railroad, 89. - - Treasury, Secretary of United States, business associate of oil - combination, 400; - orders it paid drawbacks, 401; - Commissioner of Navigation, advocates subsidies, 401. - - Truesdale, George, testimony of, 246. - - Trust, anti, law, 3, 7, 404; - oil combination, parent of system of, 8; - in politics, 403; - all contribute to campaign expenses, 403; - prices, 429; - prices of, superior to panic, 431 _n._; - and tariff, 449. - - Turpentine, rates on, 232. - - - Undertakers combination, 37. - - United Pipe Lines, buy bankrupt pipe lines, 87; - owned by oil combination, 101, 125. - - United States, _vs._ E.C. Knight & Co. _et al._, 404; - marshal libels river steamers, 225. - - United States Pipe Line forced to abandon Hancock route, 163; - makes success of piping refined oil, 165; - opposition to extension beyond Wilkes-barre, 445. - - Uprising in the oil regions, 1872, 55. - - - Vanderbilt, Commodore Cornelius, wealth of, at 44, 460; - William H., on South Improvement Company contract, 51; - surprised by ready cash of oil combination, 88; - never heard of American Transfer Company, 99 _n._ - - Van Syckel, Samuel, lays first pipe line, 41, 185; - history and inventions of, 182-98; - _vs._ Acme Oil Company, 187; - gets United States patents for new process of refining, 193; - given 6 cents damages by the judge, 195; - dies in poverty, 462. - - - Wagons cheaper than railroads, 211. - - Warner, A.J., on bill to regulate river shipments, 225. - - Warner, John De Witt, on trusts and tariff, 449. - - Washington, Constitution concerning trusts, 451. - - Wealth, concentrated, greatest sovereign, 134; - of the combinations, certain features of, 513. - - Webster, Daniel, on extemporaneous acquisition, 462. - - Weehawken oil docks, 140. - - Well-drillers' Union and the "shut-down" of 1887, 154. - - Wellington, Duke of, on State and railroads, 369. - - Whalebacks, 460. - - Whiskey, ring of 1874, 20; - trust, secretary of, arrested, 21. - - Widow, competitor of oil combination, 75; - forced to sell, 77. - - Wilkes-barre railroads oppose independent pipe-line crossing, 161. - - Wilson, William L., on sugar trust, 32; - President Cleveland to, 404. - - Witnesses, before United States Senate Committee investigating Chicago - meat combination intimidated, 34; - before committee of Congress refuse to testify, 60; - refuse to appear before Interstate Commerce Commission, 145; - railroad officials refuse to testify in Ohio, 202; - railroad, refuse to testify before Congress, 224; - coached, 279. - - Woman refiner, 73. - - Working-men, thrown out of work, 54, 68, 135, 154, 159, 455; - punished for boycott, 287; - of Toledo support city natural-gas pipe line, 308; - in Toledo subscribe for city gas bonds, 340; - reduction of wages in Scotland, 436; - decline of wages in oil regions, 456. - - _World_, New York, on Russian Extradition Treaty, 448. - - Wright, Henry C., discussion on slavery, 346. - - Wyoming oil, railroads prevent shipments of, 481. - - - - Young, T. Graham, on British oil test, 409. - - -THE END - - - - -_By the Same Author_ - -A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES AGAINST MINERS - -OR, THE - -Story of Spring Valley - -AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MILLIONAIRES - - -_Notices by the Press_ - - -The Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_ (editorial). - - Those who keep note of passing events will not have forgotten the - lock-out of coal miners at Spring Valley, Illinois, in the early - months of 1889, and the sufferings of the families of the workmen in - consequence. - - This sad story of corporate inhumanity has been effectively told by - Henry D. Lloyd in a book entitled _A Strike of Millionaires against - Miners_. It merits no less a volume than this. It is not an isolated - case--an industrial phenomenon springing from conditions rarely - repeated--but one of many similar cases, a part only of the whole - story of coal mining in the United States. More than this, it is an - aggravated illustration of the soullessness of the corporation in - general, through the agency of which the bulk of the producing powers - of the nation is working. - - Behind this legal fiction men hide and do deeds of grasping cruelty - that disgrace manhood, and are fast bringing the industrial organism - into contempt. In the case of Spring Valley, the directors and - stockholders of the Chicago and North-Western Railroad and the Spring - Valley Coal Company--controlled by the same men--are as responsible - for the sufferings and death from starvation of miners in Spring - Valley in 1889 as if they had all been personally present and assisted - in the business of bringing men from a distance to work in their mines - on assurance of steady employment, and then of locking them out - without warning, to starve them into submission to lower wages, for - the sake of higher profits on their stock. This is the conclusion of - Mr. Lloyd, and we see no escape from it. - - If the corporation is to be considered an impersonality without moral - responsibility, it will either have to go, or the industrial system - which makes it an essential part will have to go. All the power of - government, or wealth, or vested interests cannot maintain that - system which, resting as our present system must on the charitable - instincts of men, offers a way of escape from the responsibilities - imposed thereby to the most powerful factors of the society. Against - that system "the pulses of men will beat until they beat it down." - What must be the condition of that society which allows the wealthy - capitalists who starved these thousands of miners not only to go - unpunished, but to move in the very highest circles of business power - and social influence? And one of them in particular is to-day figuring - upon representing the Democratic party of Pennsylvania in the United - States Senate. - - -The New York _Commercial Advertiser_ (editorial). - - It is to be remembered that Mr. Lloyd's book does not profess to be - a dispassionate review of the situation. It is an indictment. The - corporation's side should be given a fair hearing. But it must be - heard soon. Mr. Lloyd's charges are too important, his formulation - of them too worthy of respect to be treated with silent contempt. To - ignore them is to confess their truth. Should such a reply be made, - the readers of this column will be informed of it. _A Strike of - Millionaires against Miners_ describes the poverty, the suffering, the - utter misery among the miners in Spring Valley, Illinois, during the - past year. In the simplicity and restraint of his style, and in the - massing of his facts, Mr. Lloyd shows genuine literary power. There is - no attempt at rhetoric in his narrative. He depends upon statements - of facts, many of them incontrovertible, to rouse the hot indignation - of his readers. If the story is true, and it bears every appearance - of truth, the Spring Valley mine owners have been guilty of damnable - treachery and cruelty to their fellow-men. - - -Chicago _Herald_ (editorial). - - The _Herald_ commends to the attention of its readers the open - letter in another column, from Henry D. Lloyd, addressed to various - millionaires of New York, Chicago, and St. Paul. It contains what the - _Herald_ believes to be the truth as to the Spring Valley scandal, - and while in most respects it is a plain statement of facts, it is - nevertheless one of the most powerful appeals for justice, and one of - the most eloquent denunciations of wrong, which has come under the - public eye in many a day. - - Mr. Lloyd's high character, his superb attainments, and his well-known - philanthropy give force to the arraignment it might not otherwise - possess. His letter is a history of a crime--a crime resulting, no - doubt, from an infamous conspiracy--and the story leads naturally and - inevitably to the conclusion which Mr. Lloyd avows, that there must - be conspiracy laws for millionaires as well as for working-men. - - Civilization must be bottomed on justice, or it cannot endure. A - society which permits such inhuman outrages as that at Spring Valley - is either asleep or in an advanced stage of decay. The money god - cannot crush out the lives of human beings with impunity. Let its - devotees look well to the ground on which they stand. The wise and - humane will be warned in time. The foolish and insatiate must be left - to the stern judgment of their fellow-men, who must some day pass upon - their act. - - -The _Labor World_, London, England. - - What does Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who chants vulgar paeans to "Triumphant - Democracy" say to such a book as this of Mr. Lloyd? This story of the - robbery and betrayal of thousands of working miners in Illinois by - a great millionaire corporation is one of the worst things we have - read for a long time, and is a terribly scathing satire on American - "democracy." - - Let us hear no more trash about "free" America as compared with - down-trodden Europe. Both continents are down-trodden by the rich - men who own the raw material out of which wealth is created by human - labor. When the land of the United States is all absorbed by private - persons, as it will be in twenty years' time, there will not be a - pin to choose between America and Europe, so far as wage-workers are - concerned. Wages may be higher in America, but the increased cost of - living there will nearly equalize the condition of the two continents; - while for swindling, lying, and merciless oppression many American - capitalists leave their European brethren far behind. Mr. Lloyd's - book, which is the first of a new "Bad Wealth Series," ought to open - men's eyes to the fact that true freedom is impossible when a few men - have a right to appropriate to themselves the raw material of the - globe. - - -Chicago _Daily Inter-Ocean_. - - Mr. Lloyd's reputation as a writer on economic questions is - sustained in the manner of handling the usually dry statistical - matter which tells the story of strikes and lock-outs. He makes the - story interesting and often graphic, while he gives the facts and - figures relating to the intricacy of contracts in a way to be easily - understood by the ordinary reader. The book is a valuable compilation - of the facts gathered relating to this shameless abuse of corporative - power in Spring Valley. - - -The _New Ideal_. - - Mr. Lloyd has been until recently on the editorial staff of the - Chicago _Tribune_, and is now devoting his time to first-hand - investigations into labor troubles. This book gives an account of a - lock-out in one of the mining districts of Illinois, and is the more - forcible and eloquent an arraignment of the "millionaires," as the - statements are throughout verifiable. As Mr. Lloyd in effect says, - professors of political economy do not come near enough to realities - to discover such details as he portrays, and the working-men do not - know how to bring them before public opinion. Hence the necessity of - a mediator, who shall thoroughly investigate the facts and at the - same time give them to the public, not in statistical reports, but in - a form that compels its attention. Mr. Lloyd is a practised writer; - no one can read this narrative without being profoundly moved, and - for the directors and stockholders of the Spring Valley Coal Company - (and, besides, of the Chicago and North-Western Railway, an aider - and abettor of the nefarious business) the effect must be to set - their blood on fire--so far as they are blessed (or unblessed) with - any moral sensitiveness. Every thoughtful citizen--whether man or - woman--should read this book, and have fully brought home to him or - her the problems it suggests. It belongs to the literature both of - fact and of power. - - -The _Religio-Philosophical Journal_. - - Mr. Lloyd admits that Spring Valley and its miseries and wrongs were, - at the beginning, but the conception and achievement of one or two - of the leading owners of railroad and other companies who did the - planning, secured the approval of the Board of Directors, and the - active influence of the railroads through whom, by special freights, - the business of competitors was stolen, coal land was bought, and - the scheme was invented by which fortunes were to be made from - working-men's necessities and the misuse of the powers of the common - carrier. But none of the directors, none of the stockholders, who - received the profits of the scheme, protested against it; on the - contrary, all accepted unprotestingly their "share of the guilt and - gilt." Mr. Lloyd gives a mass of facts and figures which prove, on - the part of corporations employing men at Spring Valley, an amount - of greed and heartlessness which seems incredible in an enlightened - country. - - Mr. Lloyd is a literary artist as well as a man of deep feeling, - and he combines felicity of diction with fervor and eloquence of - expression, and writes with effectiveness and power. The book should - be read by all who are interested in the labor question--the practical - issue of the hour. - - -Chicago _Times_. - - It is a pitiful story, a heart-breaking story, and Mr. Lloyd tells it - with a great deal of force and earnestness. - - -The _Dawn_. - - Can it be possible in these happier days among men who share the - Christian civilization of the very eve of the twentieth century, - that there can exist any analogy to this relentless war of savagery, - this cruel and cowardly subjugation of a competitor, not in honest, - open combat, but by taking advantage of a position to deny him food, - shelter, and the very necessaries of life? For an answer, such as - would bring indignant emotion to every heart not indurated by avarice - of gold, and shame to every cheek not rendered incapable of blushing - by hardened selfishness, we refer to the terrible facts, so calmly - told with the severity of simple truth by Mr. Lloyd. - - Starved Rock and Spring Valley are not isolated instances. The malady - is constitutional, not local. "The whole head is sick and the whole - heart faint," may be said of our modern system of business. - - -The _Nationalist_. - - In this age of strikes it is not always the workers who strike, as - is indicated by the title of Mr. Lloyd's book. That brilliant and - great-hearted journalist and publicist several months ago, in the - shape of an open letter of several columns, printed in the Chicago - _Herald_, told the story of the criminal and cold-blooded conspiracy - of a group of enormously rich men against a body of honest and - industrious workingmen. That letter he has made the basis of the - present volume, which deserves a wide circulation among patriotic - citizens of the United States. The strong and truthful words here - uttered ought to ring throughout the land and arouse the people to a - realizing sense of the greatest danger that has ever threatened our - republic--the danger of its conversion into the worst of despotisms, - that of rule by an irresponsible plutocracy. - - -The Burlington _Hawkeye_. - - Mr. Lloyd proves every charge he makes, the testimony he brings - forward being so presented as to leave no question as to its absolute - correctness. In all the dark record of tyranny, cruelty, and brutality - made by the coal barons of this country there is not a blacker chapter - than that which tells of their crimes against the miners of Spring - Valley in the year 1889. This is not the verdict of the "labor crank" - alone; the people of Chicago and the whole of northern Illinois, in - the press and pulpit and on the platform, have denounced the outrage, - and the cooler judgment of to-day, when the lock-out is about worn out - and the majority of the old miners are scattered all over the country, - is in accord with the denunciation made by Mr. Lloyd. - - -The _Rock Islander_, Rock Island, Ill. - - _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring - Valley._ The above is the title of a beautifully printed volume of - 264 pages, by Henry D. Lloyd. Its prelude is the story of the starved - Indians of Starved Rock, and it proceeds to parallel that by the - starvation of labor by the millionaires. The story of Spring Valley - is given in detail, with official proof of its truthfulness, and is - graphically told by Mr. Lloyd. Its exposure of the oppressors of - labor is terrific. It shows who they are; who has done this thing; - how the town was boomed; how it was doomed; how the ghost of Starved - Rock walks abroad; and how people are bought and enslaved in this - boasted free country. It gives Governor Fifer a deserved slap for - not going in person to the scene of starvation, and it roasts his - military toady of the rich (Adjutant-General Vance) who was sent - there by the governor to investigate, and whose report is proven to - be a tissue of sneers at the poor, and falsehoods in regard to them - and their situation. He quotes freely and approvingly from the report - of Judge Gould and Mr. Wines, proving all that was claimed for the - suffering there. He shows (page 66) that the Chicago, Milwaukee and - St. Paul Railroad Company generously acknowledged the necessity for - help by hiring a physician for its miners at Braceville, and sending - supplies of necessaries for sick women and children to be given out by - its agent there. He shows up the campaign of slander against Spring - Valley, which was carried on through capitalistic newspapers and - corporation tools; says the Spring Valley case is only a preliminary - skirmish of capital against labor, and, after showing the first - fruits, asks what the last will be. He closes with a chapter giving - part of the moral. An appendix is added, showing what the millionaires - said of themselves, and the replies by the miners and the press. - Everybody should read this most remarkable and ably prepared story of - the crime of capital upon labor. - - -_Seed-Time_ (London), the organ of the New Fellowship. - - Perhaps the most striking of all the American object-lessons on the - tendencies of capitalism has been given us by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of - Chicago, who has recently published a book entitled, _A Strike of - Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring Valley_. A more - complete exposure of the tyranny and cruelty of capitalism has never - before been made. Its great importance for us, however, lies in the - fact that all the tyranny and wrong he witnessed and describes are but - the natural outcomes of the principles of commercialism when those - principles are carried to their logical conclusion, and capitalism has - unchecked sway. Such terrible scenes do not occur everywhere, simply - because capitalism is held in check by other social forces, and has - not everywhere attained that full and unfettered development which - discloses the evils which in its more undeveloped stage lie concealed. - - -The _Twentieth Century_. - - It is a mind-agitating and heart-rending tale, and unless I am much - mistaken the publication of it will create an epoch in economic - thinking and social regeneration. What is the remedy for such crimes - as Mr. Lloyd has exposed? The remedy will be found if open-minded - persons will read such books as Mr. Lloyd's, and keep themselves - informed as to what is being done to reduce a people to servitude. - This single book ought to produce such a revulsion of feeling against - the monstrous millionaires who perpetrated this awful crime that they - would be looked upon by all decent people with abhorrence. - - If you will read Mr. Lloyd's book I think you will agree with me that - if before long, as many persons believe, this county is to be deluged - in the blood of revolution, the catastrophe will be brought on by - condoning such crimes as that at Spring Valley; it will be brought on - because you and I read such stories as this, and, knowing they are - true, straightway forget all about them; it will be brought on because - editors and preachers, and others who have the public ear, keep silent - through negligence or fear of the rich who misrule the land. If people - will not think, if they will not care, you may depend upon it that the - price of their indifference will be slavery or war. - - -From a letter to the _Twentieth Century_. - - Your article, and the extracts from Mr. Lloyd's book in your issue of - June 12, portraying the outrageous injustice inflicted on the Spring - Valley coal miners by the railway and coal-mining barons, was read - before our club by Judge Frank T. Reid, of this city, a member of the - club, at its regular weekly meeting, Monday, June 23. A resolution - was unanimously passed and sent to the General Executive Board of the - Nationalist clubs at Boston, requesting it to get up a memorial to - the Government Bureau of Labor, petitioning that body to institute - a special inquiry into the outrages; that this be done with a view - of publishing these crimes to the whole country, under the proper - authority, and also with the view of memorializing Congress for the - government to work either all or part of the coal-mining industry on - the same principle that it works the postal service, the government - printing-office at Washington, and other industries, as the present - method of running the coal mines by corporations has resulted, and - will continue to result, in rioting and bloodshed, and imperils - the very existence of society. We would suggest that copies of the - memorial be sent to all the Nationalist clubs for signatures, and also - to the Federated trades, Knights of Labor, and other organized bodies - and to individuals. Might we also suggest that you kindly communicate - with the Executive Board of Boston, and with our worthy and earnest - brothers, Messrs. Bellamy, Bliss, and others? - - Yours fraternally, - J.L. Johnson, - _Secretary Nationalist Club_. - - Tacoma, Wash. #/ - - -The _Open Court_. - - The story of Spring Valley will make every American citizen of healthy - morals uncomfortable and ashamed.... A story which must be read, and - the lesson of it heeded, or worse things come. - - -The St. Louis _Republic_. - - A stirring account of the great mining strike, lock-out, and - consequent misery at Spring Valley, Illinois, in 1888-89, the main - features of which are still familiar to the reading public. Mr. Lloyd - lays the blame where it belongs, and shows how the whole transaction - worked to the profit of the plutocrats at the expense of their - dupes--the enterprising thousands who believed in the promises made - in booming the location. The booming of the town was followed by the - dooming, and, as the _Republic_ and many other papers showed at the - time, the action of the mine operators all through was "a cruel abuse - of intellectual strength to use it to force weakness and ignorance - into such a condition of helplessness." The author gives facts and - figures, and his account of the matter is borne out by the news - columns of the times. It is a sad story, and its truthfulness is a - shameful comment upon the tendencies of our day. - - -The Pittsburg _Labor Tribune_. - - _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring - Valley_, is a handsome edition of the important matter written by - Henry D. Lloyd when the notable strike was on at the mines located at - Spring Valley, Illinois. Our miner readers especially will read with - satisfaction the vim and ability with which Mr. Lloyd handles the - literary end of that eventful period, and will be pleased to know that - he has issued the matter in consecutive form. - - -The _Democrat_ (London). - - Bad as the social and industrial condition of Great Britain is, that - of the United States threatens to become as bad or even worse unless - the power of landlordism there is subjected to popular control. A - striking instance of the rapid growth of monopoly and its ruinous - effect on industry, as well as its atrocious tyranny over labor, is - recorded in a striking little book by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, - called _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners_. - - -_Rights of Labor_ (Chicago). - - This narrative of the rapacity and greed of our coal barons we most - earnestly commend to all our readers as a plain, clear statement of - facts, admirably put; it deserves the widest circulation. - - -New York _Herald_. - - This is one of the saddest, most enraging stories ever put on paper; - of course the corporations protested, as corporations always do in - such cases, that they were not to blame, but the awful facts cannot be - denied or explained away. The _Herald_ expressed its mind editorially - at the time. Now that the whole case is presented, the _Herald's_ - readers can see how easily a scheming gang of heartless scoundrels - can quickly reduce thousands of families to a condition worse than - old-fashioned African slavery. - - -Tacoma (Washington) _Globe_. - - Among the many books recently published on the labor question and the - relations between the rich and the poor, none has excited a deeper - interest than _A Strike of Millionaires against Miners_. Before the - atrocities perpetrated in Spring Valley by the coal mining company, - composed of some of the wealthiest men in the United States, the - wrongs inflicted on the peasants in Ireland fade into insignificance. - This book should have a wide reading, that all may know whither the - nation is drifting. - - -Boston _Herald_. - - The story of the labor disturbances at Spring Valley, Illinois, - caused by a shut-down of the mines in 1888, is told by H.D. Lloyd in - a thrilling presentation. In perusing the whole history, from the - first alluring advertisements of the mining companies to the editorial - comments in Chicago papers after the lock-out took place, a dweller in - happier laboring regions will hardly believe that so much injustice - could have been done in free America. - - -The _Worker_ (Brisbane, Queensland). - - A simple but complete account of a terrible injustice. - - -The _Christian Union_. - - Six or eight years ago there appeared in the _North American Review_ - an article entitled "The Lords of Industry," by Henry D. Lloyd, which - set forth with such power the nature and extent of the combinations to - diminish production and increase prices that its author may be said - to have initiated the anti-trust agitation of the last few years. - Since that time he has gone on in the work thus begun, putting heart - and soul into it. The _Strike of Millionaires against Miners_ carries - perhaps less weight with our intellects than Mr. Lloyd's earlier work, - but it appeals so strongly to our hearts that we are carried with him - through the volume, and share with him his indignation over the wrongs - he describes. - - * * * * * - - CONCORD, New Hampshire, _October 22, 1892_. - - DEAR MR. LLOYD,--I am reading the _Study_ you so kindly sent me. I - have read most of it, including the "Word to Coal Miners," and what a - "study!" What a lesson! What an apocalypse! Through it, "the voice of - our brothers' blood cries to us from the ground," literally, and in - tones scarcely ever heard before by human or heavenly ear! - - Would that you could peal out all the seven thunders of Patmos. I wish - your work might outsell in number _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, and _Robert - Elsmere_ combined, till its note filled the earth as the waters the - seas. Print the whole of this hasty testimony over my name, if it will - be of service to the working man and woman. - - Faithfully and fraternally yours, for every good thought, word, and - work, - - PARKER PILLSBURY. - - - - -A BOOK FOR THE TIMES - -THE RAILWAYS AND THE REPUBLIC. - -By JAMES F. HUDSON. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. - - -The author studies carefully the evils of the system, inquires into the -power of legislation to cure them, and describes the remedies which -will preserve the usefulness of the railways, and at the same time -protect legitimate investors.--_N.Y. Evening Post._ - -It is seldom the public is given a work at once so timely, so brave, -and so able.... Mr. Hudson writes with the most exhaustive knowledge -of his subject, and with an unusual ability in setting forth his ideas -so that they are easily and clearly understood. There is hardly a more -vigorous chapter in modern literature than that in which he discusses -the rise and growth of the Standard Company.... The book is everywhere -marked by unusual ability, accuracy, and fearlessness, which make it -one of the most important contributions of the day to a subject which -of necessity engages more and more attention every day. The political -principles of the writer are thoroughly sound and practical.--_Boston -Courier._ - -The subject is of such vital importance that no man or woman in the -country should be ignorant about it.--_N.Y. Times._ - -Mr. Hudson writes in the interests of the people, calmly and without -passion, as one who thoroughly understands his subject, and in harmony -with many others who have dealt with the same problems.--_Critic_, N.Y. - - -Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK - - _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, - postage pre-paid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, - on receipt of price._ - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wealth against commonwealth, by -Henry Demarest Lloyd - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEALTH AGAINST COMMONWEALTH *** - -***** This file should be named 60473.txt or 60473.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/7/60473/ - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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