"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."