"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.