"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."