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?"