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 88½ cents.
"And then the refined rate was 80 cents?"
"80 cents net to the Standard."