It was not lack of capital or of diligence that made the independents use barrels instead of tanks; tanks were useless to them. All the oil terminal facilities of the railroads at the seaboard had been surrendered to the combination for its exclusive use.[264] These were the only places where tank-cars could be unloaded into steamers. "There are no facilities to which we, as outside refiners, have access to load bulk oil into vessels," and none where these refiners could send oil in tank-cars to be barrelled for shipment abroad.[265] No matter how many tank-cars and tank-vessels the independents might have provided, they could not have got them together. Between the two were the docks in the unrelenting grip which held solely for its private use the shipping facilities of these public carriers. Not even oil in barrels could the independents get through these oil docks.
The Weehawken oil docks of the Erie road on New York harbor are the best in the world. The Erie Railroad has $920,760 invested in them, but only one shipper can use them either for tanks or barrels.
The Western traffic manager of the Erie was asked:
"Would you take a shipment there over the Erie road of independent oil consigned to the New York docks?"
"No, sir."[266]
The Pennsylvania Railroad refuses to haul tank-cars for the independents to any other point at New York than the terminals so controlled by the combination. It will not haul them to other docks of its own. It will not let oil be shipped over its line to the points at which it connects with other roads for other harbors, though it will take shipments of anything else than oil.[267] This amounts to a refusal to allow the independents to use tank-cars or tank-steamers. Practically the same policy is pursued by all the main trunk-lines. These independents could get rid of their export oil only by selling to the combination. Through its other self—the company which controls the terminals—it has kept an agent in the oil regions for years to buy for export this refined oil which its owners and makers could not export themselves. This is the "immediate shipment" of 1878 in another phase.[268]
"You have to sell to the Standard Oil Company in order to get your oil shipped in bulk from Communipaw?"
"Yes, sir."
"The independent cannot get his oil into a bulk vessel at Communipaw?"
"No, sir."[269]