There were both humiliation and bitterness in the Council when the report was read—humiliation and bitterness that after two years of such strenuous fighting all that was achieved was a contract which sacrificed what everybody knew to be the fundamental principle, the principle which up to this point the producers had always insisted must be recognised in any negotiation—that the rebate system was wrong and must not be compromised with. Hard speeches were made, and Mr. Campbell’s head was bowed more than once while big tears ran down his cheeks. He had worked long and hard. Probably most of the members of the Grand Council who were present had a consciousness that no one of them had done anywhere near what Mr. Campbell had done toward prosecuting their cause, and though they might object to the compromise, they could not blame him, knowing all the difficulties which had been put in the way. So they accepted the report, thanking him for his fidelity and energy, but not failing to express their disapproval of the reservation in regard to the rebate system. They ended their meeting by a resolution bitterly condemning the courts, the state administration at Harrisburg, and corporations in general:
“We declare that by the inefficiency and weakness of the secretary of internal affairs in the year 1878; by the interposition on more than one occasion of the attorney-general in 1879, by which the taking of testimony was prevented; by the failure of the present government for many months, either to grant or deny the requisition for criminals indicted for crime, within the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, fugitives to other states; and by the interference of some of the judges of the Supreme Court, by an extraordinary and, according to the best legal judgment of the land, unlawful proceeding, by which the trial of an indictment for misdemeanour pending in a local court was delayed and prevented, the alarming and most dangerous influence of powerful corporations has been demonstrated. While we accept the inevitable result forced upon us by these influences, we aver that the contest is not over and our objects not attained, but we all continue to advocate and maintain the subordination of all corporations to the laws, the constitution, and the will of the people, however and whenever expressed; that the system of freight discrimination by common carriers is absolutely wrong in principle, and tends to the fostering of dangerous monopolies; and that it is the duty of the government, by legislation and executive action, to protect the people from their growing and dangerous power.”
And with this resolution the second Petroleum Producers’ Union formed to fight Mr. Rockefeller came to an end.
By the morning of February 20 the Oil Regions knew of the compromise. The news was received in sullen anger. It was due to the cowardice of the state officials, the corrupting influence of corporations, the oil men said. They blamed everybody but themselves, and yet if they had done their duty the suits would never have been compromised. The simple fact is that the mass of oil men had not stood by their leaders in the hard fight they had been making. These leaders, Mr. Campbell the president, Mr. Sherman the chief counsel, and Mr. Patterson the head of the legislative committee, had given almost their entire time for two years to the work of the Union. The offices of Mr. Campbell and Mr. Patterson were both honorary, and they had both often used their private funds in prosecuting their work. Mr. Sherman gave his services for months at a time without pay. No one outside of the Council of the Union knew the stress that came upon these three men. Up to the decision to institute the conspiracy suit they had worked in harmony. But when that was decided upon Mr. Patterson withdrew. He saw how fatal such a move must be, how completely it interfered with the real work of the Union, forcing common carriers to do their duty. He saw that the substantial steps gained were given up and that the work would all have to be done over again if their suit went on. Mr. Campbell believed in it, however, and Mr. Sherman, whether he believed in it or not, saw no way but to follow his chief. The nine months of disappointment and disillusion which followed were terrible for both men. They soon saw that the forces against them were too strong, that they would never in all probability be able to get the conspiracy suit tried, and that so long as it was on the docket the proper witnesses could not be secured for the suits against the railroads. Finally it came to be a question with them what out of the wreck of their plans and hopes could they save? And they saved what the compromise granted. If the oil producers they represented, a body of some 2,000 men, had stood behind them throughout 1879 as they did in 1878 the results would have been different. Their power, their means, were derived from this body, and this body for many months had been giving them feeble support. Scattered as they were over a great stretch of country, interested in nothing but their own oil farms, the producers could only be brought into an alliance by hope of overturning disastrous business conditions. They all felt that the monopoly the Standard had achieved was a menace to their interests, and they went willingly into the Union at the start, and supported it generously, but they were an impatient people, demanding quick results, and when they saw that the relief the Union promised could only come through lawsuits and legislation which it would take perhaps years to finish, they lost interest and refused money. At the first meeting of the Grand Council of the Union in November, 1878, there were nearly 200 delegates present—at the last one in February, 1880, scarcely forty. Many of the local lodges were entirely dead. Not even the revival in the summer of 1879 of the hated immediate shipment order, which had caused so much excitement the year before, but which had not been enforced long because of the uprising, brought them back to the Union. In July the order had been put in operation again in a fashion most offensive to the oil men, it being announced by the United Pipe Lines that thereafter oil would be bought by a system of sealed bids. Blanks were to be furnished the producers, the formula of which ran:
Bradford, Pennsylvania,........ 187..
I hereby offer to sell J. A. Bostwick .... barrels crude oil, of forty-two gallons per barrel, at .... cents, at the wells, for shipment from the United Pipe Lines, within the next five (5) days, provided that any portion of the oil not delivered to you within the specified time shall be considered cancelled.
There was a frightful uproar in consequence. The morning after this announcement several hundred men gathered in front of the United Pipe Line’s office in Bradford, and held an open-air meeting. They had a band on the ground which played “Hold the Fort”; and the following resolutions were adopted:
“Resolved, That the oil producers of the Northern District in meeting assembled do maintain and declare that the present shipment order is infamous in principle and disreputable in practice, and we hereby declare that we will not sell one barrel of oil in conformity with the requirements of the said order. And we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour to resort to every legal means, to use every influence in our power to prevent any sales under the said order. And we also declare that the United Pipe Lines shall hereafter perform their duty as common carriers under the law.”
That night a battalion of some 300 masked men in robes of white marched through the streets of Bradford, groaning those that they suspected of being in sympathy with the Standard methods, and cheering their friends. Again there appeared there, that night, all over the upper oil country, cabalistic signs, which had been seen there often the year before. The feeling was so intense, and the danger of riot so great, that twenty-four hours after the order for sealed bids was given, it was withdrawn. The outbreak aroused Mr. Campbell’s hope that it might be possible at this moment to arouse the lodges, and he wrote a prominent oil man of Bradford asking his opinion. In reply he received the following letter. It shows very well what the leaders had to contend against. It shows, too, the point of view of a very frank and intelligent oil producer:
“Bradford, Pennsylvania, July 30, 1879.
“B. B. Campbell,
Parnassus, Pennsylvania.
Dear Sir—Your despatch of yesterday from O. C. has only just reached me. As I cannot say what I want to over the wires I reply by mail.
You ask if the high-sounding wording of the declaration of rights of the producers made at their mass-meeting, held here on Monday, in which they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honours, means liberal subscriptions to the Council funds. I reply with sorrow and humiliation—I fear not. All this high-flown talk is buncombe of the worst kind. The producers are willing to meet in a mass-meeting held out of doors where it costs nothing even for rent of a hall, and pass any kind of a resolution that is offered. It costs nothing to do this, but when asked to contribute a dollar to the legal prosecution of these plunderers, robbers, and fugitives from justice, whom they are denouncing in their resolution, they either positively refuse, say that the Council is doing nothing, that the suits are interminable and will never end, that there is no justice to be obtained in the courts of Pennsylvania, etc., etc., or else plead poverty and say they have contributed all that they are able to.
True, the producers are poor and the suits and legal proceedings are slow, and there is much to discourage them, but I tell you, my honoured chief, that the true inwardness of this state of affairs is, that the people of the Oil Regions have by slow degrees and easy stages been brought into a condition of bondage and serfdom by the monopoly, until now, when they have been aroused to a realisation of their condition, they have not the courage and manhood left to enable them to strike a blow for liberty. And these are the people for whom you and your few faithful followers in the Council are labouring, spending (I fear wasting) your substance—neglecting your own interest to advance theirs, and all for what good—“cui bono”?
I fear you will say that I am discouraged. No, not discouraged, but disgusted with the poor, spiritless, and faint-hearted people whom you are labouring so hard to liberate from bondage. As to the prospects of raising funds for the prosecution of the suits by subscription or assessments on the Unions, I am sorry to say that I fear it is impossible—at least it is impossible for me to make any collections—and right here let me make a suggestion. I often feel that the fault may not be with the people, but with the writer. I would therefore suggest that you select from among the members of the Council any good man whom you think has the power of convincing these people that their only hope of relief lies in sustaining you in the prosecution of the suits, and therefore they must contribute to the fund. If you will do this, I will promise you that he will be hospitably received and favourably introduced by the writer. But as for depending on the unaided efforts of myself to raise funds, I fear it would be useless.
I do not write this, my friend, with a view of throwing any discouragement in your path, which, God knows, is rugged and thorny enough, but I must give vent to my righteous indignation in some way, and ask you are the producers as a class (nothing but a d—d cowardly, disorganised mob as they are) worth the efforts you are putting forth to save them?
As for myself, a single individual (and I can speak for no others), I am determined to stand with you until the end, with my best strength and my last dollar.”
Now, what was this loose and easily discouraged organisation opposing? A compact body of a few able, cold-blooded men—men to whom anything was right that they could get, men knowing exactly what they wanted, men who loved the game they played because of the reward at the goal, and, above all, men who knew how to hold their tongues and wait. “To Mr. Rockefeller,” they say in the Oil Regions, “a day is as a year and a year as a day. He can wait, but he never gives up.” Mr. Rockefeller knew the producers, knew how feeble their staying qualities in anything but the putting down of oil wells, and he may have said confidently, at the beginning of their suits against him, as it was reported he did say, that they would never be finished. They had not been finished from any lack of material. If the suits had been pushed but one result was possible, and that was the conviction of both the Standard and the railroads; they had been left unfinished because of the impatience and instability of the prosecuting body and the compactness, resolution and watchfulness of the defendants.