These accusations are proved beyond question by extant collections of hundreds of letters and numerous telegrams received by independent retailers, and by a superabundance of sworn testimony from all parts of the States. Just to show how the thing works, here is a typical letter received by a retailer who has been caught ordering oil from an independent, and has been " persuaded " to countermand the order :— Chess, Carley & Co., the Standard marketing agents at Louisville, Kentucky, are big offen ders in this respect. The late Mr. George Rice, of Marietta, Ohio, a well-known independent, offered a grocer named Armstrong, in Clarks ville, Tennessee, his oil at a lower price than Chess, Carley & Co. would sell to him at. Armstrong mentioned the offer to the latter, and " was scared almost out of his boots," wrote Rice's agent.
Carley told him, continues the agent, " he would break him up if he bought oil of any one else ; that the Standard Company had authorised him to spend $10,000 to break up any concern that bought oil from any one else ; that he (Carley) would put all his drummers in the field to hunt up Armstrong's customers, and sell his customers groceries at 5 per cent. below Arm strong's prices, and turn all Armstrong's trade over to Moore, Bremaker & Co., and settle with Moore, Bremaker & Co. for their losses in helping to break Armstrong up, every thirty days.
The Waters-Pierce Oil Company, the Stan dard's Texas and Mexico branch, are equally bad, and their methods are denounced by their customers in similar language to that already quoted. The retailers speak of their threats, their " cutting to kill" ; they complain that the Standard agents " nose" about their premises, ask impudent questions, and generally make trade disgusting and humiliating.
The system naturally results in bribing em ployees, not only of the railroads, but of the independents themselves in order to gain in formation. The bribes seem to have been
generally small in amount, but to have yielded wonderful results. For instance, in 1893, a negro boy who was induced by the Atlantic Refining Company of Philadelphia (Standard Oil subsidiary), to supply regular details of the business of the Lewis Emery Oil Company, his employers, was only paid $90 (218) for supply ing information as to the firm's daily ship ments for about six months and also for smuggling his company's price-book to the Standard managers to be copied out ! Most of the old legends about a man " selling his soul to the devil" make Mephistopheles do something very substantial as his part of the bargain. But the Standard Oil Trust is capable of giving his Satanic Majesty many wrinkles in " labour saving " methods, and breaks down the moral sense of the rising generation on much more economic principles. E. M. Wilhoit, Standard agent at Topeka, Kansas, from 1891 to 1898, testified in the Missouri trial that his agency was allowed $8 (£1 12s. 6d.) a month for paying railroad employees for information of compe titive shipments, Mr. E. P. Pratt, the manager of the Kansas City branch of the Consolidated Tank Line Company, forwarding this $8 from Kansas City by his personal cheque. Mr. G. W. Mayer, who succeeded Pratt, reduced this amount to $6 (25s.) a month. The cheques came in blank envelopes without any letter, and the instructions as to what should be done with the money were given verbally. The clerks of five different railways were called upon once a week for this information, which was gene rally written on a small slip of paper and handed to the drayman who took oil to the railroad.
I select this case almost at random as a typical one from an ocean of similar evidence. From the tempter's point of view it certainly seems a very cheap line of damnation.