3. That by means of these rebates they were able to undersell their competitors, and either to ruin them or force them to sell out at heavy loss.
4. That, whereas in 1870 they controlled nearly 10 per cent. of the American oil refining busi ness, by means of these rebates they had secured in 1880 control of 90 per cent.
5. That when the petroleum well owners constructed pipe lines to pump their oil to the seaboard refineries, the Standard used vexatious litigation, and even open violence, to obstruct the work, and when it was completed bought up a majority of the stock.
6. That although they were legally " common carriers," the Standard constantly refused to pipe oil for other refiners, and thus forced the well owners to sell their crude oil to them at their own price, as in practice the Standard had become the only buyer.
7. That an elaborate system of espionage has been established by which information is corruptly obtained from employees as to ship ment of independent refiners' oil ; and that the oil dealer who receives such oil is then under sold by Standard agents.
8. That in districts where the feeling against the malpractices of the Trust is strong, the Trust runs " bogus independent " oil companies and " anti-Trust" oil shops, and uses them to undersell the oil dealers who really attempt to sell non-Trust oil.
9. That although the rebates are not paid on all the railroads now, there existed as late as 1907—and probably still exist—widespread railroad discriminations giving the Standard advantages over other refiners.
10. That although the Standard constantly claims credit for improving the processes of manufacture and transport, most of the im portant inventions of the industry were invented by others. The main thing the Trust
invented was the secret rebate.
11. That in regard to the Standard's claim to have reduced the price of illuminating oil to the consumer, the Hepburn Congressional Committee found that it had only done so when fresh supplies of petroleum had come on the world's markets, or in order to kill competition.
12. That Mr. Rockefeller and his associates have frequently made on oath before Congres sional Committees and in judicial proceedings false statements about the Trust.
13. That the Standard Oil group has system atically adopted the methods of bribery (direct and indirect) in dealing with politicians and newspapers.
14. That in Great Britain it has successfully obtained official support for the maintenance of a dangerously low flash-point of illuminating oil, which enables it to dump here " export oil" that it is not allowed to sell in the majority of the American States.
15. That the Trust has been successfully prosecuted in the courts of its native land, and that in every country that it enters it is the enemy of legitimate commerce. It either ruins the dealers in its commodities, or reduces them to the position of " tied houses." In fine, the Standard Oil Trust is the most unscrupulous, as well as the most ambitious and successful, combination of capitalists that the world has yet seen. The men it has ruined, the businesses it has wrecked, the little children it has roasted in its oil-fires all these constitute a hideous record of death and destruction which not all the long prayers and the huge alms of John D. Rockefeller should ever induce the world to forget.