It is not only in the power of the Standard to cut off out siders from it, it is able to keep up transportation prices. Mr. Rockefeller owns the pipe system—a common carrier—and the refineries of the Standard Oil Company pay in the final accounting cost for transporting their oil, while outsiders pay just what they paid twenty-five years ago. There are lawyers who believe that if this condition were tested in the courts, the National Transit Company would be obliged to give the same rates to others as the Standard refineries ultimately pay. It would be interesting to see the attempt made.
Not only are outside refiners at just as great disadvantage in securing crude supply to-day as before the Interstate Com merce Commission was formed; they still suffer severe dis crimination on the railroads in marketing their product. There are many ways of doing things. What but discrim ination is the situation which exists in the comparative rates for oil freight between Chicago and New Orleans, and Cleveland and New Orleans? All, or nearly all, of the refined oil sold by the Standard Oil Company through the Mississippi Valley and the West is manufactured at Whit ing, Indiana, close to Chicago, and is shipped on Chicago rates. There are no important independent oil works at Chicago. Now at Cleveland, Ohio, there are independent refiners and jobbers contending for the market of the Mis sissippi Valley. See how prettily it is managed. The rates between the two Northern cities and New Orleans in the case of nearly all commodities is about two cents per hun dred pounds in favour of Chicago. For example, the rate on flour from Chicago is 23 cents per ioo pounds; from Cleve land, 25 cents per ioo pounds; on canned goods the rates are 33 and 35; on lumber, 31 and 33; on meats, 51 and 54; on all sorts of iron and steel, 26 and 29; but on petroleum and its products they are 23 and 33! In the case of Atlanta, Georgia, a similar vagary of rates ex ists. Thus Cleveland has, as a rule, about two cents advantage per ioo pounds over Chicago. Flour is shipped from Chicago to Atlanta at 34 cents, and from Cleveland at 32%; lumber at 32 and 28%; but Cleveland refiners actually pay 48 cents to Atlanta, while the Standard only pays 45 from Whiting.
There is a curious rule in the Boston and Maine Railroad in regard to petroleum shipments. On all commodities except petroleum, what is known as the Boston rate applies, but oil does not get this. For instance, the Boston rate applies to Salem, Massachusetts, on all traffic except petroleum, and that pays four cents more per ioo pounds to Salem than to Boston.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad gives no through rates on petroleum from Western points, although it gives them on every other commodity. It does not refuse to take oil, but it charges the Boston rate plus the local rates. Thus, to use an illustration given by Mr. Prouty, of the In terstate Commerce Commission, in a recent article, if a Cleve land refiner sends into the New Haven territory, say to New Haven, a car-load of oil, he pays 24 cents per ioo pounds to Boston and the local rate of 12 cents from Boston to New Haven. On any other commodity he would pay the Boston rate. Besides, the rates on petroleum have been materially advanced over what they were when the Interstate Commerce Bill was passed in 1887, although on other commodities they have fallen. In 1887 grain was shipped from Cleveland to
Boston for 22 cents, iron for 22, petroleum for 22. In 1889 the rate on grain was 15 cents, on iron zo cents, and on petro leum 24. Of course it may be merely a coincidence that the New Haven territory can be supplied by the Standard Oil Company from its New York refineries by barge, and that William Rockefeller is a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
An independent refiner of Titusville, Pennsylvania, T. B. Westgate, told the Industrial Commission in 1898 that his concern was barred from shipping their products to nearly all New England and Canadian points by the refusal of the roads to give the same advantages in tariff which other freight was allowed. Mr. Westgate made the suggestive comment that very few railroads ever solicited oil trade. He pointed out that when the United States Pipe Line was building, agents of various roads were after the oil men soliciting shipments of the pipe, etc., to be used. "We could ship iron, but the oil —we must not handle. That is probably the password that goes over." Examples of this manipulation might be multiplied. There is no independent refiner or jobber who tries to ship oil freight that does not meet incessant discouragement and discrimina tion. Not only are rates made to favour the Standard refining points and to protect their markets, but switching charges and dock charges are multiplied. Loading and unloading facili ties are refused, payment of freights on small quantities are demanded in advance, a score of different ways are found to make hard the way of the outsider. "If I get a barrel of oil out of Buffalo," an independent dealer told the writer not long ago, "I have to sneak it out. There are no public docks ; the railroads control most of them, and they won't let me out if they can help it. If I want to ship a car-load they won't take it if they can help it. They are all afraid of offending the Standard Oil Company." This may be a rather sweeping statement, but there is too much truth in it. There is no doubt that to-day, as before the Interstate Commerce Commission, a community of interests exists between railroads and the Standard Oil Company suffi ciently strong for the latter to get any help it wants in making it hard for rivals to do business. The Standard owns stock in most of the great systems. It is represented on the board of directors of nearly all the great systems, and it has an immense freight not only in oil products, but in timber, iron, acids, and all of the necessities of its factories. It is allied with many other industries, iron, steel, and copper, and can swing freight away from a road which does not oblige it. It has great influ ence in the money market and can help or hinder a road in securing money. It has great influence in the stock market and can depress or inflate a stock if it sets about it. Little wonder that the railroads, being what they are, are afraid to "disturb their relations with the Standard Oil Company," or that they keep alive a system of discriminations the same in effect as those which existed before 1887.