The scars left in the Oil Regions by the Standard Combination _ of 1875-1879 are too deep and men and women of this generation to forget them,.
In Pittsburg the same thing was happening. At the begin ning of the work of absorption-1874—there were between twenty-two and thirty refineries in the town.* As we have seen, Lockhart and Frew sold to the Standard Oil Company of Cleveland some time in (187)In the fall of that year a new company was formed in Pittsburg, called the Standard Oil Company of Pittsburg. Its president was Charles Lock haiiT its William Frew, David Bushnell, H. M. Flagler, and W. G. Warden—all members of the Standard Oil Company and four of them stockholders in the South Im provement Company. This company at once began to lease or buy refineries. Many of the Pittsburg refiners made a valiant fight to get rates on their oil which would enable them to run independently. To save expense they tried to bring oil from the oil fields by barge; the pipe-lines in the pool refused to run oil to barges, the railroad to accept oil brought down by barge. An independent pipe-line attempted to bring it to Pittsburg, but to reach the works the pipe-line must run under a branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. It refused to permit this, and for months the oil from the line was hauled in wagons from the point where it had been held up, over the railroad track, and there repiped and carried to Pittsburg. At every point they met interference until finally, one by one they gave in. According to Mr. Frew, who in 1879 was examined as to the condition of things in Pittsburg, the company began to "acquire refiners" in 1875. In 1877 they bought their last one; and at the time Mr. Frew was under examination he could not remember but one refinery in operation in Pitts burg not controlled by his company.
Nor was it refiners only who sold out. All departments of the trade began to yield to the pressure. There was in the oil business a class of men known as shippers. They bought crude oil, sent it East, and sold it to refineries there. Among the largest of these was Adnah Neyhart, whose active repre sentative was W. T. Scheide. Now to Mr. Rockefeller the independent shipper was an incubus ; he did a business which, in his judgment, a firm ought to do for itself, and reaped a profit which might go direct into the business. Besides, so long as there were shippers to supply crude to the Eastern refineries at living prices, so long these concerns might resist offers to sell or lease.
Some time in the fall of 1872 Mr. Scheide began to lose his customers in New York. He found that they were making
some kind of a working arrangement with the Standard Oil Company, just what he did not know. But at all events they o longer bought from him but from the Standard buyer, [ . A. Bostwick and Company. At the same time he became con-, vinced that Mr. Rockefeller was after his business. "I knew that they were making some strenuous efforts to get our busi ness," he told the Hepburn Commission in 1879, "because I used to meet Mr. Rockefeller in the Erie office." At the same time that he was facing the loss of customers and the demoral ising conviction that the Standard Oil Company wanted his business, he was experiencing more or less disgust over busi ness conditions in New York. "I did not like the character of my customers there," Mr. Scheide told the committee. "I did not think they were treating us fairly and squarely. There was a strong competition in handling oil. The competition had got to be so strong that `outside refiners,' as they called them selves then, used to go around bidding up the price of their works on the Standard Oil Company, and they were using me to sell their refineries to the Standard. They would say to refiners: `Neyhart will do so and so, and we are going to continue running.' And they would say to us that the Stand ard was offering lower prices. I recollect one instance in which they, after having made a contract to buy oil from me if I would bring it over the Erie Railway, broke that con tract for the 1-128th part of a cent a gallon. I sold out the next week." When Mr. Scheide went to the freight agent of the Erie road, Mr. Blanchard, and told him of his decision to sell, Mr. Blanchard tried to dissuade him. During the conver sation he let out a fact which must have convinced Mr. Scheide more fully than ever that he had been wise in deter - mining to give up his business. Mr. Blanchard told him as a reason for his staying and trusting to the Erie road to keep its contracts with him that the Standard Oil Company had been offering him five cents more a barrel than Mr. Scheide was paying them, and would take all their cars, and load them all regularly if they would throw him over and give them the business. It is interesting to note that when Mr. Scheide sold in the spring of 1875, it was, as he supposed, to Charles Pratt and Company. Well informed as he was in all the intri cacies of the business—and there were few abler or more energetic men in trade at the time—he did not know that Charles Pratt and Company had been part and parcel of the Standard Oil Company since October, 1874.