"Seeing that the property had to go, I asked that I might, according to the under standing with the president of the company, retain $15,000 of my stock, but the reply to this request was; 'No outsiders can have any interest in this concern; the Standard Oil Company has "dallied" as long as it will over this matter; it must be settled up to-day or go,' and they insisted upon my signing the bond above referred to.
"The promises made by Mr. Rockefeller, president of the Standard Oil Company, were none of them fulfilled; he neither allowed me to retain any portion of my stock, nor did he in any way assist me in my negotiations for the sale of my stock; but, on the contrary, was largely instrumental in my being obliged to sell the property much below its true value, and requiring me to enter into the oppressive bond above referred to.
"After the arrangements for the sale of the refinery and of my stock were fully com pleted and the property had been sold by myself and the other stockholders, and after I had made arrangements for the disposition of my money, I received a note from Mr. Rockefeller, in reply to one that I had written to him threatening to make the transaction public, saying that he would give me back the business as it stood, or that I might retain stock if I wished to, but this was after the entire transaction was closed, and such arrangements had been made for my money that I could not then conveniently enter into it; and I was so indignant over the offer being made at that late day, after my request for the stock having been made at the proper time, that I threw the letter into the fire and paid no further attention to it."* The letter which Mrs. B destroyed was included in the affidavit in which Mr. Rockefeller answered Mrs. B 's statement. It reads : "November 13, 1878. DEAR MADAM: I have held your note of sIth inst., received yesterday, until to-day, as I wished to thoroughly review every point connected with the negotiations for the purchase of the stock of the B— Oil Company, to satisfy myself as to whether I had unwittingly done anything whereby you could have any * Coupled with Mrs. B—'s affidavit was one of the company's bookkeeper's testifying that the business had been paying an annual net income of $30,00o to $40,000 when the sale to the Standard was made for $79,000, and another from the cashier, who had been present at most of the interviews between Mrs. B— and the Standard agents, and who corroborates her statements in every particular.
right to feel injured. It is true that in the interview I had with you I suggested that if you desired to do so, you could retain an interest in the business of the B— Oil Company, by keeping some number of its shares, and then I understood you to say that if you sold out you wished to go entirely out of the business. That being my
understanding, our arrangements were made in case you concluded to make the sale that precluded any other interests being represented, and therefore, when you did make the inquiry as to your taking some of the stock, our answer was given in accordance with the facts noted above, but not at all in the spirit in which you refer to the refusal in your note. In regard to the reference that you make as to my permitting the business of the B— Oil Company to be taken from you, I say that in this, as all else that you have written in your letter of firth inst., you do me most grievous wrong. It was of but little moment to the interests represented by me whether the business of the B— Oil Company was purchased or not. I believe that it was for your interest to make the sale, and am entirely candid in this statement, and beg to call your attention to the time, some two years ago, when you consulted Mr. Flagler and myself as to selling out your interests to Mr. Rose, at which time you were desirous of selling at considerably less price, and upon time, than you have now received in cash, and which sale you would have been glad to have closed if you could have obtained satisfactory security for the deferred payments. As to the price paid for the property, it is certainly three times greater than the cost at which we could construct equal or better facilities; but wishing to take a liberal view of it, I urged the proposal of paying the $6o,000, which was thought much too high by some of our parties. I believe that if you would recon sider what you have written in your letter, to which this is a reply, you must admit having done me great injustice, and I am satisfied to await upon innate sense of right for such admission. However, in view of what seems your present feelings, I now offer to restore to you the purchase made by us, you simply returning the amount of money which we have invested and leaving us as though no purchase had been made. Should you not desire to accept this proposal, I offer to you one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred shares of the stock at the same price that we paid for the same, with this addition, that we keep the property we are under engagement to pay into the treasury of the B— Oil Company, an amount which, added to the amount already paid, would make a total of $too,000, and thereby make the shares $too each.
"That you may not be compelled to hastily come to conclusion, I will leave open for three days these propositions for your acceptance or declination, and in the mean time believe me, Yours very truly,