The pipe-lines thus acquired were at once consolidated with the other Standard lines. Only a few independent lines, and only one of these of importance—the Columbia Conduit— now remained in the Oil Regions. This company had been doing business, since 1875, under the difficulties already de scribed. Dr. Hostetter, the chief stockholder, had become heartily sick of the oil business and wanted to sell. He had approached the Empire Line, and there had been some negoti ations. Then came the fall of the Empire and Dr. Hostetter sought the United Pipe Line. Intent on stopping every out let of oil not under their control the Standard people bought the Columbia Conduit. By the end of the year the entire pipe line system of the Oil Regions was in Mr. Rockefeller's hands. He was the only oil gatherer. Practically not a barrel of oil could get to a railroad without his consent. He had set out to be simply the only oil refiner in the country, but to achieve that purpose he had been obliged to make himself an oil transporter. In such unforseen paths do great ambi tions lead menl The first effect of the downfall of the Empire was a new railroad pool. Indeed when it became evident that the Penn sylvania would yield, the Erie, Central and the Standard had begun preparing a new adjustment, and the papers for this were ready to be signed on October 17, with those trans ferring the pipe-line property. Never had there been an arrangement which gathered u1 so completely the oil outlets, for now the Baltimore and Ohio road came into a pool for the first time. Mr. g. a had always refused the advances of the other roads, hen he saw that the Columbia Con duit Line, his c feeder, was sure to fall into Standard hands; when he an to suspect the Baltimore refiners were going into the combination, 11 realised that if he expected to keep an oil traffic he must join the other roads. The new pool, therefore, was between four roads. Sixty-three per cent. of the oil traffic was conceded to New York, and of the sixty three per cent. going there the Pennsylvania road was to have twenty-one per cent. Thirty-seven per cent. of the traffic was to go to Philadelphia and Baltimore, and of this thirty-seven ' per cent. the Pennsylvania had twenty-six per cent. The Stand ard guaranteed the road not less than 2,000,000 barrels a year, and if it failed to send that much over the road it was to pay it a sum equal to the profits it would have realised upon the quantity in deficit. In return for this guarantee of quantity the Standard was to pay such rates as might be fixed from time to time by the four trunk lines (which rates it was under stood should be so fixed by the trunk lines as to place them on a parity as to cost of transportation by competing lines), and it was to receive weekly a commission of ten per cent. on its shipments it controlled.* No commission was to be allowed any other shipper unless he should guarantee and furnish such a quantity of oil that after de ducting any commission allowed, the road realised from it the same amount of profits as it did from the Standard trade. The points in the agreement were embodied in a letter from William Rockefeller to Mr. Scott. This letter and the answer declaring the arrangement to be satisfactory to the company are both dated October 17.1.
Four months later Mr. Rockefeller was able to take another step of great advantage. He was able to put into operation the system of drawbacks on other people's shipments which the South Improvement Company contracts had provided for, and which up to this point he seems not to have been securely enough placed to demand. There were no bones about the request now. Mr. O'Day, the general manager of the Ameri can Transfer Company, a pipe-line principally in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, which, including its branches, was from eighty to too miles in length, a company now one of the constituents of the United Pipe Line, wrote to Mr. Cassatt: " I here repeat what I once stated to you, and which I wish you to receive and treat as strictly confidential, that we have been for many months receiving from the New York Central and Erie Railroads certain sums of money, in no instance less than twenty cents per barrel on every barrel of crude oil carried by each of these roads." Continuing, Mr. O'Day says: "Co-operating as we are doing with the Standard Oil Company and the trunk lines in every effort to secure for the railroads paying rates of freight on the oil they carry, I am constrained to say to you that in justice to the interests I represent we should receive from your company at least twenty cents on each barrel of crude oil you transport. . . . In submitting this proposition I find that I should
ask you to let this date from November I, 1877, but I am willing to accept as a compromise (which is to be regarded as strictly a private one between your company and ours) the payment by you of twenty cents per barrel on all crude oil shipments commencing with February 1, * _Mr. Cassatt complied with Mr. O'Day's request. In a letter to the comptroller of the road he said that he had agreed to allow this commission after having seen the receipted bills, showing that the New York Central allowed them a commis sion of thirty-five cents a barrel, and the Erie Railroad a commission of twenty cents a barrel on Bradford oil and thirty cents on all other oils. Thus the Standard Oil Company, through the American Transfer Company, received, in addi tion to rebates on its own shipments, from twenty to thirty five cents drawback a barrel on all crude oil which was sent over the trunk lines by other people as well as by itself.t The effect of this new concentration of power was imme diate in all the refining centres of the country. Most of the Baltimore refiners, some eight in number, which up to this time had remained independent, seeing themselves in danger of losing their oil supply, were united at the end of 1877 into I the Baltimore United Oil Company, with J. N. Camden at their head. Mr. Camden was president of the Camden Con solidated Company of Parkersburg, West Virginia, a con cern already in the Standard alliance, and he and his partners held the majority stock in the Baltimore concern. The method of reaching the Baltimore independents who looked with dis like or fear on the Standard was a familiar one : An officer of one of the concerns owned by the Standard Oil Company would approach the outsider who was feeling the pressure and propose a sale or a lease to himself personally. It was an escape, and it usually ended in the complete absorption of the plant by the Standard. A few of the Baltimore interests refused to go into the Baltimore United Oil Company. Among them was a woman, a widow, Mrs. Sylvia C. Hunt, who had conducted a successful refinery there for several years, and whose business ability and energy had been the admiration of all those with whom she had come in contact. Her interests had been particularly cherished by the Empire Line, "Mrs. Hunt's cars" being given precedence many a time by agents at Titusville or other shipping points who knew her story. In the summer of 1877 her works burned out. With a cour age which was generally commented on at the time Mrs. Hunt at once rebuilt and in less than six months had her plant in running order. Then came the fall of the Empire Transportation Company, the sale of the Columbia Conduit Company, and the entrance of the Baltimore and Ohio into the Oil Pool. Every refiner in Baltimore knew what that meant, and the wise sold when Mr. Camden proposed it. Mrs. Hunt, however, did not want to sell. She distrusted the new company. Finally with many misgivings she leased for five years at $5,000 a year. It was less than half she had been making, so she claimed, and among her old friends there was much indigna tion. Colonel Potts, indeed, in telling her story in his "Brief History of the Standard Oil Company," said : "It could fairly have been expected that something of chivalrous feeling would be inspired by the sight of this indomitable spirit who had wrought so noble a work against such great odds. But though fine sentiments and generous words find frequent exodus from the lips of the Standard managers, they are never seconded by generous deeds. They crushed her business and her spirit as remorselessly as they would have killed a dog." These are bitter words written when Colonel Potts was still smarting from his defeat. They were written, too, without reflection that Mrs. Hunt, if allowed to have all the oil she wanted, allowed equal rates, allowed to use her ability and experi ence, allowed freedom to sell in the markets she had built up, would undoubtedly have increased her business. She would have profited by the high prices of refined oil which Mr. Rockefeller was taking all this trouble to secure. She might have grown a formidable competitor even, and disturbed the steadiness of the working of the great machine. Colonel Potts forgot that if the Great Purpose was realised nobody must do business except under Mr. Rockefeller's control.