In New York City the new tariff and pooling arrange ments caused the greatest uneasiness, for here was the largest group of prosperous independent refiners. They had all allied themselves with the Empire Transportation Company in the spring of 1877 when its fight with the Standard had begun, but they had been dropped immediately when peace negoti ations were begun, and a letter of remonstrance they sent Mr. Scott at the time was never answered.* The experiences of several of these independents have been recorded in court testimony. One or two will suffice here. For instance, among the Eastern refiners was the firm of Denslow and Bush; their works were located in South Brooklyn. They had begun in a very small way in 1870, and by 1879 were doing a business of nearly i,000 barrels of crude a day. They had trans ported nearly all their oil by the Empire Line. After that line went out of business in October, 1877, the contract with Denslow and Bush was transferred to the Pennsylvania Rail road Company. This contract terminated on the first day of May, 1878. Some time in March they received formal notice of its expiration, and solicited an interview with the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad in order to make some arrange ments for the further transportation of their oil. Mr. Cassatt named New York. The meeting was held at Mr. Denslow's office, 123 Pearl Street. Besides Mr. Bush, there were present to meet Mr. Cassatt, Messrs. Lombard, Gregory, King, H. C. Ohlen, and C. C. Burke, all independents. When Mr. Bush was under examination in the suit against the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1879 he gave an account of what happened at this interview: "We asked Mr. Cassatt what rate of freight we should have after the expiration of these contracts, whether we should have as low a rate of freight as the Standard Oil Company or any other shipper ? He said, 'No.' We asked why. 'Well, in the first place, you can't ship as much oil as the Standard Oil Company."Well, if we could ship as much oil'—I think Mr. Lombard put this question—'would we then have the same rate ?' He said, `No.' Why ?"Why, you could not keep the road satis fied; it would make trouble.' And he remarked in connection with that, that the Standard Oil Company was the only party that could keep the roads harmonised or satisfied. He intimated, I believe, that each road had a certain percentage of the oil business, and they could divide that up and give each road its proportion, and in that way keep harmony, which we could not do. Right after that he made the remark that he thought that we ought to fix it up with the Standard; we ought to do something so as to all go on and make some money, and I think we gave him very distinctly to understand that we didn't propose to enter into any 'fix up' where we would lose our identity, or sell out, or be under anybody else's thumb. I believe that he went so far as to say that he would see the Standard, and do everything he could to bring that thing about. We told him very clearly that we didn't want any interference in that direction, and if there was anything to be done, we thought we were quite capable of doing it. The interview perhaps lasted an hour. There was a great deal of talk of one kind and another, but this is, I think, the substance. This interview was in March, 1878, I think.
"Another interview at which I was present was either in June or July. Mr. Scott was present. This interview was brought about because we had been deprived, as we believed, of getting a sufficient number of cars we were entitled to. We had telegraphed or written to Mr. Cassatt—at least, Mr. Ohlen, our agent, had, on several occasions, and tried to get an interview, and finally this one was appointed, at which Mr. Scott would he present. When we arrived there we found Mr. Brundred, from Oil City; and Mr. Scott went on to state that he thought that we were receiving our fair propor tion of cars. They tried to make us believe and feel, I suppose, that we were getting our due proportion, when for some considerable time previous to this we had not been able to do any business in advance; we could only do business from hand to mouth. We could not sell any refined oil unless we absolutely had the crude oil in our posses sion in New York, and Mr. Lombard, one of our number, had sold a cargo of crude oil, I think, of 9,000 barrels, and Denslow and Bush absolutely stopped their refinery for three weeks consequently, in order to let theiroil go to Ayres and Lombard to finish their vessel, because they would only get three or four cars a day; and we stopped our place for three weeks to give them our crude oil, all we could give—our proportion— in order to lift them out and get their vessel cleared. After trying to impress upon us that we were getting our proportion of cars, we asked Mr. Scott substantially the same question we asked Mr. Cassatt in New York, whether we could have, if there was any means by which we could have, the same rate of freight as other shippers got, and he said flatly, 'No% and we asked him then if we shipped the same amount of oil as the Standard, and he said, 'No,' and gave the same reasons Mr. Cassatt
had in New York, that the Standard Oil Company were the only parties that could keep peace among the roads. We stated to Mr. Scott that we would like to know to what extent we would be discriminated against, because we wanted to know what disadvantage we would have to work under. And we went away very much dissatisfied. All the information we got on that point was from Mr. Cassatt in New York, when he stated that the discrimination would be larger on a high rate of freight than on a low rate of freight, which led us to infer that it was a percentage discrimination. That is all the point that I recollect we ever got as to the amount of the commission. We told Mr. Scott that if they hadn't sufficient cars on their road we would like to put some on, and he told us flatly that they had just bought out one line and they would not allow another one to be put on; that if they hadn't cars enough they would build them. He seemed to show considerable feeling that afternoon, and he said : 'Well, you have 1 cost us in fighting for you now a million dollars' (or a million and a half, something like that—a very large sum), 'and we don't propose to go into another fight.' "* Strange as it may seem there were not only men in the refin ing business who were willing to fight under these conditions, there were men among the very ones who had succumbed at the opening of the Standard's onslaught who were ready to try the business again. Among these was William Hark chapter. Mr. Harkness's next experience in the oil business was related to the same committee as that already mentioned: "When I was compelled to succumb," he said, "I thought it was only tempo rarily; that the time would come when I could go into the business I was devoted to. We systematised all our accounts and knew where the weak points were. I was in love with the business. I selected a site near three railroads and the river. I took a run across the water—I was tired and discouraged and used up in 1876, and was gone three or four months. I came back refreshed and ready for work, and had the plans and specifications and estimates made for a refinery that would handle to,000 barrels of oil a day, right on this hundred acres of land. I believed the time had arrived when the Pennsylvania Railroad would see their true interest as common carriers, and the interest of their stockholders and the business interest of the city of Philadelphia, and I took those plans, specifications, and estimates, and I called on Mr. Roberts, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. I had consulted one or two other gentlemen, whose advice was worth having, whether it would be worth my while to go to see President Roberts. I went there and laid the plans before him, and told him I wanted to build a refinery of to,000 barrels capacity a day. I was almost on my knees begging him to allow me to do that. He said; 'What is it you want ?' I said; 'I simply ask to be put upon an equality with everybody else, and especially the Standard Oil Company.' I said; 'I want you to agree with me that you will give me transportation of crude oil as low as you give it to the Standard Oil Company or anybody else for ten years, and then I will give you a written assurance that I will do this refining of moo° barrels of oil a day for ten years.' I asked him j if that was not an honest position for us to be in; I, as a manufacturer, and he, the president of a railroad. Mr. Roberts said there was a great deal of force in what I said, but he could not go into any written assurance. He said he would not go into any such agreement, and I saw Mr. Cassatt. He said in his frank way; 'That is not prac ticable, and you know the reason why.' As this work of absorption went on steadily, persistently, the superstitious fear of resistance to proposals to lease or sell which came from parties known or suspected to be work ing in harmony with the Standard Oil Company, which had been strong in grew almost insuperable. In Cleveland this was particularly true. A proposal from Mr. Rockefeller was certainly regarded popularly as little better than a com mand to "stand and deliver." "The coal oil business belongs to us," Mr. Rockefeller had told Mr. Morehouse. "We have facilities; we must have it. Any concern that starts in business we have sufficient money laid aside to wipe out"*—and peo ple believed him! The feeling is admirably shown in a remark able case still quoted in Cleveland—and which belongs to the same period as the foregoing cases, 1878—a case which took the deeper hold on the public sympathy because the contestant was a woman, the widow of one of the first refiners of the town, a Mr. B , who had begun refining in Cleve land in 186o. Mr. B 's principal business was the manu facture of lubricating oil. Now at the start the Standard Oil Company handled only illuminating oil, and accordingly a contract was made between the two parties that Mr. B should sell to Mr. Rockefeller his refined oil, and that the Standard Oil Company should let the lubricating business in Cleveland alone. This was the status when in 1874 Mr.