For four days the Congress was in session, and it is a remarkable comment on the seriousness with which it had undertaken its work that, although reporters from all parts of the country interested in oil were present, nothing leaked out. In December a second session of four days was held in Titusville, but no announcement of what was doing was made to the press. Indeed, it was only as lines of action developed that the public became familiar with what the producers had resolved on in the days of secret session which they had held.
Their resolutions had been eminently wise and they under took their support vigorously and intelligently. First and foremost they resolved to stand by all efforts to secure an out let to the seaboard independent of the Standard and the allied railroads. Two enterprises were put before them at once. The first was what was known as the Equitable Petroleum Com pany, an organisation started by one of the most resourceful and active independent men in the oil country, one of whom we are to hear more, Lewis Emery, Jr. This company, in which some zoo oil producers in the Bradford field had taken stock, proposed to lay a pipe-line to Buffalo and to ship their oil thence by the Erie Canal. They had acquired a right of way to Buffalo and had capital pledged to carry out the project. The second enterprise to come before the newly formed union was much more ambitious. It was nothing less than a revival of Mr. Harley's enterprise which had attracted so much attention in 1876. It was revived now by the three men who had been operating the Columbia Conduit Line under a lease—Messrs. Benson, McKelvy and Hopkins, who had been set free by the sale of that property to the Standard. Their experience with the pipe-line business had convinced them it was one of the most lucrative departments of the oit industry. They believed too that oil could be pumped over the mountains, and no sooner were they free than they took up Mr. Harley's old idea and engaged the same engineer he had brought into the enterprise, General Herman Haupt, to survey a route from Brady's Bend on the Allegheny River to Baltimore, Maryland—a distance of 235 miles. To both of these projects the General Council of the Union gave promise of support.
The demand for interstate commerce legislation was re newed at once by the Union, and in December E. G. Patter son, the head of the committee having the matter in hand, pre pared the first draft of an act which was put in formal shape by George B. Hibbard, of Buffalo, counsel employed by the Union for this purpose. Mr. Hibbard also prepared a memo randum of the law on the subject. The bill prepared by Mr. Patterson and Mr. Hibbard was introduced into the House of Representatives in May, 1878, by Lewis F. Watson, whose home was in Warren County, Pennsylvania. It was called into committee and came out as the Regan bill and as such was passed at the end of the year by the House, but only to be smothered later in the Senate. At the same time that the
effort was going in Washington for relief the Legislature of Pennsylvania was being besieged again for a free pipe-line bill and an anti-discrimination bill. Both of these projects failed, and the committee having them in charge said bitterly in its report to the Union: "How well we have succeeded at Harrisburg you all know. It would be in vain for your committee to describe the efforts of the Council in this direc tion. It has been simply a history of failure and disgrace. If it has taught us anything, it is that our present law-makers, as a body, are ignorant, corrupt and unprincipled; that the majority of them are, directly or indirectly, under the control of the very monopolies against whose acts we have been seek ing relief. . . . There has been invented by the Standard Oil Company no argument or assertion, however false or ridicu lous, which has not found a man in the Pennsylvania Legisla ture mean enough to become its champion." On every side indeed the producers hastened to protect themselves against the Lord of the Oil Regions, as Mr. Rocke feller, not inaptly, was called, on the completion of his pipe line monopoly. That they were not merely alarmists in think ing that they must do something to protect their interests was demonstrated sooner than was anticipated. The demonstra tion was hurried by an unforeseen and difficult situation—a great outpouring of oil in a new field—the Bradford or Northern Field in McKean County, Pennsylvania. About the time that Mr. Rockefeller's lordship was realised it became certain that a deposit of oil had been discovered which was going to lead soon to a production vastly in excess of the con sumption, as well as in excess of the then existing facilities for gathering and storing oil. If Mr. Rockefeller wished to keep his monopoly he must, it was evident, enter upon a cam paign of expansion calling for an immense expenditure of energy and money. He must lay pipes in a hundred directions to get the output of new wells; he must build tanks holding thousands of barrels to receive the oil. And all of this must be done quickly if rivals were to be kept out of the way. There was no hesitation on the part of the United Pipe Lines. 1 One of the greatest construction feats the country has ever seen was put through in the years 1878, 1879 and 188o in the Bradford oil field by the Standard interests. It was a wonder ful illustration of the surpassing intelligence, energy and courage with which the Standard Oil Company attacks its problems. But while it was putting through this feat it insti tuted a policy toward the producers which was regarded by them as tyrannical and unjustifiable. The first manoeuvre in this new policy hit the producer in a very tender spot, for it concerned the price he was to receive for oil.