When they began the fight the mass of the oil men knew nothing more of the South Improvement Company than its name and the fact that it had secured from the railroads advantages in rates which were bound to ruin all independent refiners of oil and to put all producers at its mercy. Their [ empers were not improved by the discovery that it was a ecret oiganisation, and that it had been at work under their ery eyes for some weeks without their knowing it. At the first ublic meeting this fact came out, leading refiners of the region relating their experience with the "Anaconda." According to one of these gentlemen, J. D. Archbold— the same who afterward became vice-president of the Jtand ard Oil Company, which office he now holds—he and his partners had heard of the scheme some months before. Alarmed by the rumour, a committee of independent refiners had attempted to investigate, but could learn nothing until they had given a promise not to reveal what was told them. When convinced that a company had been formed actually strong enough to force or persuade the railroads to give it special rates and refuse them to all persons outside, Mr. Archbold said that he and his colleagues had gone to the rail way kings to remonstrate, but all to no effect. The South Improvement Company by some means had convinced the rail that they owned the Oil Regions, producers and re finers both, and that hereafter no oil of any account would b shipped except as they shipped it. Mr. Archbold and his partners had been asked to join the company, but had efused, declaring that the whole —business was_iniquitous, that they would fight it to the end, and that in their fight they would have the backing of the oil men as a whole. They excused their silence up to this time by citing the pledge * exacted from them before they were informed of the extent and nature of the South Improvement Company.
Naturally the burning question throughout the Oil Regions, convinced as it was of the iniquity of the scheme, was, Who are the conspirators? Whether the gentlemen concerned regarded themselves in the light of "conspirators" or not, they seem from the first to have realised that it would be discreet not to be identified publicly with the scheme, and to have allowed one name alone to appear in all signed nego tiations. This was the name of the president, Peter H. Wat son. However anxious the members of the South Improve ment Company were that Mr. Watson should combine the honours of president with the trials of scapegoat, it was impos sible to keep their names concealed. The Oil City Derrick, at that time one of the most vigorous, witty, and daring news papers in the country, began a black list at the head of its editorial columns the day after the raise in freight was announced, and it kept it there until it was believed com plete. It stood finally as it appears on the opposite page.
This list was not_exact,...but it enough to go on, and the oil blockade,-to-which_the...Petroleum...Producers' Union
had pledged itself, was. now-enforced against the firms listed, and as far as possible_ against the railroads. All of these refineries had their buyers on the creek, and although sev eral of them were young men generally liked for their per sonal and business qualities, no mercy was shown them. They ' were refused oil by everybody, though they offered from seventy-five cents to a dollar more than the market price They were ordered at one meeting "to desist from their nefarious business or leave the Oil Region," and when they declined they were invited to resign from the oil exchanges of which they were members. So strictly, indeed, was the blockade enforced that in Cleveland the refineries were closed and meetings for the relief of the workmen were held. In spite of the excitement there was little vandalism, the only violence at the opening of the war being at Franklin, where a quantity of the oil belonging to Mr. Watson was run on the ground.
The sudden uprising of the Oil Regions against the South Improvement Company did not alarm its members at first. The excitement would die out, they told one another. All that they needed to do was to keep quiet and stay out of the oil country. But the excitement did not die out. Indeed, with every day it became more intense and more wide-spread. When Mr. Watson's tanks were tapped he began to protest in letters to a friend, F. W. Mitchell, a prominent banker and oil man of Franklin. The company was misunderstood, he complained. "Have a committee of leading producers appointed," he wrote, "and we will show that the contracts with the railroads are as favourable to the producing as to other interests; that the much-denounced rebate will enhance the price of oil at the wells, and that our entire plan in operation and effect will promote every legitimate American interest in the oil trade." Mr. Mitchell urged Mr. Watson to come openly to the Oil Regions and meet the producers as a body. A mass-meeting was never a "deliberative body," Mr. Watson replied, but if a few of the leading oil men would go to Albany or New York, or any place favourable to calm investigation and deliberation, and therefore outside of the atmosphere of excitement which enveloped the oil country, he would see them. These letters were read to the producers, and a motion to appoint a committee was made. It was received with protests and jeers. Mr. Watson was afraid to come to the Oil Regions, they said. The letters were not addressed to the association, they were private—an insult to the body. "We are lowering our dignity to treat with this man Watson," declared one man. "He is free to come to these meetings if he wants to." "What is there to negotiate about?" asked another. "To open a negotiation is to concede that we are wrong. Can we go halves with these middlemen in their swindle?" "He has set a trap for us," declared another. "We cannot treat with him without guilt," and the motion was voted down.