At the meeting with the officials of the Erie and the Atlantic and Great Western the committee was incensed by being offered a contract similar to that of the South Improve ment Company—on consideration that the original be allowed to stand. It seemed impossible to the railroad men that the oil men really meant what they said and would make no terms save on the basis of no discriminations of any kind to anybody. They evidently believed that if the committee had a chance to sign a contract as profitable as that of the South Improve Company, all their fair talk of "fair play"—"the duty f the common carrier"—"equal chance to all in transporta ion"—would at once evaporate. They failed utterly at first o comprehend that the Oil War of 1872 was an uprising against an injustice, and that the moral wrong of the thing had taken so deep a hold of the oil country that the people as a whole had combineII() restore General McClellan of the Atlantic and Great Western and Mr. Diven, one of the Erie's directors, were the only ones who gave the committee any support in their position.
The final all-important conference with the railroad men was held on March 25, at the Erie offices. Horace Clark, president of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Rail road, was chairman of this meeting, and, according to H. H. Rogers' testimony before the Hepburn Committee, in 1879, there were present, besides the oil men, Colonel Scott, General McClellan, Director Diven, William H. Vanderbilt, Mr. Stebbins, and George Hall. The meeting had not been long in session before Mr. Watson, president of the South Improve ment Company, and John D. Rockefeller presented them selves for admission. Up to this time Mr. Rockefeffe`P had kept well out of sight in:the affair. He had given no inter views, offered no explanations. He had allowed the president of the company to wrestle with the excitement in his own way, but things were now in such critical shape that he came for ward in a last attempt to save the organisation by which he had o been able to concentrate in his refining_ inter ests of Cleveland. With Mr. Watson he knocked for admis sion to the council going on in the Erie offices. The oil men flatly refused to let them in. A dramatic scene followed, Mr. Clark, the chairman, protesting in agitated tones against shut ting out his "life-long friend, Watson." The oil men were obdurate. They would have nothing to do with anybody con cerned with the South Improvement Company. So determined were they that although Mr. Watson came in he was obliged at once to withdraw. A Times reporter who witnessed the little scene between the two supporters of the tottering com pany after its president was turned out of the meeting remarked sympathetically that Mr. Rockefeller soon went
away, "looking pretty blue." The acquiescence of the "railroad kings" in the refusal of the oil men to recognise representatives of the South Iiiii576Ve mentfornpany was followed by an.unwilling promise to break the contracts with the company. Another strong effort was made to persuade the independents to make the same con tracts on condition that they shipped as much oil, but they would not hear of it. They demanded open rates, with no rebates to anyone. Horace Clark and W. H. Vanderbilt par ticularly stuck for this arrangement. Their opposition to the oil men's position was so strong that the latter in reporting it to the Union said.: "We feel it proper to say that we are in no wise indebted to these gentlemen for any courtesy or con sideration received at their hands." So well did the committee fight its battle and so strongly were they supported by the New York refiners that the railroads were finally obliged to consent to revoke the contracts and to make a new one embody ing the views of the Oil Regions. The contract finally signed at this meeting by H. F. Clark for the Lake Shore road, 0. H. P. Archer for the Erie, W. H. Vanderbilt for the Central, George B. McClellan for the Atlantic and Great Western, and Thomas A. Scott for the Pennsylvania, agreed that all shipping of oil should be made on "a basis of perfect equality to all shippers, producers, and refiners, and that no rebates, drawbacks, or other arrangements of any character shall be made or allowed that will give any party the slightest difference in rates or discriminations of any character what ever." * It was also agreed that the rates should not be liable to change either for increase or Acrease without first giving president of the Producers' Union, at least ninety days' notice.
The same rate was put on refined oil from Cleveland, Pitts burg and the creek, to Eastern shipping points; that is, Mr. Rockefeller could send his oil from Cleveland to New York at $1.50 per barrel ; so could his associates in Pittsburg; and this was what it cost the refiner on the creek; but the latter had this advantage: he was at the wells. Mr. Rockefeller and his Pittsburg allies were miles away, and it cost them, by the new contract, fifty cents to get a barrel of crude to their works. The Oil Regions meant that geographical position should count, that the advantages Mr. Rockefeller had by his command of the Western market and by his access to a cheap Eastward waterway should be considered as well as their own position beside the raw product.