The charge of monopoly Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle sustained by a remarkable array of affidavits—the most dam aging set for the Standard Oil Company which had ever been brought together. It contained the affidavits of various indi viduals who had been in the refining business in Cleveland at the time of the South Improvement Company and who had sold out in the panic caused by it. It contained a review of the havoc which that scheme and the manipulation of the railroads by the Standard which followed it had caused in the refining trade in Pennsylvania, and it gave the affidavits of Mrs. B and of her secretary and others concerning the circumstances of her sale in 1878 (see Chapter VI). The affidavits filed by John D. Rockefeller, Oliver H. Payne and Henry M. Flagler in reply to the set presented by Sco field, Shurmer and Teagle are curious reading. From the point of view of our present knowledge they deny a number of things now known to be true.* It was not necessary, however, for the defendants to have presented their elaborate array of evidence to support the charge of intended monopoly. The character of the agree ment itself was sufficient to prevent any judge from attempt ing to enforce it. The amazement was that the Standard Oil Company ever had the hardihood to ask for its enforcement. "That it should venture to ask the assistance of a court of equity to enforce a contract to limit the production and raise the price of an article of so universal use as kerosene oil," said the Chicago Tribune, "shows that the Standard Oil Company believed itself to have reached a height of power and wealth that made it safe to defy public opinion." This case is not the only one belonging to the period which goes to support the opinion of the Tribune.
Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle were now obliged to stand on their own feet. They could refine all the oil they wished, but they must make their own freight contracts, and they found rates when you worked with Mr. Rockefeller were vastly different from rates when you competed with him. The agent of the Lake Shore Railroad, by which most of their shipments went, told them frankly that they could not have the rates of the Standard unless they gave the same vol ume of business. The discrimination against them was serious. For instance, in 188o, when the Standard paid sixty-five cents a barrel from Cleveland to Chicago, Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle paid eighty. From April 1 to July 1, 1881, the Standard paid fifty-five cents and their rival eighty cents; from July 1 to November 1, 1881, the rates were thirty-five and seventy cents respectively, and so it went on for three years, when the firm, despairing of any change, took the case into court. This case, fought through all the courts of Ohio, and in i886 taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, is one of the clearest and cleanest in existence for studying all the factors in the rebate problem—the argument and pressure by which the big shipper secures and keeps his advantage, the theory and defence of the railroad in grant ing the discrimination, the theory on which the suffering small shipper protests, and finally the law's point of view. The first trial of the case was in the Court of Common Pleas, and the refiners won. The railroad then appealed to the Dis trict Court (the present Circuit Court), where it was argued. So "important and difficult" did the judges of the District Court find the questions involved to be, that on the plea of the railroad they sent their findings of the facts in the case to the Supreme Court of the state for decision—a privilege they had under the law in force at that time.
These findings are elaborate, including some twenty-three propositions.* They have been confused by certain writers with the opinion on them given later by the Supreme Court; for instance, in an economic study recently published— "The Rise and Progress of the Standard Oil Company,"—the twelfth and thirteenth and part of the fourteenth proposition which the District Court sent up to the Supreme Court in its "findings of facts" are quoted separately, and the inference from the context is that the writer supposed he was citing part of the court's opinion. As the reader will see from what fol lows, the paragraphs in question are important, for, taken as quoted, they seem to show that the rebate the Standard re ceived, and which Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle wanted, was on account of facilities it gave which the other refiners could not give: "The court further find that prior to 1875 it was a question whether the Standard Oil Company would remain in Cleveland or remove its works to the oil-producing country, and such question depended mainly upon rates of transportation from Cleve land to market; that prior thereto said Standard Company did ship large quantities of its products by water to Chicago and other lake points, and from thence distributed the same by rail to inland markets; that it then represented to defendant the prob ability of such removal; that water transportation was very low during the season of navigation; that unless some arrangement was made for rates at which it could ship the year round as an inducement, it would ship by water and store for winter distribution; that it owned its tank-cars and had tank stations and switches, or would have, at Chicago, Toledo, Detroit and Grand Rapids, on and into which the cars and oil in bulk could be delivered and unloaded without expense and annoyance to defendant; that it had switches at Cleveland leading to its works at which to load cars, and would load and unload all cars; that the quantity of oil to be shipped by the company was very large, and amounted to ninety per cent. or more of all the oil manufactured or shipped from Cleveland, and that if satisfactory rates could be agreed upon it would ship over defendant's road all its oil products for territory and markets west and northwest of Cleveland, and agree that the quantity for each year should be equal to the amount shipped the preceding year; that upon the faith of these representations the defendant did enter into the contract and arrange ment substantially as set forth in defendant's answer; that the rates were not fixed rates, but depended upon the general card tariff rates as charged from time to time, but substantially to be carried from time to time for about ten cents per barrel less than tariff rates, and, in consideration of such reduced rates as to bulk oil, the Standard Company agreed to furnish its own cars and tanks, load them on switches at dis tributing points, and unload them into distributing tanks, and was also to load and unload oil shipped in barrels, and without expense to defendant, and with, by reason thereof, less risk to defendant, which entered into the consideration, and was also to ship all its freight to points west and northwest of Cleveland, except small quantities lake ports not reached by rail, and to so manage the shipments, as to cars and times, as would be most favourable to defendant; that defendant then agreed to said terms; that said agreement so made in 1875 has remained in force ever since.