Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/104

Rh refiners from destroying Cleveland, ending competition, keeping up the price of refined oil, and eliminating speculation. Really a wonderful contrivance for the good of the oil business.

That such was Mr. Rockefeller's argument is proved by abundant testimony from different individuals who succumbed to the pressure. Mr. Rockefeller's own brother, Frank Rockefeller, gave most definite evidence on this point in 1876 when he and others were trying to interest Congress in a law regulating interstate commerce.

"We had in Cleveland at one time about thirty establishments, but the South Improvement Company was formed, and the Cleveland companies were told that if they didn't sell their property to them it would be valueless, that there was a combination of railroad and oil men, that they would buy all they could, and that all they didn't buy would be totally valueless, because they would be unable to compete with the South Improvement Company, and the result was that out of thirty there were only four or five that didn't sell."

"From whom was that information received?" asked the examiner.

"From the officers of the Standard Oil Company. They made no bones about it at all. They said: 'If you don't sell your property to us it will be valueless, because we have got advantages with the railroads.'"

"Have you heard those gentlemen say what you have stated?" Frank Rockefeller was asked.

"I have heard Rockefeller and Flagler say so," he answered.

W. H. Doane, whose evidence on the first rebates granted to the Cleveland trade we have already quoted, told the Congressional committee which a few months after Mr. Rockefeller's great coup tried to find out what had happened in