Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/111

Rh shipper already quoted, told how suddenly on the 22d of February, without notice, his rate from the Oil Regions to Cleveland was put up from thirty-five cents a barrel to sixty-five cents, an advance of twenty-four dollars on a carload. Mr. Josiah Lombard of the New York refining firm of Ayres, Lombard and Company was buying oil for his company at Oil City. Their refinery was running about 12,000 barrels a month. On the 19th of February the rate from Oil City to Buffalo, which had been forty cents a barrel, was raised to sixty-five cents, and a few days later the rate from Warren to New York was raised from eighty-seven cents to $2.14. Mr. Lombard was not aware of this change until his house in New York reported to him that the bills for freight were so heavy that they could not afford to ship and wanted to know what was the matter.

On the morning of February 26, 1872, the oil men read in their morning papers that the rise which had been threatening had come; moreover, that all members of the South Improvement Company were exempt from the advance. At the news all oildom rushed into the streets. Nobody waited to find out his neighbour's opinion. On every lip there was but one word, and that was "conspiracy." In the vernacular of the region, it was evident that "a torpedo was filling for that scheme."

In twenty-four hours after the announcement of the increase in freight rates a mass-meeting of 3,000 excited, gesticulating oil men was gathered in the opera house at Titusville. Producers, brokers, refiners, drillers, pumpers were in the crowd. Their temper was shown by the mottoes on the banners which they carried: "Down with the conspirators"— "No compromise"—"Don't give up the ship!" Three days