Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/133

Rh the country, and the South Improvement Company had left it entirely out of its combination. As incensed as the creek itself, the New York interests formed an association, and about the middle of March sent a committee of three, with H. H. Rogers, of Charles Pratt and Company, at its head, to Oil City, to consult with the Producers' Union. Their arrival in the Oil Regions was a matter of great satisfaction. What made the oil men most exultant, however, was their growing belief that the railroads—the crux of the whole scheme—were weakening.

However fair the great scheme may have appeared to the railroad kings in the privacy of the council chamber, it began to look dark as soon as it was dragged into the open, and signs of a scuttle soon appeared. General G. B. McClellan, president of the Atlantic and Great Western, sent to the very first mass-meeting this telegram:

, February 27, 1872. "Neither the Atlantic and Great Western, nor any of its officers, are interested in the South Improvement Company. Of course the policy of the road is to accommodate the petroleum interest."

A great applause was started, only to be stopped by the hisses of a group whose spokesman read the following:

"Contract with South Improvement Company signed by George B. McClellan, president for the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. I only signed it after it was signed by all the other parties."

The railroads tried in various ways to appease the oil men. They did not enforce the new rates. They had signed the contracts, they declared, only after the South Improvement Company had assured them that all the refineries and producers were to be taken in. Indeed, they seem to have realised within a fortnight that the scheme was doomed, and to have been quite ready to meet cordially a committee of oil men which