Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/138

Rh 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.

This contract was the first effective thrust into the great bubble. Others followed in quick succession. On the 28th the railroads officially annulled their contracts with the company. About the same time the Pennsylvania Legislature repealed the charter. On March 30 the committee of oil men sent to Washington to be present during the Congressional Investigation, now about to begin, spent an hour with President Grant. They wired home that on their departure he said: "Gentlemen, I have noticed the progress of monopolies, and have long been convinced that the national government would have to interfere and protect the people against them." The President and the members of Congress of both parties continued to show interest in the investigation, and there was little or no dissent from the final judgment of the committee, given early in May, that the South Improvement Company was the "most gigantic and daring conspiracy" a free country had ever seen. This decision finished the work. The "Monster" was slain, the Oil Regions proclaimed exultantly.

And now came the question, What should they do about the blockade established against the members of the South Improvement Company? The railroads they had forgiven; should they forgive the members of the South Improvement