Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/144

Rh annulled, and in their place was one signed by officials of all the oil-shipping roads refusing rebates to everybody. His geographical position was such that it cost him under these new contracts fifty cents more to get oil from the wells to New York than it did his rivals on the creek. True, he had many counterbalancing advantages—a growing Western market almost entirely in his hands, lake traffic, close proximity to all sorts of accessories to his manufacturing, but this contract put him on a level with his rivals. By his size he should have better terms than they. What did he do?

He got a rebate. Seven years later Mr. Rockefeller's partner, H. M. Flagler, was called before a commission of the Ohio State Legislature appointed to investigate railroads. He was asked for the former contracts between his company and the railroads, and among others he presented one showing that from "the first of April until the middle of November, 1872," their East-bound rate was $1.25, twenty-five cents less than that set by the agreement of March 25th, between the oil men and the railroads. The discrepancy between the date Mr. Flagler gives for this contract and that of Mr. Vanderbilt's telegram to Mr. Hasson stating that his road had no contract with the Standard Oil Company, April 6, and of Mr. Rockefeller's own telegram stating he had no contracts with the railroads, April 8, the writer is unable to explain. How had Mr. Rockefeller been able to get this rebate? Simply as he had always done—by virtue of the quantity he shipped. He was able to say to Mr. Vanderbilt, I can make a contract to ship sixty car-loads of oil a day over your road—nearly 4,800 barrels; I cannot give this to you regularly unless you will make me a concession; and Mr. Vanderbilt made the concession while he was signing the contract with the oil men. Of course the rate was secret, and Mr. Rockefeller probably understood now, as he had not two months before, how essen