Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/148



HE feeling of outrage and resentment against the Standard Oil Company, general in the Oil Regions at the close of the Oil War because of the belief that it intended to carry on the South Improvement Company in some new way, was intensified in the weeks immediately following the outbreak by the knowledge that Mr. Rockefeller had been so enormously benefited by the short-lived concern. Here he was shipping Eastward over one road between 4,000 and 5,000 barrels of refined oil a day—oil wrung from his neighbours by an outrageous conspiracy, men said bitterly. This feeling was still keen when Mr. Rockefeller and several of his colleagues in the South Improvement scheme suddenly, in May, 1873, appeared on the streets of Titusville. The men who had fought him so desperately now stared in amazement at the smiling,