Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/172

Rh rel when refined was selling at twenty-six cents a gallon. Either association could discontinue the agreement on ten days' notice. The producers, before signing the contract, insisted that the Refiners' Combination sign an agreement to take no rebates as long as the alliance lasted. This agreement in regard to rebates read as follows:

"Whereas, it is deemed desirable to execute a contract of even date herewith between the Petroleum Producers' Association and the Petroleum Refiners' Association for the purpose of securing a co-operation for mutual protection, it is agreed by the Refiners' Association that sections one and three of a contract made the 25th of March, 1872, between certain trunk lines of railroads and a committee of producers and refiners shall be and remain in full force.

The sections of the contract of the 25th of March referred to agreed that no rebates or contracts or other arrangements should be made which would give any party the slightest difference in rates, and that the rates should not be changed either for increase or decrease without first giving Mr. Hasson, the president of the Producers' Union, at least ninety days' notice in writing. As we now know, Mr. Rockefeller himself was receiving rebates when he signed this agreement.

And now, at last, after five months of incessant work, the agency was ready to begin disposing of oil. They set to work diligently at once to apportion the 200,000 barrels the refiners had bought among the different districts. It was a slow and irritating task, for a method of apportionment and of gathering had to be devised, and, as was to be expected, it aroused more or less dissatisfaction and many charges of favouritism. The agency had the work well under way, however, and had shipped about 50,000 barrels when, on January 14, it was suddenly announced that the refiners had refused to take any more of the contract oil!

There was a hurried call of the Producers' Council and a