Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/177



HROUGHOUT 1872, while the producers and refiners were working out associations and alliances to regulate the output of crude and refined oil, the freight rates over the three great oil-carrying roads were publicly supposed to be those settled by the agreement of March 25. Except by the sophisticated it was believed that the railroads were keeping their contracts. The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the New York Central had never kept them, as we have seen. Mr. Flagler's statement that the Standard received a rebate of twenty-five cents a barrel from April 1 to November 15, 1872, would seem to show that while with one hand Mr. Clark and Mr. Vanderbilt signed the agreement with the oil men that henceforth freights should be "on a basis of perfect equality to all