Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/260

Rh "right to feel injured. It is true that in the interview I had with you I suggested that if you desired to do so, you could retain an interest in the business of the B Oil Company, by keeping some number of its shares, and then I understood you to say that if you sold out you wished to go entirely out of the business. That being my understanding, our arrangements were made in case you concluded to make the sale that precluded any other interests being represented, and therefore, when you did make the inquiry as to your taking some of the stock, our answer was given in accordance with the facts noted above, but not at all in the spirit in which you refer to the refusal in your note. In regard to the reference that you make as to my permitting the business of the B Oil Company to be taken from you, I say that in this, as all else that you have written in your letter of 11th inst., you do me most grievous wrong. It was of but little moment to the interests represented by me whether the business of the B Oil Company was purchased or not. I believe that it was for your interest to make the sale, and am entirely candid in this statement, and beg to call your attention to the time, some two years ago, when you consulted Mr. Flagler and myself as to selling out your interests to Mr. Rose, at which time you were desirous of selling at considerably less price, and upon time, than you have now received in cash, and which sale you would have been glad to have closed if you could have obtained satisfactory security for the deferred payments. As to the price paid for the property, it is certainly three times greater than the cost at which we could construct equal or better facilities; but wishing to take a liberal view of it, I urged the proposal of paying the $60,000, which was thought much too high by some of our parties. I believe that if you would reconsider what you have written in your letter, to which this is a reply, you must admit having done me great injustice, and I am satisfied to await upon innate sense of right for such admission. However, in view of what seems your present feelings, I now offer to restore to you the purchase made by us, you simply returning the amount of money which we have invested and leaving us as though no purchase had been made. Should you not desire to accept this proposal, I offer to you one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred shares of the stock at the same price that we paid for the same, with this addition, that we keep the property we are under engagement to pay into the treasury of the B Oil Company, an amount which, added to the amount already paid, would make a total of $100,000, and thereby make the shares $100 each.

'That you may not be compelled to hastily come to conclusion, I will leave open for three days these propositions for your acceptance or declination, and in the meantime believe me,"

Mr. Rockefeller says further in the affidavit from which this letter is drawn: "It is not true that I made any promises that I did not keep in the letter and spirit, and it is not true