Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/297



O doubt the indictment of Mr. Rockefeller in the spring of 1879 seemed to him the work of malice and spite. By seven years of persistent effort he had worked out a well-conceived plan for controlling the oil business of the United States. Another year and he had reason to believe that the remnant of refiners who still rebelled against his intentions would either be convinced or dead and he could rule unimpeded. But here at the very threshold of empire a certain group of people—"people with a private grievance," "mossbacks naturally left in the lurch by the progress of this rapidly developing trade," his colleagues described them to the Hepburn Commission—stood in his way. "You have taken deliberate advantage of the iniquitous practices of the railroads to build up a monopoly," they told him. "We combined to overthrow those practices so