Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/298

Rh far as the oil business was concerned. You not only refused to support us in this contention, you persuaded or forced the railroads to make you the only recipient of their illegal favours; more than that, you developed the unjust practices, forcing them into forms unheard of before. Not only have you secured rebates of extraordinary value on all your own shipments, you have persuaded the railroads to give you a commission on the oil that other people ship. You are guilty of plotting against the prosperity of an industry." And they indicted him with eight of his colleagues for conspiracy.

The evidence on which the oil men based this serious charge has already been analysed. At the moment they brought their suit for conspiracy what was their situation? They had several months before driven the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to bring suits against four railroads operating within its borders and against the Standard pipe-lines for infringing their duties as common carriers. Partial testimony had been taken in the case against the Pennsylvania road and in that against the United Pipe Lines. These suits, though far from finished, had given the Producers' Union the bulk of the proof on which they had secured the indictment of the Standard officials for conspiracy. Now, since the railroads and the pipe-lines were the guilty ones—that is, as it was they who had granted the illegal favours, and as they were the only ones that could surely be convicted, it seems clear that the only wise course for the producers would have been to prosecute energetically and exclusively these first suits. But evident as the necessity for such persistency was, and just after Mr. Cassatt had startled the public and given the Union material with which it certainly in time could have compelled the commonwealth to a complete investigation, the producers interrupted their work by bringing their spectacular suit for conspiracy—a suit which perhaps might have been properly