Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/335



[In the case of the Standard Oil Company vs. William C. Scofield et al. in the Court of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.]

J. H. Devereux, being first duly sworn, says that he is forty-eight years of age, and is president of the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad; that in 1868 he became vice-president of the Lake Shore Railroad, and remained in that position as well as president and general manager till 1873. That he has heard read the statements of Robert Hanna and George O. Baslington, in their affidavits filed herein in respect to transportation of oil, and in regard thereto he has to say that his experience with the oil traffic began in 1868 when he went upon the Lake Shore Railroad as vice-president, succeeding Mr. Stone who retired from ill health; that the only written memoranda connected with the business of the company with which he was furnished was a book in which it was stated—probably in Mr. Stone's handwriting—that the representatives of the various oil interests of Cleveland would agree to pay a rate of 1 cent. per gallon on crude oil moved from the regions to Cleveland; that in addition to the inevitable friction arising from the competition of these refiners of Cleveland—probably aggregating twenty-five in number, was the further difficulty of the patent right which the Pennsylvania Railroad claimed to the transportation of oil, and the peculiar differences made by them in the rates given to refiners at Titusville, Pittsburg, and other places all thoroughly in competition with the then very limited refining capacity of Cleveland; that he took up the subject as to whether the Lake Shore Railroad could hope to compete for the transportation of oil, and the end of the matter was that the Jamestown and Franklin Railroad was extended from Franklin to Oil City, the then centre of the producing district, and a sharper contest than ever was produced, growing out of the opposition of the Pennsylvania Railroad in competition; that such rates and arrangements were made by the Pennsylvania Railroad, that it was publicly proclaimed in the public print in Oil City, Titusville, and other places that Cleveland was to be wiped out as a refining centre as with a sponge, and without exception the oil refiners of Cleveland came to affiant as a representative of transportation, and with a single exception expressed their fears that they would have either to abandon their business here or move to Titusville or other points in the Oil Regions; that the only exception to this decision was that offered by Rockefeller, Andrews