Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/370

Rh Company were. I proposed to submit these contracts with the railroad companies to that committee and also the form of contract which the railroad companies required the South Improvement Company to enter into with the producers, before these contracts went into effect.

Q. Have you a copy of that communication or letter?

A. It was a telegram.

Q. Have you a copy of it here?

A. I have not at present.

Q. Have you it in your possession, anywhere, and can you lay it before the committee?

A. I may have it; am not sure.

Q. Did you receive a reply to that communication?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Was it stated in your communication that you proposed to lay before the committee the form of contract to be entered into with the producers?

A. No, sir. I proposed to lay that before the committee if it should be appointed.

Q. If you are not able to furnish a copy of that communication I will ask you to state orally its contents.

A. I could not give you the words of it; it was in general terms asking that they appoint a committee to confer with a committee of the South Improvement Company.

Q. To confer in reference to what?

A. I do not know that I should be safe in undertaking to say; I know what my object was in writing it.

Q. That you have stated. If you received a reply from Mr. Mitchell, state whether it was by letter or telegram.

A. I received a reply by telegraph from Mr. Mitchell, stating that the meeting of the producers received the communication with scorn—as of course they would if read to them, as a mass-meeting is always called for a specific object.

Q. That was not in his reply?

A. No, sir, it was not. I replied to him that I had intended the communication to him to be for the purpose of laying it before a few of the principal producers; that to lay the proposition before the meeting was of course to insure its defeat, because the meeting had convened for a predetermined purpose, which was to denounce and treat with scorn the South Improvement Company, because the South Improvement Company had been represented to them as hostile to their interests. This last perhaps was not in the communication.

By Mr. Hambleton.

Q. Have you a copy of that paper which you addressed to Mr. Mitchell?

A. I am not sure whether I have or not. It was a telegram.

Q. Did that substantially close the written communications between you and the producers upon that subject?