Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/378

Rh Q. If I understand you, the time had not come for raising the freights under these contracts then?

A. I do not know anything about the time; I did not intend to make any such statement.

By Mr. Hambleton.

Q. At that time, as president of the South Improvement Company, was it not the understanding, and was it not your expectation, that the rates would go up at that time as they did go up to the maximum rates named in these contracts?

A. I do not know that as president I had any knowledge of the matter; and as an individual I took no part in the transaction.

Q. The president is an officer supposed to know more about such details than any of the directors or members of the company; and as president of that company I ask you if it was not the general understanding that the rates would go up about that time?

A. I answer distinctly that it was not, and that as president of that company I had nothing to do with the rates then, because the South Improvement Company's contracts had not gone into operation, and neither the South Improvement Company nor any of its officers had any control of the question in any way.

Q. Had not the contracts at that time been signed?

A. The contracts had been signed, but they were held by me personally in escrow and they had not gone into effect.

Q. They had been signed?

A. Yes, but had not gone into effect.

Q. Were not these contracts so signed and held by you as president of the South Improvement Company, and did you not expect that the rates would advance to the maximum named therein at that time?

A. Certainly I did not; and in regard to the premises stated in the first part of your question I do not want to admit the statements you made. I do not suppose the object was to entrap me into an admission of a statement that is not true.

Mr. Hambleton.—I do not wish to entrap you into anything.

Witness.—I say that when you remark that I hold these contracts as president of the South Improvement Company, you mistake; they were not in my hands as president.

Q. I supposed that as president they passed into your hands?

A. They were passed into my hands as a person, and as such, in execution of the trust, I should hold them as much against the South Improvement Company as against anybody else.

Q. You answer my question then that you did not expect them to raise these rates?

A. Certainly I did not; I had no such idea at all.

Q. State how that mistake, or misunderstanding, or error, happened to occur, and what was the cause of it?