Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/427



[Proceedings in Relation to Trusts, House of Representatives, 1888. Report Number 31 12, pages 774-775-]

I would like the privilege of explaining about that 10 per cent, commission. The railroad companies, as perhaps Mr. Gowen will remember, he at that time having been head of the Reading Railroad, tried and did agree among themselves for divisions of the oil business. I know that they agreed among themselves that a certain percentage of it the New York Central should take; a certain other percentage the Erie should take; a certain other percentage the Pennsylvania Railroad should take; and a certain other percentage the Baltimore and Ohio should take. We were only anxious that uniform rates should be maintained by these roads. All these roads, and each me of the roads, found it impossible to secure the divisions of the business as they lad agreed upon. Notwithstanding, we co-operated with them, for we were heartily in favour of its being done and were only seeking for a uniformity of rates by the different roads. But as any gentleman connected with railroad interests well knows there always is that desire to get more than belongs to the line. That desire kept cropping out in the practical shape of cutting under rates for the sake of getting a little more, each road feeling that it was not getting enough to insure it its percentage. The Standard Oil Company at that time owned a very large percentage of the entire oil traffic. It was possible for it to do a service for the roads that the roads were unable to do for themselves. That service, however, involved a good many hardships.

The practical working of it was this, that at the end of each month after the arrangement had been made, each of these railroad companies, they first having agreed how they would divide among themselves and not seek to go beyond that certain percentage—at the end of each month each railroad company sent to us a statement of the number of barrels of oil they had transported during the month. It was incumbent upon us during the succeeding month to ship over the road or roads which had received less than its percentage an amount during that following month sufficient to bring up the deficit of the previous month. Undertaking to do that meant, as I well knew at the time, a responsibility imposed upon us, and an obligation to run refineries at certain