Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/431

Rh provided that you advise us in writing within ten days that your company accept, and will carry out, its part of the arrangement for the like term. In entering into this agreement we desire to put ourselves on record as expressing our wish and intention of making our business relations with your company such that not only your main lines but the connecting lines controlled by you, especially the Allegheny Valley Railroad, shall secure the best possible results from the oil traffic consistent with our existing obligations to other transportation interests. We feel that the location of our refineries—all of which can be reached by your lines—should naturally create a close alliance between your company and ours, and that the best results from this important traffic can only be secured to yourselves and ourselves, and, we might add, to the entire petroleum interests of the country, by the establishment of friendly and mutually satisfactory arrangements between us.

, October 17, 1877.

, Vice-President Standard Oil Company.

My Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of this date, reciting the understanding and agreement to exist between the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and your company for a period of five years.

I beg leave to say that the same covers the whole basis of the arrangements, and is satisfactory to this company—the provisions of which will be duly carried out by it. President.