Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/432



[Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, United Pipe Lines, etc., Testimony. Appendix, pages 732-733.]

, February 15, 1878.

, Third Vice-President, Philadelphia.

Dear Sir: Referring to the conversation I had with you in January, I wish to submit the following facts: That our company has at large expense (involving the payment of several hundred thousand dollars), purchased and created certain pipe-lines to Pittsburg, through which we are able not only to protect the Allegheny Valley road in a paying rate of freight for the oil it carries, but also to secure to that company (by agreement with it) its full proportion of the oil traffic going to Pittsburg.

You are acquainted with the efforts we have put forth in other directions during the last months in which we have acted in thorough accord with the trunk line interests, and I believe I may say without egotism, we have, to the extent of our ability, effectually protected their interests in such action. I here repeat what I once stated to you and which I asked you to receive and treat as strictly confidential, that we have been for many months receiving from the New York Central and Erie Railroads certain sums of money, in no instance less than twenty cents per barrel on every barrel of crude oil carried by each of those roads.

Co-operating, as we are doing, with the Standard Oil Company and the trunk lines in every effort to secure for the railroads paying rates of freight on the oil they carry, I am constrained to say to you that, in justice to the interest I represent, we should receive from your company at least twenty cents on each barrel of crude oil you transport.

The fruit of co-operation referred to has been fully evidenced in the fact that since last fall your company has received fifty to sixty cents per barrel more freight than was obtained by it prior to our co-operation.

In submitting this proposition I feel I should ask you to let this date from the first of November, 1877, but I am willing to accept as a compromise (which is to be re