Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/144

 Standard Oil Company has deliberately destroyed property to get rid of rivals. The case is of importance not only as showing to what abuses the Standard policy of making it hard for a rival to do business will lead men like the Everests, but it shows to what lengths a hostile public will go in interpreting the acts of men whom it has come to believe are lawless and relentless in pursuing their own ends. The public, particularly the oil public, has always been willing to believe the worst of the Standard Oil Company. It read into the Buffalo case deliberate arson, and charged not only the Everests, but the three co-directors, with the overt acts. They refused to recognise that no evidence of the connection of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Archbold and Mr. McGregor with the overt acts was offered, but demanded that they be convicted on presumption, and when the judge refused to do this they cursed him as a traitor. To-day, in spite of the full airing this case has had in the courts and investigations, Judge Haight is still accused of selling himself to a corporation, and Mr. Rogers is accused daily in Montana of having burned a refinery in Buffalo. As a matter of fact, no refinery was burned in Buffalo, nor was it ever proved that Mr. Rogers knew anything of the attempts the Everests made to destroy Matthews's business.