Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/174

 pal subject. Fully 1,000 pages of a report of 1,500 pages are devoted to Mr. Rockefeller's creation—five times the space given to the Sugar Trust, ten times that given to the Whiskey Trust. The testimony was wide in range. Indeed, from the volume alone, a pretty complete history of the Standard Oil Company up to 1888 could be written. Here are found the South Improvement Company charter and contracts in full. Here is Mr. Cassatt's testimony, taken in the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. the Pennsylvania Railroad, showing the character of the rebates the Standard Combination was able to secure from the railroads at that time. Here is a partial history of the growth of the Standard pipe-lines. Many personal histories of refiners driven out of business by the conditions brought about by railroad discriminations; full accounts of the war of the producing element on the Standard; all of the testimony in the Buffalo case, where two refiners were found guilty of conspiring to ruin an independent refining concern; the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the cases of George Rice; and much interesting explanation of various matters by leading Standard Oil officials appear in the report.

Mr. Rockefeller was on the stand, and one item of his testimony affords a curious comparison. On the 28th of February, when before the New York Senate committee, Mr. Rockefeller was asked if he was not a member of the South Improvement Company.

"I was not," he replied.

On the 30th of the April following, when before the House Committee, the following colloquy took place:

It was in this investigation that Henry M. Flagler gave