Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/199

 early meeting in Oil City and organise. The meeting was held. It was large, and it was followed by others. In a very short time 2,000 oil men were enrolled in a Producers' Protective Association, and thirty-six local assemblies were holding regular meetings throughout the region. There were several important points about the new association, aside from the enthusiasm and determination which animated it:


 * (1) It was a secret order.
 * (2) Its membership was composed entirely of persons outside of and opposed to the Standard Oil Trust, one of its by-laws reading: "No person connected with the Standard Oil Company or any of its allies, as partners, stockholders, or employees, and friendly thereto, shall be elected to membership; and members becoming such shall be liable to expulsion."
 * (3) It proposed "to defend the industry against the aggregations of monopolistic transporters, refiners, buyers and sellers" by handling its own oil.

Hardly had the Producers' Protective Association been organised before Mr. Rockefeller had an opportunity to try his plan for conciliation. An independent movement had been started in the summer of 1887 by certain large producers in favour of a general "shut-down," its object, of course, being to decrease the oil stocks. The president of the Producers' Association, Thomas W. Phillips, who at that time was the largest individual producer in the oil country, his production averaging not less than 6,000 barrels a day, was called into consultation with the leaders of the "shut-down" movement. Mr. Phillips promptly told the gentlemen interested that he would not join in such an undertaking unless the Standard went into it. He pointed out that the Standard owned a large proportion of the 30,000,000 barrels of oil above ground. They had bought it at low prices. If the production was shut down prices would go up and the Standard