Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/204

 stake, and who turned all their strength to saving it, the association would undoubtedly have gone to pieces. Chief among these men were Lewis Emery, Jr., and C. P. Collins, of Bradford, Pennsylvania; J. W. Lee and David Kirk, of Pittsburg; A. D. Wood, of Warren; Michael Murphy, of Philadelphia; Rufus Scott, of Wellsville; J. B. Aiken, of Washington; R. J. Straight, of Bradford; Roger Sherman and M. W. Quick, of Titusville. They urged an immediate meeting of the General Assembly, at which a plan for co-operative action should be adopted and at once put into force.

On January 28, 1891, the General Assembly convened at Warren, Pennsylvania. The whole miserable story of the co-operative plan which the executive board had worked out, and its destruction by the desertion of the Union Oil Company, came out. It was at once evident that, instead of disheartening the Assembly, it was going to harden their determination and spur them to action; that they would not leave Warren until they had something to work on. The session lasted three days, and before finally adjourning it had adopted a drastic plan, framed by a committee of nine, of which Mr. Quick was chairman. This plan aimed, so the resolution adopted by the Assembly stated, to cut off the supplies of the producers' oil from the Standard Trust! This was to be accomplished by forming a limited partnership, whose subscribers should all be trusted members of the Producers' Protective Association (only persons having no affiliation with the Standard Oil Company were members of the Producers' Protective Association, it will be remembered), and which should aim to take care of the crude oil from the wells of the producers who went into the movement, furnish it local transportation, and find a market for it either by building independent refineries or by alliance with those already in existence.

From Warren the delegates went home to work for the