Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/215

 uneasiness in independent circles. How much would the Standard get? What would they do with it? They were soon to find out.

Before the use to be made of the stock developed, however, the Standard turned against the independents the most powerful and cruel weapon it wields—its control of the markets. The refiners were to be driven from the combination. The extent to which cutting was carried on for two years, beginning with the fall of 1893, is clear from a comparison of prices. In January of 1893 crude oil was selling at 53½ cents a barrel and refined oil for export at 5.33 cents a gallon. Throughout the year the price of crude advanced until in December it was 78⅜ cents. Refined, on the contrary, fell, and it was actually eighteen points lower in December than it had been twelve months before. Throughout 1894 the Standard kept refined oil down; the average price of the year was 5.19 cents a gallon, in face of the average crude market of 83¾ cents The following table shows the variation from 1890 to 1897 in price of crude oil per barrel of 42 gallons, and the price of refined oil per gallon in barrels in New York:

—lower than in January, 1893, with crude at 53½ cents a barrel!

This much for the New York end of the export business. In Germany, where the export oil of the independents all went, it being handled there by one dealer, Herr Poth, whose depot was Mannheim, on the Rhine, prices were cut at every point which the independent oil reached. It was a matter of life and death to keep the foreign market they had devel-