Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/220

 vented. The Standard determined to play the stock of the Producers' Oil Company, Limited, and the United States Pipe Line, which it had been picking up quietly.

Already one attempt had been made to get into the former concern through one of the most conspicuous and successful producers of the oil country—Colonel John J. Carter, of Titusville, the president of the Carter Oil Company. Colonel Carter owned 300 shares of the stock of the Producers' Oil Company, Limited, and had been elected a member on it; according to the rules governing limited partnership in Pennsylvania, a stockholder must be elected to membership before he can vote his stock. In February, 1894, when a union of the pipe-lines had first been voted, he suddenly appeared in court and got an injunction against the sale. In the hearings on the injunction there came out a fact in regard to Colonel Carter which aroused a storm of wrath against him among the independents. The Standard Oil Company owned sixty per cent. of the Carter Oil Company! A harder fact was to be digested. On April n, 1894, the company met in Warren, Pennsylvania. Colonel Carter was present and voted not only his 300 shares, but 13,013 more! Where had he got them? There was but one conclusion, and it proved to be true—the 13,013 belonged to the Standard Oil Company. They had been loaned to Mr. Carter; there was a form of transfer, but no sale, not even a price having been decided on—evidently in the hope that he, with a few other stockholders who were disaffected, would control the meeting and prevent the union of the pipe-lines. The attempt failed, for the Carter-Standard faction succeeded in getting together only 21,848 shares, while the independents held 30,560. The bitterness over this attack aroused terrible excitement. More than one member of the Warren meeting shouted "traitor" at Colonel Carter, and when the news of what happened reached the Producers' Protective Associa-