Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/227

 with a body of railroad men armed with picks and bars, who invaded the camp. "I told the boys," said Mr. Emery in describing the incident to the Industrial Commission in 1899, " to take the men by the shoulders and the seat of the pants, and take them out and lay them down carefully, which they did." The next day two wrecking-cars, with 250 men, came down the road and charged the camp, but again they were routed. The matter was taken by mutual agreement into court, and while Mr. Emery was before the justice of the peace, two locomotives were run down and the camp attacked with hot water and coals!

By this time the whole countryside was aroused. The unfairness of the thing was so patent that even the railroad employees engaged in it did not hestitatehesitate [sic] to say, in excuse of their employers, that it was the Standard Oil Company which was at the bottom of the opposition! As for the inhabitants, they offered any aid they could give. The local G. A. R. sent forty-eight muskets to the scene of war. Mr. Emery bought eighteen Springfield rifles, the camp was barricaded, and for seven months the pipes were guarded while the courts were deciding the legal title to the crossing.

This interim was employed by the pipe-line people in an attempt to get a free pipe-line bill through the New Jersey Legislature. If this could be done they could go under the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western without its consent. The bill was introduced in February, 1896, J. W. Lee, Hugh King and Lewis Emery, Jr., all appearing before the committee to argue for it. At first there seemed to be no opposition to it. Everybody agreed it was a just and proper measure. Then, suddenly, within a few days of the end of the session, a violent opposition sprang up. Trenton became alive with lobbyists—men well enough known to politicians. The newspapers came out boldly with the charge that the railroads and Standard were going to defeat the bill. Its friends