Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/291

 opposed to its becoming anything more. In Pennsylvania particularly the laws had been so manipulated by the Pennsylvania Railroad as to prevent the pipe-line carrying oil even for short distances in competition with them. Now, for many years it had been believed that the pipe-line could carry oil long distances—many claimed to the seaboard—and as soon as the independents found that the oil-bearing roads were acting solely in the interest of the Standard they began an agitation for a seaboard line which finally terminated in the Tidewater Line, one hundred and four miles long, carrying oil from the Bradford field to Williamsport on the Reading Railroad, and it was certain that the Tidewater eventually would get to the seaboard. That the day of the railroad as a carrier of crude oil was over when the Tidewater began to pump oil was obvious both to Mr. Rockefeller and to the railroad presidents, and without hesitation he seized the idea. By 1883 the Standard was pumping oil to New York, and the railroads that had served so effectively in building up the trust were practically out of the crude business. It was this audacious and splendid stroke, practically freeing him from the railroads which had made him, which made the passage of the Interstate Commerce Bill a matter of comparatively small importance to Mr. Rockefeller. To be sure, he still needed the railroads for refined, but he could so place his refineries that this service would be greatly minimised. The legislation which the Oil Regions of Pennsylvania demanded for fifteen years in hope of securing an equal chance in transportation came too late. By the time the bill was passed the pipe had replaced the rail as the great oil carrier, and the pipes were not merely under Mr. Rockefeller's control, as the rails had been; they belonged to him. It was little wonder, then, that the passage of the great bill did not ruffle his serenity. Little wonder that the Oil Regions, realising the situation, so tragic in its irony, as fully as Mr. Rocke-