Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/378

 for by plaintiff, it would result in a still higher price for refined oil and the establishment of a more perfect monopoly in the manufacture and sale of the same by plaintiff." The same is untrue, as there is not, never has been, and never can be a monopoly in the manufacture of refined oil, nor has the limitation in said agreement as to quantity to be manufactured affected, nor will the stoppage by the defendants of their manufacture, as prayed for in plaintiff's petition, in the least affect the price of refined oil, for the reason that leaving out the entire capacity of the refinery of defendants there would still remain a large excess of capacity for supplying all the demands of the public, and hence there would be no opportunity for advancing the price, nor would it tend to create a monopoly of the business by the plaintiff.

Affiant further says that it is not true that the said plaintiff has at any time or in any manner violated the terms of said agreement as alleged in said answer or in any other manner. That it is not true that plaintiff has intentionally or otherwise withheld from the defendants the benefit of the advantages agreed upon in said contract to be given them, nor is it true that the plaintiff has not given to defendants the benefit of its contracts relating to freight on crude and refined oil, but the plaintiff has given to the defendants privileges not required by the agreement. That it is not true that the defendants have ever been required to pay larger rates of freight than were paid by the plaintiff when the defendants made any shipments of oil in accordance with the terms of the contract; nor is it true that the plaintiff has not allowed to defendants the same rebates that it has received from different carriers upon any shipments of oil made in accordance with the terms of the contract.

That it is true that the plaintiff has recently constructed a pipe-line from Cleveland to the western line of the state of Pennsylvania, through which its oil has been pumped to Cleveland since the spring of 1880, but it is not true that it is the owner of the said pipe-line from the western line of the state of Pennsylvania to the Oil Regions. That it is true that to promote the interest of the defendants, the plaintiff has furnished to defendants crude oil through said pipe-line and charged them twenty cents per barrel for the transportation of same; but it is not true that said pipe-line was constructed for the purpose of transporting oil for others than the plaintiff, nor is it true that under the terms of said agreement the defendants are entitled to the transportation of oil through said pipe-line, nor is it true that the charge of twenty cents per barrel is an unreasonable price for transporting oil through said pipe-line from the Oil Regions to Cleveland; but affiant avers it to be true that during the time it so furnished the oil through the pipe-line at twenty cents per barrel, of forty-two gallons each, the railroads were charging freight at the rate of from thirty-five to fifty cents per barrel, of forty-five gallons each.

Plaintiff continued to deliver defendants through the pipe-line, and at twenty cents per barrel, until they had received all they were entitled to manufacture under the contract dated July 20, 1876.