Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/408

 The valuation of the stock of the Standard Oil Company at the present time is $150,000,000, or nearly five times as great as the entire Oil Region country valuation. The profits of the Standard Oil Company for the year 1886 were over $26,000,000.

Strangers may ask, Why is there no competition in pipage and storage of oil if the profits are so great? We answer, that with rebates, drawbacks, discrimination, and conspiracies the Standard Oil Company has been able to freeze out and suppress nearly every attempt at competition.

Does not the foregoing array of figures, showing as it does the terrible shrinkage which the property of the oil producers has sustained, amounting to nearly twenty-five per cent. in one year, demand such relief in pipage, storage, and shrinkage, as is contemplated by the Billingsley Bill, now before the Senate of Pennsylvania?