Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/415

 A. Not necessarily, so long as they are happy.

Q. Is it the harmony that arises from a marriage contract?

A. Not necessarily, so long as they are happy.

Q. When you speak of their harmony, is it a relation of contract?

A. I mean by harmony that if you and I agree to go on Wall Street and buy a hundred shares of Erie at 33, and we agree to sell it out together at 40, that is harmony. I mean just the same that way—if I go into the Standard Oil office and conclude to buy some oil of them and agree on a fair price to sell it out at, that is harmony.

Q. Is that the harmony that you mean—that you gentlemen have agreed between each other the rate at which you will buy and the rate at which you will sell?

A. Well, not going too far into detail, I would say that the relations are very pleasant.

Q. But we want the detail; we want precisely what that harmony is, what it consists of, and what produces it.

A. Well, is it a railroad abuse, or is it an abuse to be in harmony with people?

Q. No; it is not abuse to be in harmony; there are some kinds of harmony that the law considers conspiracy.

A. Well, I have heard so.

By the Chairman.

Q. What we want to know is this: This Standard Oil Company in itself is, as we understand it, a large organisation, not very extensive, but is made so by contracts with various other organisations, that are not a part of it, by their written contract or verbal contract or understanding, or whatever you term it; we want to know whether that is not the fact, and if that is not what you refer to when you speak about working in harmony.

A. Mr. Chairman, I want to give you all the information that is necessary in this matter for your purposes, but it is a question in my mind whether it is a proper thing for me, even if there is no harm done by it, to divulge my business secrets.

Q. We do not ask you for your secrets; we simply ask you the general nature of this organisation.

A. I have explained it, I think, to you quite as fully as I can.