now came the question, What should they do about the blockade established against the members of the South Improvement Company? The railroads they had forgiven; should they forgive the members of the South ImprovementCompany? This question came up immediately on the repeal of the charter. The first severe test to which their temper was put was early in April, when the Fisher Brothers, a firm of Oil City brokers, sold some 20,000 barrels of oil to the Standard Oil Company. The moment the sale was noised a perfect uproar burst forth. Indignant telegrams came from every direction condemning the brokers. "Betrayal," "infamy," "mercenary achievement," "the most unkindest cut of all," was the gist of them. From New York, Porter and Archbold telegraphed annulling all their contracts with the guilty brokers. The Oil Exchange passed votes of censure, and the Producers' Union turned them out. A few days later it was learned that a dealer on the creek was preparing to ship 5,000 barrels to the same firm. A mob gathered about the cars and refused to let them leave. It was only by stationing a strong guard that the destruction of the oil was prevented.
But something had to be done. The cooler heads argued that the blockade, which had lasted now forty days, and from which the region had of course suffered enormous loss, should be entirely lifted. The objects for which it had been established had been accomplished — that is, the South Improvement Company had been destroyed — now let free trade be established. If anybody wanted to sell to "conspirators," it was his lookout. A long and excited meeting of men from the entire oil country was held at Oil City to discuss the question.
The president of the Petroleum Producers' Union, Captain William Hasson, in anticipation of the meeting, had sent to the officers of all the railroads which had been parties to the South Improvement Company, the following telegram:
OFFICE PETROLEUM PRODUCERS' UNION,
OIL CITY, PENNSYLVANIA, April 4, 1872.
We are informed by parties known as members of the South Improvement Company, now representing the Standard Oil Company, who are in the market overbidding other shippers, that all contracts between the railroad companies and SouthImprovement and Standard Companies are cancelled. Will you please give us official notice whether such contracts are cancelled or not? The people in mass-meeting assembled have instructed the executive committee not to sell or ship any oil to these parties until we receive such notice. Please answer at once, as we fear violence and destruction of property.
Signed WILLIAM HASSON, President.
General McClellan, Horace F. Clark, Thomas A. Scott, and W. H. Vanderbilt all sent emphatic telegrams in reply, asserting that the South Improvement contracts had been cancelled and that their roads had no understanding of any nature in regard to freights with the Standard Oil Company. "The only existing arrangement is with you," telegraphed General McClellan. W. H. Vanderbilt reminded Mr. Hasson that the agreement of March 25, between the railroad companies and the joint committee of producers and refiners, was on a basis of perfect equality for all, and the inference was, how could Mr. Vanderbilt possibly make a special arrangement with the Standard? From the Standard Oil Company the following was received:
CLEVELAND, OHIO, April 8, 1872.
TO CAPTAIN WILLIAM HASSON: In answer to your telegram, this company holds no contract with the railroad companies or any of them, or with the South Improvement Company. The contracts between the South Improvement Company and the railroads have been cancelled, and I am informed you have been so advised by telegram. I state unqualifiedly that reports circulated in the Oil Region and elsewhere, that this company, or any member of it, threatened to depress oil, are false.
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, President.
After reading all the telegrams the committee submitted its report. The gist of it was that since they had official assurance that the hated contracts were cancelled, and that since they had secured from all the trunk lines a "fair rate of freight, equal to all shippers and producers, great or small, with an abolition of the system of rebates and drawbacks," the time had arrived "to open the channels of trade to all parties desiring to purchase or deal in oil on terms of equality." The report was received with "approbation and delight" and put an official end to the "Oil War."
But no number of resolutions could wipe out the memory of the forty days of terrible excitement and loss which the region had suffered. No triumph could stifle the suspicion and the bitterness which had been sown broadcast through the region. Every particle of independent manhood in these men whose very life was independent action had been outraged. Their sense of fair play, the saving force of the region in the days before law and order had been established, had been violated. These were things which could not be forgotten. There henceforth could be no trust in those who had devised a scheme which, the producers believed, was intended to rob them of their property.
It was inevitable that under the pressure of their indignation and resentment some person or persons should be fixed upon as responsible, and should be hated accordingly. Before the lifting of the embargo this responsibility had been fixed. It was the Standard Oil Company of Cleveland, so the Oil Regions decided, which was at the bottom of the business, and the "Mephistopheles of the Cleveland company," as they put it, was John D. Rockefeller. Even the Cleveland Herald acknowledged this popular judgment. "Whether justly or unjustly," the editor wrote, "Cleveland has the odium of having originated the scheme." This opinion gained ground as the days passed. The activity of the president of the Standard in New York, in trying to save the contracts with the railroads, and his constant appearance with Mr. Watson, and the fact brought out by the Congressional Investigation that a larger block of the South Improvement Company's stock was owned in the Standard than in any other firm, strengthened the belief. But what did more than anything else to fix the conviction was what they had learned of the career of the Standard Oil Company in Cleveland. Before the Oil War the company had been known simply as one of several successful firms in that city. It drove close bargains, but it paid promptly, and was considered a desirable customer. Now the Oil Regions learned for the first time of the sudden and phenomenal expansion of the company. Where there had been at the beginning of 1872 twenty-six refining firms in Cleveland, there were but six left. In three months before and during the Oil War the Standard had absorbed twenty plants. It was generally charged by the Cleveland refiners that Mr. Rockefeller had used the South Improvement scheme to persuade or compel his rivals to sell to him. "Why," cried the oil men, "the Standard Oil Company has done already in Cleveland what the South Improvement Company set out to do for the whole country, and it has done it by the same means."
By the time the blockade was raised, another unhappy conviction was fixed on the Oil Regions — the Standard Oil Company meant to carry out the plans of the exploded South Improvement Company. The promoters of the scheme were partly responsible for the report. Under the smart of their defeat they talked rather more freely than their policy of silence justified, and their remarks were quoted widely. Mr. Rockefeller was reported in the Derrick to have said to a prominent oil man of Oil City that the South Improvement Company could work under the charter of the Standard Oil Company, and to have predicted that in less than two months the gentlemen would be glad to join him. The newspapers made much of the following similar story reported by a New York correspondent:
A prominent Cleveland member of what was the South Improvement Company had said within two days: "The business nowwill be done by the Standard Oil Company. We have a rate of freight by water from Cleveland to New York at seventy cents. No man in the trade shall make a dollar this year. We purpose to manipulating the market as to run the price of crude on the creek as low as two and a half. We mean to show the world that the South Improvement Company was organised for business and means business in spite of opposition. The same thing has been said in substance by the leading Philadelphia member."
"The trade here regards the Standard Oil Company as simply taking the place of the South Improvement Company and as being ready at any moment to make the same attempt to control the trade as its progenitors did," said the New York Bulletin about the middle of April. And the Cleveland Herald discussed the situation under the heading, "South Improvement Company alias Standard Oil Company." The effect of these reports in the Oil Regions was most disastrous. Their open war became a kind of guerilla opposition. Those who sold oil to the Standard were ostracised, and its president was openly scorned.
If Mr. Rockefeller had been