Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-06-17
Testimony Against the Standard Oil
Co. and Railways.
Mr.. N. |. LOCKWOOD'S STATEMENT
Read Before the Industrial Com.
mission Today
AN INDEPENDENT REFINER

The industrial commission today heard
| testimony in regard to the oil industry Of
| the country. The witness before the COM
| mission was Mr.. NJ. L. Lockwood, an in
| dependent oil producer of Zelienople, Butler
county, Pa. He has been a member Of the
| legislature of Pennsylvania, and has been
an oil producer since 1865.
Mr.. lockwood read a paper he had pre-
| pared on the subject of the oil industry.
For before the blighting curse of railway
| discrimination he said, was turned
against the oil refnerymen of the Oil
regions men prospered and grew rich in
| the refining business. They doubled the
| capacity of their refneries, adopted new
and better processes, and were going for
| ward in business that promised much for
! themselves and their descendants.
Railways and Standard Oil Company.
But when the conspiracy between the
Standard Oil Company people and the rail-
ways was consummated, all men not in
cluded within the favored few were con-
demned to financial obscurity or financial
| ruin. No business ability, however great,
no better process, however superior, could
| triumph when the highways over which you
must go to market were closed against you
and manipulated in the interest of your
competitors
rates over the highways of the country
many growing and prosperous reIineries
We're builded at every favorable point. At
Franklin, Reno, Oil City, Housewife, Pc
troeum Centre, Pioneer, Titusville and
Warren, at Pittsburg, Cleveland and Cory,
the competitive contest in the business
forced hundreds of the best minds to the
study of better and more economic pro-
cesSes in refining, and the most rapid
strides were made in perfecting and cheap
enlng cost.
Many refinerymen made many buyers of
crude oil, and the producer selling mis- oil
in the competitive market was enabled to
obtain fair share of the profit in the bust
ness, and the consumer, buying his oil from
competitive sellers, was enabled TO receive
,,he benefit of and every economy in
the process of producing and refining Pc
troleum
A Railway Contract.
In 1877 the men who had been intrusted
with the management of the highways, the
railways CT the country, understood so i'm
perfectly their duty as common carriers to
the pubic that they entered into a contract
WIN the men VINO atterWard crea ed the
standard Ca Company. TINS contract was
r>l4oNn The ouutn Improvement Com
i'e.ny contract, ana was De.ween d ,orpor-
e..oh oI mat maine ana the nve truhA rail-
ways, all oI The rallWdyS mat en.e, I'd the
Oil regions of pennsylvania. And TINS con-
udct proSiucd ,ha. me railways should in
,hey had been charging on all OIL shipped;
that the railways should pay back in re-
Date to the South Improvement Company
an amount about equal to said incr, ase Of
freight rates. that the railways should pay
10 the South Improvement Company a like
rebate on all of the oil that ANYBODY and
everybody else shipped; that the railways
should make any other change in freight
rates necessary to insure the South I'm
provement Company's success in business:
that the railways should break up and des-
troy all rc1nerymen outside of the South
improvement Company, by high rates of
freight. and that the railway companies
We're to keep watch and report to the
South Improvement Company all the bust
ness and shipments which any of these out
side refineries should make.
Il desire here to say and I desire Won
10 mark what L say, that everything that
the railway companies publicly contracted
10 90 lor the South Improvement Company
IN 49,, that the railway companies have
since secretly and persistently done for the
beneft of the Standard oil people as I will
prove to you Prove too in the face of the
IN Companys people or their agents, or
the railway people who knew the facts.
nave been subpoenaed to testify that they
have almost invariably refused to answer
shielding themselves behind that provision
OF law which provides that you shall NOT
force man to testify to that which will
convict MIN of crime The men who de-
veloDcd the oil regions of Pennsylvania
We're OF the best families of the republic
me ancestors of many of them helped to
win our Independence as a nation, and
SheL the provisions of the contract of the
South Improvement Company became
known. it created such a furore in the oil
regions as has seldom been SEEM
Profit of Over 400 Per Cent.
The witness then told of the fight before
the legislature made by the people.
BY the evidence in the case of the STAN
ddrd oli Company" he continued, against
W. c. Schofield, at Cleveland Ohio, we
learned that the profits of refining. includ
ing railroad rebates for four of these wears
was an average of ore than 81 a barrel.
proht IN refining which, If economically
managed and honestly capitalized of more
than 400 per cent annually. While at the
same time the refinerymen who did not
nave the favor of the railroad companies
were being driven into bankruptcy and
ruin. and the producers much of the time
forced to take price for their oil below
the cost OF production. while the consum-
ers were paying two prices for the oil that
they burned in their lamps.
In the early part of the seventies 1 have
record or tWenty-six pipe lines built to
, transfer Oil from the wells to the railways
Ihese pipe lines were mostly built by pro-
ducers IN their struggle for delivera nee
from monopolistic control. The Standard
OH Company people having secured control
o. Oh me United Pipe Line and American
transfer Company. began a campaign to
bankrupt and destroy and absorb these
pipe lines built by the producers. The
Standard oil people having large rebate
on all the oil they shipped and on all the
oil that anybody else shipped from any of
these different pipe lines, could go into the
held and pay little more at the wells and
could sell OIL at a little less at the seaboard
than any other shipper. and still only use
small traction of the large rebates which
| they were receiving from the railway COM
panies, growing rich themselves while thew
We're bankrupting and absorbing these nine
| iines built from the meager means which
| the producers were able to wiring from the
| grasping greed of this great monopoIy
| FINALLY the producers and refiners came to
understand that the highways of the coun-
try, the railways, were in the hands of a
| set or nlghWaymen, who every time thew
| went to market would rob them of Ali of
| their profit and a part of their princinal
| ano hand 1T over to the Standard Oil Com
| pany people, helping to fasten that monon-
| oily upon us. If you must be robbed, it does
| not make any difference to you whethe
| Dick Turpin does ii through the fns.ru-
mentality of pistol or whether John d
| rockefeller does it through the instrument.
| tally of a railroad. There could be hut
| one END to that kind of business-ba nh :
| ruptcy and financial ruin of these indie
pendent pipe lines.
How the Trouble CANA Ou<