organization. They assert--and their assertion is doubtless
true--that the only responsible begetters were Thomas A. Scott,
President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and certain refineries in
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia which, though they were afterwards
absorbed by the Standard, were at that time their competitors.
These refiners and the Pennsylvania, over which the Standard Oil
then was making no shipments, thus represented a group, composed
of railroads and refiners, which was antagonistic to the
Rockefeller interests. The South Improvement Company was an
association of refiners with which the railroads, chiefly the
Pennsylvania, the New York Central, and the Erie, made exclusive
contracts for shipping oil. Under these contracts rates to the
seaboard were to be generally raised, though the members of the
South Improvement Company were to receive liberal rebates. The
refiners of Cleveland and Pittsburgh were to get lower rates than
the refiners located in the oil regions. But the clause in these
contracts that caused the greatest amazement and indignation was
one which gave the inside group rebates on every barrel of oil
shipped by its competitors.

It would be difficult to imagine any transaction more wicked than
these contracts. Carried into execution they inevitably meant the
extinction of every refiner who had not been admitted into the
inside ring. Of the two thousand shares of the South Improvement
Company, the gentlemen who were at that time most conspicuously
identified with the Standard Oil Company subscribed to five
hundred and forty. Mr. Rockefeller has always protested that he
did not favor the scheme and that he became a party to it simply
because he could not afford to antagonize the powerful
Pennsylvania Railroad, which had originated it. When the details