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 became public property, a wave of indignation swept from the Atlantic to the Pacific; the oil regions, which would have been the heaviest sufferers, shut down their wells and so cut off the supply of crude oil; the New York newspapers started a "crusade" against the South Improvement group and Congress ordered an investigation.

So fiercely was the public wrath aroused that the railroads ran to cover, abrogated the contracts, signed an agreement promising never more to grant rebates to any one, while the Pennsylvania Legislature repealed the charter of the South Improvement Company.