But in the spring of 1878 Mr. Rockefeller and his colleagues instituted a series of manœuvres which shattered the last remnant of confidence the oil men had in the sincerity of their claim that they were doing their utmost to relieve the distressed Oil Regions, and that their measures were necessary to hold the producers in check. The pipe-lines began to refuse to load cars for the shippers who supplied the few independent refiners with oil. The experiences of many of these independent oil men have been told before the courts. For instance, W. H. Nicholson, the representative of Mr. Ohlen, of New York, a shipper of petroleum, testified [69] that in May, 1878, he began to have difficulty in getting cars. At Olean, one day, Mr. Ohlen telegraphed to the officials of the Erie road to know if he could get 100 cars to run East. The reply came back Yes. About noon, Mr. Nicholson says, he saw Mr. O'Day, the manager of the United Pipe Lines, in which his oil was stored, and told him that he was waiting to have his cars loaded. Mr. O'Day at once said he could not load the cars. "But I have an order from the Erie officials, giving me the cars," Mr. Nicholson objected. "That makes no difference," O'Day replied; "I cannot load cars except upon an order from Pratt." Nor would he do it. The cars were not loaded for Mr. Nicholson, although at that time he had ten thousand barrels of oil in the United Pipe Lines, and an order for 100 cars from the officials of the Erie road in his hand.

B. B. Campbell, at that time president of the Producers' Union, gave his experience at this time in the suit of the Commonwealth against the Pennsylvania Railroad:

"I never heard of a scarcity of cars until the early part of June, 1878; I came to Parker about five o'clock in the evening, and found the citizens in a state of terrible excitement; the Pipe-Lines would not run oil unless it was sold; the only shippers we had in Parker of any amount, viz., the agents of the Standard Oil Company, would not buy oil, stating that they could not get cars; hundreds of wells were stopped to their great injury; thousands more, whose owners were afraid to stop them for fear of damage by salt-water, were pumping the oil on the ground. I used all the influence I had to prevent an outbreak and destruction of railroad and pipe-lines; I at once went over to the Allegheny Valley Railroad office and telegraphed to John Scott, president of the Allegheny Valley Railroad Company:

"'The refusal of the United to run oil unless sold upon immediate shipment, and of the railroad to furnish cars, has created such a degree of excitement here that the more conservative part of the citizens will not be able to control the peace, and I fear that the scenes of last July will be repeated on an aggravated scale.' That message I left in the office about seven o'clock in the evening. I got up the next morning before seven and received an answer:

"'What do you advise should be done? John Scott.' I answered: 'Will meet you to-morrow morning,' which would be Saturday.

"On Saturday morning I came in on an early train and met at the depot Mr. Shinn, then, I believe, vice-president of the Allegheny Valley Railroad Company, David A. Stewart, one of the directors of the road, and Thomas M. King, assistant superintendent. I spoke very plainly to Mr. Shinn, telling him that the idea of a scarcity of cars on daily shipments of less than 30,000 barrels a day was such an absurd, barefaced pretence that he could not expect men of ordinary intelligence to accept it, as the preceding fall, when business required, the railroads could carry day after day from 50,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil. Mr. Shinn stated clearly that I knew that the Allegheny Valley Railroad Company did not control the oil business over its line, but was governed entirely and exclusively by orders received from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. I then requested him to be the vehicle of communicating to the Pennsylvania Railroad officials my views on the subject, telling him that I was convinced that unless immediate relief was furnished and cars afforded there would be an outbreak in the Oil Regions. After further conversation we parted. My interview with them was not as officials of the Allegheny Valley Railroad Company, but as representatives of the oil traffic carried and controlled by the Pennsylvania road. On the next Monday I returned to Parker. After passing Redbank, where the low grade road, the connecting link between the Valley Road and the Philadelphia and Erie Road, meets the Valley Road — between that point and Parker — the express train was delayed for over half an hour in passing through hundreds of empty oil cars." [70]

In June another exasperating episode occurred, growing out of the attempts of the oil men to secure independent routes to the seaboard. As we have seen, two enterprises had been launched late in 1877 under the patronage of the Petroleum Producers' Union. As soon as the Equitable had acquired its right of way to Buffalo, Mr. Emery, the head of the company, his papers in hand, sought an interview with representatives of the Buffalo and McKean road, and told them if they did not consent that the Equitable lay a pipe-line to their road, and did not contract to carry the oil from that connection to Buffalo, the pipe-line to Buffalo would be laid. After considerable negotiation a contract was made with the railroad, and by June the new company was ready with pipe-line, cars and barges to carry oil to New York. But no sooner did they attempt to begin operations than the railroad, under pressure from the Pennsylvania Railroad it was claimed, refused to carry out its contracts. The cars the Equitable ordered sent to the loading track were refused, a side track it had laid was torn up, the frog torn out; everything, indeed, was done to prevent the Equitable doing business, though finally a vigorous appeal to the law brought the road to terms, and in July oil began to flow Eastward by this indirect route. No sooner did the Standard find that the Equitable people were really doing business than they appealed to the railroads. A meeting of the representatives of the trunk lines was held at Saratoga in July, and the rates on crude Eastward were dropped to eighty cents to meet the new competition.

While this fight was going on against the Equitable all sorts of interference were being put in the way of the seaboard line between Brady's Bend and Baltimore. It was ridiculed as chimerical to attempt to pump oil over the mountains, and General Haupt was declared to be a visionary engineer with a record of failures. All the old stories retailed in 1876 were dragged out again. The farmers were told that the leakage from the pipe-line would ruin their fields and endanger their buildings, and an active campaign to excite prejudice was carried on again in the farmers' papers. Philadelphia and Pittsburg both fought the plan, the press and chambers of commerce opposing the free pipe bill at that time before the Legislature, and the project generally. In Pittsburg the opposition created almost a riot, for the oil producers of the Lower Field, who had long bought their supplies there, now threatened to boycott the city if the pipe-line was fought. So strong was the opposition that capital took fright and the company found it most difficult to secure funds. This opposition to the pipe-line was, of course, charged against the Standard and the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Now, while the railroads were refusing cars to independent shippers, — or if they gave an order for them, the United Pipe Lines were refusing to load them, — while the Standard and the railroads were doing their utmost to prevent the Equitable Line doing business, and were discouraging in every way the seaboard pipe-line — new routes which would take care of a proportion, at least, of the oil which they claimed they could not handle — thousands of barrels of oil were running on the ground in Bradford, and two of the independent refineries of New York shut down entirely in order that a third of their number might get oil enough to fill an order.

This interference with the outside interests, thus preventing the small degree of relief which they would have afforded, and a growing conviction that the Standard meant to keep up the "immediate shipment" order, at least until it had built the pipes and tanks needed in the Bradford field, finally aroused the region to a point where riot was imminent. The long line of producers who filed into the United Pipe Lines' office day after day to sell their oil at whatever prices they could get for it, and who, having put in an offer which varied according to their necessities, were usually told to come back in ten days, and the buyer would see whether he wanted it or not — this long line of men began to talk of revolution. Crowds gathered about the offices of the Standard threatening and jeering. Mysterious things, cross-bones and death-heads, were found plentifully sprinkled on the buildings owned by the Standard interests. More than once the slumber of the oil towns was disturbed by marching bodies of men. It was certain that a species of Kuklux had hold of the Bradford region, and that a very little spark was needed to touch off the United Pipe Lines. In the meantime things were scarcely less exciting in the Lower Fields. The "immediate shipment" order was looked upon there as particularly outrageous, because there was no lack of lines or tanks in that field, and when, in the summer of 1878, there was added to this cause an unjustifiable scarcity of cars, excitement rose to fever heat.

The only thing which prevented a riot at this time and great destruction of property, if not of life, was the strong hand the Petroleum Producers' Union had on the country. Fearing that if violence did occur the different movements they had under way would be prejudiced, they sent a committee of twenty-five men to Harrisburg to see Governor Hartranft. They laid before him and the attorney-general of the state the grievance of the oil producers in an "appeal" reviewing the history of the industry. [71] They demanded that the United Pipe Lines be made to perform its duty as a public carrier, and the railroads be made to cease their discrimination against shippers both in the matter of rebates and in furnishing cars. They called the Governor's attention to the fact that there were already existing laws touching these matters which, in their judgment, met the case, and if the existing laws did not give them relief, that it was the plain duty of the executive to call a meeting of the Legislature and pass such acts as would do so. Governor Hartranft was much stirred by the story of the producers. He went himself to the Oil Regions to see the situation, and in August directed the producers to put their demands into the form of an appeal. This was done, and it was decided to bring proceedings by writ of quo warranto against the United Pipe Lines, and by separate bills in equity against the Pennsylvania Railroad and the other lines doing business in the state. It was September before the state authorities began their investigation of the United Pipe Lines, the hearings being held in Titusville. Many witnesses summoned failed to appear, but enough testimony was brought out in this investigation to show that the railroads had refused to furnish cars for independents when they had them empty, and that the United Pipe Lines had clearly violated its duty as a common carrier. In his report on this investigation the secretary of internal affairs, William McCandless, rendered a verdict that the charges of the oil producers had not been substantiated in any way that demanded action.

The indignation which followed this report was intense. It found a vent in the hanging in effigy of McCandless, who was universally known in the state as "Buck." In the oil exchange at Parker, on the morning of October 19, the figure of a man was found hanged by the neck to a gallows, and the producers left it hanging there all day, so that they might jeer and curse it. Across the forehead of the effigy in large blood-red letters were the words:

Pinned to the gallows there was a card bearing a quotation from Secretary McCandless's report:

In Bradford a huge effigy hung in the streets all day, and in the village of Tarport, near by, another swayed on the gallows. They pulled down the effigy at Bradford, and drew from a pocket what purported to be a check signed by John D. Rockefeller, president of the Standard Oil Company, in favour of "Buck" McCandless, for $20,000, and endorsed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. That represented the price, they said, that McCandless got for signing the report. Throughout the oil country there was hardly an oil producer to be found not associated with the Standard Oil Company who did not believe that McCandless had sold himself and his office to the Standard Oil Combination for $20,000, and used the money to help in his Congressional canvass.

The excitement in the Oil Regions spread all over the country. Something of the importance the press attached to it may be judged from the way the New York Sun handled the question. For six weeks it kept one of the ablest members of its staff in the Oil Regions. Six columns of the first page of the issue for November 13 was taken up with the story of the excitement, coupled with the full account of the South Improvement Company, and the development of the Standard Oil Company out of that concern. On November 23 the first page contained four columns more under blazing headings.

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