garded as strictly a private one between your company and ours) the payment by you of twenty cents per barrel on all crude oil shipments commencing with February 1, 1878.
I make this proposition with the full expectation that it will be acceptable to your company, but with the understanding on my part that in so doing, I am not asking as much of the Pennsylvania road and its connections as I have been and am receiving from the other trunk lines.
You are doubtless aware that during the last two years a large amount of oil has been shipped to Richmond via the Chesapeake and Ohio road, and that since the purchase of the Pittsburg lines by us not one barrel has been permitted to go in that direction.
During the season of 1877, and so long as the Columbia Conduit Company afforded the Baltimore and Ohio road access to the Oil Regions, that company, I understood, refused to accept from the other trunk lines (for its proportion of the oil traffic) less than 20 per cent., but after the purchase by us of the Columbia Conduit you succeeded in arranging with the Baltimore and Ohio for about half as much as they previously claimed.
I may add that the Baltimore and Ohio road are wholly dependent upon us for any oil they may carry.
Yours truly,
(Signed)Daniel O'Day,
General Manager.
Philadelphia, May 15, 1878.R. W. Downing, Comptroller.
Dear Sir: I enclose herewith copy of letter from Daniel O'Day, general manager of the American Transfer Company, which refers to a conversation I had with him in January last in reference to allowing the American Transfer Company a commission of twenty cents per barrel on all crude oil transported over this company's lines to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
I agreed to allow this commission from and after February 1, until further notice, after having seen receipted bills showing that the New York Central Railroad allowed them a commission of thirty-five cents per barrel and that the Erie Railway allowed them a commission of twenty cents per barrel on Bradford oil, and thirty cents per barrel on all other oil, and that they had been doing so continuously since the 17th of October last.
Of this, however, you saw the evidence yourself in the bills which I submitted to you last week. Please, therefore, prepare vouchers in favour of the American Transfer Company per Daniel O'Day, for this commission of twenty cents on shipments during February, March and April, and hereafter make settlements with that company monthly.
Yours truly,
(Signed)A. J. Cassatt,
Third Vice-President.
[ 375 ]
