then and now is that the purchaser of the oil pays the pipe-line charge. The railroad has nothing to do with it. Even if the Standard Oil Company puts a tax on railroads for allowing them to take oil carried by its pipe-lines—thus collecting double pay—the tax would not apply in Mr. Rice's case, for the oil came to the Cincinnati and Marietta road not through Standard pipes but through Mr. Rice's own pipes. This much Mr. O'Day was obliged to admit in 1888:
Q. But did that other oil which was in competition with you pass through your pipe?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did not they, therefore, on that oil which only passed over their railroad and not through your pipe-line, pay to you the same allowance or rebate that they did on your oil which did pass?
A. They did, but we returned it through the advice of our counsel, Mr. Dodd.
Q. Now, out of that sum how much did you get from the railroad out of what they had received from Mr. Rice?
A. We did not get any; that is, we did not retain any. The railroad company agreed to account to us for the oil that went over its lines, and they did make an accounting, to my recollection, of about $200, or something like that, on oil other than that which passed through the lines. Our counsel, Mr. Dodd, advised me that we could not do that business, and we refunded the money.
Soon after the report of the Congressional Committee was published John D. Rockefeller himself explained the case in an interview published in the New York World for March 29, 1890: "When the arrangement was reported to the officers of the company at New York," Mr. Rockefeller told the interviewer, "it was not agreed to because our counsel pronounced it illegal in so far as it embraced oil carried by the pipe-line. Some $250 had been paid to the pipe-line under this contract on oil which the line had not transported. This was refunded. We repudiated the contract before it was passed upon by the courts and made full recompense. In a business as large as ours, conducted by so many agents, some
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