explanations of various operations of the Standard, which have been quoted in the course of this narrative, notably explanations of the South Improvement Company, of the ten-cent rebate secured from all the railroads in 1875, of the purchase of the Empire Transportation Company, of the rebate on other people's shipments enjoyed in 1878 by the American Transfer Company. Some of Mr. Flagler's testimony in this investigation compares as curiously with affidavits of his made in 1880 as does that of his great chief. For instance, in 1880 Mr. Flagler swore that "the Standard Oil Company owns and operates its refineries at Cleveland, Ohio, and also a refinery at Bayonne in the state of New Jersey. That at no other place in the United States does the said Standard Oil Company own, operate, or control any refinery or refineries."[1]
But in this investigation the following colloquy took place:
Q. When did the Standard Company of Ohio first enter into an alliance with other refineries?
A. If you mean (by) an alliance, Mr. Gowen, I should say never.
Q. I am only endeavouring to aid your friends in getting at what they want. Here, I notice, they propose to prove by you—I will give it in this way—that on account of the disastrous condition of the refining business, the Standard, on October 15, 1874, entered into an alliance with a number of Pittsburg refineries.
A. That is more correctly stated by saying that the Standard Oil Company purchased the refineries owned by the parties in Pittsburg.
Q. Who were they?
A. Lockhart, Frew and Company, I think, was the company. Wait a moment. It was the Standard Oil Company of Pittsburg, it being a corporation, and Warden, Frew and Company, of Philadelphia, and, I should say, Charles Pratt and Company, of New York.
Q. Any others?
A. That is all.
Q. All those gentlemen, Warden, Frew and Company, and the Standard Oil Company of Pittsburg, Charles Pratt and Company, of New York, are now associated with you as parties interested in the present Oil Trust?
- ↑ Affidavit of Henry M. Flagler in the case of the Standard Oil Company vs. William C. Scofield et al., in the Court of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, 1880.
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