A. The competition was always very sharp, and there was always some one that was willing to sell goods for less than they cost, and that made the market price for everything; we got up an association, and took in all the refiners until some of them went back on us, and that would break up the association; we tried that two or three times.
Q. Then finally you entered the Standard Oil arrangement?
A. Then we made an alliance or association with some of the refiners about here, and it was more successful.
Q. What are the refiners about here with whom that alliance was made, and are they or are they not all of them covered by the Standard Oil arrangement?
A. They would come in and then they would go out; there is no refiner that I know of, with one exception, about New York but what has been in the association.
Q. What are the refiners that are now in association of the Standard Oil?
A. The people that are working in harmony with us comprise about, I should think, 90 or 95 per cent. of the refiners.
Q. Now tell us their names, the leading ones.
A. Some of the leading ones? The Standard Oil Company; Charles Pratt and Company; the Sone and Fleming Manufacturing Company; Warden, Frew and Company of Philadelphia; the Standard Oil Company of Pittsburg; the Acme Oil Refining Company of Titusville; the Imperial Refining Company of Oil City; the Baltimore United Oil Company of Baltimore.
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Q. You said that substantially 95 per cent. of the refiners were in the Standard arrangement?
A. I said 90 to 95 per cent. I thought were in harmony.
Q. When you speak of their being in harmony with the Standard, what do you mean by that?
A. I mean just what harmony implies.
Q. Do you mean that they have an arrangement with the Standard?
A. If I am in harmony with my wife, I presume I am at peace with her, and am working with her.
Q. You are married to her, and you have a contract with her?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is that what you mean?
A. Well, some people live in harmony without being married.
Q. Without having a contract?
A. Yes; I have heard so.
Q. Now, which do you mean? Do you mean the people who are in the Standard arrangement, and are in harmony with it, are married to the Standard or in a state of freedom—celibacy?
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