The History of the Standard Oil Company/Volume 1/Appendix/Number 29
NUMBER 29 (See page 197)
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. O'DAY AND MR. CASSATT
[Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, United Pipe Lines, etc., Testimony. Appendix, pages 732-733.]
Office of the American Transfer Company,
Oil City, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1878.A. J. Cassatt,
Third Vice-President, Philadelphia.Dear Sir: Referring to the conversation I had with you in January, I wish to submit the following facts: That our company has at large expense (involving the payment of several hundred thousand dollars), purchased and created certain pipe-lines to Pittsburg, through which we are able not only to protect the Allegheny Valley road in a paying rate of freight for the oil it carries, but also to secure to that company (by agreement with it) its full proportion of the oil traffic going to Pittsburg.
You are acquainted with the efforts we have put forth in other directions during the last months in which we have acted in thorough accord with the trunk line interests, and I believe I may say without egotism, we have, to the extent of our ability, effectually protected their interests in such action. I here repeat what I once stated to you and which I asked you to receive and treat as strictly confidential, that we have been for many months receiving from the New York Central and Erie Railroads certain sums of money, in no instance less than twenty cents per barrel on every barrel of crude oil carried by each of those roads.
Co-operating, as we are doing, with the Standard Oil Company and the trunk lines in every effort to secure for the railroads paying rates of freight on the oil they carry, I am constrained to say to you that, in justice to the interest I represent, we should receive from your company at least twenty cents on each barrel of crude oil you transport.
The fruit of co-operation referred to has been fully evidenced in the fact that since last fall your company has received fifty to sixty cents per barrel more freight than was obtained by it prior to our co-operation.
In submitting this proposition I feel I should ask you to let this date from the first of November, 1877, but I am willing to accept as a compromise (which is to be re-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.