Rice, finding himself shut off from the West, North, and East, developed new business in the South, but everywhere he went he was met with new discriminations, and even refusals in some cases to give him any rates at all. He could not ship to certain points at any price. In other cases the oil rates were jumped up for his benefit, and his cars were delayed or side-tracked by the railroads. Not satisfied with obstructing and in large part blocking the shipment of refined oil out of Marietta, the Combine did all it could to cut off Rice’s supply of crude oil from the wells. It bought up and destroyed the little pipe line through which he was getting most of his oil. Rice then turned to the Ohio fields and brought his oil in by rail over the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad. Under threat of withdrawing its patronage the Combine then compelled the road to double the rates to Rice and pay over to the Combine five-sevenths of all the freight the road collected on oil. Rice had been paying 17 cents a barrel from the oil fields to his refinery. His rate went up to 35 cents while the Combine paid only 10 and got 25 cents of each 35 paid by Rice.[27] “Illegal and inexcusable abuse,” said Judge Baxter when Rice took the case into court; and the Senate Committee was also emphatic in its condemnation. The case is in line with the whole history of the railroads in their relations with the Oil Combine, the remarkable fact in this instance being that the victim had nerve enough to fight the Combine. He took the facts to the Ohio Legislature, to the courts, to investigating committees of New York, and Congress, and rendered a great public service by bringing the ways of the railroads and the trust to the light of publicity. If all the victims of the Oil Combine had manifested equal pluck and public spirit, the evil we are discussing would long since have ceased to exist.[28] CHAPTER VI. THE SENATE INVESTIGATION OF 1885 AND THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT. In 1885 the United States Senate appointed a committee to investigate railway discriminations, etc., and this committee made one of the ablest reports that has ever been issued in relation to railway abuses. It threw a flood of light upon the nature and prevalence of discrimination, and the reasons for it. On page 7 of this report the committee says that our efficient service and low rates (low average rates) “have been attained at the cost of the most unwarranted discriminations, and its effect has been to build up the strong at the expense of the weak, to give the large dealer an advantage over the small trader, to make capital count for more than individual credit and enterprise, to concentrate business at great commercial centres, to necessitate combinations and aggregations of capital, to foster monopoly, to encourage the growth and extend the influence of corporate power, and to throw the control of the commerce of the country more and more into the hands of the few.”