There were few tears shed in the Oil Regions over the rupture of the contract. The greater part of the oil men had called it from the beginning an “unholy alliance,” and rejoiced that it was a fiasco. If the alliance had been all that came to an end, the case would not have been so serious, but it was not. The breaking of the alliance proved the death of the agency and the association. The leaders who had disapproved of the treaty withdrew from active work; the supporters of the alliance, demoralised by its failure, were glad to keep quiet. A few spasmodic efforts to stop the drill, to inaugurate another shut-down, were made, but failed. Most of the producers felt that, as oil was so low, their only safety was in getting as large a production as they could, and a perfect fever of development followed. The Producers’ Association, after ten months of as exciting and strenuous effort as an organisation has ever put in, was snuffed out almost in a day. It was to be five years before the oil men recovered sufficiently from the shock of this collapse to make another united effort. If Mr. Rockefeller felt in the fall of 1872 that the “good of the oil business” required the dissolution of the Producers’ Agency, he could not have acted with more acumen than he did in leading them into an alliance, and at the psychological moment throwing up his contract. Humiliated as the producers were by their failure, they soon found consolation in the knowledge that the Refiners’ Association was in trouble. A serious thing, in fact, had happened. When the official report of the year’s exports and imports came out, it was shown that the exports of refined oil had fallen off for the first time in the history of the business. In 1871, 132,178,843 gallons had been exported. In 1872, only 118,259,832 were exported. Just as alarming was the proof that the shale and coal-oil refineries of Europe had taken a fresh start—that they were selling their products more cheaply than kerosene could be imported and sold. There was a general outcry from all over the country that Mr. Rockefeller and his associates were running the oil business by keeping up the price of refined oil beyond what the price of crude justified. The producers, eager for a scapegoat, argued that the low price of crude was due to decreased consumption as well as over-production, and their ill-will against Mr. Rockefeller flared up anew. In the meantime the Refiners’ Association was having troubles of its own. The members were not limiting their output as they had agreed—that is, it was discovered every now and then that a refinery was making more oil than Mr. Rockefeller had directed. Again, what was more fatal to the success of the association, members sometimes sold at a lower price than that set by Mr. Rockefeller. These restrictions were fundamental to the success of the combination, and the members were called together at Saratoga in June, 1873, and after a long session the association was dissolved.