Of course securing a large crude shipping business like Mr. Neyhart’s was a valuable point for the Standard. It threw all of the refiners whom he had supplied out of crude oil and forced several of them to come to the Standard buyer—a first step, of course, toward a lease or sale. At every point, indeed, making it difficult for the refiner to get his raw product was one of the favourite manœuvres of the combination. It was not only to crude oil it was applied. Factories which worked up the residuum or tar into lubricating oil and depended on Standard plants for their supply were cut off. There was one such in Cleveland—the firm of Morehouse and Freeman. Mr. Morehouse had begun to experiment with lubricating oils in 1861, and in 1871 the report of the Cleveland Board of Trade devoted several of its pages to a description of his business. According to this account he was then making oils adapted to lubricating all kinds of machinery—he held patents for several brands and trade marks, and had produced that year over 25,000 barrels of different lubricants besides 120,000 boxes of axle grease. At this time he was buying his stock or residuum from one or another of the twenty-five Cleveland refiners. Then came the South Improvement Company and the concentration of the town’s refining interest in Mr. Rockefeller’s hands. Mr. Morehouse, according to the testimony he gave the Hepburn Commission in 1879, went to Mr. Rockefeller, after the consolidation, to arrange for supplies. He was welcomed—the Standard Oil Company had not at that time begun to deal in lubricating oils—and encouraged to build a new plant. This was done at a cost of $41,000, and a contract was made with the Standard Oil Company for a daily supply of eighty-five barrels of residuum. Some time in 1874 this supply was cut down to twelve barrels. The price was put up too, and contracts for several months were demanded so that Mr. Morehouse got no advantage from the variation in crude prices. Then the freights went up on the railroads. He paid $1.50 and two dollars for what he says he felt sure his big neighbour was paying but seventy or seventy-five cents (there is no evidence of any such low rate to the Standard from Cleveland to New York by rail). Now it was impossible for Mr. Morehouse to supply his trade on twelve barrels of stock. He begged Mr. Rockefeller for more. It was there in the Standard Oil works. Why could he not have it? He could pay for it. He and his partner offered to buy 5,000 barrels and store it, but Mr. Rockefeller was firm. All he could give Mr. Morehouse was twelve barrels a day. “I saw readily what that meant,” said Mr. Morehouse, “that meant squeeze you out—buy your works. They have got the works and are running them; I am without anything. They paid about $15,000 for what cost me $41,000. He said that he had facilities for freighting and that the coal-oil business belonged to them; and any concern that would start in