that business, they had sufficient money to lay aside a fund to wipe them out—these are the words.”[52] At every refining centre in the country this process of consolidation through persuasion, intimidation, or force, went on. As fast as a refinery was brought in line its work was assigned to it. If it was an old and poorly equipped plant it was usually dismantled or shut down. If it was badly placed, that is, if it was not economically placed in regard to a pipe-line and railroad, it was dismantled even though in excellent condition. If it was a large and well-equipped plant advantageously located it was assigned a certain quota to manufacture, and it did nothing but manufacture. The buying of crude, the making of freight rates, the selling of the output remained with Mr. Rockefeller. The contracts under which all the refineries brought into line were run were of the most detailed and rigid description, and they were executed as a rule with a secrecy which baffles description. Take, for example, a running arrangement made by Rockefeller in 1876, with a Cleveland refinery, that of Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle. The members of this concern had all been in the refining business in Cleveland in 1872 and had all handed over their works to Mr. Rockefeller, when he notified them of the South Improvement Company’s contracts. Mr. Shurmer declared once in an affidavit that he alone lost $20,000 by that manœuvre. The members of the firm had not stayed out of business, however. Recovering from the panic caused by the South Improvement Company, they had united in 1875, building a refinery worth $65,000, with a yearly capacity of 180,000 barrels of crude. On the first year’s business they made $40,000. Although this was doing well, they were convinced they might do better if they could get as good freight rates as the Standard Oil Company, and in the spring of 1876 they brought suit against the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the New York Central and Hudson River Railroads for “unlawful and unjust discrimination, partialities and preferences made and practised ... in favour of the Standard Oil Company, enabling the said Standard Oil Company to obtain to a great extent the monopoly of the oil and naphtha trade of Cleveland.” The suit was not carried through at the time. Mr. Rockefeller seems to have suggested a surer way to the firm of getting the rates they wanted. This was to make a running arrangement with him. He seems to have demonstrated to them that they could make more money under his plan than outside, and they signed a contract for a remarkable “joint adventure.” According to this document Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle put into the business a plant worth at that time about $73,000 and their entire time. Mr. Rockefeller put in $10,000 and his rebates! That is, he secured for the firm the same preferential rates on their shipments that the Standard Oil Company enjoyed. The firm bound itself not to refine over