“Mr. Cassatt,” Mr. MacVeagh said, “I want to direct your attention to a personal matter which was asked you to a certain extent. You were asked whether you had any knowledge that Mr. Vanderbilt, representing the New York Central, or Mr. Jewett, representing the Erie, had any interest whatever in the Standard Oil Company or any of its affiliated companies. I wish to extend that question to the other trunk lines. I wish you would state whether or not to your knowledge Mr. Garrett, or anybody representing the Baltimore and Ohio, had any such interest?” “They have not to my knowledge.” * * * * * “Then I wish you would state whether Mr. Scott or yourself, or any other officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, had any such interest?” “Never to my knowledge. I speak of absolute knowledge as to myself, but as to Mr. Scott to the best of my knowledge and belief.” Of course after this controversy the railroads were more obdurate than ever. Mr. Payne and Mr. Camden were active, too, in securing the suppression of the investigations and they soon succeeded not only in doing that but in pigeon-holing for the time Mr. Hopkins’s Interstate Commerce Bill. But the oil men had not been trusting entirely to Congressional relief. From the time that they became convinced that the railroads meant to stand by the terms of the “Rutter Circular” they began to seek an independent outlet to the sea. The first project to attract attention was the Columbia Conduit Pipe Line. This line was begun by one of the picturesque characters of Western Pennsylvania, “Dr.” David Hostetter, the maker of the famous Hostetter’s Bitters. Dr. Hostetter’s Bitters’ headquarters were in Pittsburg. He had become interested in oil there, and had made investments in Butler County. In 1874 he found himself hampered in disposing of his oil and conceived the idea of piping it to Pittsburg, where he could make a connection with the Baltimore and Ohio road, which up to this time had refused to go into the oil pool. Now at that time the right of eminent domain for pipes had been granted in but eight counties of Western Pennsylvania. Allegheny County, in which Pittsburg is located, was not included in the eight, a restriction which the oil men attributed rightly, no doubt, to the influence of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the State Legislature. That road could hardly have been expected to allow the pipes to go to Pittsburg and connect with a rival road if it could help it. Dr. Hostetter succeeded in buying a right of way through the county, however, and laid his pipes within a few miles of the city to a point where he had to pass under a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The spot chosen was the bed of a stream over which the railroad passed by a bridge. Dr. Hostetter claimed he had bought the bed of the run and that the railroad owned simply the right to span the run.