The same or similar conditions, not only in oil, but in other products, which led to these suits, led to investigations in other states. Toward the end of 1878 the Chamber of Commerce of New York City demanded from the Legislature of the state an investigation of the New York railroads. This investigation was carried on from the beginning of 1879. The revelations were amazing. Before the Hepburn Commission, as it was called from the name of the chairman, was through with its work there had appeared before it to give testimony in regard to the conduct of the Standard Oil Company and of the relation of the Erie and the Central roads to it, H. H. Rogers, J. D. Archbold, Jabez A. Bostwick and W. T. Sheide. A large number of independent oil men had also appeared. William H. Vanderbilt had been examined, and G. H. Blanchard, the freight agent of the Erie road, had given a full account of the relation of the Erie to the Standard, perhaps the most useful piece of testimony, after that of Mr. Cassatt, belonging to this period of the Standard’s history.[73] At the same time that the Pennsylvania suits were going on, and the Hepburn Commission was doing its work, the Legislature of Ohio instituted an investigation. It was commonly charged that this investigation was smothered, but it was not smothered until H. M. Flagler had appeared before it and given some most interesting facts concerning rebates. A number of gentlemen who were finding it hard to do oil business also appeared before the Ohio committee and told their stories.[74] By April, 1879, there had been brought out in these various investigations a mass of testimony sufficient in the judgment of certain of the producers to establish the truth of a charge which they had long been making, and that was that the Standard was simply a revival of the South Improvement Company. Now the verdict of the Congressional Committee had been that the South Improvement Company was a conspiracy. Therefore, said the producers, the Standard Oil Company is a conspiracy. Their hope had been, from the first, to obtain proof to establish this charge. Having this they believed they could obtain judgment from the courts against the officials of the company, and either break it up or put its members in the penitentiary. The more hotheaded of the producers believed that they now had this evidence. If one will examine the testimony which had been given thus far in the course of the various examinations one will see that there was reason for their belief. In the first place, it had been established that all the stockholders of the South Improvement Company, excepting four, were now members of the Standard Oil Combination. Indeed, the only persons holding high positions in the new combination at this date who were not South Improvement Company men were, Charles Pratt, J. J. Vandergrift, H. H. Rogers and John D. Archbold.