“The details of these negotiations, of course, need not, and did not, reach the office of the executive department,” he said. “As a part of them, however, requests were presented in the interest of the petitioners (the Producers’ Union) to the Governor, not to issue the requisition, followed again by requests that they be allowed to go out. Finding that the highest process of the commonwealth was being used simply as leverage for and against the parties to these negotiations between contending litigants, and that, however entire and perfect might have been the good faith in which the criminal proceedings in Clarion County had been commenced, they were being regarded and treated as a mere make-weight in the stages of private diplomacy, I deemed it my duty, in the exercise of a sound discretion, to suspend action on the requisitions.” [Illustration: E. G. PATTERSON From 1872 to 1880 the chief advocate in the Oil Region of an interstate commerce law. Assisted in drafting the bills of 1876 and 1880. Abandoned the independent interests at the time of the compromise of 1880. ] [Illustration: ROGER SHERMAN Chief counsel of the Petroleum Producers’ Union from 1878 to 1880. From 1880 to 1885 counsel for the Standard Oil Company. From 1885 to his death in 1893 counsel of the allied independents. ] [Illustration: BENJ. B. CAMPBELL President of the Petroleum Producers’ Union from 1878 to 1880. Independent refiner and operator until his death. ] [Illustration: JOSIAH LOMBARD Prominent independent refiner of N. Y. City, whose firm was the only one to keep its contract with the Tidewater Pipe Line Company in 1880. ] The writer has examined all the private correspondence which passed at this time between the litigants, but finds no proof of Governor Hoyt’s statement that the Union at one time ceased its demands for Mr. Rockefeller’s extradition. The conspiracy suit had been set for the August session of the Clarion County court. When August came the Standard sought a continuance, and it was granted. The delay did not in any way discourage the producers, and when Mr. Rockefeller became convinced of this he tried conciliation. “Come, let us reason together,” has always been a favourite proposition of Mr. Rockefeller. He would rather persuade than coerce, rather silence than fight. He had been making peace overtures ever since the suits began. The first had been in the fall of 1878, soon after they were instituted, when he sent the following letter to Captain Vandergrift: “CAPTAIN J. J. VANDERGRIFT: