There was another interest as deeply concerned as Mr. Rockefeller in preserving Cleveland’s supremacy as a refining centre, and this was the Lake Shore and New York Central Railroads. Let the bulk of refining be done in the Oil Regions and these roads were in danger of losing a profitable branch of business. This situation in regard to the oil traffic was really more serious now than in 1868 when General Devereux had first given the Standard a rebate. Then it was that the Pennsylvania, through its lusty ally the Empire Transportation Company, was making the chief fight to secure a “patent right on oil transportation.” The Erie was now becoming as aggressive a competitor. Gould and Fisk had gone into the fight with the vigour and the utter unscrupulousness which characterised all their dealings. They were allying themselves with the Pennsylvania Transportation Company, the only large rival pipe-line system which the Empire had. They were putting up a refinery near Jersey City, and they were taking advantage shrewdly of all the speculative features of the new business. As competition grew between the roads, they grew more reckless in granting rebates, the refiners more insistent in demanding them. By 1871 things had come to such a pass in the business that every refiner suspected his neighbour to be getting better rates than he. The result was that the freight agents were constantly beset for rebates, and that the large shippers were generally getting them on the ground of the quantity of oil they controlled. Indeed it was evident that the rebate being admitted, the only way in which it could be adjusted with a show of fairness was to grade it according to the size of the shipment. [Illustration: W. G. WARDEN Secretary of the South Improvement Company. ] [Illustration: PETER H. WATSON President of the South Improvement Company. ] [Illustration: CHARLES LOCKHART A member of the South Improvement Company, and later of the Standard Oil Company. At his death in 1904 the oldest living oil operator. ] [Illustration: HENRY M. FLAGLER IN 1882 Active partner of John D. Rockefeller in the oil business since 1867. Officer of the Standard Oil Company since its organization in 1870. ]