RISING IN THE OIL REGIONS AGAINST THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY—PETROLEUM PRODUCERS’ UNION ORGANISED—OIL BLOCKADE AGAINST MEMBERS OF SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY AND AGAINST RAILROADS IMPLICATED—CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION OF 1872 AND THE DOCUMENTS IT REVEALED—PUBLIC DISCUSSION AND GENERAL CONDEMNATION OF THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY—RAILROAD OFFICIALS CONFER WITH COMMITTEE FROM PETROLEUM PRODUCERS’ UNION—WATSON AND ROCKEFELLER REFUSED ADMITTANCE TO CONFERENCE—RAILROADS REVOKE CONTRACTS WITH SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY AND MAKE CONTRACT WITH PETROLEUM PRODUCERS’ UNION—BLOCKADE AGAINST SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY LIFTED—OIL WAR OFFICIALLY ENDED—ROCKEFELLER CONTINUES TO GET REBATES—HIS GREAT PLAN STILL A LIVING PURPOSE. It was not until after the middle of February, 1872, that the people of the Oil Regions heard anything of the plan which was being worked out for their “good.” Then an uneasy rumour began running up and down the creek. Freight rates were going up. Now an advance in a man’s freight bill may ruin his business; more, it may mean the ruin of a region. Rumour said that the new rate meant just this; that is, that it more than covered the margin of profit in any branch of the oil business. The railroads were not going to apply the proposed tariffs to everybody. They had agreed to give to a company unheard of until now—the South Improvement Company—a special rate considerably lower than the new open rate. It was only a rumour and many people discredited it. _Why_ should the railroads ruin the Oil Regions to build up a company of outsiders? But facts began to be reported. Mr. Doane, the Cleveland shipper already quoted, told how suddenly on the 22d of February, without notice, his rate from the Oil Regions to Cleveland was put up from thirty-five cents a barrel to sixty-five cents, an advance of twenty-four dollars on a carload.[16] Mr. Josiah Lombard of the New York refining firm of Ayres, Lombard and Company was buying oil for his company at Oil City. Their refinery was running about 12,000 barrels a month. On the 19th of February the rate from Oil City to Buffalo, which had been forty cents a barrel, was raised to sixty-five cents, and a few days later the rate from Warren to New York was raised from eighty-seven cents to $2.14. Mr. Lombard was not aware of this change until his house in New York reported to him that the bills for freight were so heavy that they could not afford to ship and wanted to know what was the matter.[17]