It did not take the full exposition of the objects of the South Improvement Company, brought out by the Congressional Investigating Committee, with the publication of charters and contracts, to convince the country at large that the Oil Regions were right in their opposition. From the first the sympathy of the press and the people were with the oil men. It was evident to everybody that if the railroads had made the contracts as charged (and it daily became more evident they had done so), nothing but an absolute monopoly of the whole oil business by this combination could result. It was robbery, cried the newspapers all over the land. “Under the thin guise of assisting in the development of oil-refining in Pittsburg and Cleveland,” said the New York Tribune, “this corporation has simply laid its hand upon the throat of the oil traffic with a demand to ‘stand and deliver.’” And if this could be done in the oil business, what was to prevent its being done in any other industry? Why should not a company be formed to control wheat or beef or iron or steel, as well as oil? If the railroads would do this for one company, why not for another? The South Improvement Company, men agreed, was a menace to the free trade of the country. If the oil men yielded now, all industries must suffer from their weakness. The railroads must be taught a lesson as well as would-be monopolists. The oil men had no thought of yielding. With every day of the war their backbone grew stiffer. The men were calmer, too, for their resistance had found a ground which seemed impregnable to them, and arguments against the South Improvement Company now took the place of denunciations. On all sides men said, This is a transportation question, and now is the time to put an end once and forever to the rebates. The sentiment against discrimination on account of amount of freight or for any other reason had been strong in the country since its beginning, and it now crystallised immediately. The country so buzzed with discussion on the duties of the railroads that reporters sent from the Eastern newspapers commented on it. Nothing was commoner, indeed, on the trains which ran the length of the region and were its real forums, than to hear a man explaining that the railways derived their existence and power from the people, that their charters were contracts with the people, that a fundamental provision of these contracts was that there should be no discriminating in favour of one person or one town, that such a discrimination was a violation of charter, that therefore the South Improvement Company was founded on fraud, and the courts must dissolve it if the railways did not abandon it. The Petroleum Producers’ Union which had been formed to grapple with the “Monster” actually demanded interstate regulation, for in a circular sent out to newspapers and boards of trade asking their aid against the conspiracy they included this paragraph: “We urge you to exert all your influence with