These and many other questions are pertinent, for clearly if they can control the shipment they can control the price of oil, and if they can control the price to the extent of twenty-five cents per barrel, they can control it entirely. If they can control it entirely, where will be their limit? Who will dictate a line of policy to them? And may not one of the greatest and most important industries of this country be destroyed and hundreds of thousands of business men be made bankrupt if this combination is successful and has the disposition to work ruin? I do not say that I think they will work ruin. They undoubtedly will attempt to make all the money they can and will pursue such a policy as in their judgment will bring them the utmost amount of profits, regardless of consequences, but what that policy will be, of course, we can not judge. It is understood that the parties to this combination excuse themselves and their action before the public by reciting the undoubted facts in the case. They are these: that the refining of oil as a business has been of late and is now overdone; that the capacity for refining petroleum in this country exceeds the production in the ratio of three barrels to one; that the railroads have reduced freights to the lowest extreme, and were even losing money; that refiners, in spite of all their efforts, could not earn their running expenses; that the _special interests of Cleveland_ as a refining point were in danger of being lost; and that this great business might go to other points, and the millions of dollars in refining property here be sacrificed, and thousands of men thrown out of employment; that real estate would depreciate, and that many other collateral troubles connected with the loss of this business would follow; and that _now_, by the consummation of the plans of this monopoly, all these evils will be avoided.