The acquiescence of the “railroad kings” in the refusal of the oil men to recognise representatives of the South Improvement Company was followed by an unwilling promise to break the contracts with the company. Another strong effort was made to persuade the independents to make the same contracts on condition that they shipped as much oil, but they would not hear of it. They demanded open rates, with no rebates to anyone. Horace Clark and W. H. Vanderbilt particularly stuck for this arrangement. Their opposition to the oil men’s position was so strong that the latter in reporting it to the Union said: “We feel it proper to say that we are in no wise indebted to these gentlemen for any courtesy or consideration received at their hands.” So well did the committee fight its battle and so strongly were they supported by the New York refiners that the railroads were finally obliged to consent to revoke the contracts and to make a new one embodying the views of the Oil Regions. The contract finally signed at this meeting by H. F. Clark for the Lake Shore road, O. H. P. Archer for the Erie, W. H. Vanderbilt for the Central, George B. McClellan for the Atlantic and Great Western, and Thomas A. Scott for the Pennsylvania, agreed that all shipping of oil should be made on “a basis of perfect equality to all shippers, producers, and refiners, and that no rebates, drawbacks, or other arrangements of any character shall be made or allowed that will give any party the slightest difference in rates or discriminations of any character whatever.”[24] It was also agreed that the rates should not be liable to change either for increase or decrease without first giving William Hasson, president of the Producers’ Union, at least ninety days’ notice. The same rate was put on refined oil from Cleveland, Pittsburg and the creek, to Eastern shipping points; that is, Mr. Rockefeller could send his oil from Cleveland to New York at $1.50 per barrel; so could his associates in Pittsburg; and this was what it cost the refiner on the creek; but the latter had this advantage: he was at the wells. Mr. Rockefeller and his Pittsburg allies were miles away, and it cost them, by the new contract, fifty cents to get a barrel of crude to their works. The Oil Regions meant that geographical position should count, that the advantages Mr. Rockefeller had by his command of the Western market and by his access to a cheap Eastward waterway should be considered as well as their own position beside the raw product.