Suit was now brought by the Attorney-General of the State to recover this tax, as was his duty, and then the company began to stir itself. To assist him in procuring and interpreting evidence the Attorney-General, who knew nothing of the oil business, obtained the services of a man who knew more about it than any one else in Pennsylvania. This person was a practical oil man. He was one of the leaders of the producers and refiners' association, which in the exciting times of 1872, when law and order in Pennsylvania stood on the edge of a crater, compelled the railroads to abandon the South Improvement scheme, "in name," and to give in writing the pledge that "all arrangements for the transportation of oil after this date shall be upon the basis of perfect equality to all," though he could not find a way to make them keep the pledge. He was prominent six years later in the uprising of the people when they found that all these promises were being broken, and all their rights on the highways being violated. It was largely through his influence that the producers determined to proceed against the oil combination as a criminal conspiracy, and procured the indictment of its principals in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, on charges of crime.[318] "When," as was said before the Pennsylvania Legislative Committee of 1883, "the doors of the penitentiary were gaping wide to receive them; when a true bill had been found before the Grand Jury; when, if they ever were in jeopardy before to-day, they were in jeopardy." He was chairman of the Committee on Transportation of the Oil Producers' Association, and was one of the "legal committee" of five who represented the producers in having the "anti-discrimination suits" brought and pushed against the Pennsylvania Railroad by the State in 1879. By these suits the discriminations and favoritisms, which, though known, it had till then been impossible to prove, were forced into the light as facts, and the evidence was furnished without which the indictments just referred to could not have been found. When the accused, frightened at last, succeeded in getting the aroused producers to agree not to push the criminal trial, in consideration of a solemn pledge that all secrecy and favoritism in transportation should be given up, he withdrew from the negotiations and would not sign the compromise. He had assisted the Congressional Committees of Commerce at Washington in 1872 and 1876 in their ill-starred investigations, and had been active in the effort to get another investigation begun in 1880. He had also been one of the principal witnesses before the New York Legislative investigation of 1879. For eighteen years he had been on this quest. With him the Attorney-General now arranged to get the evidence on which the State could support its claim for taxes.