The then president of the United Pipe Lines of the oil combination, who was also president of a subordinate corporation, was a witness in 1879 in the suit brought by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His refinery, he stated, did nothing but make the oil. "It is taken and sold by another organization"--the oil combination. "We agree to take the same prices that they take for their oil. It is kind of pooled--the sale of the oil." The "agreement," he said, is "simply to hold up the price of refined oil, ... to get all we can for it ... under some arrangement by which they keep the price up to make a profit." Not only was the price fixed under the agreement "to get all we can," but the combination, as at Cleveland,[608] fixed the amount to be produced. The subordinate company was allowed to have nothing to do with the business--except to do the work, and to do only as much as its superior chose to permit. Other refiners, in the same investigation, were shown to be sufferers from the same kind of "grip." Asked what other concerns besides his of Oil City were in this arrangement, he named the principal ones of Titusville, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York. "These companies were all acting in concert, were they?" "So far as sales of refined oil were concerned, I think they were." Capitalists are usually supposed to be hard of heart and head, suspicious, great sticklers for "black and white," and careful to have all that is due them "nominated in the bond." This arrangement, by which this witness and his associates put themselves entirely at the disposal of others--as to how much they should manufacture, what freight they should pay, what price they should receive, etc.--was not in writing. "It is a verbal one."[609] The purchase of the refineries at Baltimore by the oil combination in 1877, under the name of the Baltimore United Oil Company, was immediately followed by an advance in price. The Baltimore _Sun_, in December, 1877, said: "The combination has already begun to exert its influence on the market. Oil for home consumption was yesterday quoted at 14 cents, having raised from 11-1/2 cents, the quotation on Wednesday. The combination will not make contracts ahead, which might be interpreted to mean an intended advance in price." In Buffalo the manager of one of the properties of the oil combination said in evidence: "My son is on a committee, he told me, that regulates the price of oil."[610] While the trust had the trade of Buffalo to itself, it held the price of oil at a high rate. "In Buffalo there were then no rival works," said State's Attorney Quinby to the jury who were trying its representatives for conspiracy against a competing refinery, "and we were paying for kerosene 18 cents a gallon. To-day, with the little Buffalo company in the market making kerosene, you can get it for 6 cents a gallon."