His refinery had been giving him a profit of $21,000 to $22,000 a year. It had cost him $41,000, but he had to sell it for $15,000. This purchase of $41,000 for $15,000 was one of "the little economies" to which the trust ascribes its success. It was not a "good time to sell," but he sold. Part of the "squeeze" put upon him was the rebate given to the buyer. He could not have got the rebate if he had applied for it, but he would not apply for it. "I made application for lower freights, but not for any drawbacks; I did not suppose that was the right way to do business."[626] "This business belongs to us." This remark was not prophecy, but history. It was in 1878, and the claim had been already made good. The New York Legislature, in 1879, reported that the speaker and his associates had control of 90 or 95 per cent. of the industry. "It has absorbed and monopolized this great traffic, which ranks second on the list of exports of our country."[627] This conclusion was based on the evidence of officers and stockholders.[628] Their shadow grew no less. The Interstate Commerce Commission found in 1890 that they "manufacture nearly 90 per cent. of the petroleum and its products in the United States."[629] "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." For the perfection of this triumph no trifle has been disdained, from the well in the mountain to the peddler's cart in the city. The bargemen of the Alleghany, the coasters of the sea-shore, and the stern-wheelers of the Western rivers all had to go one way. "We drove out the shipments in the schooners from Baltimore and Washington, and we stopped almost the shipments by river down the Mississippi by boat," said one of the successful men. His plan had been so thorough as even to seek to "drive off the river schooners."[630] The last stage in their economic development--that in which the people of the oil region lose the ownership of the oil lands and become hired men--is already far along. Although at first the oil combination owned no oil lands to speak of--"It does not own any oil wells or land producing oil, and never did," its president said, in 1880; "an infinitesimal amount," he said later[631]--it has of late years, through corporations organized for that purpose, been a heavy buyer and leaser of the best oil lands in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and the West.