As to the effect on the working-man, the demand for labor declined, wages went down, and the number of unemployed increased. When there was competition in Cleveland the great company could not afford to have its skilled workmen idle, because they would seek employment with the other refineries; but now, having the refining business all in its own hands, when it was temporarily to its advantage to refine oil in Pittsburg, Oil City, or other points, in preference to Cleveland, it could with impunity let its hands remain idle in Cleveland, knowing that when it wanted them it could easily secure them, as there are no other refineries in Cleveland to employ them, and "that has been a very serious injury to working-men."[101] There was no pretence that the design of this contract was not to make oil scarce--_i.e._, dear. In the affidavit which was made in support of the injunction the principal reconciler showed that his company had restricted itself as much as it restricted these competitors. He urged as the reason why the contract had been made and why the courts should sustain it, that "the capacity of all the refineries in the United States is more than sufficient to supply the markets of the world, and if all the refineries were run to their full capacity they would refine at least twice as much oil as the markets of the world require; that this difference between the capacity of refineries and the demands of the market has existed for at least seven years past, and during that period the refineries" of his company "have not been run to ... exceed one-half of their capacity." When these surviving independents of Cleveland were forced into this adventure, in 1876, the source of the power which could compel "free" citizens in this age of individualism to execute such a bond was not known. The appalling mortality among the independents showed that something was seriously wrong. There was something, however, in this "Agreement for an Adventure" which pointed straight to it. That was a clause which guaranteed those who became vassals that they should have the same freight rates and get back the same rebates as the monopoly.[102] "Had the monopoly the power," said the Hon. Stanley Matthews, "to procure freights on better and more advantageous terms than the rest of the public engaged in the same business?... And if they had such power, how did it get it?... If this or any other corporation is allowed to exalt itself in this way and by these means above competition, it is also exalted above the law."