From the beginning to the end the language used by the founders of the combination proves scarcity to have been their object. "There is a large number of refineries in the country--a great deal larger than is required for the manufacture of the oil produced in the country, or for the wants of the consumers in Europe and America," said one of the principal members in 1872.[110] This is almost identical with the language used in 1880 in the effort to enjoin Cleveland refiners who "threatened to distil." In 1887 we will see the same power putting its hand and seal to an agreement to enforce the doctrine that there was too much oil in the earth. In 1872 there were more refineries than were needed for the oil; in 1887 there was too much oil. The progression is significant. And down to the present pool with the Scotch refiners we will see the same men enforcing abroad, year by year, the same gospel of want.[111] "The producers in America are quite alive to the wisdom of not producing too much paraffine, and are already adopting measures to restrict it," said the chairman at the annual meeting of one of the principal Scotch companies.[112] CHAPTER VII "YOU ARE NOT TO REFINE" In the obituary column of the Cleveland _Herald_, of June 6, 1874, was given the news of the death of one of the pioneer manufacturers of Cleveland. He began the refining of petroleum in that city in 1860, several years before any of those who afterwards became the sovereigns of the business had left their railroad platforms, book-keeping stools, and lawyers' desks. He was married in the same year, and from that time until his death, in 1874, gave his whole life to his refinery and his family, and was successful with both. The _Herald_ said of him editorially: "He was well known in Cleveland and elsewhere as a business man of high character. He was a prominent member of the First Presbyterian Church, was at one time President of the Young Men's Christian Association, and was active in all enterprises of a religious and benevolent character. He was about forty years of age, and leaves a wife and three children." His enterprise had been "very profitable," his wife said afterwards in court, in narrating how she and her children fared after the death of the husband, father, and bread-winner. "My husband devoted his entire energies and life to the business from about 1860 to the time of his death, and had acquired through his name a large patronage. My husband went into debt just before his death," she continued, "for the first time in his life. For the interest of my fatherless children, as well as myself, I thought it my duty to continue the business. I took $75,000 of the $100,000 of stock, and continued from that time, 1874, until November, 1878, making handsome profits, during perhaps the hardest business years of the time since my husband had begun."[113]