The pipe line was finished and ready to move oil about the 1st of June, 1879. On June 5th a meeting was held at Saratoga of representatives of the four trunk-line railroads and of members of the oil trust. The meeting decided that the new competitor should be fought to the death. The rate on oil, which had been $1.15 a barrel, was reduced to 80, then to 30, to 20, to 15 cents by the railroads, to make the business unprofitable enough to ruin this first attempt to pipe oil to the seaboard. Finally the roads carried a barrel, weighing 390 pounds, 400 miles for the combination for 10 cents or less.[186] The representative of the Tidewater offered to prove to Congress, in 1880, if it would order an investigation--which it would not--that "the announced and ostensible object of the conference at Saratoga was to destroy the credit of the Tidewater, and to enable the oil combination to buy up the new pipe line, and that a time was fixed by the combination within which it promised to secure the control of the pipe line--provided the trunk-lines would make the rates for carrying oil so low that all concerned in transportation would lose money.[187] There can be no doubt," he continued, "that, taking the avowed and ostensible object of the Saratoga meeting as the true one, it constituted, on the part of the willing participants, a criminal conspiracy of the most dangerous character." One of the chief officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad testified to the competition which his road had carried on with the Tidewater. "It certainly was fought," he said; "the rates were considerably reduced."[188] Rates were put down to points so low that the railroad men would never tell what they were. I have no knowledge--I have no recollection--was all the president and general freight agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad could be got to say, when before the Interstate Commerce Commission.[189] "Not enough to pay for the wheel grease," said the general freight agent.[190] The oil trust also cut the prices of pipeage by its local lines from 20 cents to 5 cents a barrel, turning cheapness into the enemy of cheapness. But the Tidewater was strong enough to withstand even so formidable an assault as this. As its business was small, its losses were small; but the railroads, making this war on it for the benefit of others, suffered heavily. The trunk-lines, it has been calculated, wilfully threw away profits equal to $10,000,000 a year for the sake of inflicting a loss of $100,000 on the pipe lines.[191] Enough revenue was lost to pay dividends of 2-1/2 to 5 per cent. on the total capital of the roads.