“My own experience will exemplify this statement.

“Forty years ago I attained my majority.  I was a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania, and considered that I was a freeman.  By the death of my father I had come into a fortune of fifty thousand dollars.  I lived in the oil region, and sought to engage in the oil industry.  To this end I purchased land contiguous to a railroad.  On my holdings a well was located which yielded three hundred barrels of oil a day.

“No sooner had I begun to operate my well than the agents of the Oil Trust, which had then but recently sprung into existence as a menace to individual refining, came to me with a proposition to incorporate my well in the Trust’s system.  The well was capable of earning a net profit of seventy thousand dollars a year.  The Trust offered me a paltry two hundred and thirty thousand dollars for my plant.  This I refused to accept, for the actual value was one million dollars.

“Then by crafty insinuation the agents of the Trust intimated that unless I sold my property and accepted inflated stock in the Trust and allowed my well to be absorbed in the system, I would find myself opposed by the mighty consolidation.  Still I refused to abrogate my right to conduct an independent business.

“Failing to allure me by their offers, which would have proved valueless in the end; or of intimidating me by their threats, the agents reported to the office of the Trust that I was obdurate and must be disciplined.

“Accordingly pressure was brought to bear on the railroad over which I sent my product to a market.  The railroad discriminated against me; it gave the Trust a rebate on all oil shipped over the road and made me pay the full schedule rates.  Even against this detrimental condition I was able to sell my oil at a small profit.

“I might have survived the unequal struggle had not the ‘pipe line’ system been introduced.  By this the Oil Trust transports its oil to the sea-board at a cost that enables it to undersell all competitors.  And for a time the price of oil was reduced, and all the minor competitors were driven into bankruptcy or forced to sell out to the Trust at a ridiculously low figure.

“Owing to my well being centrally located I was able to hold out longer than many others.

“John D. Savage, the Oil King, realized that some more potent means had to be devised to crush me.  This means was found in the expedient of ‘Sacrifice’ sales.  At every depot where I sold, the agents of the Trust offered to sell oil at figures lower than I could possibly sell it.  I lost my trade.  In an effort to retrench, my fortune was consumed, and from a position of affluence I descended to beggary, and had to join the ranks as an employee.  So bitter was the animosity of the Trust that it sought to rob me even of the opportunity to earn a living.  I have been hounded from post to pillar; my life has been made miserable.  I have seen my family want for bread.