xperience 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 th