4S6  "TO  GET  ALL  WE  OAIf"

gent);  to  a  merchant  who  persisted  in  selling  oppoeition  mL
**  Look  at  this  map ;  we  bare  the  conntry  divided  into  distrietL
If  yon  insist  on  war  we  will  cnt  the  prices  in  joar  territoij
to  any  necessary  extent  to  destroy  yon,  bnt  we  low  oothiag^
We  simply  make  a  corresponding  advance  in  some  othw  dii-
trict.  Ton  lose  everything.  We  cannot  by  »ny  pombility
lose  anything."

Only  by  thos  contracting  themselves  ont  of  their  righb
conld  these  "free"  merchants  get  oil  with  which  to  sopply
their  cnstomers.  "Their  agent,"  wrote  a  dealer  of  Hot
Springs,  Arkansas,  "has  made  threats  to  some  of  oar  nw^
chants  that  they  most  or  shall  bny  oil  from  them  uid  do  ods
else,  or  if  otherwise  they  wonld  come  here  and  rain  them — 17
fair  means  if  they  conld,  by  nuderhand  ways  if  niiniiiiiij  *
Another  firm  in  Pine  BInff,  Arkansas,  wrote  that  the  agoDt
of  the  combination  had  called  upon  tliem  and  several  of  the
other  large  dealers  to  make  a  "contract,  .  .  .  and,  failing  to  do
so,  in  a  short  time  be  threatens  opening  a  retail  house,"  u  at
Columbus.'  Another  wrote,  December  13,  1886,  from  Xan-
sota  that  the  monopoly  "  will  not  sell  nnless  yon  sign  an  obli-
gation to  bay  from  them  and  them  only." '

This  maintenance  of  prices  nntil  some  "power  for  evil"
appears  with  lower  rates,  then  wars  to  kill,  and  raising  of
prices  if  the  war  ends  in  victory — these  phenomena  of  cheap-
ness conttnae  to  date.  Many  chapters  conld  be  filled  with
accounts  of  these  wars  of  which  record  has  been  kept  To
merely  name  the  battle-fields  would  require  pages.  When  the
combination,  throngh  its  agents,  attacked  Toledo  in  the  courts
for  undertaking  the  municipal  supply  of  natural  gaa,  it
"  urged,"  as  it  is  quoted  in  the  language  of  the  decision, "  thit
the  main  object  and  primary  purpose  of  the  act  is  to  enable
the  city  to  supply  its  individual  inhabitants  with  fael  for  pri-
vate use  and  consumption  'at  a  cheaper  rate  than  they  can  ob-
tain it  from  other  sources."  The  act  of  the  Legislature  gan
Toledo  "a  power  for  evil."    At  Denver  oil  was  sold  at  35

■SmcIliiIL  iTwtimwi.TruU^CongKM,  ISSS,  pp.  7M,TU.
