338  nf  THE  IHTEREST  OF  ALL

ratee,  bat  at  the  end  of  that  protracted  exchange  of  letten
the  general  manager  wrote :  "I  was  not  aware  that  j^od  had
aeked  for  rates  on  oil  in  tank-care." '  Rice  wrote  the  Loqib-
ville  and  Nashville  :  "I  will  bnild  immediately  twenty  tank-
cars  if  yon  will  gnarantee  me  ...  as  low  a  net  rate  as  ac-
corded any  other  shipper."  Commenting  on  his  failnro  to
get  answers,  the  commissioners  say:  "Complainant  did  not
SDccecd  in  obtaining  ratee.  The  denial  of  his  right  was  plain,
and  stands  unexcnsed.  .  .  .  What  reason  there  may  have  been
for  it " — the  refusal  of  ratee — "  we  do  not  know,  bat  find  that
they  were  not  jnst  or  legal  reasons."'

How  history  is  made  t  One  of  the  reasons  ^ven  by  the
solicitor  of  the  oil  tmst*  for  its  snccess  is  its  ase  of  the  tank-
car,  with  the  obvioDB  inference  that  its  would-be  competitors
had  no  such  enterprise.  And  Pcckhsm,  in  his  valuable  and
nsnally  correct  "  Census  Eeport  on  Petrolenm,"  in  1885,  says
that  the  railroads  require  shippers  to  use  tank-cnrs!  *

Determined  to  keep  in  the  field  and  to  have  tank-cars,  if
tank-cars  were  so  popular  with  the  railroad  officials,  Rice  went
to  the  leading  mannfactnrers  to  have  some  bnilt.  He  fonnd
they  were  glad  to  get  bis  contract.  After  making  arrange-
ments at  considerable  trouble  and  expense  to  bnild  him
the  care,  they  telegraphed  him  that  they  had  to  give  it  np.
