ffidavits made by the gentleman who conducted the
negotiations on behalf of Mrs. Backus. I have no wish to reprint the
complimentary allusion to myself in Mr. Backus's letter, but have
feared to omit a word of it lest some misunderstanding ensue:

BOWLING GREEN, OHIO, September 18, '03.

MR. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
Cleveland, Ohio.

I do not know whether you will ever receive this letter or not,
whether your secretary will throw it into the waste-basket or not,
but I will do my part and get it off my mind, and it will not be my
fault if you do not receive or read it. Ever since the day that my
deceased brother's wife, Mrs. F.N. Backus, wrote you the unjust and
unreasonable letter in reference to the sale of the property of the
old Backus Oil Company, in which I had a small interest, I have
wanted to write you and record my disapproval of that letter. I
lived with my brother's family, was at the house the day you called
to talk the matter of the then proposed purchase of the property
with Mrs. Backus by her request, as she told Mr. Jennings that she
wanted to deal through you. I was in favour of the sale from the
first.

I was with Mrs. Backus all through the trouble with Mr. Rose and
with Mr. Maloney, did what I could to encourage her, and to prevent
Mr. Rose from getting the best of her. Mrs. Backus, in my opinion,
is an exceptionally good financier, but she does not know and no
one can convince her that the best thing that ever happened to her
financially was the sale of her interest in the Backus Oil Company
to your people. She does not know that five more years of the then
increasing desperate competition would have bankrupted the company,
and that with the big debt that she was carrying on the lot on
Euclid Avenue, near Sheriff Street, she would have been swamped,
and that the only thing that ever saved her and the oil business
generally was the plan of John D. Rockefeller. She thinks that you
literally robbed her of millions, and feeds her children on that
diet three times a day more or less, principally more, until it has
become a mania with her, and no argument that any one else can
suggest will have any effect upon her. She is wise and good in many
ways, but on that one subject she is one-sided, I think. Of course,
if we could have been assure