under him. Was the man equal to his job? seemed to be the sole test. For efficient coöperation the United States never saw the equal of the Standard.

Rockefeller was the first to develop on a large scale the sale of a natural product direct from the producer to the consumer. He suppressed the middleman and of course made enemies. A man who had a small brokerage business dependent upon the Standard, on which he supported in economic ease a small family, could not refrain from exclaiming, when deprived of his means of living, as he thought of the work of this powerful rich man, "He has taken from me my one ewe lamb." To such considerations Rockefeller was callous. Mercy in business never entered into his calculations. Not unlikely he ascribed talk, critical of his work, to envy, which he illustrated in his Reminiscences with the action of an Irish neighbor who built an extremely ugly house, the bright colors of which were offensive, as he looked out from his windows; therefore he moved some large trees to shut out the house from his view. Why are those large trees moved? the Irishman was asked, to which came the quick reply, "It's invy, they can't stand looking at the evidence of me prosperity." 1

Rockefeller quoted the expression of an old and experienced Boston merchant, "I am opposed on principle to the whole system of rebates and drawbacks — unless I am in it."2 This was undoubtedly the opinion of business men until this practice was forbidden by the Interstate Commerce Law of 1887. But before 1887 the Standard had developed its system and, as it increased

1 Random Reminiscences, 72.

2 Ibid., 112.

in power and wealth, dictated to those high in command of the railroads, getting low rates which enabled it to crush competitors, or when that was unnecessary, to amass hitherto unheard of wealth.

As Rockefeller's operations were successful he had no difficulty in obtaining all of the money that he desired, so that we see in the Standard a corporation efficiently directed with a real genius at its head and an ever ready supply of cash. To develop the foreign trade and to supply the East it was soon seen that the crude oil must be refined at the seaboard, hence refineries were established at Brooklyn, Bayonne in New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Having made dictatorial arrangements with the railroads, organized trade with Europe, Asia, Africa, the East and West of his own country, a common man would have rested on his oars satisfied with his great accomplishments. Not so Rockefeller who was ever on the watch. Pipe-lines had early been in operation to gather the oil from the wells to the railroads, of which the Standard had its share, but in 1879 it was demonstrated by an opposition company that crude oil could be pumped over the mountains and so reach the seaboard. Pipe-line transportation was much cheaper than railroad even if the railroads cut down their carrying charges to cost. Under this new competition all of Rockefeller's carefully made contracts with the railroads, so far as the carrying of crude oil was concerned, were for naught, but he was equal to the emergency. Within five years he owned all of the pipe-lines to the seaboard or had them under his control. With great effect he wrote in his book: "The entire oil business is dependent upon the pipe-line. Without it every well would be less valuable and every

market at home and abroad would be more difficult to serve or retain." 1

Constantly in litigation the Standard employed the best lawyers to fight its cases. Its policy ever to get hold of the ablest was in this particular exemplified with good results.

2

Did the Standard make the light of the world cheaper? An affirmative answer is at once given by its apologists, a negative by its critics. For ourselves we shall do well to accept the judgment of the intelligent historian of the Standard Oil Company, Gilbert H. Montague, who with the energy of youth investigated fully the matter. "The vexed question," he wrote, "of the effect of the Standard Oil combination on the price of refined oil will probably never be settled." It certainly stabilized prices. Under Cleveland competition, as it existed before 1871, there would have been an era of low prices succeeded by one of high, in entire accordance with the law of supply and demand. Under Standard management the price could not have been excessive or it would have lacked candid defenders. On the other hand there were the large dividends and the fact that everyone connected with the Standard grew rich.

Henry D. Lloyd in "Wealth against Commonwealth" makes a sharp criticism of the Standard Oil Company, and his remedy for the evils it and other trusts caused is State Socialism. This discussion will go on as long as socialists and individualists exist. But the student of men and affairs cannot overlook that " government is

1 Random Reminiscences, 84.

The Rise and Progress of the Standard Oil Company, 136.

some of us, and those not the best of us, put over the rest of us." 1 After a careful reading of this book of Lloyd's one inclined to individualism cannot fail to approve the statement of the reviewer of The Nation, "Were we not satisfied from evidence aliunde," it said, "that the managers of the Standard Oil Company had violated both law and justice in their attempts to suppress competition, we should be inclined to acquit them after reading this screed. It is quite beyond belief that these men should be capable of the height and depth of wickedness attributed to them, even if they possessed the superhuman powers with which they are credited. It is plain upon Mr. Lloyd's showing that their competitors would be no better than they if they had similar opportunities and it is impossible to arouse sympathy for men whose complaint is that they were not allowed to make enormous profits, for it appears to have been the policy of the Standard Company to buy out its rivals at reasonable rates." 2

Miss Tarbell, from a number of articles in McClure's Magazine, devoted to muckraking, has written two volumes entitled "The History of the Standard Oil Company" in which her industrious research can do no other than compel admiration from anyone who seeks historic truth. Her examination of documents that bear upon the subject seems thorough and no one can attempt a consideration of the Standard without recourse to the many facts that she has uncovered. All the same, the feeling grows that she had determined on her thesis and in her book had sought facts which should support her preconceived impressions. Again must one have recourse to The

1 Cited from memory but the remark was, I think, made by Professor W. G. Sumner. The Nation, Nov. 8, 1894, 348.

Nation. "The writer" [i.e. Miss Tarbell], it said, "has either a vague conception of the nature of proof or she is willing to blacken the character of John D. Rockefeller by insinuation and detraction." But he “has been caught in no worse crimes than underselling his competitors and getting rebates from railroads. It is matter of public notoriety that Mr. Rockefeller is offensively reticent. . . . In impassioned . . . language a desperate struggle is described between the powers of evil incarnate in the Standard Oil Company and the powers of goodness appearing in a metaphysical entity called the 'Oil Region.' This being, it appears, loved virtue for its own sake; it believed in independence and fair play; it hated the rebates and secret rates; it hated, but it also feared, its adversary. . . . The 'Oil Region' means a number of men engaged in the wildest kind of speculation, many of whom proved themselves willing to engage in every kind of wickedness of which the Standard Oil Company was accused." It "might say like the French deputy to his constituents, 'So intense was the corruption that even I did not altogether escape."" 1

A careful consideration of the subject, with a thorough reading of Lloyd's and Miss Tarbell's books cannot fail to impress an inquirer with the great ability shown by Rockefeller, who was to business what Napoleon was to war and to civic society. In Rockefeller may be seen a ripe development of the application of energy to resources. This quiet, reticent man, thinking and listening, as he stropped his penknife over the heel of his boot, like the traditional Yankee whittling a stick, made combinations which startled the world. Always given to

1 The Nation, Jan. 5, 1905, 15.