The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1881-11-02
A GREAT MONOPOLY.
The Standard Oil Company, and How
H Came 10 BE.


1t Came 10 Re.
III. D. Lloyd, III Auantic.l
Very few of the forty millions of peo-
pie in the United States who burn kero-
sene know that its production, manu-
facture and export, It's price at home
and abroad, have been controlled for
years by q single corporatiOn-the
Standard Oil Company This company
began in partnership, in the early years
of the civil war, between Samuel An
drews and John Rockefeller in Cleve-
land. Rockefeller had beena book-keep-
er in some interior town In Ohio, and
had afterward made o few thousand
dollars by keeping -four store In Cleve-
land. Andrews had been O day labOrer
in retineries, and so poor that his wife
took in sewing. He found a way of re-
filming by which more kerosene could be
| got out of a barrel of petroleum than 10y
, any other method, and set up for HIM
self ten-barrel still in Cleveland, by
which he cleared $500 in six months.
| Andrews still and Rockefeller's savings
! have grown into the Standard Oil Com
pany. 1t has capital, nommally 49,
| 100000, but really much more, on which
| it divides among its stockholders every
year millions of dollars Of profits. 1t
| has refneries at Cleveland, Baltimore
! and New York. Its own acid works, glue
| factories, hardware stores and barrel
! shops supply it with all the accessories
| it needs IN its business. 1t has bought
land at Indianapolis on which to erect
the largest barrel factory III the country.
1t has drawn It's check for 81 900, GOO to
suppress a rival. 1t buys 10000 to 49,
600 barrels of crude oil day, ut price
fixed by itself, and makes special con-
tracts with the railroads for the Transport
tation of is, 900, 900 to IA, 900, 900 barrels
of oil a year. The four quarters of the
| globe are partitiOned among the men,
bers of the Standard combinations. One
has the control Of the China trade; an
other that of some country OF Europe;
another that of the United States. In
New York you cannot buy oil for East
Indian export from the house that has
been given the European trade; reciprO-
cally, the East Indian house Is not al
lowed to sell for export to Europe. The
Standard produces only one tiftieth or
sixieth of our petroleum, but dictates the
prices of nll and refnes nine-tenths. Cir
culars are issued at intervals bywhich the
price of oil is fixed for all cities of the
country, except New York, where little
competition survives. Such is the indif-
ference of the Standard Oil Company to
railroad charges that the price is made
the same for points SO far apart as Terre
Haute, Chicago and heokuk. There is
not to-day a merchant in Chicago, or In
any other city in the New England,
Western or Southern States, dealing
in kerosene, whose prices are not fixed
for him by the Standard. In all cases
these prices are graded so that mer-
chant III one city cannot export to anOth-
er. Chicago, Cincinnati or Cleveland is
not allowed to supply the tributary
towns. That is done by the Standard
itself, which runs oil in it's own tank
cars to oil the principal points Of distri-
button. This corporation has driven
into bankruptcy, or out OF business, or
into union with itself, all the petroleum
refneries in the country, except five in
New York, and a few of little conse-
quence in Western Pennsylvania. No
body knows how many millions Rookie
Teller is worth. Current gossip among
his business acquaintance at Cleveland
put his income, last year, ut q figure
second only, if second at all, to that OF
Vanderbilt. His partner, Samuel An
drews, the poor English day laborer, re-
tired years ago with millions. Just who
the Standard Oil Company are, exactly
what their capital is, and what are their
relations to the railroads, nobody knows
except Ill part Their officers refused
to testify before the Supreme Court OF
Pennsylvania, the late New York rail
road investigating committee, and q
committee of Congress. The New York
committee found there was nothingto be
learned from them, and was compelled
to confess it's inability to ascertain a.
much as it desired to know "of this
mysterious organization, whose bugi.
ness and transactions are of such a char.
acter that its members declined giving q
history or description, lest their tesi.
mony be used to convict them Of
| crime "