The Rock Island Argus., 1881-11-25
The Standard OIL Company is the most

| The Standard Oil Company is the most gi
gantic monopoly in the world; some of its
features are thus described:
The work of Independent refining o1
petroleum was never more vigorously >
/ prosecuted than now. Twelve indepen.
dent refineries, outside of the Standard
are already in operation, and two more
are process OF construction. One of these
| Independent ref1ners, in an interview with
with of the Press here, said, the other day
! "We do not wish to make a target Of
ourselves by attacking the Standard. We
are doing fair business. and are content
| to let that alone. Where the trade de
pends wholly upon refining, the Standard
could, if it choose crush out all opposition;
but, on special brands of burning and lu-
bricating oils, doubt if it could be done,
as the trade is so diversified. The Standard
will loose money right along for the pur-
pose of making others lose money. Before
the recent suits here in the common
pleas courts, which were decided against
the Standard combination, oil was 153
a gallon. Now, outside competition has
brought it down to cents. The Standard
actually regulates the price. and could as
well make it 10 as S-giving fair profit
all around. But it prefers to lose the 90
ais make it. 1t seems to think that the
Almighty stored up those immense reser-
voirs of oil in Pennsylvania for its special
benefit; but, when it wanted to get
control of the trade, it didn't go down on
it's knees to the Almighty-it went
to the railroads. During four
months last winter the profits of the
Standard were not less than $75, 900 to
800, 600 per day. And, instead of giving
a thousand business men fair profit as it
should, it all went into the heaping Golfers
of five or six men. These men have got
beyond the point where they make money
because they need it, or care for 1t even
but control the trade simply through love
of power"
A good many of the plans of the Stand
ard Oil Company have of late come to light,
and some of them have been published.
ard with the Pennsylvania railroad COM
pany, it is said, was to the effect that
freight on oil were to be doubled to
every body; but the Standard was to get
81 from the road for every barrel of oil
shipped over its line, whether shipped by
the Standard or its competitors. In order
to stamp out refinery that was getting
start in Pittsburg, and was likely to prove
a rival to the Standard, Vanderbilt, for
time, shipped crude oil from the wells to
Cleveland and back free When, little
later, the producers completed pipeline
to the seaboard, by which they could
deliver very cheaply the refined oil in
market, Vanderbilt's roads, we are told
by the same authority, hauled a barrel of
oil weighing $50 pounds 400 miles for ten
cents, and brought back his car empty
At the same time he charged everybody
else twelve -and-a-haf times as much for
carrying the same kind of freight the
same distance, or twenty-five times as
much when va consider the matter Of the
cars coming back empty. He charged
farmers and milk-dealers along the route
of the road 48 cents for hauling milk
can weighing ninety pounds the distance
of sixty miles
The time is not so far in the past that
the public has forgotten how, when he was
questioned in regard to these matters, Mr..
Vanderbilt answered the Legislative COM
mittee, Il don't know" and 81 forget,
and Il don't remember" to about half the |
250 questions he was asked The Stan |
dard has ssoften made refineries on the sea
board lie idle while oil was running to |
waste in Pennsylvania
The work of buying up railroads, legis-
latures, and competing companies, and
crushing out business men, by the STAN
dard, has been going on for many years, |
and its history would fill volumes.
There is only one paper in Cleveland
that has very much to say about the STAN
lard IN any way. The company is one of |