Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-02-26
Concluded
STANDARD OIL.
III. d. LLOYD'S "STORY OFA GREAT
MONOPOLY"
A Remarkably Interesting Resume of the
Greatest Monopoly Of Modern Times
How States are Bought and Sold and Held
in Sabjection-The Enormous Profits of
the Cleveland Gang.
[Atlantic Monthly for March,
CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.
It is the railroads that have bred the million
aires who are now buying newspapers and get
ting up corners in wheat, corn and cotton, and
are making railroad combinations that stretch
across the continent By the same tactics that
the railroads have used to build mp the Stand
ard, they can give other combinations of cap
italists the control of the wheat, lumber, cot
ton or any other product of the United States.
There Is more than a suggestion Of this in the
action, last winter, of the railroads connecting
the East and West in raising rates at stroke
OF the pen from fifteen and twenty cents
hundred pounds, between New York and Chi
cago, to forty and forty-five cents a hundred.
The immediate result was jam at Chicago of
$a6,OOO,OO0 of the products of the farm.
Chicago was filled up, and word
had to be sent back along the rail-
roads to take no more grain for shipment.
The roadside elevators filled up, and the
farmers found their market gone. AS it hap
pened, on this occasion they had already sold
the most of their crop, but the occurrence
shows how the outlet for wheat could be cut
off by combination of railroad men and
spectators, just as the outflow of oil was
cut off by the Standard and the railroads.
Some of the spectators most prominent in
the recent wheat speculati0ns are powerful
railroad owners aud directors. Given the
power to raise and change the freight rate at
will, these specializing directors can control
the prices the West shall get for its grain
and cattle, and those the East shall pay for
its bread and meat. The New York chamber
mously adopted report-signed by Benjamin
B. Sherman, Francis B. Thurber, Charles
s. Smith, jackson s. Schultz, Benjamin G.
Arnold, Jacob Wendell, and Charles G. Dodge
lin which these singular words occur:
"What has happened in the case of the Standard
Oil company may happen in other lines OF
business. With the favor of the managers of
the trunk lines, what is to prevent commerce
in the rest of the great staples from being
monopolized in a similar manner? Already
it is taking this course. One or two firms in
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Bos
ton, with their branch houses in the West,
are, by the favor of the railroads, fast mo-
nopolizihg the export trade in wheat, corn,
cattle, and provisions, driving their competi
tors to the wall with absolute certainty,
breaking down and crushing out the energy
and enterprise OF the many for the benefit OF
the favored few"
The case of the Standard Oil company brings
the three great trunk lines and their magnates,
Scott, Vanderbilt, and Jewett, great national
export and Interstate commerce, into one con-
densed illustration of our subject, but otherwise
it is not peculiar. Mr.. Vanderbilt assured the
public over his own signature that the New
York Central made no special rates Mr..
Sterne's examination of the officers and books
of the road proved the existence of 5000 spe
cial contracts. The Northern Pacific, which
has been built by grants of land from the
people, and which is now an applicant before
the peoples Congress for the extension of it's
land grant, gives special rates to the Dali
rymples, the Cases, the Grandins, with their
$4,000 andi 10000 acre farms, and
charges the poor, farmers full
railroad furnishes the large farmers along its
small farmers. Who are the large farmers?
President Drake, of the road; Gen. Bishop, its
manager; President George T. Siney, of the
Metropolitan bank of New York; Mr.. Orr, a
partner of the great house of David Bows d
Co., of New York; Goldschmidt, the rich Ger
man banker, of Frankfort-o on the Main; and
every director on the road. The investments
OF these men average return OF 20 per cent
the first year and SIS per cent. the second year.
One mind invented the locomotive, estab-
lished the railroad, and discovered the law of
this new force. All railroad history has been
vindication of George Stephenson's saying
that where combination was possible competi-
ton was impossible To-day, wherever in
this country there is group of railroads do
ing business at common point, you will find
pool. These pools are nothing more mys-
ttTlOuS Illdu " PICfCuI COmpC-
tition. They are continually breaking up in
to railroad wars, but as constantly forming
again with Improvements gained from expe-
ricnce. The Saratoga agreement, the Colorado
pool, the Evening system, the Omaha pool,
the Southwestern Rate association, the South
ern Steamship and Railway association, &C
counts of which are continually appearing in
the papers, to be always skipped by the gen.
eral reader, are all experiments in this one d.
IN fi0n fO kill r,afifiOn For
three years our ablest railroad men have been
trying to invent pool that should put all
railroad traffic between the Mississippi river
and the ports of Europe under one control.
The New York Central, the Erie, the Pennsyl-
vania and the Baltimore & Ohio roads, under
the direction of Mr. Albert Fink, the greatest
of our railroad experts, have formed combi-
nation under the title of the Trunk Line Exc
cutive Committee, which besides themselves
includes thrty-two Western roads and one
great Southern road-the Louisville g. Nash
VILE These roads tax the people in their ter
ritory S155, 00O, 900 year for transportation.
This pool fixes for each of these roads the
rates which it shall charge and the proper
ton of the entire business it shall do. Only
two important Western roads east of the
Mississippi do not belong to it, the Rock Isl
and and the Northwestern, but they are both
in the Gould Vanderbilt system, and are ope-
rated in substantial harmony with the pool.
Ex-Gov. Seymour, of New York, in an inter-
view at Utica with special correspondent of
the New York World, held that national regu-
lation of the railroads ought to be opposed by
New Workers, because it would take away
from New York its advantage of position in
the struggle with Boston, Philadelphia and
Baltimore for the business of the West Gov.
Seymour is apparently not aware that the Fink
pool have already done this. One of their
main regulations is that rates from common
Western points of shipment, like Chicago to
Europe, shall be the same whether made
through New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or
Mr.. Albert Fink is the ' executive,
periodical meetings of the representa-
tives of the roads form its legislature,
and a board of arbitration, composed of
Charles Francis Adams. Jr., John A. Wright,
and David A. Wells, is its judiciary. 1t has
lasted little over year, and its members are
bound to keep the peace till 1884. 1t is
stronger union than any of the roads have
yet made, and is the most powerful, the richest,
and the ablest trades union that has yet
confronted any government or people
Its managers claim to have abolished
all special rates. All shippers, Commissioner
Fink said at the meeting of the pool legisla-
ture at Chicago in December, are treated alike
in the territory of the combination. There
must have been a big mental reservation as to
the Standard Oil company and its competitors
in Mr.. Fink's statement. He also says, rates
are now fixed on reasonable basis and per-
manent one. AS to the reasonableness, it must
bs romam no rod that thp increa 60 in rofac loef