West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1881-03-16
A Great Monopoly.
II. ID. LLOYD.


burn kerosene know that its pro-
duction, manufacture, and export,
it's price at home and abroad, have
been controlled for years by single
corporation-the Standard Oil Com
pany. This company began IN a
partnership, in the early years OF
the civil war, between Samuel An
drews and John Rockefeller IN
Cleveland. Rockefeller had been
book-keeper in some interior town
in Ohio, and had afterwards made
a few thousand dollars by keeping
a flour store in Cleveland. Andrews
had been a day laborer in refneries
and so poor that his wife took in
sewing. He found way ofrefnlng
by which more kerosene could be
got out of barrel of petroleum
than by any other method, and set
up for himself a ten-barrel still IN
Cleveland, by which he cleared 5000
in six months Andrews still and
Rockefeller's savings have grown
into the Standard Oil Company. 1t
has capital, nominally $500 900,
but really much more, on which 1t
divides among its stockholders ev-
cry year millions of dollars OF prot
its. 1t has refneries at Cleveland,
Baltimore and New York. Its own
acid works, glue factories, hardware
stores, and barrel shops supply 1t
with all the accessories it needs to
it's business. It has bought land at
indianapolis on which to erect the
largest barrel factory in the coun-
try. 1t has drawn its check tor
100000 to suppress a rival. 1T
buys 10000 to 10000 barrels Of
crude oil a day, at price fixed by
itself, and makes special contracts
with the railroads.&c. the transporta-
ton of 5000, O00to 14,000,0 OObbls of
oil year, The four quarters OF the
globe are partitioned among the
members of the Standard comblna-
tions. One has the control of the
China trade; another 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
allowed to sell for export to Europe.
The Standard produces only one
fiftieth or one-sixtieth of our petro-
leum, but dictates the price Of all,
and refnes nine-tenths. Circulars
are issued at intervals, by which
the price of oil is fixed for all the
cities of the country, except New
York, where little competition
survives. Such is the indifference
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
Keokuk 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 a merchant in one city cannot
export to another. Chicago, Gin
cinnati or Cleveland is not allowed |
tosupply the tributary towns. That
is done by the Standard itself,
which runs oil in it's own tank cars
to all the principal points of distri-
button, This corporation has driv-
en- into bankruptcy, or out of bust
ness, or into union with itself, all
the petroleum refineries of the coun-
try except five in New York, and a
few oflittle consequence in Western
Pennsylvania. Nobody knows how
many millions Rockefeller is worth.
Current gossip among his business
acquaintance in Cleveland puts
his income last year at a figure Sc
cOnd only, if second at all, to that of
Vanderbilt. His partner, Samuel
Andrews, the poor English day la
borer, retired years ago with mil
lions. Just who the Standard Oil |
Company are, exactly what their
capital is, and what are their rela-
tions to the railroads, nobody knows |
except in part. Their officers re-
fused to testify before the Supreme
Court Of Pennsylvania, the late New
York Railway Investigating Com