River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-07-27


as at present organized, the Standard
Oil company, with its cheap methods
of production, with its special railroad
rates as affected by drawbacks and
other extraordinary privileges, and its
use of manufacture, can produce the
refined product, in barrels ready for
shipment or home use, a. ten cents
gallon, leaving a splendid marginal
profit, and yet the masses are COMPEL
ed to pay twenty-five cents gallon for
every drop of oil that reaches the legal
test. The total product last year con-
trolled by this Standard oil monopoly
was 900, 600, 900 gallons, of an aggregate
value of between sixty and seventy
millions of dollars, and yet this COM
pany, which controls the entire output
and dictates the plice which refners
shall charge and consumers must pay,
has only an original capital Invested
of IS. 100000. Efforts have been
made from time to time by
reputable men in the trade TO
reduce the price of oil to consumers,
by starting independent companies,
but they have failed, simply because
they have either been bought out or
choked off. One of the most danger
Gus elements in connection with the
Standard Oil company, is the class of
men who are interested in it. II en-
braces among its stock holders state
legislators, railroad officials, and even
ridges on the bench have soiled the er-
mine in Misrepresentation of this COM
pany, and have draggled their sacred
robes in the greasy products Of she oil
fields. Efforts have been made also 10
bring this monopoly to terms by forcing
it to pay its legitimate taxation. Suits
we're begun in Pennsylvania, and this
company was able for years to stave of
results. 1t stiffied legislative inquiries.
1t shut down the gates on national leg
islation. 1t hedged the lines of the ju-
dietary by its potent but dangerous
methods of open and notorious brides
and corruption.
So far has Rockefeller usurped tie
functions of transportation companies,
legislators, judges and congressman,
that to-day there is not railroad COM
pany which is dependent to any extent
upon the oil traffic. for its revenue, that
he is not its king. The late Commo-
dore Vanderbilt was once approached
for relief from the grinding exactions
of this company, and for the first time
in his career the commodore was nom
plused, and turning to his interrogation
he said with great force, coupled with
his usually severe explosives;
81 am p0werless to aid ycM, and |
am free to admit that Rockefeller is
the only man in the world whe can die
tate to me-"
What a sorry spectacle is here pre-.
sented? One man, who by virtue of
his Office as president of the standard
oil company, can walk into the office
of the president OF the great
railway corporation which trav-
erses the Empire State from sea shore
to lakes can dictate to him how he
shall run his road, what freight rates he
shall give, and who shall have the priv
ileges in connection with the produc-
ion of one of the most important
rsffics of every. day life. The poor
man must have oil to burn it is as es-
sential 10 the comfort Of his home as
the coal which furnishes heat or the
food which sustains life. Gas is so
high, he cannot burn it, while oil has
had its day as an illumination; candles
are primeval, and the electric light is a
problem for the future and yet while
in its muniticence and liberality the
Great Architect of the universe has
made the earth to yield, by simple
touch, untold quantities of oil for light
ing purposes, with the evident inten-
ton that it should enter into daily con-
sumption ard become the cheap light
of the people, monopolies have stepped
in and usurped the prerogatives Of a
greater power than themselves, and
have set at naught the supreme author
ity and made themselves supreme.
With active competition, with the cost
of the product reduced to the mini
mum, and margin of reasonable
profit added thereto, these nabobs who
now control the entire product of the
oil fields could still give greater yield,
and furnish light to the people fifty per
cent less than they charge for il at
nrpaent