Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-01-01
A GREAT MONOPOLY.
The Standard Oia Company. and How
1t Came TO Ese.
RI. D. Lloyd, in Atlantic.l

NJ came 10 lie.
III. D. Lloyd, in Atlantc.l
Very few of the forty millions of peo-
pie in the United States who burn kero-
sene know that its production, manu-
fecturs and export, its price at home
and abroad, lave been controlled for
years by Il single corporation-the
Standard Oil Company. This company
began in partnership, in tie 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 a few thousand
dollars by keeping flour store in Cleve-
land. Andrews had been day laborer
in refneries, and SO poor that his wife
took in sewing. He found way of re-
fining by which more kerosene could be
got out of barrel of petroleum than by
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. Tt has a capital, nominally S.
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. Itsown acid works, glue
factories, hardware stores and barrel
shops supply it with all the accessories
it needs in its business. It has bought
land at Indianapolis on which to erect
the largest barrel factory in the country.
1t has drawn its check for 81, 100000 to
suppress rival. It buys 10000 to 49,
900 barrels of crude oil day, at price
fixed by itself, and makes special con-
tracts with the railroads for the transpor-
tation of 13, 0O0,000 to IA, 900, 600 barrels
of oil year. The four quarters of the
globe ere partitioned among the mem
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 cannotbuy 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 fftieth or
sixtieth of our petroleum, but dictates the
prices OF all, 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 Keokuk. There is
not to-day 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 mer-
chant in 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 its own tank
cars to all the principal points of distri-
button. This corporation has driven
into bankruptcy, Or out Of business, or
into union with itself, all the petroleum
reineries in the country, except five in
New York, and 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, at 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 il part Their officers refused
to testify before the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania, the late New York rail-
road investigating committee, and a
committee of Congress. The New York
committee found there was nothing to be
learned from them, and was compelled
to confess its inability to ascertain as
much as it desired to know "of this
mysterious organization, whose bust
ness and transactions are of such a char
acter that its members declined giving a
history or description, lest their testi-
mony be used to convict them of
crime.
Punished