The Hawaiian gazette., 1888-04-10
HOW THE STANDARD OIL oC-
TOPUS LED THE BIG
COESPTRACIES.
Transferring ordinations that Defy
the LaE-ROckefsIIer's Scheme
and their Financial Sue
Oess-MonopOly's Latest
Device


uons known as trusts" into public
notice by the insolent tyranny with
which they are conducted renders a
study OF the first and greatest of
them peculiarly timely. The New
York World has gathered the follow
ing account of the Standard Oil Com
psny, with Its methods and its imita-
tors. which Will prove of interest to
every citizen:
4 German widow kept shop among
the east side tenements of the Bohe-
mian cigar makers In New York
Cakes she sold and bread, but chiefly
pumpernickle and great slabs of dark
Bohemian bread, dear to the hearts
Of her customers. Her name was
Landgraaf. Her dead husband was
q Bohemian, and had taught her the
secret Of compromising these dubious
delicscies, and as it is not every one
who can make them, her little trade
grew famously until she required the
services of SIX bakerymen and two
delivery carts.
-Four of these bakers were Germans
and two Bohemians. She paid them
good wages and comfortably housed
and fed them. They got along well
together, despite the difference of
blood. But in an evil day there came
upon the scene the Bohemian Bakers
Protective Association, and objected
70 the widows doing business. At first
they claimed that she did wrong to hire
German bakers to make Bohemian
bread, nut IN the end they openly
said that they did not want her in
the business at all.
You all remember the war that
followed. Sentinels were posted and
circulars put forth Bake shops on
the avenue, which had bought at
wholesale of the widows dusky slabs,
were estopped from further purchas-
lng, and by every means in the power
OF the ignorant scoundrels a success
ful terminus was put upon her bust
ness. She was even fined $500 for
daring to employ workmen Of her
OWL nationality. The poor creature
wept and protested in vain. The po-
lice refused to protect her; the Dis
trict Attorneys Office refused to help
her. Lovers of fair play bought Mrs.
Landgraaf bread and sent Mrs.
Bandgraaf contributions. The police
swoke; the public prosecutor came
ont of his trance; the grand jury
acted; the courts took hand in, and
one bright day in the summer of 1886
the men who had ruined the bust
ness Of a helpless woman went, as
they deserved, TO penal institution.
This, dear reader, was d case of
conspiracy.
CONSPIRACY VS.. BUSINESS"
A year or two before this interest
ing transaction four bright men of
Pittsburg combined to earn an honest
living IN an honest way. They had
a little capital, a glorious store of
pluck and energy and a spick and
span new, bright idea.
They started little refinery of
petroleum on the banks of the ALE
ghany river As refneries 60, it was
a mere baby affair, with capacity of
500 barrels per week-a mere drop in
the ocean of kerosene made and sold
in the American market They
figured that by "snubbing" down
crude petroleum on RATS from the old
fields, they could make oil cheap
enough to compete with the great
monopoly of the Standard Oil trust,
and their bright idea was to put their
product into tank carts and peddle it
from house to house, thus saving
house-holders the trouble of going
after il. Some of the partners want
ed to sell it less than the price
fixed by the Standard, but one of
them. Robert Moore, who knew the
WAYS Of that diabolical monster, said
no. We viii do nothing to antago-
nize the Standard" he said, land /
think. as we are such a very small
concern, it will not bother to fight
use
So at il they went. The new idea
proved & good idea, and they began
to build up quite little business.
But alb. how little they reckoned
upon the generosity of the monster !
One day a Standard tank car APP
peared upon &heir route and offered
OIL at a positive loss. To those who
refused 70 buy it cheap it was offered
as git Anything TO DeaU the nGUle
firm. And, as the little firm was
weak, it quickly went to the wall, as
scores of other firms have done, big
and little.
This. dear reader, was business.
OF course. there were arrests and
indictments and trials and convic-
tons. All, no Madame Justice
4-cucarre M t,v7oipoee lfEn this Tho
men who boycotted Mrs. Landgraaf
were poor and justice gripped them
hard and swiftly. The men who boy
cOtted Bob Moore and his partners
were rich beyond the power of com
putation. and for years they have
carried the woman of the scales and
blindness in their cspacious vest