The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-10-29

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Efective Machinery Of a
Gigantic Concern.
From the Baltimore Sun
NUMBER III.
When has learned upon what
meat the Ohio corporation fed, he is
NO longer puzzled to understand how,
within a half dozen years, it came to
control the oil refining business of the
country, as well for home consumption
rs for expectation. The managers OF
this organization did not depend on
the gradual and res;stless effect OF
their great rebates on the Eastern
trunk lines to rid them of competition.
but seem to have adopted the rule OF
the Irishman at Donnybrook Fair,
which was to strike wherever he saw
head.
Serious and passionate charges of a
criminal character against some OF
the agents of the combination were
made by witnesses before the House
committee, who believed themselves
victims of its power and persecution,
but it is not necessary to examine or
20 credit these charges to reach the
conclusion that, having acquired a
giants strength, it used it like a giant
10 extend its control over the home
market.
Its plans were systematic and com
prehensive, and to have lu-
Guided a geographical division of the
country, it's own intrenchment at
favorable distributing censers and its
command of the intervening regions.
To accomplish this it put forth its
power as readily in a small as In a
large field to make competition i'm
possible.
CRUSHING INDEPENDENT INDUSTRY.
The testimony of Mr.. George Rice,
an Independent refner of Marietta,
Ohio, reveals the difficulties, annoy
Ances and losses he encountered In
trying to market his oils in the South
and Southwest
They involved higher freight
charges, absolute refusal Of carriage,
delays and shufaings that amounted
to such refusal, and the immediate
reduction, below cost, of the price Of
oil in any village or town to which he
sent his products.
Indeed, the fear Of his powerful
competitor seems even to have made
construction companies refuse to build
cars for him on their usual terms. He
produced letters, written by the firm
which represented the Standard Oh
Company at Louisville, since organ
lied into the STANDARD Oil Company
of Kentucky" of which one directed
the Louisville and Nashville Railroad
Company to "turn another screw "
on him, which it Immediately did by
raising his freight rates from less than
sixty cents to ninety cents per barrel,
and others threatened his consignees
I'm Louisville with a competition
which will not be confined to coal oil,
or to any one article, and will not be
limited to any year, momen-
kous threat to a business firm in view
of the power behind it and the speed
and secrecy of its possible execution.
A recent decision of the interstate
commerce commission, at the suit of
Nh. Rice against certain railroad com
panies, finds that their determinations
In favor of the Standard Oil Trust, by
the devices Of underbilling and tank
cars, have not ceased ever under the
law of Congress, which commands
equity and equality as the rule of all
charges made by carriers of interstate
commerce.
ZEE WHOLE CONTINENT IN ITS COILS.
It thus came to pass by 1882 that
the Standard Oil combination, which
then included a large number OF
affiliated corporations, held the whole
country in its coils, and refined and
sold in the home or foreign markets
tour-ffths of all the petroleum pro.
ducts of our oil fields, the remaining
twenty per cent. being handled by
quite a number of independent reiners,
who existed more by its suferance
than from their own ability to stand.
1t had immense re6neries at the
seaboard, also at Pittsburg, Cleveland
and other interior points; it had its
own great terminal facilities, its own
tank cars for transporting oil in bulk,
It's own manufactures of barrels and
h~mp-wicks, its jobbing houses, its
local pipeage in the oil fields, and its
through pipe lines from those fields tc
the harbor of New York.
It's property had reached the value
of many millions. This great property
vas held and his immense bushes:
conducted by a large number of cor
porations holding charters from
various States. Some Of these were
charters secured for the express pur
poses of the combination; others were
charters of independent and compel
mo comnanies whose stock had haer