The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-07-27
TRUSTS AND MONOPOLIES,
The Standard Oil Alliance
HOW THE RING EVOLVED THE
TRUST.
Nine Olcaginous Magnates Who Control
the Vast Petroleum Industry
Of America.
The Simple and Effective Machinery
OF a Gigantic Concern.
VIM. L. Wilson in Baltimore sun.

W III ~. Witruil III sun.
NUMBER III.
When one has learned upon what
meat the Ohio corporation has fed,
he is no longer puzzled to under
stand how, within half dozen years,
/ it came to control the oil refining
business of the country, as well for
home consumption as for exporta-
ton. The managers of this organ
ization did not depend on the grad,
nal and resistless 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 a
head.
Serious and passionate charges of
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 persecu-
ton, but it is not necessary to exam
inc or to credit these charges to
reach the conclusion that, having
acquired giants strenhth, it used
it like giant to extend it's control
over the home market.
Its plans were systematic and
comprehensive, and seem to have in
cluded geographical division of
the country, its own intrenchment
at favorable distributing centers and
its command of the intervening re-
gions. To accomplish this it put
forth its power as readily in small
as in large field to make competi-
ton impossible.
CRUSHING INDEPENDENT INDUSTRY.
The testimony of Mr.. George Rice,
an Independent refiner 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 shuillings 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 Oil Company at Louisville,
since organized into the STANDARD
Oil Company of Kentucky" of which
one directed the Louisville and Nash
vile Railroad Company to turn an
other screw" on him, which it i'm
mediately did by raising his freight
rates from less than sixty cents to
ninety cents per barrel, and others
threatened his consignees in Louis
vile with competition which will
not be confined to coal oil, or to any
one orticle, and will not be limited
to any one year, momentous
threat to business firm in view of
the power behind it and the speed
and secrecy of its possible execu-
ton.
A recent decision of the interstate
commerce commission, at the suit of
Mr.. Rice against certain railroad
companies, finds that their discrimi-
nations in favor of the Standard Oil
Trust, by the devices of underbilling
and tank cars, have not ceased even
under the law of Congress, which
commands equity and equality as
the rule of all charges made by car
riers of interstate commerce.
THE WHOLE CONTINENT IN IT'S COILS.
1t thus came to pass by 1882 that
the Standard Oil combination, which
then included large number of affil-
lated corporations, held the whole
country in it's coils, and refined and
sold in the home or foreign markets
four-fifths of all the petroleum pro-
ducts of our oil fields, the remaining
twenty per cent. being handled by
quite a number of independent REIN
ers, who existed more by its suffer
ance than from their own ability to
stand.
1t had immense re6neries at the
seaboard, also at Pittsburg, Cleve-
land and other interior points; il
had it's own great terminal facilities
it's own tank cars for transporting
oil in bulk, its own manufactures OF
barrels and lamp wicks, it's jobbing
houses, its local pipeage in the oil
fields, and it's through pipe lines
from those fields to the harbor Of
New York
Its property had reached the value
of many millions. This great prop
erty was held and this immense
business conducted by large mum
Der of corporations holding charters
from various States. Some of these
were charters secured for the express
purposes of the combination; Others
were charters of independent and
competing companies, whose stock
had been acquired, either in whole
or in part, in its progress to univer-
sal domination.
rONsoJIDA TINf IT'S POWER
These corporations were carried
on under Independent organizations
each, however, as member of a com
mon scheme. The Standard mana
gers owned all the stock in many OF
them, in others a majority of the
shares; sometimes bare majority,
merely for control, and in several
only small per cent, either as the
beginning of acquisition or as suffi-
cient for their purposes. Some OF
this st-mentioned stock was held
by certain members as trustees fol-
all, and it is possible that in this
simple business device lay the sug-
gestion of a great movement. There
comes a time in the career of every
conqueror when he must pause to or
ganize his conquests. and to replace
a provisional by permanent and
well-devised administration. The
Standard Oil Company was no ex.
ception. To make sure and perma-
ncnt its practical MONOPOLY. to carry