The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-11
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and specifically setting forth that n
had entered into an agreement with
the big railroads whereby it secured
rebates and a stipulation from The
roads not to haul the products of the
independents, except at discriminating
rates. This legal fight, known in oil
history as the Compromise of 1880"
was long anu bitter, and before the
Standard compromised by promising TO
withdraw from the compact with the
railroads, thousands of pages of testi-
mony were taken.
Miss Tarbeu ran across another
fertile field in Washington. Congress.
in 1872, conducted the first investiga-
ton ever made into the Standard Oil
methods. This dealt with the notori-
Gus South Improvement Company
which secured large rebates from the
railroads, and was enabled thereby
to compel the refiners opposed to the
Standard Oil Company, which, in re-
ality, was back of the South Improve
ment Company, to sell out to the lat
ter company at ruinously low Valua-
tons.
Congress authorized another inves-
tigation in 1876. A third congress
sional hearing, beginning in 1882 and
lasting five years, during which time
testimony was taken almost continu-
ously by peripatetic committee, at
the head of which was Senator Shelby
M. Cullom, of Illinois, resulted in
the passage of the Interstate Com
merce Law. From 1888 to 1893 Con-
gress conducted another investigation
and this time, as a direct result, the
famous Sherman Antitrust Law was
put on the national statute books
The last inquiry conducted by the
Federal government only recently
lA1
sion, appointed by President McKin-
ley in 1898, ceased to exist, it's time
limit having expired.
From rooms filled with the testi-
mony taken at these various govern
mental inquiries, Miss Tarbell, with
infinite patience, and as she says, al
most at the cost of my eyesight," has
culled secrets that time has buried,
or that were crossed over in hurried
reports, or that seemed insignificant
at the time of their telling, but are of
the first Importance when fitted with
statements and information gathered
elsewhere in Miss Tarbelrs extensive
researches.
Typical of the material gathered
from this great mass of evidence is a
statement by A. ]. Cassatt, now pres
ident of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
that the corporation he directs at one
time tried to play fair with the indie
pendent oil men and gave them the
same rates as their trust competitor.
But Mr.. Cassatt declared that the road
found this policy too costly and after
the Rockefeller people had caused it
to lose a million and a half dollars by
diverting freight it was compelled for
self"protection to throw over the in
dependents and bend the knee to the
trust.
The Great Source of Iaw SHIFTS,
Miss Tarbelrs researches show that
the business policy of Mr.. Rockefeller's
company has been the source of more
state and national investigations and
more lawsuits than any other one thing
in American history. Many state
Legislatures have been called together
in extra session to consider and inves-
tigate the Standards ways, and near
ly every state and territory in the
Union has one or more laws aimed d.
rectly at the Standard and designed to
curb it. Besides as Miss Tarbell
said the other day, ''two of the most
important federal laws of the last
twenty years are largely the result OF
Standard Oil methods. I refer to the
Interstate Commerce Bill and the Sher-
man Antitrust Law. My researches
have led me to believe that so per cent
of the reasons advanced for the en-
actment or these two measures dealt
with Mr.. Rockefeller's corporation"
What sums of money the people
have spent in getting after the oil
trust in the thirty years of warfare
that has been waged against it here,
there, everywhere, and that is still go
ing on, with no sign of abatement.
Miss Tarbell has not undertaken 10
calculate. This sum in addition would
consume too much precious time. II
is safe to state that the amount IS
somewhere in the millions. But when
hundreds of independent oil refinerles
and dealers, due to the trusts peculiar
commercial morals, are taken into con-
sideration the millions spent in nation
al and state Investigations dwarf INTO
insignificance.
AS an editor and writer Miss Tar
bell is already well known. SeveraI
years ago, deciding to follow out her
instincts and tastes and to take up inc
writing of biography and history az
her life work, she spent three years
at the Paris Sorbonne, studying u
make herself master of the tools of her
profession. 1t was there that sile
wrote her first historical work, INC
Life of Madame Roland" when 70
regarded as the most penetrating STUDY
of this woman of the French ReNo-
luton.
Later on Miss Tarbell devoted three
years to the labor of writing new
life of Lincoln. That piece OIL "oiN
made her famous.