The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-08-02
MR. RocKEFBLIER SHOCKED.
A Revelation of Human WicRedness
 Beyond Comprehension.

5h T
 Every now and then one of our trust
 nagnates receives a revelation of hu- man wickedness that both pains and surprises him Holding to the golden rule in all his affairs and giving man. kind credit for the same irreproachable disinterestedness that he himself man ifests in his human relations, it must indeed be shock to find that there ex- ist in the world men so lost to con- science as to take advantage of his con- Aiding trustfulness MT John D. Rockefeller, of the Standard oil Trust, has recently had such a revelation and such travail of soul And 1t came about in this wise:
 There lives in what is known as the Tight district of the Ohio oil fields
 that is. the district where the wells yield so niggardly as to scarcely repay the labor expendeda worthy farmer who has acquired lease of a small in dependent we'll Now the yield of these Independent wells. of which there are a great many. is, on an average, only two or three barrels a day. It Is sold to the Standard oil company and pumped daily into the large tanks which that concern has established at Iconvenient distances. We say the av- craze yield is only two or three barrels lper diem. The worthy farmers we'll, however, could not be put in the same category with the others in the district. lWith unfailsng regularity 1t produced a supply that was the wonder and admir- lration of the entire neighborhood.
 Each day an immense quantity was pumped out of 1t into the nearby tank and the next day, like the widows cruse, 1t was as full as ever. Things went on in this way for some time. The farmer accumulated a nice bank
 account and took on a very prosperous air. But in an evil moment a Standard lOil expert thought he would investi-
 gate the reason flor the phenomenal flow in this well, while the others were
 almost dry He did so, and the result
 was the discovery of the outrageous
 cheat that had been practiced on 3 lgreat and good corporation. ! The rebate idea seems to have inn pressed the farmer. He had no doubt Tread of 1t in the story of the phenom,
 enal growth of the Standard oil com. lpany. And, being a, logical man, the first question that presented itself in that connection was. if to get smal Irebate is good, would it not be better tc lget it all back. But he knew, did the worthy farmer, that the company was
 opposed to such a system except wher, lit was the beneficiary, and he was forced to think out and execute his Iplan without it's aid. It was, after all livery simple. He connected secret pipe with the company's immense tank and the oil which was pumped al morning from his well to that reser.
 vofr came peacefully back at eve, likt
 homing cows, by the mere expedient o Turning faucet. In this way he solt
 1t again and again to the company, and
 considering the oil as the price he had paid for the coin he got in exchange
 his rebate amounted to exactly ont
 hundred per cent. a day. And so things
 might have continued indefinitely ha6
 not the expert commenced the investi.
 gation to which We have previously re. Iferred. It was at first thought, we art
 told, that the company would prosecute Ithis deep-dyed criminal and compe1