The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1908-09-11
THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY

7
ard Oil Company as the "Slandered'
Oil Company.
Mr.. LEngle unwittedly uttered a
truism and punctured the bulls eye.
The success of the Standard Oil
Company has made it a target for
abuse and the scapegoat for the sins
of the party now in power.
The Standard Oil Company is one
of the few great corporations of the
country that has not fattened on spe-
cial privileges through the instrument
talities of the tariff; it is a home
grown concern and in the fullest
sense has shown the genius and po-
tentialities of the American promoter
and developer at his best.
When the Standard came into exist
ence kerosene oil was retailing in
country towns like Ocala for fifty
| cents per quart measure; and it was
not the refined article, as We have
today. 1t is now retailing for less
than five cents per quart measure.
That is the measure of its hurt to the
American consumer.
So far as We know no one ever
heard a consumer berating the Stand
ard Oil Company. This has been the
peculiar province of the newspapers
and the politicians. and lofty jurists
who are seeking ad captandum ap-
plause.
And why should a concern that has
done so much benefit for every hut
and hOvel in the land in lowering the
price-for those are the ones that use
its product most-be the target for
abuse and the subject of a crusade
so wholly unwarranted by the facts
in the history of its wonderful devel-
Opment
In the August number of the Worlds
Work. Mr.. c. NJ. Keys has the first
Of a series of articles on the Standard
Oil Company. 1t covers twenty pages
and is prOfusely illustrated.
II gives a history of the Standard.
and shows that its export trade is
largely in excess of its home trade.
and for every ten dollars made abroad
nine dollars come back and are dis
tributed among American workmen,
and finally finds its way into the ar
teries of home traffic.
Mr.. Keys says:
The Standard Oil Company has
made almost the whole world its mar
ket. 1t mas come nearer to achieving
this task than any other manufacture
ing and trading company on earth;
and the most interesting and the least
known phase of its business is it's ex-
port activities. l, therefore, make
these the subject Of the first article. !
"Of every hundred barrels of crude |
oil produced and refined by American
labor in American territory, sixty go
out through the ports Of exit and are
scattered abroad in all lands. In re-
gold, from almost every nation of the
globe. Since 1880, the year when the
Standard went actively to work in
the foreign field, the aggregate value
of oil and oil products sold in the for
eign markets has been close upon 81
700,000,000. Nine dollars out Of every
ten Of it have come to this country
TO pay the American workman for his
labor, TO pay the American producer
for his crude oil, to give to the Amer
lean capitalist the reward Of his cOur-
age and his foresight.
1T is well to speak of the Standard
and its men, the men who work for
il. Much was heard last winter of
great industrial recession in this
country. II is said that a million men
were thrown out of work. 1t may be
true. but they were not Standard
men. The plants of the Standard
have run FILLMORE than that-they
have paid overtime steadily through
the whole period covered by this de-
preston. In the very months of the
acutest disturbance, October and No
vember last, the directors of the
Standard Oil. in anxious session, de-
termined TO initiate a building cam
paign. a series of labors that should
run through the winter and spring.
giving employment to thousands of
men who otherwise would not have
had employment They counted on
the fact that the depression. if one
came. would make it easier to get
men for work. They planned this
new construction and this reconstruc-
ton not as philanthropy, but as bus
mess. II goes on today. In more
than one locality it has measured the
difference between normal conditions
and depression.
We hear of wages cut in the steel
trade. the cotton mills, the copper
mines and