YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER

JOHN D.
ROCKEFELLER

AND

H IS CAREER

BY

SILAS HUBBARD

NEW YORK
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

^d3^r.Vj3

PRE FAC E
THE aim of this sketch of John D. Rockefeller
and his career is to furnish a popular manual
of the schemes and plans and enterprises that
have contributed to upbuild the Standard Oil Trust.
To many minds the achievements of John D. Rocke
feller seem uncanny and full of mystery. The writer
has taken particular pains to unravel the mystery
and explain the uncanny. The acquisition of wealth
to many is the great end of life. To such, John D.
Rockefeller must forever be a marvel. But to those
who believe that there are greater and better and nobler
things in life than money-making, Rockefeller's career
is a subject, not for admiration, but for criticism.
It is, indeed, instructive to watch Mr. Rockefeller
climbing to fame, to power, and to boundless wealth
through systematic violation of the laws and the Con
stitutions of the States and Nation, but it is not
admirable. The American forms of government as organized
by the Fathers of the Revolution and developed by
succeeding generations, have broken down disastrously
when confronted with the genius or obstinacy or am
bition of John D. Rockefeller and his imitators.
Hai&ed of monopoly is inbred in the American
people. It was an inherited hatred. And yet, in a
single generation in, defiance of law and precedent,
* ~~~~ (3)

4 PREFACE
Mr. Rockefeller built up a world-wide monopoly.
Thelaws of the States and~the Constitution of the
TJnited States failed td~stop Mni_
""He" has "had his imitators till almost every neces
sity and luxury of life is in the hands of a monopolist.
Between the consumer and the producer stands
the middleman, who grinds the one and squeezes the
other. He 'is the unnecessary middleman. The
butcher is a "necessary middleman. But when the un
necessary middleman comes along and fixes the price
at which the butcher must buy his cattle, and then
fixes the price which the consumer must pay for
his beef, we have the beginning of intolerable tyranny.
And yet this system is growing hourly and daily.
These pages are intended to elucidate the origin
and growth of the American latter-day monopoly.
No more shining light for its illustration could be
got than John D. Rockefeller. In studying his career
it is easy to see how monopoly has been created and
how monopoly has been preserved. It is not so easy
to see, however, how monopoly is to be ended.
That, however, is a paramount duty of statesman
ship, but the evil must be thoroughly appreciated
and understood before the people demand in tones of
thunder that the builders of monopoly be curbed and
punished. The writer sincerely hopes that the facts
herein set down and the story of Mr. Rockefeller's
career will do some little to awaken the people from
their lethargy to a consciousness of the evils and the
dangers besetting the Nation from Trusts and Trust-
Builders. Silas Hubbard.

CONTENTS

I. The Rise of Rockefeller .....
II. The Great Petroleum Discovery ....
III. Colonel Drake Drills the First Oil Well,
IV. The Transportation Problem
V. Samuel Van Syckel's Pipe Line ....
VI. Greed of the Railroads . ....
VII. Rockefeller's First Venture in Oil — His Alliance with
Samuel M. Andrews .....
VIII. The Rebate System 
IX. Rockefeller's First Combine — Alliance with Peter Watson
X. The South Improvement Company ....
XI. President Grant on Monopolies
XII. Rockefeller Turns on the Screw
XIII. Mr. Rockefeller and the Widow .
XIV. The Oil War of 1872 
XV. Mr. Rockefeller is Humiliated
XVI. The Treaty of Titusville ....
XVII. The Work of the Refiners' Association .
XVIII. The Growth ofthe Standard Oil— Rule or Ruin
XIX. The Pennsylvania Railroad Aids Independents
XX. Empire Transportation Company
XXI. The Morality of Rebates ....
XXII. Equitable Improvement Company
XXIII. The Oil Regions Again at War .
XXIV. "Buck" McCandless' Report and Indictment of
Rockefeller .......
XXV. Formation of the Standard Oil Trust
XXVI. Rockefeller Economy ......
XXVII. Producers Sullen, but Unconquered (5)

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114

6 CONTENTS
XXVIII. Mr. George Rice  .116
XXIX. William C. Scofield and Daniel Shurmer . . 120
XXX. Congressman Hopkins' Bill and Interstate Commerce
Law . . . . • • .125
XXXI. Tidewater Pipe Line . ... 127
XXXII. How to Get Rid of Recalcitrants . . . -131
XXXIII. Rockefeller's Conquests of the World's Markets . 134
XXXIV. Rockefeller's Intelligence Department . . 135
XXXV. Chess, Carley and Company . . . 136
XXXVI. Looting Confidential Records . . . .138
XXXVII. False Claims to Glory -  141
XXXVIII. Uneasy Rests the Head that Wears a Crown . . 143
XXXIX. Rockefeller Surrenders Booty . . . . . 147
XL. Attorney-General of Ohio Attacks the Standard . 152
XLI. Trustees Become Liquidating Trustees . . 156
XLII. George Rice and Frank T. Monnett Take a Hand . 158
XLIII. The War for Independence . . . . 161
XLIV. Where American Institutions are at Fault . .172
XLV. The Custom House Scandal . . . . 1 76 ¦
XL VI. Rockefeller's Banking Trust . . . .179
XLVII. Rockefeller's Railroad Trust . . . . 180

THE RISE OF ROCKEFELLER
IT IS NOT too much to say that John D. Rockefeller is an
epoch-making personality. It is he who has injected a
new force of far-reaching influence into the financial and
political world. That force is not less potent because it is
hidden, for in every savage and civilized nation or people on
the globe it is a living, vital power.
The career of John D. Rockefeller is as interesting as
the career of a Napoleon, or an Alexander, or, rather, as the
career of a Mahomet, a Luther, or a Calvin. He has been
the chief and indispensable factor in the upbuilding of the
Standard Oil Trust, and that concern is to-day a political 
commercial^ and financial -institution of world-wide influence
and power^ Some pp^pl" sny if^tm- r^nrhfrl it" nmith ; tint
decay and dry-rot have already begun to operate for its dis
solution. But such statements are idle or premature. Doubt
less the Standard Oil Trust will perish like all other human
institutions. Doubtless, too, the unparalleled hoards its up-
builders have amassed will, in due time, be dissipated. Empires
and dynasties are but creatures of an age. They rise but to
i fall ; they live but to die. And the house of Rockefeller will
perish as did the Valois, the Stuarts, and the Plantagenets.
But its end is not yet. It has a mission to perform, and that
is as yet undone. Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire did not
perish till their work -was accomplished. They made the
French Revolution, and who knows whither tends the aston
ishing work that John D. Rockefeller has accomplished so far
in his career?
It is no easy task to analyze the character, elucidate the
(7)

8 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
motives, illustrate the ambitions, and chronicle the deeds and
achievements of Mr. Rockefeller. To his friends and rela
tives John D. Rockefeller is a species of demigod; to his
foes, an ogre. In his dealings with his own he is eminently
kind, just, and charitable. Temperate, frugal, and parsi
monious, he is to his family all that father, husband, and
brother ought to be. He has never been known to cross the
steps of a playhouse, and his assiduous attendance at church
has aroused the admiration of multitudes and the jeers of more.
Suave, silent, and unostentatious, this marrhas wedded an iron
will to indomitable patience. His ends are as vivid to his
mind as the noonday sun, and he pursues those ends with
relentless energy until they are achieved.
There is a tendency to magnify the talents of John D.
Rockefeller, and to attribute to him almost superhuman or
uncanny business ability. This is a mistake; for the more
this man's career is studied, the more clearly it will be seen
that his unparalleled success is the fruit of incessant labor,
marvelous perseverance, and of a frugal, temperate, and medi
tative life. Even as a child he was thoughtful. At the age
| of eight he was master of a turkey-farm, and so great was
j his care and attention to the business of this farm that it
\ realized him a handsome sum of money, which he invested
at seven per cent. Legend or fact, this story illustrates the
characteristics of the child John D. Rockefeller. From his
earliest years he was saving, accumulating, and investing.
While other children played and romped, and spent their
pocket money in little childish luxuries, young Rockefeller
was working, and dreaming, and multiplying his savings.
Brought up from childhood among the race of sturdy,
God-fearing pioneers that had settled down in Central New
York, young Rockefeller grew up a sturdy and God-fearing
youth. In 1852, when the lad was thirteen, his father moved to
Cleveland, Ohio, and entered into the produce commission
business. This afforded the son his first opportunity for a regu-

THE RISE OF ROCKEFELLER 9
lar education, and for the next three years he was assiduous
in attendance at school. Here again he was silent and shy, but
most persevering and methodical. At sixteen he became a
bookkeeper in the store in which his father was a partner.
His regular habits, his simple ways, and his extraordinary in
dustry soon attracted even more attention than his shy and
silent manners. In three years he had saved enough to enter
into a partnership in the produce commission business. That
was in 1858, three years before the war. His first partner,
M. B. Clark, was an Englishman, who sought in the Western
world opportunities for fortune which were denied him at home.
He had crossed the ocean in a sailing ship, had landed penniless
in Boston, and, after a world of vicissitudes, had pushed on
westward through New England and New York till he reached
Ohio, and settled down at Cleveland. From him young Rocke
feller, still silent, sleeplessly active and persevering, absorbed
a vast amount of information. Other men get their knowledge
from books and from learned professors. Rockefeller got his
first-hand from those who did and saw. Needless to say, the
firm of Clark and Rockefeller prospered. Clark's experience
and Rockefeller's push and astuteness would have made almost
any business prosperous, and the concern grew and flourished
in an extraordinary manner.
Then in 1861 a great black cloud hung upon the horizon.
A bitter, cruel, terrible war had been precipitated upon the
land. The hotheads of the South had risen to wreck the
Union, and all that was noble, and generous, and heroic in
the North were rushing forward to save the nation, or give
their life-blood to the sacred cause. We have no record of any
patriotic enthusiasm surging in the breast of John D. Rocke
feller, then two-and-twenty. If any such enthusiasm arose it
was quickly stilled, for Rockefeller was far more bent on
making money out of the Government's necessities than giving
his life to save it.
The war was a godsend to Rockefeller in his produce
commission business. All through it he kept building up and

10 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
accumulating a fortune. A million young men had aban
doned trade, business, and professions for years of hardship,
trial, danger, and distress. And when the war was over they
went back again to the plow, and the counter, and the bar,
too often broken in health and prematurely aged. While they
had been fighting and suffering to save the Union, John D.
Rockefeller had been gathering a golden harvest, and at the
close of the war Rockefeller was worth a quarter of a million.
He was twenty-six years old then, and already great ambi
tions were surging in his breast.

II
THE GREAT PETROLEUM DISCOVERY
THE discovery of the extent and utility of the mineral
oil deposits of America in the middle of the nineteenth
century was an event of surpassing interest and im
portance to the whole commercial world. When John D.
Rockefeller was cultivating turkeys on a farm in western New
York, America was a very poor country. Outside of New
England there was little or no manufacturing industry. There
was no money in the country, and America had to go to Eu
rope for all the capital it needed to build its canals and rail
roads, or develop its virgin resources. As a result the New
World was the financial vassal of the Old, and as slavery is
always hateful, the financial dependence of the young Republic
on monarchical Europe was deeply felt at the time that young
Rockefeller was making his first money by raising turkeys.
Europe had by no means very friendly feelings toward the
United States. The growth and development of the American
Republic was a perpetual reproach to the monarchies and
despotic governments of Europe, and if they could not enslave
America politically they planned to keep her their financial
slave forever. To Americans of to-day it is strange to look

GREAT PETROLEUM DISCOVERY n
back sixty years and see the utter and absolute financial de
pendence of America on Europe, and it is still stranger to find,
at the end of two generations, that America has ceased to
be the vassal, and has become the great financial power of
the world.
Two portentous and unexpected events have brought about
this financial revolution. The first was the great gold dis
covery of the West, the second the discovery of the petroleum
deposits of the Mississippi Valley. It were hard to decide
which of these two events was the greater factor in the finan
cial emancipation of America. The gold discoveries of Cali
fornia induced the settlement of the Western States and Ter
ritories by a race of men that has never been equaled in energy,
ability, and love for adventure. Sixty years ago there was not
a wheat farm, a cattle ranch, or an orchard west of the
Missouri River, and there was not a hamlet or a white settle
ment from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. To-day that vast ter
ritory is the granary of the earth, and the surplus products
of its gardens, fields, and orchards suffice to feed the world.
The desert and the wilderness have disappeared, or, rather,
given way to farms, orchards, and gardens, hamlets, towns,
and cities, where dwell the most prosperous and contented
communities of civilized men that this earth of ours has yet
known. The unparalleled development of the West was the direct
fruit of the wonderful gold and silver discoveries of the latter
half of the nineteenth century. They inspired hope and abound
ing confidence in the breast of every American. It needed no
seer to tell that the time was at hand when America would
cease to be the slave of the money kings of Europe ; and yet no
less potent, perhaps, was the influence on the fortunes of the
Republic of the mineral oil discoveries which were contem
poraneous with the Civil War. During the past forty years
America has exported two thousand millions' worth of mineral
oil products. Prior to the discovery of petroleum wells and
the gold of the West, the cotton plantations of the South and

12 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
the wheat fields of the North had to liquidate America's in
debtedness to Europe. Since then it is the gold, silver, and
copper mines of the West and the petroleum wells of the
Mississippi Valley that have been the prime factors in emanci
pating America from financial vassalage to the Old World.
Apart from the mineral oil products used for domestic pur
poses this country has been able to sell, up to date, to the
rest of the world two thousand million dollars' worth of min
eral oil products. The immense significance of this fact hardly
needs elucidation, but it can readily be seen that if petroleum
products had not enabled us to pay two billions of our indebt
edness within forty years we could, by no possible means pos
sess the sound financial position, or rather financial supremacy,
that is ours to-day.
This, of course, is only one phase of the great events that
have followed from the oil discoveries of 1859. The creation
of an entirely new industry was another, and the whole nation
was stimulated by the new life and energy that characterized
the oil regions.
The younger generation of Americans have but a faint
conception of the stupendous excitement that followed in the
wake of the gold discoveries in California less than sixty years
ago, and they have but a still fainter conception of the ex
traordinary excitement born of the oil discoveries of less than
fifty years ago. Indeed the America of the golden days of '49
and the America that witnessed the first petroleum develop
ments are gone forever. Those days are not yet remote, and
multitudes are living still who saw them, but yet the story
of those times reads now like ancient history, so great have been
the changes which those events and other great developments
have brought about.
In the middle of the nineteenth century northwestern Penn
sylvania, or rather that portion of it drained by the Upper
Alleghany River, was almost as remote from civilization as
Central Africa is to-day. The hunter and the woodsman had,
indeed, been there. The woodsman had cut the pine and hem-

DRILLING THE FIRST OIL WELL 13
lock and floated it down the creeks at high water to the Alle
ghany, and later it was carried down the main river as far as
Pittsburg. But neither the hunter nor the lumberman tarried
long in this rough and lonely region. It was too far from
civilization, and the few settlers that took up lands and began
to grub and cultivate had a hard time, with bad roads and in
clement weather and want of markets. For fifty miles along
this rough and unattractive country there was hardly a pros
perous farmer or a storekeeper making a decent living. It
was a country to avoid and not to seek, and hence the tide of
settlement that was even then pushing westward left it severely
alone. Ill
THE DRILLING OF THE FIRST
OIL WELL
IT WAS in this community, in the spring of 1858, that
Colonel E. L. Drake made his advent. He came by stage
to Titusville,a tumble-down hamlet on Oil Creek, seventeen
miles above the junction of that creek with the Alleghany
River. Oil Creek was so called because of varied springs of
mineral oil that contributed to it. Indeed, ever since 1854 at
tention had been directed to the petroleum of this region. A
company had been formed to exploit it. It was called "The
Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company," and Colonel Drake had in
vested $200 in the concern. But the Pennsylvania Rock Oil
Company was, after all, a visionary concern. While rock oil
had often been collected in small quantities, and its value as
an illuminant was known, until Drake's advent into Titusville
no serious project was ever undertaken to make rock oil a
valuable commercial commodity, and Colonel Drake had merely
come to experiment. He came to bore for petroleum wells.
Colonel Drake was born in Vermont in 1819, and though
not yet forty years of age, he had had more than his share of

14 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
"ups and downs." He had by turns been a clerk, an express
agent, and a railroad conductor, and he was finally chosen by
the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company to superintend the sink
ing of an artesian well for petroleum. The idea of sinking a
well to tap the petroleum deposits of the region did not origi
nate with Colonel Drake. The credit of the great discovery be
longed to George A. Bissell. Bissell was a graduate of Dart
mouth College. He had spent ten years of his young life in
the South. He was*schoolmaster and journalist by turns, but
small indeed was the opportunity for fortune in those days,
and when George Bissell revisited his old college he was as
poor as at the beginning of his career.
There the professor of chemistry showed him a bottle of
rock oil and told him that it flowed in springs out of the ground
at Titusville. He also told him of its excellent qualities, and
thereupon George Bissell organized The Pennsylvania Coal
Oil Co. He leased the lands where the springs at Titusville
were, and he sent a bottle of the crude oil to Professor Silli-
man of Yale for analysis. In due time Professor Silliman
made his report, and declared that from this oil could be made
the best of all illuminants. Gas, paraffin, and lubricating oils
were also, he said, ingredients of rock oil. He assured George
Bissell that other valuable products could also be extracted
from rock oil at small expense, and that if secured in quan
tities a great commercial commodity would be his.
Professor Silliman's report was most satisfactory, but the
difficulty that now confronted Bissell was securing it in quan
tities. The few springs on Oil Creek were not worth experi
menting on, and for a long time George Bissell kept ruminat
ing on some plan for securing rock oil in quantity. Light
came to him one day while strolling down Broadwav. Stop
ping in front of a drug store, he saw on a bottle a label entitled
"Kier's Petroleum or Rock Oil." It had an illustration of an
artesian well, and the description contained the statement,
"Celebrated for its wonderful curative powers. A natural
remedy produced from a well in Alleghany Co., Pa., four

DRILLING THE FIRST OIL WELL 15
hundred feet below the earth's surface. Is pumped up with
salt water, flows into a cistern, floats on top, where a quantity
accumulates ; is drawn off in barrels in its natural state without
any preparation or admixture."
It was this label that pointed out the road to fortune to
George Bissell. S. M. Kier had struck oil in 1847 while boring
for salt wells, but he had never realized its true value. George
Bissell knew the value, and got from Kier's label the secret of
procuring it in quantity. Colonel Drake was thereupon selected
to go to Titusville and bore for oil on the leased ground. He
reached Titusville in the spring of 1858, but he had a world
of difficulty in securing an engine and tools and rigging to drill
for the oil. Before he had his plant complete the summer had
gone and the icy hand of winter had settled down on that re
mote and inhospitable region. Many were discouraged, but not
so the genial Colonel. He talked the long winter nights away,
and told how Titusville would yet become the Mecca of for
tune hunters as well as a great commercial metropolis. "Un
derneath this little town of yours," he used to say, "is a store
house of unparalleled wealth — wealth greater than the wealth
of India and the Incas — and you will all live to see Titusville
become the El Dorado of the American Continent." And thus
Drake talked on during the long weary nights of winter.
Everybody loved Drake, but as he moved from house to house,
telling wondrous tales of what was to come, he was listened to
in silence. The good and simple folk thought him a dreamer,
a visionary, a crank, an enthusiast, and the venture he was
engaged in was spoken of all over the entire region as "Drake's
Folly." But with the first breath of the spring of 1859 Drake
drove off with a borrowed horse and wagon to secure a com
petent mechanic to drill the well. It was with great difficulty
that he had procured the horse, and he had to drive a hundred
miles before he secured his man. That done, he returned in
triumph to Titusville.
Then on every side new difficulties beset him. The ma
chinery was wretched, and the driller was anything but an ex-

16 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
pert. Another summer was nearly gone before any results
were visible. The settlers used to come from long distances
to gaze at "Drake's Folly," and then go home believing that the
Colonel was the most charming of lunatics. But on August
29, 1859, the well was full of oil, and when the pump was
started next day "Drake's Folly" yielded twenty-five barrels of
oil. That was a proud day for E. L. Drake. It was, indeed,
the proudest day of his life. Four years later he left the oil
regions with $16,000 and went.to New York. He speculated,
and the $16,000 was swallowed up in Wall Street. Soon after
his health broke down, and he and his family were utterly
destitute ; but the people of the oil regions did not forget him.
They instantly raised a fund for him, and the State of Penn
sylvania conferred on him a pension of $1,500 a year, which
he enjoyed till his death in 1881. Later on his remains were
transferred to Titusville, where a handsome monument had
already been erected to recall to the minds of all the memory of
the first great benefactor of the oil regions. He did not amass
the wealth o_ Rockefeller, for he died poor and dependent, but
his memory will be forever held in benediction in the towns and
villages of northwestern Pennsylvania.
Titusville, Oil Creek, and the whole district was a region
of wild excitement all that fall and winter. Fortune had sud
denly come to all the farmers and settlers of the region even
while they slept. All through the winter every one of the
wretched roads leading to Titusville and the oil regions was
thronged with speculators and investors seeking to obtain
leases to sink wells. They all wanted to tap the fabulously rich
petroleum deposits of the district. Companies were formed in
New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Pittsburg, and in
every other city in New York, New England, Ohio, and Penn
sylvania, to exploit the oil regions. Machinery and supplies
were carried in over the snows, and the forty miles from Erie
to Titusville was a thoroughfare crowded with wagons and
teams and a motley mass of humanity on their way to Colonel
Drake's new El Dorado.

THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM 17
To take care of the hordes that flocked to the oil regions
was the first difficulty, but cities and towns sprang up as if by
magic, and before the summer of i860 came there were hotels
and boarding-houses sufficient to take care of the multitudes.
Meanwhile every piece of ground was leased, and oil wells were
being drilled for not only in the low ground, but up on the hill
sides, and on top of rugged, rocky hills. The innocent ones in
the big cities were buying stock in any kind of an oil com
pany, and the promoter who had an oil farm on the crest of a
hill had just as good an opportunity to sell stock in his wild-cat
oil venture as the promoter who was exploiting likely ground.
Millions were wasted in exploiting barren ground, but the net
result was the opening up of mineral oil wealth greater than the
wildest visionary could have dreamed of. The oil poured forth
in floods, and before the end of 1861 oil was selling at Titus
ville for ten cents a barrel. In January, i860, it was twenty
dollars.
IV
THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM
THE first great difficulty that beset the oil producers was
that of storage. Every State and Territory was ran
sacked for barrels to hold the oil. Beer, turpentine,
and whiskey barrels came into the oil regions by the tens of
thousands, and still an agonizing cry for more barrels went up.
An Iowa school-teacher devised a wooden tank to hold the oil,
and made a fortune out of his invention, but even that in time
was displaced by the iron tank in use to-day. The next great
difficulty was the transportation of this wondrous harvest of
mineral oil wealth to a market. The Pennsylvania and New
York Central Railroads at Erie were forty miles away, and
the Erie Railroad was reached at Meadville, Union City,
and Corry — all stations between twenty and thirty miles away.
But the roads leading to the Erie line were in a frightful con-

18 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
dition. Caravans of oil teams soon, however, made all roads to
the railroads wellnigh impassable, and new roads were run out
through the fields or through the forests, only to be soon also
made impassable and abandoned for others.
Teaming in the oil regions was then a most lucrative occu
pation. It was at teaming that Wesley Chambers got his first
great start and achieved his first renown. It was as a teamster
that Daniel O'Day began his career and first displayed the iron
nerve and genius for organization which have since made him
famous. But the teamsters of the oil regions were, as a rule,
the tyrants of their class. At first they were absolutely indis
pensable to the oil regions, and they tyrannized over the district
with whip and wheel. They often charged S4 for hauling a bar
rel of oil five or ten miles, and they cut new roads through
farm lands without the owner's license whenever the old roads
became impassable. Often they scared many a farmer whose
lands they appropriated for new roads with loud-resounding
oaths and the crack of the terrible black snake whips they
usually carried.
The oil producers were at the mercy of the teamsters, and
many a device was tried to escape from their tyrants. Perhaps
the strangest was the damming of Oil Creek and making a
canal of that treacherous stream. Flat-bottomed boats were
loaded high with oil barrels, and at a given time the dams
placed at different distances along the creek would be opened
and the flood would float down the boats to the Alleghany River.
From there the trip of the oil fleet to Pittsburg was easy and
safe. At one time there were one thousand oil boats and thirty
steamers sailing the Alleghany River.
Captain J. J. Vandergrift was the hero of this fleet. He
had risen from cabin-boy to captain on Mississippi River
steamers, but when the war broke out he found his occupa
tion gone. He gave the steamers he could not sell to the Con
federates and he hastened to Pittsburg in search of a new
sphere. He towed four thousand empty barrels up the Alle
ghany to Oil Creek and sold them. Then he hastened back

VAN SYCKEL'S PIPE LINE 19
to Pittsburg and built twelve boats suitable for the oil trade.
It is said that on one trip with his new fleet he made $70,000.
But the damming of Oil Creek and the ingenuity of Captain
Vandergrift did not free the oil region from the tyranny and
extortion of the teamster. Nature's abundance made trans
portation all the more difficult and put the producers more and
more at the mercy of the jolly, boisterous, tyrannical teamster.
In a little while the Pennsylvania, the New York Central, and
the Erie Railroads had built branches to Oil City, to Titus
ville, and to the other centres of production in the oil region.
But railroads could not get to each oil farm, and the teamsters
controlled the situation and took most of the profits.

SAMUEL VAN SYCKEL'S PIPE LINE
t_N_i8_ii4)- however, Samuel Van Syckel came to the Creek.
He leased lands and developed several fine wells, but he
saw all his profits eaten up by the teamsters.) A man of
energy and resource, he immediately laid two 2-inch pipelines
from his oil farm to a. storage point on the railroad. Thes
teamsters jeered and laughed, but he went ahead, and in a
little while his two pipe lines were doing the work daily of
three hundred teams. At this the fury of the teamsters knew
no bounds. They tore up the pipe lines and let the oil run
away, but Van Syckel persevered and demonstratedthat_
pipe line was the salvation of the new industry. For a long
time the teamsters grumbled and fought. As new pipe lines
were laid they cut them, and in some instances set fire to the
oil tanks of the producers with pipe lines. But their doom
was sealed, and in a little while the teamster was but a name
and a picturesque memory in the oil regions of Pennsylvania.
Samuel Van Syckel did almost as much for the new industry
by his device of a pipe line as Colonel Drake had done by sink-

20 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
ing the first well ; but, like Drake, Van Syckel reaped but small
rewards for the benefits he conferred on the region.*^ He put
$100,000 into the first pipe line, but, through some strange
fatality, he lost it. He then went into the business of refining
oil, and, being a man of great inventive genius, he made many
and great improvements in the process of refining petroleum.
He took out a patent for the continuous refining of oil that was
the most valuable patent of its day ; but by that time John D.
Rockefeller was in the oil business, and wanted Van Syckel
out of it. He got the Acme Oil Company of Titusville, one of
his subsidiary companies, to enter into an agreement with Van
Syckel to build a plant to manufacture by his method. Poor
Van Syckel waited and waited for years to see his process
tried till at last he discovered he had been tricked. In 1888
he sued the Acme Oil Company and won his case ; but it was
in a Pennsylvania court, and all he got was six cents damages.
Six years later, mourning over the injustice and ingratitude
of man, he died ; but neither the oil regions nor John D. Rocke
feller has shown any disposition to do justice to the memory
of this great benefactor of his State and his country.
The teamster and the oil fleet were now things of the past,
but the railroads were charging heavy freights for handling
crude petroleum to the refineries. Cleveland, Pittsburg, New
York, and Philadelphia all had refineries for handling the crude
oil brought to them from the oil regions. The producers
claimed that the transportation charges were excessive, and
a movement was early begun to refine at the wells. The diffi
culty of transporting machinery for refining was great, but all
obstacles were overcome, and as early as 1865 ten thousand
barrels were refined at the point of production. There is now
no doubt that the most economic place for refining petro
leum is at the mouth of the wells.
Samuel Downer of Boston and his partner, Merrill, had
long been making coal-oil from Newfoundland coal and Trini
dad pitch, but as soon as petroleum was discovered they
changed their methods and adapted their work to make oil

GREED OF THE RAILROADS 21
from the new product. To be near the source of supply they
came to Corry, twenty-six miles from the Drake well, and put
up a factory that cost $250,000.
The Downer process employed at Corry was, in all essen
tials, the process in use to-day for refining oil all over the
world. And Downer and Merrill demonstrated that the oil
regions were the fittest place for refining oil.
VI
GREED OF THE RAILROADS
BUT this did not suit the railroads. In- 186 1 the Penn
sylvania Railrpad made enough profit out of its, oil
traffic to defray all its fixed charges and pay its divi
dend. The Pennsylvania, the Erie, and the New York Central
were all eager to get the lion's share of the oil traffic, but they
were united in antagonism to refineries built near the source of
supply. They were ever and always discriminating against
the refineries built in the oil regions, and this discrimination
led to extraordinary results. Commodore Vanderbilt and his
son, W. H. Vanderbilt, were then in actual management of the
New York Central; Colonel Tom Scott controlled the Penn
sylvania Railroad and "owned" the State; and Jay Gould
operated the Erie for himself and Jim Fisk. Scott was
friendly with the Vanderbilts. He was perfectly willing to
let them own the State of New York, provided they made
no objection to his usurpation of the State of Pennsylvania.
Both, however, looked on Jay Gould as an upstart and a
usurper, and they resented his control of the Erie and his
invasion of the oil regions for traffic. But Gould had a won
derful instinct for traffic, and he was a past master at manipu
lating the stock market.
With three such men as Vanderbilt, Gould, and Scott a
rate war to secure the oil traffic was inevitable. But neither

22 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Gould nor Vanderbilt nor Scott cut rates openly. That was
done in secret, and was only done for favored shippers by the
way of rebates. The open or published rate was adhered to
only in the case of small and innocent shippers, and the rates
for others depended on their astuteness or skill in bullying or
wheedling the railroads.
It was this condition of affairs — i. e., the utterly unlawful
system of rebates — that inspired John D. Rockefeller with the
idea of becoming supreme master of the petroleum industry of
the United States. (He saw clearly that if he devised a scheme
whereby he and his allies could get rebates, not only on their
own products, but on the products of all others, the oil business
would be his, and his alone. It was not until 1871 that this idea
had blossomed into vigorous life. ) The oil industry was then
in the heyday of its prosperity. Multitudes had made for
tunes by owning or leasing oil lands. One pioneer, James S.
Farr, had a farm of two hundred acres. In 1861 he sank a
well that yielded 300 barrels a day; the second well
he sank yielded 1,000,000 barrels of oil, and he amassed a
fortune of $3,000,000 from the oil wells of his two-hundred-
acre farm. Later he moved from the oil regions, and lived the
balance of his days in opulent leisure on a farm. William
Barnsdall, an Englishman, was the village shoemaker at Titus
ville during the lonely winter that Drake spent there. Drake
often talked to the shoemaker of his hopes and schemes, but
Barnsdall was sceptical like all others till he saw the oil
pumped from "Drake's Folly." He organized a company at
once, sank a well, struck oil, and made a fortune. Thousands
made fortunes in like manner as producers of oil.
And these men living in the oil regions, and familiar with
its conditions and prospects, were proud of their country,
and were desirous of doing great things for it. Schools and
churches were run up in every hamlet, and theatres and lec
ture halls were built in the cities. The wild license so char
acteristic of Western mining camps was never permitted in the
oil regions, and in 1872 the Alleghany oil field was enjoying

FIRST OIL VENTURES 23
its high-water mark of prosperity. The region was produc
ing 40,000,000 barrels of oil yearly, and 150,000,000 gallons
of illuminating oil were being exported. Every country in
the world was paying tribute to the oil producers of North
western Pennsylvania, and though speculators and railroads
were still preying on the petroleum industry, there was not,
at the dawn of 1872, any part of the United States so rich, so
happy, and so prosperous as the people of the oil regions of
Pennsylvania. They were buoyant, proud, and sanguine.
In their mind's eye they saw the time when all the raw
material would be refined at home; when their district would
be the envy of the people of the land ; when the fortunes made
from the oil wells would be used to build up and beautify
a region so generous and so bountiful.
But such a time they were destined never to see. An
uncanny and unscrupulous brain devised a scheme to grab all
the profits and benefits and blessings that Nature's bounty
stored in the bosom of the oil regions.

VII
ROCKEFELLER'S FIRST OIL VENTURES
HIS ALLIANCE WITH SAMUEL M. ANDREWS
WHILE the firm of Clark and Rockefeller was making
money out of Government contracts during the war,
it was also investing in a small way in oil refining.
Cleveland was soon connected with the oil regions by railroad,
and a large number of oil refineries were built there. It was
the natural shipping point for the finished petroleum products
going West, and with its commanding position on Lake Erie
it was entitled to the most favored rates to the Eastern cities.
In 1872 Cleveland had a refining capacity of 12,000 barrels a
day, while New York and the oil regions had but a capacity
for 9,000 barrels each. Cleveland, therefore, was greatly in-

24 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER ,.
terested in the growth and development of the oil fields. Oil
was closely associated with the commerce of Cleveland, and
the commission merchants, Clark and Rockefeller, were eagerly
watching developments.
In 1862 Samuel Andrews, an Englishman of great mechan
ical skill and ability, secured the co-operation of the firm of
Clark and Rockefeller in the building of an oil refinery. They
invested $4,000 in that venture, and it proved so successful
that they invested more until they had $10,000 in the scheme.
Sam Andrews was no ordinary mechanic or manufacturer.
In addition to an inventive genius he possessed great executive
ability, and his oil refinery was soon a big financial success.
John D. Rockefeller saw his chance. He sold out his
commission business and formed a partnership with Samuel
Andrews for oil refining. In this partnership, which began in
1865, Sam Andrews was the manufacturer, and Rockefeller the
purchaser of the raw material and the salesman of the finished
product. He had to borrow money to carry the finh's ever
growing stock of crude and finished products, and he had to
save expense in every item of transportation and purchase.
His skill as a borrower became proverbial in Cleveland in
those early days. The closest-fisted money lender unlocked
his safe when John D. Rockefeller's unctuous tongue de
manded it. He seemed to have a unique way of winning the
confidence of the capitalist. Miss Ida M. Tarbell, in her
most valuable history of the Standard Oil Company, tells how
a well-known and rich business man stepped into the office
one day and asked for Mr. Rockefeller. Rockefeller was
out, but his partner, M. B. Clark, met the visitor. "Mr.
Clark," he said, "you may tell Mr. Rockefeller, when he comes
in, that I think I can use the $10,000 he wants to invest with
me for your firm. I have thought it all over." "Good God !"
cried Clark, "we do not want to invest $10,000. John is out
right now trying to borrow $5,000 for us." In other words,
the wily John had been playing a little confidence trick on
the rich business man, and his partner gave the play away.

FIRST VENTURES IN OIL 25
"And the joke of it is," said Clark, who used to tell the story,
"John got the $5,000 even after I had let the cat out of the
bag. Oh ! he was the greatest borrower you ever saw."
Rockefeller carried the same astuteness and cunning into
every branch of the business. He had the shrewdest and
sharpest buyers at Oil Creek, and when his agents bought
crude oil below the market, John D. Rockefeller's joy was
overpowering. Miss Tarbell tells how the news of one such
lucky purchase made him lose all control. "He bounded from
his chair with a shout of joy," related an eye-witness, "danced
up and down, hugged me, threw up his hat, and acted so like
a madman that I have never forgotten it." His sales of the
finished product were made with equal care and success ; and
with a keen eye to every detail he made haste to manufacture
.barrels and cases and boxes, so that all the profits in the oil
business, from the wells to -the consumer, should be his.
Hence every reduction in the cost of refining, or of trans
portation, or of the raw material was va source of great joy.
No wonder that his firm prospered. No wonder that the firm
started a second refinery under the name of "William A. Rocke
feller and Company." H. M. Flagler was a partner in this firm,
and it opened a house in New York for selling oil. This
firm of Rockefeller and Flagler also flourished and grew rich,
and in 1870 John D. Rockefeller consolidated his entire busi
ness under the name of the Standard Oil Company. The capi
tal of the new company was $1,000,000, and those interested
were John D. Rockefeller, Henry M. Flagler, Samuel An
drews, Stephen V. Harkness and William Rockefeller. The
extraordinary success and expansion of the firm of Rockefeller
and Andrews attracted wide attention. Some attributed its
success to Rockefeller's talents at the bargain counter and. as
a borrower. Others gave due credit to Sam Andrews for his
knowledge and skill as a refiner. But though these would
account for much, they would not account for all. Sam An
drews was not the only expert refiner at Cleveland. There
were others whose processes were just as good and more

26 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
economical. There were others also whose finances were
'sounder than those of Andrews and Rockefeller, and who
could therefore drive as good a bargain at the wells and hold
for even better prices than Rockefeller's firm. But yet the
latter firm grew and expanded and amassed profits which no
other oil firm could explain.
VIII
THE REBATE SYSTEM
YEARS after the secret of the fabulous fortunes made
by Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler became known.
They were getting their crude oil carried from Oil
Creek to Cleveland for twenty cents a barrel, and all other
refiners at Cleveland were paying forty cents a barrel for
transportation. From 1865 to 1872 this tariff varied, but if
the records are carefully studied it will be seen that the Lake
Shore Railroad Company hauled the entire crude product for
the Rockefeller concern for half the rate that others paid.
Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler were at this time using up
500,000 barrels of crude oil a year. Other firms paid forty cents
a barrel and Rockefeller twenty cents. And, in addition to this,
John D. Rockefeller had secured for his finished product rates
from Cleveland to the seaboard that enriched him still more.
As early as 1870 the railroads' discrimination in favor of
Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler was worth $250,000 a
year to the new Standard Oil Company. This discrimination
__as-«©t— open-a-nd-above^board. -it had continued for years
before there was even a suspicion of it. ••"¦''
But in 1869 the firm of Alexander, Scofield and Company
were offered a rebate of fifteen cents a barrel on crude oil from
the Creek to Cleveland. The firm were to pay the open rates,
and at the end of each month, on the presentation of vouchers,
they were to receive back fifteen cents on each barrel. The

THE REBATE SYSTEM 2,y
railroad agents acknowledged that the Rockefeller people
were getting rebates to the seaboard, and they pledged like
rebates to Alexander, Scofield and Company when they were
as big shippers as the Rockefellers; but till then they had to
build up their business at a disadvantage.
^ How did John D. Rockefeller secure these favors from the
Lake Shore Railroad? How did he persuade the management
to a policy as unjust as it was illegal. It could have but one
result — the monopoly of all the oil refinery business at Cleve
land by the Standard Oil Company — and that result came swift
and true.
^~ Rockefeller had succeeded in outwitting and bamboozling
W. H. Vanderbilt and General J. H. Devereaux. The Van
derbilt lines, the Gould lines, and the Pennsylvania line had
long been cutting and slashing rates, and as the Lake Shore's
main part of this traffic had to go to Cleveland, Rockefeller
persuaded General Devereaux that unless something special
was done for Cleveland the oil refiners of that city would have
to move their plants to Oil Creek, manufacture there, and ship
east over the Pennsylvania. N
In those days X"hn D. Rockefeller w_JsJ_x,outward appear-
ances a perff^v frank, simply unpsgnminjy straightforward
business man. /The bright, clear eye, the firm chin, and soft
voice gave not the slightest indication of the infinite cunning
and unparalleled astuteness concealed within^ He completely
captured and convinced General Devereaux, and to save Cleve
land and the New York Central's share of the oil business he
/gave John D. Rockefeller rebates worth at that time $250,000
a year, and that soon were worth millions to the Standard Oil
Company. It is easy to imagine Rockefeller's joy over such a
concession. With what glee he must have related to Andrews,
Flagler, and William the devices and arguments he used with
General Devereaux ; and no doubt when he told how he pulled
the wool over the General's eyes his associates laughed, and
John danced for joy and flung his hat into the air. He did that
once when his agents up the Creek made a good bargain.

28 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
What then must have been his exuberant joy when he had
wrung from General Devereaux a bargain in transportation
that was worth $250,000 a year? The bargain which John D.
Rockefeller drove with General Devereaux was unquestion
ably the beginning of the Standard Oil Company. Had that
bargain not been made, Flagler, Rockefeller, and Andrews
would most probably be oil merchants still, and there would
have been no Standard Oil monopoly.
It is idle, however, to speculate on what might have been.
Equally idle, perhaps, to discuss the legal and moral aspect of
that now famous agreement between General Devereaux and
John D. Rockefeller for rebates on all shipments of crude oil
or manufactured petroleum. Rockefeller has always claimed
that he outraged no moral law or legal code in securing secret
railroad rates that put his competitors out of business. Deve
reaux and Vanderbilt were undoubtedly guilty of gross viola
tion of law and justice in giving such secret concessions to
Rockefeller, but the latter must not be smirched because of their
violation of the law !
Rockefeller and his associates reaped all the benefit of this
gross and outrageous violation of the law, but all the blame
and guilt, forsooth, must be laid at the door of Vanderbilt and
Devereaux. Rockefeller knew that the law was being violated
for his benefit and at his suggestion and entreaty. He knew
also that the violation of the law would strangle the business of
every other oil refiner in Cleveland. He knew it would com
pel all his business competitors at Cleveland to sell their plants
to him at his terms; but yet he would have the world believe
that Vanderbilt and Devereaux were alone guilty of legal and
moral turpitude, even though that turpitude had been induced
by his own cunning and astuteness. Such casuistry may fool
people sometimes in the corrupted currents of this world.
Here also money and power may shove by justice, but if John
D. Rockefeller will read and learn to understand the Sermon
on the Mount, he will find that "it is not so above."
In 1870 John D. Rockefeller had built up and made per-

ROCKEFELLER'S FIRST COMBINE 29
feet his organization for buying and selling petroleum. His
purchasing agents at the wells were the shrewdest in the busi
ness, and he had secured railroad rates that saved his company
$250,000 a year in transportation. Other petroleum manufac
turers at Cleveland might live under such conditions, but the
Standard Oil Company was bound to thrive and prosper. But
John D. Rockefeller was by no means content. His position
in the oil business was commanding, but it was not supreme.
He had, it is true, all the other twenty firms at Cleveland who
were refining oil at his mercy. He could force them out of
business at any moment he so desired. He could take their
business and their factories away from them at his own price ;
but, prudent general as he was, he realized that the monopoly
of all the oil refineries of Cleveland would not make him master
of the oil wells of the country or of the markets of the world.
He saw that it would be necessary for him to make a combi
nation with the leading oil refiners of Pittsburg, Philadelphia,
and New York. And he knew that it was by such a combi
nation that he could secure from the Pennsylvania and Erie
Railroads a like system of rebates to that which he enjoyed
from the New York Central.

IX
ROCKEFELLER'S FIRST COMBINE
ALLIANCE WITH PETER WATSON
WITH infinite care and cunning he now bent his mind
to the manipulation and handling of the Pennsyl
vania and the Erie. Colonel Tom Scott, though
now vice-president, was still in control of the Pennsylvania,
and Jay Gould of the Erie. About this time Rockefeller took
into his counsels Peter H. Watson. Watson was an able
lawyer, and he had served under- Stanton as Assistant Secre
tary of War. After the war he was made general freight agent

30 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and it was doubt
less through the aid of Peter Watson that Rockefeller suc
ceeded in obtaining rebates on his crude oil from the wells,
and on his finished product to the seaboard.
Peter Watson was a very remarkable man. He was versa
tile, eager, and hard-working, and he was almost as secretive
and astute as Rockefeller. Moreover, he was utterly indiffer
ent to public criticism, and rather despised public opinion,
while John D. Rockefeller has always longed for and hungered
after the good opinion of his fellowmen. Peter Watson was
iready to be a scapegoat or a hero at any time that it suited
Rockefeller or himself. No better ally for his far-reaching
designs could Rockefeller get than Peter Watson. Rockefeller
unfolded to him his schemes for combining the refineries of
Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York, and se
curing from the railroads rates that would put the refineries
at the wells out of business, and that would bankrupt all the
|small refineries which would not combine with them, or that
they did not want in the combination.
The Rockefeller plan was, therefore, a combination of petro-
jleum manufacturers at Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia,
and Pittsburg, which would obtain transportation rates from
the railroads that would eliminate the refineries at the wells,
and would drive all the small and undesirable manufacturers
out of the business. It was combination and conquest. Rocke
feller and Watson believed that the railroads would be power
less to resist a combination of all the big oil refiners. They
also believed that the railroads would be led by cupidity to
aid in eliminating the Creek refiners from the business; and
they also felt that when they had absorbed or crushed the
refiners at the Creek the oil producers would have to sell
their crude oil for anything which it pleased the Rockefeller
combination to give them. In fact, Rockefeller planned a
combination which would compel the railroads to do his bid
ding, and which would force the producer to accept a beg
garly price for his crude oil. That would enable him to dictate

ROCKEFELLER'S FIRST COMBINE 31.
terms to the consumers also. The producers, the consumers,
and the carriers were to be all at his mercy. And when John
D. Rockefeller planned this combination he was but thirty-
three years of age. At a like age, however, Napoleon had
won the battle of the Pyramids, and achieved imperishable
renown by his first and his greatest conquest of Italy.
The plan of campaign for the conquest being arranged,
Peter Watson was chosen to secure the co-operation of the big
refiners at Pittsburg and at Philadelphia. He did not go to
Pittsburg as the ally, friend, and associate of John D. Rocke
feller or the Cleveland combine. He and Rockefeller were
too shrewd for that. Watson represented himself as a rail
road man, an oil producer, and as ex-Assistant Secretary of
War, and he could talk to the oil refiners of Pittsburg and
Philadelphia with authority and persuasion. In fact, they fell
completely in with the scheme, and they even believed it
originated with themselves, and not with Peter Watson. In
stead of the Pennsylvania folks going in with Watson, they
thought that they persuaded Watson to go in with them, and
then — out of regard for Watson — they allowed the Rockefeller
combine at Cleveland to come into the deal. In fact, to please
Peter H. Watson, they allowed William Rockefeller, John D.
Rockefeller, H. M. Flagler, and Oliver Paine to join the new
combination, and were allowing the balance of power in the
new combine to Rockefeller without knowing it — and without
/knowing it they put Rockefeller's man at the head of the
organization, and that man was Peter H. Watson.
O. F. Waring of Pittsburg, W. G. Warden of Philadel
phia, and J. A. Bostwick of New York were the big factors in
the new combine outside the Rockefellers. The picturesque
Colonel Tom Scott soon "caught on," and divined the aims of
the new combination. He was fooled, however, into the be
lief that Pennsylvania parties controlled. He expected great
things for his railroad from them, and he suggested to them
to organize under the charter of the South Improvement
Company. The Pennsylvania Legislature had been in the

32 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
habit of granting omnibus charters to favored individuals — to
cunning representatives who aided Tom Scott in legislative
work — and the charter of the South Improvement Company
was so elastic, so comprehensive, and so useful that Peter
Watson and his associates at once acquired it from Tom
Scott's friend, and immediately proceeded to organize under
its provisions. X
THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY
THE charter under which Rockefeller, Watson, and asso
ciates organized is known to fame as "The South Im
provement Company." Peter H. Watson told the Con
gressional Investigating Committee that "the chapter was a
sort of clothes-horse, to hang a scheme upon." Miss Ida
Tarbell calls it "a clothes-horse big enough to hang the earth
upon." In the "History of the South Improvement Company,"
written at the time, we find this graphic description of this
now historic charter :
"The South Improvement Company can own, contract,
or operate any work, business, or traffic of any kind (save only
banking) ; may hold and transfer any kind of property, real
or personal ; hold and operate on any leased property (oil
territory, for instance); make any kind of contract; deal in
stocks, securities, or funds ; loan its credit ; guarantee any
one's paper ; manipulate any industry ; may seize upon the lands
of other parties for railroading, or any other purpose; may
absorb the improvements, property, or franchises of any other
company, ad infinitum; may fix the fares, tolls, or freights
to be charged on lines of transit operated by it, or on any other
business it gives to any other company or line, without limit.
Its capital can be expanded or watered at liberty ; it can change
its name or location at pleasure ; can go anywhere, and do al
most anything. It is not a Pennsylvania corporation only; it

THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY 33
can, as soon as these enactments are valid, or are confirmed
by other Legislatures, operate in any State or Territory. Its
directors must only be citizens of the United States — not nec
essarily of Pennsylvania. It is responsible to no one; its
stockholders are only liable to the amount of their stock in it;
its directors, when wielding all the princely powers of the cor
poration, are also responsible to the amount of their stock in it.
It may control the business of the continent, and hold and
transfer millions of property, and yet may be rotten to the
core. It is responsible to no one; makes no report of its acts
or financial condition; its records and deliberations are secret;
its capital illimitable; its objects unknown. It can be here
to-day, to-morrow away. Its domain is the whole country;
its business everything. Now it is petroleum it grasps and
monopolizes ; next year it may be iron, coal, cotton, or bread-
stuffs. They are landsmen granted perpetual letters of marque
to prey upon all commerce everywhere."
This description of the powers and privileges granted by
a charter of the Pennsylvania Legislature to the South Im
provement Company should be carefully studied. That charter
was the model for all subsequent charters under which John
D. Rockefeller has ever since operated^ It has been the model
for his imitators in all other trusts or monopolies, and for this
reason the story of the South Improvement Company is of sur
passing interest. It was incorporated in 1870, and it was
vested with all the "powers, privileges, duties, and obligations"
of the Continental Company and the Pennsylvania Company.
The Delaware Improvement Company was passed through
the Delaware Legislature, and given to J. Edward Addicks as
a reward for political turpitude. The South Improvement
Company charter was put through the Pennsylvania Legisla
ture for some reason that has never been known. As Miss Ida
M. Tarbell puts it, "The act incorporating the company was
never published; the name of the member introducing it was
never known, and no votes on it are recorded. The origin of
the South Improvement Company has always remained in

34 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
darkness. It was one of thirteen improvement companies
chartered in Pennsylvania at about the same time, and enjoy
ing the same commercial carte blanche."
On the 2d of January, 1872, Peter H. Watson, John D.
Rockefeller, and their associates met in Philadelphia and
organized under this charter. The stock of the company was
divided into 2,000 shares, and the subscribers for the 2,000
shares were : No. shares
William Frew, Philadelphia, Pa  .10
W. P. Logan, " "  10
John P. Logan, " "  10
Charles Lockhart, Pittsburg, Pa  10
Richard S. Waring, " "  10
W. G. Warden, Philadelphia, Pa  475
P. H. Watson, Ashtabula. 0  100
H. M. Flagler, Cleveland, 0  180
O. H. Payne, " "  180
Wm. Rockefeller, " "  180
J. A. Bostwick, New York, N. Y  180
John D. Rockefeller, Cleveland, O. . . . 180
Peter H. Watson, Rockefeller's most able ally, was presi
dent of the company, and W. G. Warden of Philadelphia was
secretary. Colonel Tom Scott had his misgivings about the organiza
tion from the outset. He did not like the prominence of the
Cleveland men in it, and he insisted that all the refiners should
be taken in or get an opportunity to go in before he would
make any freight contracts with it. Watson agreed to that
proposition, but under such terms that it was inoperative.
Then Scott began to parley for the producers. He told Wat
son that the producers were the real backbone of the oil busi
ness, and that they should be protected. To protect the pro
ducer was the last thing that John D. Rockefeller wanted, but
he allowed Watson to write out a form of agreement, under
which any oil producer could come into the new combination;
and when Colonel Scott was shown this agreement he was
satisfied, and recommended the president of the Pennsylvania
Railroad to sign the famous contract, which placed the oil

THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY 35
business of the United States completely in the hands of John
D. Rockefeller.
Horace Clark and W. H. Vanderbilt had already signed
the contracts with the South Improvement Company for the
Lake Shore and the New York Central, and Jay Gould and Gen
eral George B. McClellan signed for the Erie and its branches,
and on January 18 J. Edgar Thompson signed for the Penn
sylvania. The contracts of the railroads with the South Im
provement Company were in direct violation of the charters
of each and all of these railroads, and yet it is a curious fact
that Colonel Tom Scott was the only one of the railroad men
who seemed to have any moral, legal, or business objections
to the signing of those contracts. Not one of them divined that
they were granting secret privileges and favors to a combina
tion which would inevitably and infallibly create a gigantic
monopoly, which would, in time, strangle all competition and
place the railroads themselves at the mercy of the monopolists.
In fact, Peter Watson had completely convinced the railroad
presidents that the best interests of the railroads would be
subserved by permitting the South Improvement Company to
fix the open schedule of all rates on petroleum products, and
by giving rebates on all petroleum products shipped by the
combine or by the independents to the South Improvement
Company. In the report of the Congressional Committee investigat
ing the Standard Oil Company in 1888 is published the text
of the agreement between the South Improvement Company
and the railroads, the open rates and rebates being given.
These agreements are as follows :
3. To transport and deliver petroleum and its products
over the railroads of the party of the second part, and its
connections, at gross rates, which shall at no time exceed the
following without the consent of both parties hereto:
From any point on the Oil Creek and Alleghany River
Railroad to Oil City, Union, Corry, or Irvington, which are
herein designated as "common points," on each barrel of 45

36 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
gallons in bulk, and on each barrel of 47 gallons in barrels,
30 cents. On Crude Peroleum
From any common point (for each barrel of 45 gallons) to:
Cleveland §°.3o
Pittsburg • • t0
New York ¦ • 2.56
Philadelphia . .... 2.41
Baltimore ....  2.41
Boston . . ... 2.71
All other points, except those on the Oil Creek and Alle
ghany River Railroad, to the places of destination last named,
the same rates as from the common points.
On Refined Oil, Benzine, and Other Products of the Manu
facture of Petroleum
From Pittsburg (for each barrel) to:
New York . . . $2.00
Philadelphia . ... 1.85
Baltimore . . . . . 1.S5
From Cleveland (for each barrel) to:
Boston . . . . . $2.15
New York . . . . 2.00
Philadelphia 1.85
Baltimore ... . 1.85
From any common point (for each barrel) to:
New York .... . . . $2.92
Philadelphia ... .... .... 2.77
Baltimore  2.77
Boston  3.07
From and to all points intermediate between the points
aforesaid, such reasonable rates as the party of the second
part shall from time to time establish on both crude and re
fined. From Pittsburg, Cleveland, and other points, to places
west of Pittsburg and Cleveland, such reasonable rates as the
party of the second part may deem it expedient from time to
time to establish.

THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY 37
4. To pay and allow to the party hereto of the first
part, on all petroleum and its products, transportation for it
over the railroads of the party of the second part and its
connections, the following rebates, and on all transported for
other parties drawbacks of like amounts as the rebates from
the gross rates, the same to be deducted and retained by the
party hereto of the first part, for its own use, from the amounts
of freights payable to the party of the second part.
On the Transportation of Crude Petroleum
From the gross rate from any common point to :
Rebate per barrel
Cleveland ..... . So.jo
Pittsburg . .... . .... .40
._.. New York . . ..... 1.06
-^fj^hiladelphia ... . . . 1.06
¦'• -Baltimore . . . .... . . . 1.06
Boston . .   1.06
From the gross rates from all other points and the six
places of destination last named rebates the same as on the
rates from the common points.
On the Transportation of Refined Oil, Benzine, and Other
Products of the Manufacture of Petroleum
From the gross rates from Pittsburg to: Rebate per barrel
New York  . . . $o.^b
Philadelphia ... . ... .50
Baltimore   .50
From the gross rates from Cleveland to : Rebate per barrel
Boston . . .  $0.50
New York ....  50
Philadelphia ... . .  50
Baltimore ... ...  50
From the gross rate from any common point to :
Rebate per barrel
New York  $1.32
Philadelphia  132
Baltimore  132
Boston .  1-32

38 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
"And from the gross rates to and from all points inter
mediate between the above points a rebate or drawback of
one-third of the gross rate shall be paid."
"From the gross rates from Pittsburg, Cleveland, and
other points to places west of the meridians of Pittsburg and
Cleveland, a rebate or drawback of one-third of the gross
rate shall be paid."
Peter Watson was an able lawyer and a very capable
business man. He had clauses inserted in the contracts with
the railroads which allowed the railroads to concede rebates
to all others as soon as they were shippers of equal volume
with the South Improvement Company. This clause in the
agreement was meant as a salve to the uneasy conscience of
railroad presidents, but Peter Watson and John D. IWke-
feller well knew that no such competition would ever c__._nrthe
privilege of this clause. Moreover, the railroads bound them
selves to co-operate "as far as they legally might" to maintain
the business of the South Improvement Company against
injur)- by competition, and lower or raise the gross rates of
transportation for such times and to such an extent as might
be necessary to overcome the competition. The rebates and
drawbacks to be varied pari passu with the gross rates.
Under these agreements the Pennsylvania was to have 45
per cent of the eastbound traffic, and the Central and the Erie
27 1-2 ^er cent each. All shipments of the finished products
to the interior were to be equally divided between all three
roads. Under this agreement every barrel of crude oil
shipped to Cleveland by the independents cost them 80 cents,
and every barrel of crude oil shipped to New York, S2.56;
to Baltimore and Philadelphia, $2.41 ; to Boston, $2.71. But
the Rockefeller combine got their crude oil to Cleveland for
40 cents, and their crude oil to New York and Philadelphia
for $1.06, less than the independents. Moreover, the railroads
gave a drawback to the Rockefeller combine of 40 cents on
all crude oil shipped by the independents to Cleveland, and
$1.06 on all crude oil shipped to Boston, New York, Phila-

V

THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY 39
delphia, and Baltimore. All the independent refiners were
thus supplying grist to the Rockefeller mill. And, as if this
were not enough, every shipment of finished petroleum
products belonging to the independents had to pay excessive
charges, but the excessive charge — instead of going into the
railroad treasury — was turned over to Rockefeller's South
Improvement Company.
It looks incredible now that Jay Gould and W. H. Vander
bilt and Tom Scott should ever have entered into such agree
ments with the South Improvement Company. They were
aiding and abetting a combine which, if successful, would
crush out of existence all undesirable rivals, and which for a
certainty would grow so powerful that it would be a greater
tyrant to the producer than the teamsters of the early days,
and which would also be so omnipotent that the railroads
themselves would be at its mercy.
During the Congressional investigation of these contracts ~\
it was estimated that the railroads were granting concessions \
to the Rockefeller combination that were worth $6,000,000 /
a year. The Chairman of the Congressional Investigating
Committee declared that the success of the South Improve
ment Company "meant the destruction of every refiner who
refused for any reason to join the company, or whom the
company did not care to have in, and it put the producers
entirely in its power. It would make a monopoly such as no
set of men are fit to handle."
Theoretically all the refiners who wanted to come in were
to be welcome, but in practice only those were to be absorbed
whom John D. Rockefeller wanted for associates in his
gigantic scheme. Theoretically also the producers were to be
protected. They were to be saved from themselves, i.e., they
were to limit their production and sell crude oil for whatever
price per barrel John D. Rockefeller, in his benevolence,
should place upon it. One great object that the Napoleonic
mind of John D. Rockefeller had in view was to put all
foreigners under tribute. He would drive the petroleum oil

40 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
manufacturers out of business, and make them buy the finished
products from Rockefeller. France had enacted legislation
intended to prevent the importation of finished petroleum
products from America. It sought to build up French re
fineries by the free entry of crude oil and high tariff on the
manufactured article. John D. Rockefeller had a plan to off
set that, and he calculated that, supreme in the oil field, he
would make the foreigner pay $7,500,000 a year more for his
mineral oils than he was paying at the beginning of 1872,
when the South Improvement Company was formed. Mr.
Warden and Mr. Watson were effusive in declaring that it
was a patriotic move to tax the foreigner by increasing the
cost to all consumers of the outside world; but they acknowl
edged that the additional price could not be wrung from the
foreigner unless it were also extracted from American con
sumers. Indeed, the more the South Improvement Company
was investigated, the clearer its objects were understood, and
the better its aims and ends were analyzed the more apparent
it became that producers and railroads and consumers would
one and all be sufferers ; would one and all be squeezed and
plundered to amass fortunes for the score of able men who
formed the South Improvement Company. This little coterie
of men loudly proclaimed that all they sought was "the good
of the oil business." In unctuous tones John D. Rockefeller
bemoaned the evils of overproduction in crude oil and in
finished petroleum. Peter Watson descanted with patriotic
fervor on the evils of fluctuating railroad rates. Henry Flagler
bemoaned the terrible injury done to legitimate oil business
by wild-cat oil companies, and by the sharks that speculated in
that commodity at the Creek and on the stock exchanges of
the various cities. These patriotic, kindly, and benevolent men
had no other object in view than to make the petroleum
business in every branch legitimate. To do that the consumer
would have to pay. more, the producer would have to take
less, and all the manufacturers outside the combine would have
to scuttle out of the business. John D. Rockefeller shed tears

THE SOUTH IMPROVEMENT COMPANY 41
of pity over some of the weak and undesirable ones who were
forced to scuttle. Their grief wrung his sympathetic soul,
but he felt that in driving them out of business he was obeying
the great law of Nature which Darwin had recently dis
covered, "the survival of the fittest." All the little buds had
to be cut off that the full bloom and beauty and fragrance
of the American Beauty rose might be developed. And thus
also all the little manufacturers, all the petty men in the oil
business, had to go under in order that John D. Rockefeller
might loom up a colossus in the land. He seemed to think
that he had a mission from heaven to compel every producer
to take what he was willing to give for the raw material, and
to compel every consumer to pay his price for the necessary
of life which he controlled. John D. Rockefeller did not talk
like this, but he acted like this. He acted as if he had a
divine right to crush every obstacle that stood between him
and the world-wide monopoly. And it is this that makes his
career so full of interest and contrasts. The Congressional
Committee on Commerce made a public declaration that "the
South Improvement Company was one of the most gigantic and
dangerous conspiracies ever attempted." The Committee
still further declared that if not stopped "it would have re
sulted in the absorption and arbitrary control of trade in all
the great interests of the country."
Thirty-two years ago the Congress of the nation saw, as ,
clearly as the noonday sun, the ends at which the South
Improvement Company, or its parent — the Standard Oil
Company — aimed. In emphatic language it denounced and
condemned the conspiracy and conspirators. It saw the evil,
but it took no steps to crush it or prevent its growth, and
toTday the great Standard Oil Trust overshadows and over-
/awes the Senate and the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States.

XI
PRESIDENT GRANT ON MONOPOLIES
GENERAL U. S. GRANT, President of the United
States, made the public declaration on March 30, 1872:
"I have noticed the progress of monopolies, and have
. long been convinced that the National Government would have
to interfere and protect the people against them." And in the
midst of the ferment which the exposure of the South Im
provement Company caused Congress finally declared that "it
was the most gigantic and daring conspiracy a free country
has ever seen."
Now the South Improvement Company, its contracts, and
its aims were the creation of the wily brain of John D. Rocke
feller. Congress and public opinion were equally emphatic
in the condemnation of this offspring of the Mephistopheles of
the oil regions, as John D. Rockefeller was then called. But
Rockefeller was a law unto himself, and he had not the slight
est intention of allowing either Congress, or State, or national
laws to block his great scheme of monopolizing the mineral
oils of the world. He felt he had a mission — a mission to
organize the mineral oil industry in such a manner that pro
ducers and consumers should both be equally subservient to
the views of John D. Rockefeller, President of the Standard
Oil Company.
XII
ROCKEFELLER TURNS ON THE SCREW
THE day before the South Improvement Company was
organized for conquest the Standard Oil Company in--
creased its capital to $2,500,000. Mr. Rockefeller was
getting ready to absorb or destroy all the other refiners of
Cleveland. With the charter of the South Improvement Com-

ROCKEFELLER TURNS ON THE SCREW 43
pany in the one hand, and the Bible in the other, John D.
Rockefeller went around among his fellow refiners of Cleve
land and besought them to believe in the Bible, and sell their
refineries to the Standard Oil Company for whatever amount
of cash or stock Mr. Rockefeller would allotMn unctuous tones"
Mr. Rockefeller protested his own honesty and integrity. He
alluded to the edifying life he led, his constant attendance at
church, his utter abhorrence of gaming, the race-track, and the
playhouse. His horror of the tobacco dealer and the 'rum-
seller. His love for the Bible and the precepts of the Crucified.
He told his victims that all his purposes were as pure and lofty
as the mountain snows, and he coaxed, wheedled, and begged
his competitors to surrender their business_ to him at his figures.
When they declined he shed tears over their obstinacy, and
bemoaned their impending ruin. The South Improvement
Company would annihilate them, he would urge; and there
he stood with the Bible in his hand, eager to take them under
his wing ; to save them frgm the South Improvement Company.
That, he pointed out, was a mysterious company. It was a
hidden, secret power. No one could learn anything of its
objects unless under a pledge of solemn secrecy. His competi
tors signed the pledge of secrecy, and then he told them the
import of this terrible machine that was to destroy them, and
from which John D. Rockefeller would protect them, provided
they surrendered their property to him — at his appraisement.
The pledges of secrecy are so unique that their publication adds
point to this story. The first of these was published in the
New York "Tribune," and is as follows :
"I, A. B., do faithfully promise, upon, my honor and faith
as a gentleman, that I will keep secret all transactions which I
may have with the corporation known as the South Improve
ment Company; that, should I fail to complete any bargains
with the said company, all the preliminary conversations shall
be kept strictly private ; and, finally, that I will not disclose the
price for which I dispose of my product, or any other facts

44 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
which may in any way bring to light the internal workings or
organization of the company. All this I do freely promise."
(Witnessed by) (Signed)
The second ran: "The undersigned pledge their solemn
words of honor that they will not communicate to any one
without permission of (name of director of South Improve
ment Company) any information that he may convey to them,
or any of them, in relation to the South Improvement Com
pany." (Witness.) In recent years many an attempt has been made to justify
the methods employed by John D. Rockefeller in wiping out
his competitors in Cleveland. "The High Priest of the Holy
Church of the Kerosene Can" has not yet written an "Apologia
Pro Vita Sua," but he has had apologists by the score. They
tell us that John D. Rockefeller's business genius and wizard
like power of systematizing the oil industry has conferred vast
benefits not only on America, but on the world. They will tell
you about the hundreds of improvements he made in refining;
of the wonderful economy of his pipe lines to the seaboard, and
overpowering value and usefulness of mineral oil — all due to
the genius of John D. Rockefeller. Now, as a matter of fact,
the economy of the pipe lines, and of the many and varied im
provements in the refining of petroleum, and the vast extension
of the uses to which the products of petroleum are put, have all
been independent of John D. Rockefeller. John D. Rockefel
ler's genius is not as a manufacturer, or even as a merchant,
but it is a genius for consolidation and monopoly. It is a
genius to achieve supremacy without counting the cost.
In January, 1872, there were twenty-six independent re
finers in Cleveland. Within sixty days, under the combined
influence of John D. Rockefeller's Bible and the charter of the
South Improvement Company, there remained but the Stand
ard Oil Company and a few petty ones. Within a few weeks

ROCKEFELLER TURNS ON THE SCREW 45
Rockefeller increased his capacity from 1,500 barrels to 10,000
barrels. The leverage of the South Improvement Company
had increased his capacity from three per cent to twenty per
cent of the refining capacity of the United States.
Robert Hanna, an uncle of the late Mark Hanna, was
operating an oil refinery at Cleveland then. He had bought
the plant in 1869 for $75,000, and he was netting $20,000 a
year and more from the plant. In fact, Mr. Hanna made an
affidavit that in the first year he made over $40,000, and that
in subsequent years it was never less than thirty per cent on
the $75,000. In February, 1872, John D. Rockefeller sent
Robert Hanna word that the Standard Oil Company wanted
his works, and that they ¦would pay in cash or in stock of the
Standard Oil Company. Mr. Hanna declined to sell. He
wanted to stay in the business because, as he told Mr. Rocke
feller, he liked it, and it looked good to him. "Ah !" said Mr.
Rockefeller, "but you can't compete with the Standard. We
have all the large refineries now. If you refuse to sell it \vill
end in your being crushed." Mr. Hanna, not yet conquered,
sought out Peter Watson and General Devereaux and asked
explanations. Was the tale told them by John D. Rockefeller
tme? Could it be possible that the railroads would conspire
with Rockefeller so that all refiners in Cleveland would have
to sell to Rockefeller or go to the wall? Watson and Deve
reaux soon convinced Robert Hanna that Rockefeller had the
"cinch." Robert Hanna found out that he could not ship crude
oil from the wells to Cleveland, nor the finished product from
Cleveland, at anything like the rates that Rockefeller got, so
sorrowfully he consented to sell his business. The Rockefeller
agents appraised his property, a factory and a going concern,
earning from $20,000 to $25,000 a year, at $45,000. "Truly
and really at less than one-half of what they were absolutely
worth with a fair and honest competition in the lines of trans
portation," said Mr. Hanna, years after, in a sworn statement.
Mr. Alexander, of the firm of Alexander, Scofield and Com
pany, appeared before a committee of Congress in this very year

46 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
and made a sworn statement relating the circumstances under
which his firm had been compelled to sell. "There was a pres
sure brought to bear upon my mind and upon almost all citi
zens of Cleveland engaged in the oil business to the effect that
unless we went into the South Improvement Company we were
virtually killed as refiners ; that if we did not sell out we would
be crushed out. My partner, Mr. Hewitt, had some negotia
tions with parties connected with the South Improvement Com
pany, and they gave us to understand — at least my partner so
represented to me — that we should be crushed out if we did
not go into that arrangement. He wanted me to see the parties
myself; but I said to him that I would not have any dealings
with certain parties who were in that company for any purpose,
and I never did. We sold at a sacrifice, and we were obliged
to. There was only one buyer in the market, and we had to
sell on their terms or be crushed out, as it was represented to
us. It was stated that the)' had a contract with railroads by
which they could run us into the ground if they pleased. After
learning what the arrangements were I felt as if, rather than
fight such a monopoly, I would withdraw from the business,
even at a sacrifice. I think we received about forty or forty-
five cents on the dollar on the valuation which we placed upon
our refiner)-. We had spent over $50,000 on our works during
the past year, which was very nearly all that we received. We
had paid out $60,000 or $70,000 before that; we considered
our works at their cash value worth 75 per cent of what they
had cost. According to our valuation, our establishment was
worth $150,000, and we sold it for about $65,000, which was,
as I have stated, about 40 or 45 per cent of its value. We
sold to one of the members, as I suppose, of the South Improve
ment Company, Mr. Rockefeller ; he is a director in that com
pany. It was sold in name to the Standard Oil Company of
Cleveland, but the arrangements were, as I understand it, that
they were to put it in the South Improvement Company. I
am stating what my partner told me; he did all the business;
his statement was that all these works were to be merged into

MR. ROCKEFELLER AND THE WIDOW 47
the South Improvement Company; I never talked with any
members of the South Improvement Company myself on the
subject; I declined to have anything to do with them."

XIII
MR. ROCKEFELLER AND THE WIDOW
ANOTHER instance of Mr. Rockefeller's methods is ele
gantly portrayed in the affidavit of a widow whose hus
band had erected a refinery at Cleveland as early as
i860. Mrs. A.'s story, as told in her affidavit, is as follows:
"My husband having contracted a debt not long prior to his
death, for the first time in his life, I, for the interest of my
fatherless children, as well as myself, thought it my duty -to
endeavor to continue the business, and, accordingly, took
$92,000 of the stock of the  Oil Company, and afterward
reduced it to $72,000 or $75,000, the whole stock of the com
pany being $100,000, and continued business from that time
until November, 1878, making handsome profits out of the
business during perhaps the hardest >years of the time since^
Mr. A. had commenced. Some time in November, 1878, the
Standard Oil Company sent a man to me by the name of Peter
S. Jennings, who had been engaged in the refining business and
had sold out to the Standard Oil Company. I told Mr. Jen
nings that I would carry on no negotiations with him what
ever, but that if the Standard Oil Company desired to buy my
stock I must transact the business with its principal officer,
Mr. Rockefeller. Mr. Jennings, as representing the Standard
Oil Company, told me that the president of the company, Mr.
Rockefeller, said that said company would control the refining
business, and that he hoped it could be done in one or two
years ; but if not, it would be done anyway, if it took ten years
to do it.
"After two or three days' delay Mr. Rockefeller called upon

48 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
me at my residence to talk over the negotiation with regard
to the purchase of my stock. I told Mr. Rockefeller that I
realized the fact that the  Oil Company was entirely in
the power of the Standard Oil Company, and that all I could
do would be to appeal to his honor as a gentleman and to his
sympathy to do with me the best that he could ; and I begged
of him to consider his wife in my position — that I had been
left with this business and with my fatherless children, and
with a large indebtedness that Mr. A, had just contracted for
the first time in his life ; that I felt that I could not do without
the income arising from this business, and that I had taken it
up and gone on and been successful, and I was left with it in
the hardest years since my husband commenced the business.
He said he was aware of what I had done, and that his wife
could never have accomplished so much. I called his attention
to the contract that my husband had made with him in relation
to carbon oil, whereby the Standard Oil Company agreed not
to touch the lubricating branch of the trade carried on by my
husband, and reminded him that I had held to that contract
rigidly, at a great loss to the  Oil Company, but did so
because I regarded it a matter of honor to live up to it. I told
him that I had become alarmed because the Standard Oil Com
pany was getting control of all the refineries in the country,
and that I feared that the said Standard Oik Company would
go into the lubricating trade, and reminded him that he had
sent me word that the Standard Oil Company would not
interfere with that branch of the trade. He promised, with
tears in his eyes, that he would stand by me in this transaction,
and that I should not be wronged ; and he told me that, in case
the sale was made, I might retain whatever amount of the
stock of the  Oil Company I desired, his object appearing
to be only to get the controlling stock of the company. He
said that while the negotiations were pending he would come
and see me, and I thought that his feelings were such on the
subject that I could trust him and that he would deal honor
ably by me.

MR. ROCKEFELLER AND THE WIDOW 49
"Seeing that I was compelled to sell out, I wanted the
Standard Oil Company to make me a proposition, and en
deavored to get them to do so, but they would not make a
proposition. I then made a proposition that the whole stock
of the  Oil Company, with accrued dividends, should be
sold to said Standard Oil Company for $200,000, which was,
in fact, much below what the stock ought to have been sold
for ; but they ridiculed the amount, and at last offered me only
$79,000, not including accounts, and required that each stock
holder in the  Oil Company should enter into a bond that
within the period of ten years he or she would not, directly
or indirectly, engage in or in any way be concerned in the
refining, manufacturing, producing, piping or dealing in petro
leum or any of its products within the county of Cuyahoga
and State of Ohio, nor at any other place whatever.
"Seeing that the property had to go, I asked that I might,
according to the understanding with the president of the com
pany, retain $15,000 of m/ stock, but the. reply to this request
was : 'No outsiders can have any interest in this concern ; the
Standard Oil Company has "dallied" as long as it will over
this matter; it must be settled up to-day or go,' and they
insisted on my signing the bond above referred to.
"The promises made by Mr. Rockefeller, President of the
Standard Oil Company, were none of them fulfilled; he
neither allowed me to retain any portion of my stock nor did
he in any way assist me in my negotiations for the sale of my
J stock; but, on the contrary, was largely instrumental in my
being obliged to sell the property much below its true value,
and requiring me to enter into the oppressive bond above re
ferred to.
"After the arrangements for the sale of the refinery and of
my stock were fully completed, and the property had been sold
by myself and the other stockholders, and after I had made
~ arrangements for the disposition of my money, I received a
note from Mr. Rockefeller, in reply to the one that I had
written him threatening to make the transaction public, saying

50 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
he would give me back the business as it stood, or that I
might retain stock if I wished to ; but this was after the entire
transaction was closed, and such arrangements had been made
for my money that I could not then conveniently enter into it;
and I was so indignant at the offer being made at that late day,
after my request for the stock having been made at the proper
time, that I threw the letter into the fire and paid no further
attention to it."
Accompanying Mrs. A.'s affidavit was one of the com
pany's bookkeeper's, testifying that the business had been pay
ing an annual net income of $30,000 to $40,000 when the sale
to the Standard was made for $79,000, and another from the
cashier, who had been present at most of the interviews be
tween Mrs. A. and the Standard agents, and who corroborated
her statements in every particular.
This affidavit and the affidavits of the employees of the
company excited so much attention that Mr. Rockefeller
thought it wise to reply. The reply is worthy of a sophist
The widow was making from $30,000 to $40,000 a year at
her business ; she wanted to continue it, for she wanted the
income to bring up her children properly and settle them in
life. With tears in his eyes — tears of admiration and sympathy
for the good widow — he commends her and says his own wife
could never do as well. He promises her protection and then
sends round agents to tell her that for her own sake she must
sell. The business was easily worth a capital sum of $200,000.
Indeed, she had given an option at that sum, but Mr. Rocke
feller's agents now told her that the property could be dupli
cated for $20,000, and that Mr. Rockefeller, in the great
generosity of his heart, would give her $79,000. And thus an
old-established and honored business was acquired for $79,000
at a time when it was making a sum equivalent to six per
cent on half a million dollars.
It was methods such as these that soon gave Rockefeller
absolute supremacy in the oil business at Cleveland, Ohio.

XIV
THE OIL WAR OF 1872
BUT in the meanwhile a storm had been gathering in the
oil regions which soon burst with terrible violence.
Rockefeller had secretly secured from the railroads, for
himself and associates, contracts which would make every oil
well in Pennsylvania an asset of the Standard Oil Company.
In other words, the Rockefeller people were to fix the rail
road rates, get a rebate on every gallon of crude oil they
shipped themselves, and a drawback on every gallon of crude
oil everybody else shipped. Rumors of an impending disaster
were hanging over the oil regions, and these rumors became
a certainty when on a sudden the tariff for all shipments of
oil was raised fully ioo per cent. And this increased tariff
was not to go into the treasury of the railroads, but into the
treasury of the Rockefeller South Improvement Company.
The people of the oil regions instantly realized that some
great conspiracy was on foot to destroy the refining industry
at the wells and to place the producers at the mercy of a com
bination of railroads and refiners that operated far away from
them. As soon as the news was published of the increase of
freight rates, and of the exemption of the South Improvement
Company from the increase, the excitement in the oil regions
knew no bounds. All work was stopped; all business stayed.
Men could talk of nothing but the conspiracy that threatened
to ruin their industry and rob them of the wealth which all
the world knew was to flow to them from the oil wells of the
district. Within twenty-four hours of the publication of this
iniquitous tariff a mass meeting was held in the Opera House
at Titusville. That meeting was one of the most picturesque
gatherings ever assembled. A common impulse and common
aim had brought that assemblage of three thousand people
together. The excitement knew no bounds; men gesticulated

52 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
wildly. These were no ordinary men; they were of every
race and creed and class and nation of the earth, who had
come to the oil regions for Fortune's smiles. They had found
her there and they were sanguine, buoyant and hopeful, when
the edict of the South Improvement Company came forth to
blast their hopes and prospects.
At this meeting a Petroleum Producers' Union was organ
ized. Three days later another great meeting was held at
Oil City. At the second meeting the wild indignation of the
people was more apparent than at the first. It was evident
that the more the great conspiracy against the oil regions was
examined, the more infamous it seemed. The Oil Producers'
Union was indorsed by this meeting and approved of by all
the people of the oil regions. They instantly set to work and
pledged the producers to shut down on Sundays and start no
new wells for sixty days, so as to limit production. More
important still was the solemn pledge to sell no oil to any
person known to be in the South Improvement Company. In
other words, Rockefeller and his associates were to be boy
cotted. In their enthusiasm they decided also to boycott the
railroads, to build lines themselves, and to support in
every possible way the refiners who refused to go into the
South Improvement Company. A committee was chosen by
the Oil Producers' Union to go before the Legislature and
demand the annulment of the charter of the South Improve
ment Company. Another was sent to Washington to lay the
matter before Congress, and to ask for legislation to crush
and curb such conspiracies against the public weal as the
South Improvement Company. A delegation was selected to
interview the railroad managers. Thirty thousand copies of
a "History of the Conspiracy" were ordered sent to judges
of all courts, Senators of the United .States, Members of
Congress and of State Legislatures, and to all railroad and
prominent business men of the country, to the end that ene
mies of the freedom of trade might be known and shunned by
all honest men.

THE OIL WAR OF 1872 53
In the very van of this uprising of the producers and
refiners of the oil region stood John D. Archbold. He was a
young man then, active, earnest, and eloquent. He and his
associates had been asked to enter into the combine. They
had consulted the heads of the railroads, and had been advised
to join the South Improvement Company. Mr. Archbold, at
the various meetings, dilated in passionate language on the
iniquity of the South Improvement Company, as well as the
perfidy of the railroad managers, and he won the confidence
of the entire region by his solemn promise to resist now and
forever all the encroachments of tyrants and conspirators in
the oil regions.
The "Derrick" of Oil City was the boldest, the most pun
gent, the wittiest newspaper of the oil regions. It heaped
invective, scorn, and obloquy on the railroads and on the
members of the South Improvement Company whose names
it could discover. At the head of its editorial columns it
placed a black list which finally stood as follows :
"THE BLACK LIST. ,
P. H. Watson, Pres. S. I. Co.
Charles Lockhart. John Rockefeller.
A. W. Bostwick. W. P. Logan.
W. G. Warden. R. S. Waring.
Amasa Stone.
These seven are given as the directors of the South Improve--
ment Company. They are refiners or merchants of petroleum.
Atlantic and Great Western Railway.
L. S. and M. S. Railway.
Philadelphia and Erie Railway.
Pennsylvania Central Railway.
New York Central Railway.
Erie Railway.
Behold 'The Anaconda' in all his hideous
deformity !"

54 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
It is curious that with all its efforts the "Derrick" never
succeeded in getting a full list of the firms or persons im
plicated in the South Improvement Company. But it se
cured enough to lash the peSple of the oil regions to
fury and to wipe the South Improvement Company out of
existence. Rockefeller put forward Peter H. Watson to bear the
brunt of the storm of indignation and obloquy that was sweep
ing over the oil regions. Watson, Lincoln's ex-Under-Secre-
tary of War, was the scapegoat, and he faced the storm like
#. man. He wrote letters to the important men in the oil
regions, and asked for an opportunity to discuss the matter
with the representatives of the producers. He protested that
the objects of the company were misunderstood, and he gave
many plausible excuses for its existence. His letters were
read at public meetings amid shouts and jeers, and motions
to parley with Watson were voted down by overwhelming
numbers. But the stoppage of the crude oil supply to all the known
members of the South Improvement Company was a serious
matter. Were the boycott to continue, • Rockefeller and his
associates would be hoisted with their own petard — they
would be driven out of the oil business.
Peter Watson Avrote again asking for a conference with
the Producers' Union, but that request was also rejected with
scorn. Meanwhile the press of the whole country was pub
lishing detailed accounts of the uprising in the oil regions
against the railroads and the conspirators who were endeavor
ing to monopolize the oil business. Ever)- phase of the con
spiracy was mercilessly exposed. The indignation of the
nation was almost as great as that in the oil regions, ac
cording as the details of the conspiracy became public. The
railroad magnates were the first to run to cover. This tele
gram was read from the President of the Atlantic and Great
Western at the very first meeting at Titusville :

THE OIL WAR OF 1872 55
"New York, Feb. 27, 1872.
"Neither the Atlantic and Great Western nor any of its
officers are interested in the South Improvement Company.
Of course the policy of the road is to accommodate the petro
leum interest. G. B. McClellan."
No sooner had this telegram been read, however, than one
from Jay Gould followed, which said:
"Contract with South Improvement Company signed by
Gen. G. B. McClellan, president, for the Atlantic and Great
Western Railroad. I only signed it after it was signed by all
other parties. Jay Gould."
Col. Tom Scott was ready with a hundred excuses for his
approval of the Pennsylvania's contract with the South Im
provement Company. He visited a delegation from the Oil
Producers' Union at their hotel in Philadelphia, and gave
them proof positive that he had agreed to the contracts only
after he had been shown forms of agreement for the absorption
of all the oil producers and oil refiners in the country by the
company. ^Tom Scott had, indeed, this excuse. It was a
capital one, though the genial Colonel must have known how
utterly chimerical any attempt to harmonize the oil trade or
traffic, by absorbing into one great combine every man en
gaged in the business, must have proved.
Finally, on March 28, 1872, a conference was held at the
Erie offices in New. York, between a committee of the Oil
Producers' Union, several representatives of independent oil
refiners, and the railroad magnates. John D. Archbold was
the foremost and most forceful among the Creek men, and the
independents found their most able spokesman in H. H. Rogers.
New York had forged ahead from the outset of the discovery
at Oil Creek in the refining business. For some strange rea
son John D. Rockefeller overlooked the New York refiners
when molding the South Improvement Company, and when

56 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
the storm arose in the oil regions against that concern the
refiners of New York were amazed at the boldness and arro
gance of the men who could frame such a scheme for the de
struction of all competition. They organized and sent a depu
tation of three to the oil regions to represent them. At tlje
head of this deputation was Henry H. Rogers, a member of
the well-known firm of Charles Pratt and Company. Rogers
made friends wherever he went in the oil regions, and his
caustic wit heaped ridicule and contempt on Peter Watson,
John D. Rockefeller, and the South Improvement Company.

XV
MR. ROCKEFELLER IS HUMILIATED
AT THE conference at the Erie offices Horace Oark pre
sided. Colonel Scott was also there, and General Mc
Clellan, as well as W. H. Vanderbilt. The Vander-
bilts had the greatest confidence in Watson and General Deve
reaux, and they did their best to induce the independent re
finers and the oil producers to adopt some plan similar to that
embodied in the contracts with Watson. In fact, they and the
other railroad men were loath to abandon a plan which as
sured them fixed rates and regular business from the oil fields.
But they soon learned that the independents would brook no
compromise. They wanted all contracts with the South Im
provement Company absolutely canceled, and nothing but open
rates for all in future from the railroads.
While this discussion was in progress Peter H. Watson and
John D. Rockefeller presented themselves for admission to the
conference. On behalf of the Producers', John D. Archbold
protested strenuously, and H. H. Rogers denounced the attempt
of the two arch-conspirators to gain admission as an outrage on
common decency.
Horace Clark, chairman of the meeting, protested against

MR. ROCKEFELLER IS HUMILIATED 57
the exclusion "of his old friend Watson," and ordered him
admitted. But his presence caused such a storm that he made
a hasty exit. That was a day of humiliation for John D.
Rockefeller. Under no circumstances would he be allowed
admission to the meeting, and he saw his friend and ally turned
out from that meeting in an ignominious manner. No wonder
that he left the Erie offices dejected; no wonder a newspaper
reporter in the "Times" pictured him as "looking pretty blue"
as he walked away. The railroads had refused to recognize the
representative of his beloved arid cherished South Improve
ment Company. They had abandoned him for his enemies, the
producers and the independents. He divined that all his con
tracts "would be broken, and that the railroads would enter into
agreements looking to the abolition of all rebates and draw
backs. That night he felt he was beaten, and henceforth he
Ylay low, scheming, planning, and devising another campaign
for the conquest of the oil business.
The railroads immediately after the conference in New
York canceled all contracts with the South Improvement Com
pany. The Pennsylvania Legislature annulled its charter, and
the committee of Congress that investigated it denounced it
as a conspiracy of the most dangerous character. Conceived
in iniquity and brought forth in fraud, the South Improvement
Company perished amid a storm of popular rejoicing ; and yet,
in one sense, it never died, for the Standard Oil Company has
carried to success every end and object at which the South
Improvement Company aimed. John D. Rockefeller was soon
back in Cleveland, and had his agents at work striving to buy
crude oil at the Creek, notwithstanding the boycott. The an
nulment of the charter and the cancellation of the contracts, he
claimed, ought to end the boycott against him, and he succeeded
' in purchasing 20,000 barrels at the Creek. When this fact
became known there was another storm of excitement. Rocke
feller and the Standard Oil Company were by this time known
to have been at the bottom of the whole South Improvement
Company business. Rockefeller was, indeed, the arch-enemy

58 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
of the producers and the independents, and when news reached
New York that he had succeeded in buying 20,000 barrels of
crude oil, John D. Archbold telegraphed, canceling all con
tracts with the traitors that sold oil to Rockefeller. Thereupon
a meeting was held at Oil City of the producers from every
section of the oil country. The session was prolonged, and the
discussion angry and excited. Telegrams were read from the
various railroad presidents telling of the cancellation of the
contracts and the abolition for all time to come of drawbacks
and rebates. Captain William Hasson, the president of the
Union, presided, and he read the following telegram:
"Cleveland, Ohio, April 8, 1872.
"To Captain William Hasson — In answer to your tele
gram, this company holds no contract with the railroad com
panies or any of them or with the South Improvement Com
pany. The contracts between the South Improvement Company
and the railroads have been canceled, and I am informed you
have been so advised by telegram. I state unqualifiedly that
reports circulated in the oil region and elsewhere that this
company or any member of it threatened to depress oil are
false. John D. Rockefeller, President"
That meeting clearly perceived that the only way to save
the oil country from the usurpations of John D. Rockefeller
was to enforce a perpetual boycott against him. But it looked
so unfair to enforce the boycott against him and remove it from
others of his associates in the South Improvement Company
that the meeting hesitated. At the moment of its indecision the
/ telegram was read from John D. Rockefeller, and that decided
the day for him. A resolution was passed ending the boycott
after the 15th of April.
But the removal of the boycott from Rockefeller and the
Standard Oil Company did not do away with the suspicion
and animosity that had arisen in the oil country. The bitter
hatred of the people of the oil regions had its roots in the

THE TREATY OF TITUSVILLE 59
South Improvement Company, and it has never abated from
that day to this. The people who were found trading with
the Standard were looked upon with suspicion. Those who
worked for it, or who were allied with the Standard, were no
longer patriots, but traitors. And his enemies were right.
Within thirty days of . the solemn agreement among all the
railroads to grant no rebates or drawbacks, the Standard was
receiving rebates on all crude oil shipped from the wells to
Cleveland and on all its product shipped to the East from
Cleveland. In other words, in a little while all the valuable
contracts of the defunct company were enjoyed by the Stand
ard alone. With these secret contracts in his possession
John D. Rockefeller started out anew on his conquest of the
oil world. His past experience taught him much; he became more
prudent and secretive than ever; he saw also that he could
never achieve his ends till he had disrupted the producers and
had allies and associates among them.
John D. Archbold had been the chief organizer of the
forces of the 'oil region. He had led the war against the
South Improvement Company and Rockefeller with- great
courage and ability, and Rockefeller made up his mind to take
John Archbold into camp.
XVI
THE TREATY OF TITUSVILLE
FEW incidents in the industrial' development of America
have greater interest than the revolt of the oil regions
against the South Improvement Company.
The' sympathy of the nation went out . overwhelmingly
to the producers and to the independent refineries. There
was hardly a newspaper in the land that was not loud and ve
hement in denunciation of Rockefeller and his South Im
provement Company. Both the Congress and the President

6o JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
of the United States were equally emphatic in their condemna
tion of the attempt of Rockefeller to build up a monopoly on
the ruins of his business competitors.
Even the great railroads denounced the combine that
wrung from them rebates and drawbacks. And when the
Legislature of Pennsylvania revoked the charter of the South
Improvement Company, a roar of triumph arose in the oil
regions which echoed almost throughout the world.
And yet before the end of that very year of 1872, John D.
Rockefeller had secured a grip on the oil industry fully equal
to what he would have had if the South Improvement Company
had not so ignominiously perished.
Many there were who pitied John D. Rockefeller as he
walked away from the Erie offices beaten, dejected and mel
ancholy. But for him defeat was only an incentive to greater
effort. His one aim in life was to be supreme in the oil busi
ness — to dictate the price to the oil producers at the mouth
of the wells and to tell all the consumers of petroleum prod
ucts throughout the world what they were to pay. In com
plete and absolute control of production, Mr. Rockefeller felt
that he could dictate also to the railroads and transportation
companies. He saw in his mind's eye fleets of oil ships sailing over the
great lakes and seas of the world, and all floating the Rocke
feller flag.
The man who leaped for joy and flung his hat into the
air and shouted like a madman at the news of a hard bargain
made by an agent was a man of many moods. We have seen
him go to the house of a widow whose property he wanted
for 35 cents on the dollar and shed sympathetic tears as the
widow told him of her struggles to educate her children. But
while he shed tears of sympathy for the widow and; promised
to protect her, in less 1#ian thirty days he had taken her prop
erty from her and appropriated it to his own use.
He paid her, to be sure. 35 cents on the dollar, and perhaps
she ought to have been glad, for had she not sold out at his

THE TREATY OF TITUSVILLE 61
figure he would have bankrupted her. In fact, John D.
Rockefeller was a St. Paul in his sympathies. He was all
things to all men, but when it came to the oil business he ex-
/ercised the "divine right of the conqueror" and was as ruth
less as Napoleon, William of Normandy, or Alexander.
And this was the man who appeared in the heart of the
oil regions in May, 1872, a few weeks after his utter and over
whelming defeat through the South Improvement Company.
The people of Titusville and Oil City gazed at him with
utter astonishment as he moved through their streets, smiling
and modest and simple. Flagler and Waring and Frew were
with him, and they did most of the talking and the handshak
ing. Indeed, so reticent and so humble and so kindly was the
President of the Standard Oil Company that the oil regions
soon came to the conclusion that John D. Rockefeller was
not as black as he was painted.
Henry M. Flagler, debonair and confident, pointed to his
chief and told how gentle and sweet and charitable he was.
He told how he loved his home and his Bible and his Sunday-
school class, and that all his purposes were as pure and lofty
as the mountain snows. "Mr. Rockefeller," he said, "has
tried to bring about a combination of producers and refiners
that would benefit all those engaged in the oil trade., Over
production has been ruining the business and Mr. Rockefeller
wanted to stay or stem or stop the evil of overproduction for
the good of the oil business. Mr. Rockefeller's plan had, in-
/ deed, failed, but he would gladly agree to any plan the oil
producers might conceive which would benefit the oil business."
This was the kind of talk that Flagler and Waring and
Rockefeller's other companions gave the prominent men of
the oil regions during their memorable visit in May, 1872.
They were to be seen" buttonholing at every street corner and
propounding views that would bring unwonted prosperity to
the oil regions. Occasionally a party would meet in a pri
vate office, and Flagler and Waring and Frew would explain
or propound or solicit. And John D. Rockefeller during the

62 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
discussion would sit in a corner silent as a sphinx, with his
face usually buried in his hands. Occasionally he would look
up and fix his piercing eyes on some speaker who showed un
usual strength or courage. He marked his men for alliance or
destruction, but he never did any of the talking.
The missionary work done by Rockefeller and his asso
ciates in the oil regions soon told. Captain J. J. Vandergrift, ¦'
that daring and vehement leader of the popular forces, was won
over to the theory that only a combination between refiners and
producers could save the oil country from the evils of over
production. /
John D. Archbold also became a convert. And others there
were who had been fiercely inimical to Rockefeller's South Im
provement Company, but who now succumbed to the specious
arguments of the apostles of the Standard Oil.
A convention of the producers was then called at Titusville
and a plan was propounded by H. M. Flagler for a combine
of producers and refiners. That convention decided the fate
of Rockefeller's second attempt to control the oil business.
The convention lasted four days, and it was fierce, stormy,
and bitter. A great defection to Rockefeller was evident
among leading producers, and Captain Vandergrift and John
Archbold became objects of biting sarcasm and bitter re
crimination. They had stood boldly in the van of battle against
the South Improvement Company. They shared in all the glory
of its overwhelming overthrow, and there ^hey stood now, a
few months later, pleading and arguing and urging an alli
ance with the very men that were responsible for the South
Improvement Company.
The names of "deserter," "traitor" and "ringster" were
hurled across the floor of the convention at Vandergrift and
Archbold, and they hurled back defiance at their late asso
ciates and allies.
Mr. M. N. Allen, editor of the Titusville "Courier," took'
his hat and walked out of the convention. He was -one of
the pioneers of the oil business and a refiner himself, and he

THE TREATY OF TITUSVILLE 63

and his paper had fought valiantly for the independents
against Rockefeller and the South Improvement Company.
The defection of so many independents to the Rockefellers
angered him and he left the hall in disgust.
Not once during all those days of angry recrimination and
bitter wrangling did John D. Rockefeller open his lips in pub
lic. He listened to the debates and marked his men and soon
divined that he could make no public alliance with the oil pro
ducers. He had, however, gained one great point! He had di
vided the producers of the oil regions. Archbold, Vander
grift, and others were now his allies, and he made up his mind
that he could proceed to consolidate the refiners of the country
free from the danger of a boycott in the oil regions. In fact,
by his alliance with Archbold and Vandergrift he had se
cured another great triumph.
It mattered little to him, therefore, what the convention
at Titusville decided, and when it rejected his plan of an alli
ance between producers and refiners, he left Titusville appar
ently crestfallen, but in reality joyful. Three months later
Rockefeller had won over to his views four-fifths of the re
finers of the United States and he formed them into a com
bine known as the National Refiners' Association. John D.
Rockefeller was president and J. J. Vandergrift vice-presi
dent of this new association.
A storm of indignation swept the country from Oil City
to Titusville. The desertion of Captain Vandergrift and John
Archbold had lost to the independents their ablest leaders.
But their places were soon filled.
Foremost among the men who now came to the defence
of popular rights and open competition was Captain William
Hassen. His father owned a farm at the junction of Oil
Creek and the Alleghany River long before Drake's discovery
at Titusville had focused the attention of the world on the
oil country of Pennsylvania. His father's farm was called
Cornplanter, and he had seen Cornplanter become Oil City.

64 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
He and his partner had sold 300 acres of their land for
$750,000. Oil City was pre-eminently his city. It was built
on his father's farm, and he was proud of it and proud of the
great industry that had grown up in his country. He believed
that Oil City and Titusville and every other town and hamlet
in the oil regions would grow and prosper unless the machina-
l^tions of Rockefeller and his associates should succeed in
strangling the refineries at the wells. He feared any and all
combinations of refiners which would be powerful enough to
dictate to the railroads and unscrupulous enough to crush
competition by any and all means.
Captain Hassen summoned the oil producers of the Creek
together late in the fall of 1872. He laid before them all the
aspects of the oil industry. He expounded the plans of the
National Refiners' Association and he pointed out that com
bination should be met by combination.
A committee was appointed to draft the plan of an asso
ciation which would effectually protect the producers.
In October Captain Hassen presented the plan of the com
mittee to a convention of the independents. The new asso
ciation was to be called the Producers' Union Agency. It was
to be incorporated and a million dollars of capital provided.
This stock was to be subscribed for by the producers and
their friends. Every man engaged in the oil industry on the
Creek was urged to buy stock 'in the people's corporation, and
in an incredibly short time the million was subscribed.
A new power had come into the oil industry — an
active, powerful organization of the producers themselves. It
was evident that if this organization could -be kept together
Rockefeller would not find it any easy task to become the
Oil King of the world.
At this time there was immense overproduction of oil.
In 1871 the production was 5,205,234 barrels, but in the first
ten months of 1872 this had already been surpassed. The
wild-cat wells of the region had become producers and the
utmost difficulty was experienced in storing or in disposing

THE TREATY OF TITUSVILLE 65
of the oil. The producers had sold their five million barrels
of oil in 1S71 for $21,440,502. In 1872 they pumped 20 per
cent more oil, but received only SiS, 100,000 for the increased
quantity. The)- were already in the grip of the octopus. In
1873. when Rockefeller had his grip still more firmly on the
industry, nearly ten million barrels of crude oil were produced,
but the producers received only $12,647,526 for the entire out
put. The producers pumped 60 per cent more oil than in
1 87 1, but received 60 per cent less money therefor.
The first problem that confronted Captain Hassen, there
fore, was overproduction. Were that to continue. Rockefel
ler could get his crude oil for $2 a barrel or less. But in
1S72, $2 a barrel was considered a starvation price for
crude oil : $3 a barrel was looked upon as a fair price — a
live-and-let-live price, and Captain Hassen and his lieutenants
resolved to fix upon that as the normal price for oil.
But to secure that all drilling for new wells must be
stopped, nay, more, there must be a general shut-down for at
least thirty days of all wells in operation.
Hard as such a device was upon those dependent on the
oil wells for the money to pa)' the butcher and the grocer, it
was generally adopted. Here and there an ignorant Dutch
farmer refused to abide by the decree of the Petroleum Pro
ducers' Agency, and kept his wells in operation, but the vast
majority closed down tight.
The thirty-day shut-down of the oil wells of Pennsylvania
was a heroic and self-sacrificing measure. It exhibited to the
world the firm determination of the people of the oil regions
to maintain their independence and not to become mere
machines working for the honor and glory of a great mo
nopoly controlled by John D. Rockefeller of Cleveland, Ohio.
But most popular movements of this kind are little more
than ropes of uncemented sand. Had Captain Hassen been
endowed -with despotic political power or had he had the magic
influence of a Savonarola over multitudes of men, he might
have kept the people of the oil regions together and saved

66 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
them and the oil industry from the yoke of John D. Rocke
feller. But he was not a despot or a Savonarola, and pitted
against him was the most adroit, cunning, and tenacious in
tellect of his time. The mind of John D. Rockefeller was never
at ease. He now bent all his energies to smashing the Petro
leum Producers' Agency. He did not openly rail and rave
against it. On the contrary, he praised its work and compli
mented its chiefs.
It was "doing grand work," he said, "curtailing produc
tion." He was so pleased and gratified' that he offered to
purchase crude oil from the Petroleum Producers' Agency
alone. On the 8th day of November, 1872, his agents
bought from the agency 6,000 barrels at $4.75 a barrel, and
at the same time the following telegram was received at
Titusville :
"It has been represented to us that if we would buy of the
Producers' agent at Oil City and pay $4.75 per barrel, they
would maintain the price. We are willing to go further, and
buy only of the Producers' agent, hence the order we have
given you. See Hassen and others, and let there be a fair
understanding on this point. We will do all in our power to
maintain prices, and continue to buy, provided our position
is fully understood. We do thisto convince producers of our
sincerity, and to assist in establishing the market.
"John D. Rockefeller."
There was great joy in the oil country over that telegram
and over the fact that Rockefeller recognized the Agency and
was willing to pay better prices for crude oil than the inde
pendent refiners.
They had not yet learned "to fear the Greeks when bear
ing gifts." When John D. Rockefeller first came as a con
queror with the Bible in the one hand and the charter and
contracts of the South Improvement Company in the other,
the oil regions rejected him and routed his forces, horse, foot,

THE TREATY OF TITUSVILLE 67
and artillery. When he came the second time with his Pitts
burg plan in May, 1872, offering alliance, his overtures were
also rejected, but he won over allies that proved invaluable.
But here he was again, before the close of 1872, the most
generous of benefactors, buying oil from the people's agency
and offering to buy from them alone if the Agency would
only limit production.
John D. Rockefeller as a benefactor of the oil region and
of the Petroleum Producers' Agency was a far more danger
ous antagonist than the arch conniver of the South Improve
ment Company.
He allayed animosity and suspicion at the same time.
While nature was lavish in her bounty in the production
of crude petroleum, John D. Rockefeller was systematically
hampering the consumption. He was buying crude oil for
five and six cents a gallon, but he was exacting 25 cents a
gallon for illuminating oil from Americans and foreigners
alike. In other words, to smash the people's combination, he had
'to curtail consumption and promote production, and he ham
pered consumption by keeping the price of the finished product
at a monstrously excessive price. The export trade of 1872
was 25,000,000 gallons less than the export trade of 187 1. The
foreigner had discovered that while crude oil had fallen from
$10 to $2 a barrel, the American refiner got all the benefit,
and he refused to buy under such conditions.
But that exactly suited Rockefeller. The foreign demand
was less and the home demand was no more, and the wells
had 25 per cent greater capacity than ever before. And
John D. Rockefeller paraded this lessening foreign demand
and the poverty of the home consumption, and he appealed to
the Producers' Agency to limit production still further. He
praised them for their past efforts in that direction, and
urged them to new ones.
The oil producers did not know that Rockefeller had de
moralized the foreign markets and paralyzed the home trade

68 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER'
in order that an overwhelming supply of crude oil might
demoralize the combination of producers. But his agents
were roaming up and down Oil Creek whispering disaffection
' and asking for a friendly alliance. He alone, in conjunction
with the Producers' Agency, could make stable the oil business.
Let the Agency sell to him alone and keep down production,
and he would pay a better price than anybody else. They
offered to buy 15,000 barrels a day provided the Agency would
sell to nobody else and would curtail the output.
The Producers' Agency had been formed to fight the
• Rockefeller combine. It was the people's combination against
Rockefeller. He was believed and even known to be the arch
enemy of the producer. And yet, when Rockefeller appeared
before the people's combine, sad and penitent and complimen
tary, beseeching an alliance with the very organization that
was built to resist his conquests, the majority of the producers
were so completely bamboozled that they favored an agreer
ment with John D. Rockefeller.
Captain Hassen fought this surrender of the people's com
bine with all the energy that he was capable of. It was a base
and cowardly surrender, and dearly have the oil regions paid
for it.
The Oil City "Derrick" dubbed this surrender to Rockefel- '
'Ave "The Treaty of Titusville."
A contract was made between the Agency and Rockefeller
by which $5 a barrel was to be paid for crude when refined
was selling for 26 cents a gallon, and a sliding scale was
established. It was also provided that the people or Rockefeller could
end the contract at ten days' notice.
The Treaty of Titusville was brought back to the oil
1 regions late in' December, 1872. With it came an order from
Rockefeller for 200,000 barrels at $3.25 a barrel. This large
order caused general rejoicing. The unthinking multitude
^professed to believe that John D. Rockefeller after all would
turn out to be the great benefactor of the oil regions. Soon

THE REFINERS' ASSOCIATION 69
there were murmurs and complaints at the way that the Agency
distributed the purchase of the 200,000 barrels.
New wells were coming into commission every day, and
they were selling at whatever price could be got from indepen
dents who were hampered by the rebates and drawbacks that
Rockefeller was receiving from the railroads. The excessive
charges Rockefeller was exacting at home and abroad for the
finished products kept consumption down, and in less than
thirty days after the signing of the Treaty of Titusville, John
D. Rockefeller knocked it into a cocked hat and refused to
have any further dealings with the Petroleum Producers'
Agency. / He had taken 50,000 barrels of oil, for which he paid $3.25,
but he canceled the order for the balance of 150,000.
The Producers' Council met and asked for explanations.
John D. Rockefeller was quite ready with plausible ones.
"You have not kept your part of the contract — you have
not limited the supply of oil — there is more being pumped to
day than ever in the history of the region. We can buy all
we want for $2.50, and oil has sold within the week for $2.
If you will not or can not stop overproduction, can you ex
pect us to pay your price? We keep down the output of re
fined, and so keep up the price. If you will not do the same,
' you must not expect high prices."
, XVII
THE WORK OF THE REFINERS' ASSO
CIATION
THE year 1872 will ever be a memorable year in the his
tory of the petroleum industry. It was in that year that
John D. Rockefeller achieved the most important vic
tories of his career. Twice he apparently failed in his cam
paign for the conquest of the oil industry, but his apparent

70 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
failures were only partial, and the overconfidence of his foes
finally led to their utter defeat.
The South Improvement Company, condemned on every
side, was dissolved amid a storm of contempt and indignation.
But it had served Rockefeller well, for it enabled him to
increase his oil business fourfold by jobbing the competing oil
refineries at Cleveland at his own figures.
His pilgrimage to the oil regions in May, 1872, and his
overtures to the producers for a plan that would be mutually
beneficial to them and to the refiners, were indeed igno-
miniously rejected.
His handshakes, his bland smiles, and his unctuous pro
testations of beneficence toward the oil regions were in
evidence on every street corner and in almost every business
office and in every hamlet and town on Oil Creek.
But the Mephistopheles of the South Improvement Com
pany failed to gull the oil producers then. They spumed his
friendship and alliance. But his pilgrimage to the. oil region
was not in vain, for he won over to his schemes and hopes
the foremost men in the oil country — J. D. Archbold and J. J.
Vandergrift, and many others.
That led to the formation of the Refiners' Association in
August, 1872. That association embraced four-fifths of the
' refiners and each treated so many barrels of crude and sold at
whatever price J. D. Rockefeller decreed.
With far-reaching wisdom he kept prices for the refined
products so high that he checked consumption in the old world
1/- and in the new, with the result that overproduction became a
curse to Oil Creek.
The Producers' Agency had to cut off drilling and to close
down for thirty days. But nature's bounty and John D. Rocke
feller's ingenuity increased the overproduction in such a man
ner that the owners of the oil wells of Pennsylvania became
depressed and down-hearted and fearful of the outlook.
It was at that moment that John D. Rockefeller again
reached out to them the olive branch of peace and of alliance.

THE REFINERS' ASSOCIATION 71
He offered to buy all their oil at steady and profitable prices
if they would agree to sell to him alone. Captain Hassen
begged and besought them to reject the olive branch, to have
naught to do with the Mephistopheles of the South Improve
ment Company. He told them that Rockefeller's honeyed
words and beneficent promises were false as dicers' oaths. But
the prospect of immediate relief was more powerful than the
words of wisdom that fell from Captain Hassen's lips, and
people bent the knee and fell under the yoke of Rockefeller.
How the astute and wily John D. Rockefeller must have
smiled then. The man who could fling his hat into the air at
the news of a successful bargain must have had a delirium of
joy when he made a trade that ensured him supremacy in the
oil industry. But to make his conquest doubly sure, he made a contract
with them for 200,000 barrels of crude oil at $3.25. His vic
tims had great difficulty in apportioning that quantity among
the producers. It was a large order, but not half large enough
to take all the crude oil in the hands of the producers.
In the apportionment bickerings and complaints and cries
of favoritism were heard on every side. And then at the de
cisive moment Rockefeller threw back on the hands of the
producers 150,000 barrels of crude oil.
Thereupon in the oil regions it was a universal sauve qui
pent. Rockefeller could buy all the oil he needed for $2 a
barrel and the producers, disorganized, despondent, and de
spairing, rushed production.
The Petroleum Producers' Agency ended in melancholy
failure. John D. Rockefeller tricked it to its ruin. And he
knew that it would take many a long year before a combination
among producers could be again constructed.
Meanwhile, with this great victory achieved, he set out to
provide for the fruits of the victory.
The Refiners' Association had enabled Rockefeller to keep
up foreign and- domestic prices for the refined products. It
had enabled him to completely disorganize the producers and

72 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
batter down the price of the raw material to figures that could
hardly pay living wages.
But in the Refiners' Association were many firms who were,
for Rockefeller, undesirable allies. Moreover, the Association
was too loosely jointed to suit him. Some members of the As
sociation had not kept to the limit of production and prices
fixed by Rockefeller. They, he said, had not dealt squarely with
him. Besides, Rockefeller had made use of the Refiners' Asso
ciation to make himself all the more potent with the railroads.
W. H. Vanderbilt discovered that John D. Rockefeller was
the most potent factor in the oil world, and he began cultivat
ing Rockefeller. In fact Vanderbilt bought stock in the Stand
ard Oil Company. So did Amassa Stone, President of the
Lake Shore, and Peter H. Watson, now President of the Erie,
was already a stockholder in the Standard and an old ally.
Rockefeller's influence with the railroads had, therefore,
grown enormously since the memorable day that he was
refused admittance to the Erie offices and went away dejected.
Moreover, Rockefeller had made a multitude of econ
omies in the refining of oil. Every ingredient in crude petro
leum was now a commodity of commercial value. Some of
his allies in the Refiners' Association were resting on their
laurels; they were perfectly satisfied with the rich harvest
which their alliance with Rockefeller was bringing them and
they grew lavish in their expenditures and careless, in business
management. "I have no use for men who fail. The cause of their failure
is no business of mine, but I want successful men as my asso
ciates," is a favorite saying of Rockefeller.
The Refiners' Association enabled Mr. Rockefeller to wreck
all combinations among producers at Oil Creek. It had done
its work. It had cast a blight over the oil regions that has
never been lifted. But, its work being done, Rockefeller
had no further use for it, or rather he had no use as allies for
many of the men whose firms were in the Association. He,
therefore, caused it to be dissolved.

Glte^vTH OF THE STANDARD OIL 73
The dissolution of the Refiners' Association was hailed
with joy in the oil country, but that joy was the vainest of
illusions. John D. Rockefeller caused the dissolution of the
Refiners' Association simply because he wanted to reorganize
the oil industry under a system that would give him more
completely the absolute control and management of the entire
oil industry of the world.
All his past achievements were now to be crowned by the
greatest achievement of his career.
In fact, it was nothing less than the absorption or de
struction of all other refiners by Rockefeller's Standard Oil
Company.
XVIII
THE GROWTH OF THE STANDARD
OIL COMPANY
DURING 1873 John D. Rockefeller spent the greater
part of his time perfecting his schemes of rebates and
drawbacks. His was by no means the only firm that
received rebates. Every shipper that was big enough to be
of importance had rebates from the railroads, but Rockefeller
alone received drawbacks, that is, the rebates of those who were
not big enough or adroit enough to secure them for themselves.
Producers saw less and less profit in pumping and shipping
oil. Thousands had made fortunes owning oil farms. But
the owner of an oil farm from 1872 to the present day has
found that the wealth which nature put beneath the surface of
his farm did not enrich him, but it did enrich John D. Rocke
feller. One Dutch farmer had oil wells on his property that had
produced 10,000 barrels a year since 1870. In that year oil
averaged $4 a barrel all the year round and the Dutch farmer
netted $25,000. In 1872 oil averaged $3 a barrel and the
Dutchman made a clear profit of $21,000. In 1873 Rocke-

74 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
feller smashed the Producers' Agency and created a vast
Artificial overproduction, and the average price received by
' this Dutch oil farmer was $1.25. It cost him a dollar to
produce and his profit on 10,000 barrels was $2,500. In 1874
crude oil was a dollar a barrel and all the Dutchman could make
was living expenses. In 1875 Rockefeller's methods were so
completely successful that the oil country sold 12,162,514
.barrels of crude petroleum for $11,863,133, or about 91 cents
a barrel. Thus in five years the income from a single oil farm
dropped from $25,000 a year to nothing. That is, there was
no profit for the man who pumped and shipped 10,000 barrels
of oil. Ninety cents hardly paid the help, in fact, it was not
enough to pay decent wages to the help, and the country that
had been so happy, so hopeful, so prosperous when toilers
were getting decent wages and when the owners of oil
farms were getting reasonable incomes from their property was
now reduced to a dejected and melancholy condition. Crowds
of young and ardent oil men left the country in disgust and
scattered themselves over the mining regions of the Rockies.
They bore with them undying hatred of the system that had
blasted the fairest prospects that any country was ever blessed
with. In 1874 John D. Rockefeller was master of the railroad
situation, owing to the system of rebates and drawbacks which
he had established, and he had the oil producers at his feet,
petitioning for crumbs from the table of the Mephistopheles
of the South Improvement Company.
With the transportation and the raw material in his ab
solute power he now planned a scheme which would give him
and his company supreme control of the markets of the entire
world.
THE SARATOGA CONFERENCE
Early in the summer of 1874 he summoned Charles
Lockhart of Pittsburg and W. G. Warden of Philadelphia

COPYRIGHTED BY PACH BROS.

JAMES J. HILL

GROWTH OF THE STANDARD OIL 75
to meet him and Henry Flagler at Saratoga. After breakfast
they adjourned to a pavilion, and there during a conference
of six hours Rockefeller unfolded his great scheme for more
perfect organization and more thorough consolidation than
the Refiners' Association proved to be.
He asked Mr. Warden to turn over the great refining plant
at Philadelphia to the Standard Oil Company and take Stand
ard stock in exchange therefor. Mr. Lockhart was asked to
do the same, and so persuasively aid Flagler and Rockefeller
talk that at the end of the conference Warden and Lockhart
had become part and parcel of the Standard Oil Company of
Cleveland. Charles Pratt and Company of New York was now also
approached. The fighting member of that firm was Henry
H. Rogers. He had gone into the oil regions and made
desperate battle against the South Improvement Company.
His caustic tongue and his biting wit had often made Rocke
feller wince. It was he rather than Archbold that had ex
cluded Rockefeller from the conference of the oil men with
the railroad magnates at the Erie offices in 1872. But Rocke
feller's ambition easily overcame his resentment. He wanted
Henry Rogers as an ally, not as an enemy. His conference
with H. H. Rogers was not as prolonged as that with W. G.
Warden and Mr. Lockhart, but at its close H. H. Rogers and
the Charles Pratt Company of New York were absorbed by
the Standard Oil. Pratt and Rogers agreed to take stock in
the Standard Oil Company in exchange for their property.
To provide for these purchases the capitalization of the
Standard Oil Company was raised to $3,500,000. But the
stock was then valued at $265, and it was on that basis that
Pratt and Rogers and Lockhart and Warden exchanged their
plants. These purchases were all to be kept secret. The New
York and Pittsburg and Philadelphia plants of the Standard
Oil Company were to be operated as independent concerns
under the old names. Rogers, Warden and Lockhart were

76 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
instructed to absorb any and all desirable refining plants in
their respective districts. Those who declined to be absorbed
were to be crushed. "The good of the oil business" required
that those who refused to come into the Rockefeller camp
were to be ruthlessly annihilated.
Mr. Rockefeller had, indeed, sincere pity for all those who
refused to be swallowed by his octopus. He could not under
stand how they were so foolish as to refuse to come under the
/protection of his benevolent wing. Stock in his company in
exchange for their plants and their business was a safe fortune.
Indeed, those who were swallowed by the octopus and took
Standard Oil stock in exchange have good reason to be
grateful to John D. Rockefeller. From a financial standpoint
they were lucky to have been persuaded. But those who re
fused and who tried to eke out an existence as independent or
individual factors in the oil business have had long and bitter
and agonizing struggles to keep afloat. Ruin and poverty have
been the lot of many, and it would have been the lot of many
more had not fear caused ninety per cent of the independent
oil refiners of the country to sell out either for cash or for
stock in the Standard Oil Company.
RULE OR RUIN
Few examples of Standard Oil methods have gained
greater celebrity than the case of Charles B. Matthews of
Buffalo.- Matthews had been a farmer, but he was ambitious,
and found the farmer's life too slow. He therefore secured
employment at the Vacuum Oil Works at Rochester, New
York, preparatory to seeking fortune as a manufacturer of
petroleum. At the Vacuum Oil Works he met I. Scott Wilson, who
was also employed there as a salesman. Wilson had been in
the oil business for himself before working for the Vacuum
Oil Company; and about 1880 Wilson proposed to Matthews
that they form a partnership and go into the oil business.
Matthews gladly accepted the offer. The two induced

GROWTH OF THE STANDARD OIL 77
another employee of the Vacuum, Albert Miller, to join in
the formation of a company for the refining of petroleum.
Miller was an experienced and very capable wellman. He
was also hard-working and frugal, and he had already saved
several thousand dollars out of his wages at the Vacuum. He
was an ideal associate for Matthews and Wilson. Matthews
was a thoroughly good business man, Wilson an experienced
one and an excellent salesman, and Miller an ideal manager
of the refinery.
The three men organized the Buffalo Lubricating Oil Com
pany, Limited, with a capital of $40,000. They had already
entered into a written agreement with each other pledging
to contribute $2,000 each to the concern and to a partnership
of five years. Charles Matthews raised some more capital
from relatives of his and borrowed the balance he needed on
notes signed by himself and associates.
Meanwhile the Vacuum Oil Company of Rochester had
heard of the new enterprise being started at Buffalo by three
of its old employees. The Vacuum was a Standard Oil con
cern. At its head was H. H. Rogers and his co-directors were
J. D. Archbold, Ambrose McGregor, M. B. Everest, and C. M.
Everest. The Vacuum Company had been owned by the Everests,
but they had sold to the Standard, retaining an interest and
the local management. The company, however, was chiefly
managed from the Standard Oil offices in New York, and
Charles B. Matthews had frequently gone there to report to
H. H. Rogers on the progress of the business.
Among other things Matthews had reported to Rogers was
that certain patents used at the Vacuum did not rightly be
long to that concern.
Of the three =tills built at the Matthews refinery at Buffalo
one was modeled so as to use the method at the Vacuum
works, and for which Matthews claimed they had no patent-
right. No sooner had Matthews started his refinery than the

78 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Vacuum Company began four separate lawsuits and had
injunctions issued forbidding the employment of the Vacuum
method. Charles Matthews at once hastened to New York and
sought an interview with Mr. H. H. Rogers. He. explained
to Mr. Rogers that the patents, which the Vacuum claimed
the sole ownership of, were of little value and that their title
did not rest in the Vacuum, and he appealed to Mr. Rogers
to drop the suits, as they were merely vexatious and annoying.
Mr. Rogers shrugged his shoulders, smiled at poor
Matthews's innocence, and calmly told him that if the lower
court did not sustain the Standard they would take each case
to a higher court and drag it along till Matthews had enough.
It was H. H. Rogers's plan to ruin Matthews by dragging
him from court to court and piling cost on cost till he sank
beneath the burden.
Meanwhile, however, other methods were also employed
to cause the undoing of the Matthews refinery. Albert Miller
was constantly meeting the Everests, and they kept instilling
into his mind a wholesome dread of the Standard Oil power.
They told him that the Standard would never allow the
Buffalo Lubricating Oil Company to succeed, and that 'Miller
would lose every dollar he had invested in it, and that he
would soon be a ruined and broken man.
They filled Miller's wife full of the same ideas, and both
were worried to desperation. Miller had put $2,000 of his
hard-earned savings into the venture, and he was obligated
for a $5,000 note, and he saw the rewards of long years of
frugality and economy about to disappear.
Thoroughly frightened, he appealed to M. B. Everest, and
the latter told him to come back and work for the Vacuum.
This, Miller declared, would not help him, and Everest took
him to see an attorney, Charles Truesdale. Mr. Truesdale
could find no way to get back his $2,000 or to release him of
his contract or of his obligations with regard to the $5,000
note. This did not satisfy Mr. Everest. He was emphatic in

GROWTH OF STANDARD OIL 79
declaring that there was an escape for Miller. Truesdale re
iterated that there was none. "Suppose," said Everest, "he
should arrange the machinery so it would bust up, or smash
up, what would the consequences be?" Mr. Truesdale ex
plained that he would be liable for damages, for negligence,
and to criminal prosecution for malicious injury to the
property of the company with which he was associated.
Mr. Everest did not agree with Mr. Truesdale and asked
Truesdale to look up the criminal law on the case.
What Everest wanted was a little arrangement of the
machinery so that it would "bust up" or "smash up." The
plant was being put up by Miller, and he was thoroughly ex
perienced. All that the Standard Oil people wanted was that 1
the Matthews plant should be a failure ; that in addition to J
the four expensive lawsuits he should have the machinery
so arranged by his partner that it should "bust up" or "smash
up" when put into commission. The Standard Oil Company
would, of course, take care of Albert Miller. They wanted
no criminal prosecution in their business. But they did want
the Matthews Refinery at Buffalo a failure. They wanted that
enterprise wrecked. It could not be allowed to go on. It was
encroaching on the preserves of the "holy blue barrel."
Matthews must be dragged from court to court and Miller
and his wife reduced to beggary. Poor Albert Miller could
not stand that. He would save his wife and himself. He
neglected his business and he caused repeated delays, but at
last the first still was finished and 175 barrels of crude oil
was put in it.
Miller superintended the operation, and he had an inordi
nately hot fire built under it. Miller swore at the fireman be
cause he did not make it hotter, but the brick around the still
began to crack with the heat, and at last the safety valve blew
off. Miller had disappeared before that event occurred,
but he returned again and readjusted the safety valve, had it
heavier weighted, and had another roaring fire built, after
which he again disappeared. But the second time the safety
valve flew off and no harm was done save that the 175 barrels

80 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
of oil were now useless. It was a miracle that the whole
factory did not go up in smoke and that the fireman did not
lose his life.
A few days later M. B. Everest wired Miller to join him at
the Union Square Hotel in New York. Miller thereupon
made some transfer of his interest and quit Buffalo suddenly
and secretly. Everest told him to get his wife out of Buffalo
at once lest Matthews attach their household goods. Then
he proposed to take Miller to Boston. Later Mr. H. H.
Rogers appeared upon the scene and told Miller that he would
see him to-morrow unless he went to Boston. Miller and
Everest did, however, go to Boston, and Albert Miller saw no
more of H. H. Rogers, the real hero or villain, if you will, of
this strange story.
Everest trotted Miller around showing him the sights.
He had him now employed for the Vacuum Oil Works at
$1,500 a year. He had nothing to do but to see the sights
and run errands for Everest or H. H. Rogers. Three months
later they sent him to supervise the driving of a salt well at
Le Roy. Three or four months passed and he had three or
four months more of leisure to improve his mind and study
architecture in any city of the United States save Buffalo.
Then Everest invited him to go out to California. M. B.
Everest had a home there, and some orange groves and vine
yards, and he told Miller he would show him how to plant
orange groves and orchards and vineyards. And Miller went,
and as the guest of Everest he started to learn the fruit
business of California, at a salary of $1,500, paid by H. H.
Rogers's Vacuum Oil Company.
Of course Mr. H. H. Rogers did not know that that
$1,500 and traveling expenses was paid to Albert Miller be
cause he had fixed the machinery of the Matthews refinery so
that it would "bust up'' or "smash up" the first time it was
put in commission. He acknowledged that he told Matthews
that he would drag him from court to court, but he denies
that he was party to the base and criminal conduct of Albert
Miller.

GROWTH OF STANDARD OIL 81
H. H. Rogers knew, undoubtedly, that M. B. Everest was
junketing Miller around the land. He knew that Miller was
paid a bonus of $1,000 and $1,500 a year to live in California
as the guest of Everest, and it is straining human credulity to
the breaking point to suppose that H. H. Rogers did not know
wiky Albert Miller was now hidden away in California enjoying
a sinecure of $1,500 a year from H. H. Rogers's Vacuum Oil
Company. No sooner had H. H. Rogers and the Everests got Miller
out of the way than they set a trap for Scott Wilson. A black
mailing lawsuit has always been a favorite device of these good
and holy men who own the Standard Oil Trust, and the Vac-
, , uum Oil Company brought suit against Scott Wilson for heavy
damages for unlawfully leaving that concern.
Scott Wilson now saw that the Buffalo Lubricating Oil
Company was in hard straits. The treachery and defection
of Miller had been a most serious blow. The lawsuits against
the new company and the all-powerful enmity of the Standard
drove him to despair, and, in disgust, he sued for peace and
/ agreed to abandon Matthews if the suit against him were dis
missed and all costs paid by H. H. Rogers's Vacuum Company.
Matthews now stood alone. He was hopelessly involved
with his creditors. Miller's treachery had cost him at least
$10,000, and the defection of Scott Wilson was a most disas
trous blow. He now tried to sell out to the Standard, but they
laughed at him. Matthews's ruin and bankruptcy was the only
thing that would satisfy H. H. Rogers. He was resolved to
make an example of Matthews lest any other employee of the
Standard Oil Company should again undertake to enter into an
independent business for himself.
Matthews won three of the patent suits and was assessed
six cents damages in the fourth. But his creditors now turned
on him and demanded their money and got judgments against
him. H. H. Rogers secured control of the judgments.
Matthews then brought suit for $100,000 damages against
the Vacuum Oil Company. At a later date Matthews brought
another suit for $250,000.

82 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
While working up his case for the first suit of $100,000
Matthews succeeded in getting the evidence of Charles Trues
dale, to whom Everest took Miller for advice. Miller, more
over, had by this time begun to realize the infamy of his own
conduct in "fixing" the machinery and in causing so much loss
and delay by his treachery, and he grieved over his final deser
tion of Matthews. He came back to Buffalo and confessed all
that a man of his character might be expected to confess.
Public opinion was now thoroughly aroused, and Matthews
went before the Grand Jury of Erie County and placed the
facts before it.
The Grand Jury indicted H. H. Rogers, C. M. Everest, J.
D. Archbold, M. B. Everest, and Ambrose McGregor; in other
words, the five directors of the Vacuum Oil Company. It was
patent to all parties at the time that H. H. Rogers was privy to
every move of the Everests to entice Miller away, to blackmail
Scott Wilson, to isolate Matthews and crush him by involv
ing him in lawsuits that would sink him in hopeless bankruptcy.
There was no evidence, however, to show that Archbold or
McGregor was privy to each and all the acts which wrecked
the Matthews enterprise.
Indeed, H. H. Rogers had so carefully kept out of sight
that the only evidence against him was his casual remark to
Miller at the Union Square Hotel and his threat to Matthews
about dragging him through the courts.
The fact that the Vacuum Company paid Miller $1,500 a
year and a bonus of $1,000 to go away and stay away was
hardly sufficient evidence to convict Archbold, Rogers, and
McGregor. On May 2, 1886, however, Rogers, Archbold, McGregor,
and the two Everests were arraigned in the Buffalo Court
House before Judge Haight for criminal conspiracy. The five
accused were all there, and there also sat John D. Rockefeller,
with the most eminent array of his counsel to defend his as
sociates and allies.
The case was presented by the prosecuting attorney and
his assistant. The defence was undertaken by the most emi-

GROWTH OF STANDARD OIL 83
nent counsel in the land and the trial lasted for fourteen days.
Judge Haight advised the jury that the evidence was not
sufficient to convict Rogers, Archbold, or McGregor, and the
case against them was dismissed.
The jury, however, found C. M. Everest and M. B. Everest
guilty, and Judge Haight inflicted a fine of $250 on each. He
could have sent both to the penitentiary for a year.
Meanwhile, Matthews's suits for damages were being tried,
and the great array of Standard Oil lawyers made an impres
sion on Judge Haight. Matthews' refinery was now in the
hands of a receiver, and Judge Haight finally ordered the re
ceiver to compromise the $250,000 suit of Matthews against
H. H. Rogers and his associates for $85,000.
This sum was used to pay the attorneys and the judgments
against Matthews, but not one single cent of it ever went to
Charles B. Matthews. It cost the Standard Oil Company at
least $100,000, and probably $150,000, to make an example of
Matthews, and that was done to perfection, for at the end of
V ten years' laborious toil Matthews was hopelessly bankrupt.
This story of Charles Matthews has been embellished and
enlarged. But this brief account will suffice here. It is, indeed,
an unsavory .story, and the hired apologists of Rockefeller,
Rogers, and the Standard Oil have heaped insult and vitupera
tion on poor Matthews's devoted head in the vain hope of cast
ing the veil of oblivion over the diabolical plot by which the
enterprise of a too-aspiring competitor in the oil business was
snuffed out.
Those who saw John D. Rockefeller seated beside Henry
Rogers when on his trial for conspiracy to "bust up" or fix
the machinery of Matthews's refinery so that it would be a
failure, recalled the fact that he was the same John D. Rocke
feller whose tears of sympathy cheered the heart of the widow
of an oil refiner who had been long a friendly competitor. He
prayed for her and blessed her, and gave God thanks that his
old friend's children had so good and devoted a mother. But
immediately after he forced her to surrender her business to
him at less than forty per cent of its actual value. They also

84 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
knew that he was the same John D. Rockefeller who organized
the South Improvement Company and who forced the railroads
to give him rebates on his own oil and drawbacks on other
people's oil till independent competitors were at his mercy.
John D. Rockefeller forced or drove or wheedled railroad
presidents into immoral and criminal acts, while he himself
posed as a just, pious, and God-fearing citizen. The bank
ruptcy and ruin of Matthews was in line with the previous
policy of the Standard Oil. It was a type of the system by
which Rockefeller was climbing to unrivaled wealth and power
on the ruin and bankruptcy of thousands.
XIX
THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD AIDS
INDEPENDENTS
THE rapid assimilation of all the big independent refineries
of the country by the Standard Oil Company alarmed
Colonel Scott and A. J. Cassatt of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. Cassatt was then a young man of exceptional abil
ity. He early sav%- through the cunning and astute Rocke
feller, and he clearly divined that if Rockefeller became su
preme in the oil industry the railroads would cease to partake
of any part of the enormous profits which Rockefeller would
reap therefrom. He saw, or thought he saw. that Rockefeller
would allow the railroads operating expenses for hauling oil,
but nothing more.
Hitherto Colonel Scott and Cassatt sought to protect the
traffic of the road by friendly agreements with the Vanderbilts
and Goulds. But Rockefeller succeeded in smashing all such
agreements into a cocked hat. It was then that the Pennsylvania
Railroad planned a policy that should aid the producers and
help out all refiners who were working independent of the
Standard Oil.
In fact, Cassatt saw that the railroad managers had be
come tools and catspaws of Rockefeller, and he rose in revolt

EMPIRE TRANSPORTATION COMPANY 85
and hastened to ally himself with the independent refiners of
the country.
Had that course been followed earlier and adhered to, this
history would never have been compiled. But it was not tried
till Rockefeller had grown into a colossus, and till his company
had assumed such proportions that it was, indeed, doubtful
that anything but revolution could stay its progress.
XX
EMPIRE TRANSPORTATION COMPANY
NO more picturesque personality has been ¦ associated
with the history of the oil region than Colonel Joseph
D. Potts.
Colonel Potts achieved an enviable record during the Civil
War, and, at its conclusion, became a transportation agent for
the Pennsylvania Railroad. A Pennsylvanian by birth and a
civil engineer by profession, he took a patriotic pride in the
oil fields of his State. He hoped great things from this new
industry, and he set himself systematically to work to aid it in
every way.
The success of the Van Syckel pipe line revealed to Colonel
Potts the best and easiest way to aid the oil business, and he
formed the Empire Transportation Company to buy and build
pipe lines to convey oil from the wells to the railroads.
This necessitated the construction of tanks and tank-cars
and the building up of an organization which should handle
the oil for the producer and collect the proceeds when sold.
Colonel Potts, able, indefatigable, patriotic, generous, and
kind, gave the best years of his life to perfecting a satisfac
tory system by which the producer could most safely and
economically ship his crude oil to the purchaser and get his
money. In 1875, Colonel Potts's company was handling twenty-five
per cent of the crude oil of the region, and transmitting it
through its pipe lines and in its tank-cars to the refiners all

86 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
over the country. Yet though the very personification of kind
liness and courtesy, he was in the very front rank of those
who opposed rebates and discrimination by the railroads.
On public, private, and moral grounds he argued and
pleaded against the favoritism shown to Rockefeller and the
Standard Oil Company.
Seeing the manner in which Rockefeller was absorbing the
refineries of the country, Colonel Potts acquired for his com
pany a refinery in New York and another in Philadelphia.
No one man has ever stated the objections to the Standard
policy so tersely and so forcibly as Colonel Potts has done in
the following words written in 1878 :
COLONEL POTTS'S OPINION OF THE STANDARD
"The rebate was a modest one, as was its recipient. Yet -
the railway Cassandras prophesied from it a multitude of evils
— a gradual destruction of all other refineries, and a gradual
absorption of their property by the favorite, who, with this ad
ditional armament, would rapidly progress toward a control
of all cars, all pipes, all production, and finally of the roads
themselves. Their prophecies met with but little faith or con
sideration. The Standard leaders themselves were especially
active in discouraging any such radical purpose. Their little
rebate was enough for them. Everybody else should prosper,
as would be shortly seen. They needed no more refineries;
they had already more than they could employ — why should
they hunger after greater burdens ? It was the railroads they
chiefly cared for, and next in their affections should be the one
hundred rival refineries. Such beneficent longings as still re
mained (and their bosoms overflowed with them) spread out
their steady waves toward the "poor producers' whom, not to be
impious, they had always been ready to gather under their
wings, yet they would not.
"This unselfish language soothed all alarm into quiet slum
bering. It resembled the gentle fanning of the vampire's wings,
and it had the same end in view — the undisturbed abstraction
of the victim's blood.

EMPIRE TRANSPORTATION COMPANY 87
"The final agreement with the railways was scarcely blotter-
dried ere stealthy movements toward the whole line of outside
refiners were evident, although rather felt than seen. As long
as practicable, they were denied as mere rumors, but as they
gradually became accomplished victories, as one refiner after
another, through terror, through lack of skill in ventures,
through financial weakness, fell shivering with dislike into the
embrace of this commercial octupus, a sense of dread grew rap
idly among those independent interests which yet lived, and
notably among a portion of the railroad transporters."
His reasons for the purchase of refineries were also ex
plained briefly as follows :
"We reached the conclusion," said Colonel Potts in 1888,
"that there were three great divisions in the petroleum business
— the production, the carriage of it, and the preparation of it
for market. If any one party controlled absolutely any one
of those three divisions, they practically would have a very
fair show of controlling the others. We were particularly so
licitous about the transportation, and we were a little afraid
that the refiners might combine in a single institution, and some
of them expressed a strong desire to associate themselves per
manently with us. We therefore suggested to the Pennsylvania
road that we should do what we did not wish to do — associate
ourselves." Long before Colonel Potts had been forced into the re
fining business, John D. Rockefeller had made up, his mind to
drive Colonel Potts and his associates out of the pipe line busi
ness. In fact, the Empire Transportation Company was too
perfect and profitable an organization to be allowed an inde
pendent existence outside the Standard Oil fold. But while
Mr. Rockefeller was planning its destruction by buying away
from it all its customers, the refiners, he suddenly heard that
the Empire Company had gone into the refinery business itself.
He knew already that the Empire Company was an allied
branch of the Pennsylvania, and this move made him fear
that his supremacy in the oil world might after all be still
jeopardized.

88 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Rockefeller controlled already forty per cent of the crude
oil through his own pipe lines. The public did not know that
fact then, but it is history now. Captain Vandergrift had been
one of the first to see the immense value of the pipe line for
oil transportation business, and he organized the United Pipe
Lines Company and was soon handling twenty-five per cent
of the crude oil. In 1872 Captain Vandergrift hauled down his
independent flag and sued Rockefeller for peace and friend
ship. That put Rockefeller secretly in control of the biggest pipe
line system in the oil country.
Besides the Vandergrift lines Rockefeller also controlled
— secretly, of course — the American Transfer Company lines.
These were nominally under the control of J. A. Bostwick of
New York, and its local manager was Daniel O'Dea.
O'Dea's story is full of romance. The son of an evicted
Irish farmer, he arrived in Pennsylvania while still a child,
and he had grown up in the backwoods. He was engaged in
farming and lumbering when the news of the oil discoveries
drew him to Titusville in 1867. He was then in his eighteenth
year. Teaming and transportation were then the great prob
lems on Oil Creek, and young O'Dea set himself to work to
solve those problems and achieve fortune in their solution.
His amazing energy, his courage, his almost superhuman en
durance, and, above all, his noble and upright character, soon
made him famous, and in 1871 Jay Gould came to Titusville
and discovered him. Gould gave him full charge of the oil
freight of the Erie road, and he soon showed that he could
outship and outdo all other transportation agents.
J. A. Bostwick, a secretary of Rockefeller's, and one of
the directors of the South Improvement Company, next
secured the services of O'Dea.
When the oil war of 1872 burst over the Creek, O'Dea
knew little or nothing about its merits. He knew as little
about the ethics of rebates or drawbacks as any other poor
Irish emigrant. But he did know that he was in the employ
of J. A. Bostwick of New York, and he felt that it was his

EMPIRE TRANSPORTATION COMPANY 89
duty to defend his employer's property against the world. At
every public meeting held in the Creek in those days Daniel
O'Dea was denounced as a traitor to the cause of the people
and as a pliant tool of the South Improvement Company.
O'Dea knew nothing about the hated company or about its
Mephistopheles, John D. Rockefeller, and he was at an utter
loss to understand the obloquy and hate and derision of which
he was the victim. But with the grit, resolution, and dogged-
ness characteristic of his Irish blood, he hurled defiance at the
entire population and saved the property of his employers
from destruction.
That marked him as the safe ally of Rockefeller in the
conquest that he now planned. O'Dea was soon at the head
of all the Rockefeller pipe lines. And his amazing ability was
soon apparent in every branch of the business. But the most
singular fact about this man's career is that he did not know
for long years that he was a great instrument in John D.
Rockefeller's career of conquest.
O'Dea was a warm admirer of Colonel Potts. His one
object was to rival and, if possible, excel the ability of Colonel
Potts in collecting and shipping crude oil. No sooner had
Colonel Potts made the least improvement than the ubiquitous
O'Dea would find it out and improve on it. It was a healthy
rivalry. But just then John D. Rockefeller sent'a ukase to the
Pennsylvania Railroad. He ordered that the Empire Trans
portation Company should abandon the refining business. It
was unfair, he said, that a company owning pipe lines should
be engaged in refining. When he gave this excuse he himself
had forty per cent of the pipe lines of the Creek in his con-
, trol. Daniel O'Dea did not know it then, but Colonel Potts did,
' and smiled.
Colonel Potts refused to surrender his refineries, and the
Pennsylvania Railroad came to the resolution to stand by the
Empire Transportation Company.
Rockefeller retaliated by cutting off all his oil traffic from
the Pennsylvania. This meant an enormous business loss.
Then Rockefeller demanded increased rebates from the Vander-

90 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
bilts and the Erie, and he got them. In fact, he got them till
all the railroads were hauling crude petroleum at a loss. W.
H. Vanderbilt at last protested, but John D. Rockefeller
pointed out to him that he had entered into a contract to
meet the cuts or rebates of the rival roads.
It was about this time that it suddenly dawned on W. H.
Vanderbilt that he had been the tool of a far more cun
ning and unscrupulous man than himself: that the modest
and unassuming Rockefeller had played him to a finish. He
immediately sold whatever Standard Oil stock he had, and be
queathed to his descendants a wholesome dread of the name of
Rockefeller. Rockefeller's gold was at work elsewhere. A mad and un
accountable labor strike broke out on the Pennsylvania, and the
rate war and the strike left its treasury empty. It passed the
dividend. Thereupon, immense pressure was brought to bear
on Cassatt and Colonel Scott. An empty treasury and the ab
solute refusal of further accommodation from the bankers till
peace was made with Rockefeller forced their hands, and they
had to make complete and absolute surrender to the Standard
Oil Company.
It is said by many that A. J. Cassatt's humiliation at that
surrender is the bitterest cup of woe he has had to swallow
during the whole course of his career. He has never forgotten
it, and there rankles in his bosom to this hour an undying hor
ror of the character of the man who could wreck the fortunes
and happiness of millions in order to achieve his own selfish
ends.
/ Be that as it may, the Pennsylvania Railroad deserted the
Empire Transportation Company. There was no escape other
wise, and the great concern to which Colonel Potts and his
associates had given twelve laborious years had to go into
liquidation. Under their contract the Pennsylvania had a right
to buy, and it bought and sold all the assets, including the pipe
lines and tank cars, to the Standard for $3,400,000.
Colonel Potts called the shareholders together for the last
time and addressed them in a speech that will live as long as

MORALITY OF REBATES 91
the memory of Standard Oil piracy exists in the world. In the
conclusion of this speech he said :
"Not knowing what your action might be at this meeting,
we are still in active business. We could not venture to do
anything that would check our trade, that would repel cus
tomers, that would drive any of them away from us. We
must be prepared if you said not to go right along with our
full machinery under our contract or under such modification
of that as we could fight through. We could not stop mov
ing a barrel of oil. We must be ready to take any offered to
us; we must supply parties taking oil. There was nothing
we could do but what was done ; nothing was stopped, nothing
is stopped, everything is going on just as vigorously at this
moment through as wide an extent of country as ever it did,
and it will continue to do so until after you take action, until
after we get these securities or the money. That, we suppose,
will be about six o'clock to-day, if you act favorably, and at that
time we shall, if everything goes through, telegraph to every
man in our service, and to the heads of departments, what
has been done, and at twelve o'clock to-night we shall cease to
operate anything in the Empire Transportation Company."
XXI
THE MORALITY OF REBATES
THE very keynote of the Constitution of the United States
is liberty. That implies a government of the people
that maintains social order and guarantees equal op
portunity to all its citizens.
John D. Rockefeller's South Improvement Company was
so diametrically opposed to every fundamental principle of the
Constitution and of State and federal laws that its condemna
tion by State legislatures and by Congress and by the Pres
ident of the United States was not more emphatic than its
reprobation by all the people of the United States.
Men marveled at the audacity of the man who conspired to

92 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
defy the laws and to trample under foot the first principles of
the Constitution.
Air. Rockefeller, in 1872, contrived a system by which he
enjoyed privileges and rights over all the railroads which none
of his competitors enjoyed. He secured rebates of Si. 06 a
barrel on all crude oil he shipped to the seaboard, and in addi
tion to this he received Si. 06 a barrel on all crude oil ^vhich
all other shippers consigned over the Erie, the Central, and
the Pennsylvania.
This was making a mockery of the Constitution. It was
open defiance of the laws of the State and of the nation. It
was in flagrant violation of the charters of the railroads. And
yet John D. Rockefeller was so callous to public opinion or
to any reverence for the laws or Constitutions of the States or
of the nation that he has never desisted for one hour from
putting into effect every principle and practice embodied in
the charter and in the contract of the South Improvement
Company of 1872.
President Grant and Congress and State legislatures had
condemned the principles and the contracts of the South Im
provement Company as a most audacious attempt to overthrow
and set at defiance the laws of the land and the fundamental
principles of the Constitution.
Rockefeller was denounced in a thousand publications and
from ten thousand pulpits and platforms as a "conspirator"
and "usurper" and "Mephistopheles."
His South Improvement Company perished amid a storm
of execration, but every principle and contract of the South
Improvement Company was put in practice and was being
fully enjoyed by Rockefeller, almost from the year of the dis
solution of that notorious corporation.
The Pennsylvania Railroad honestly tried to retrace its
fatal policy of granting rebates and drawbacks to Rockefeller.
It strove to build up the Empire Transportation Company as
a rival to the grasping and most avaricious Standard Oil Com
pany. Had W. H. Vanderbilt been wise or patriotic, or far-
seeing, or reverent, or obedient to the laws of his State or

MORALITY OF REBATES 93
his country, he would have joined A. J. Cassatt even at the
eleventh hour in resisting the usurper. Together they could
have curbed Rockefeller and afforded equal opportunity to
every American seeking a living or fortune in the oil busi
ness. But the Mephistopheles of the oil country knew that greed
and gain were Vanderbilt's gods and he dangled before his
eyes golden visions of unbounded wealth, which was to be
obtained by an alliance with Rockefeller against the Pennsyl
vania Railroad.
,In fact in the war against Cassatt and Scott and Potts,
WAH. Vanderbilt became the mere catspaw of Rockefeller.
lei enabled Rockefeller to drain the Pennsylvania treasury
dry, to compel it to pass its dividend, and to force it to sur-
ender at discretion. And all he got for his pains was Dead
Sea fruit, for, at the conclusion of the war, Rockefeller gave
the greater portion of the oil business to Cassatt and made
Vanderbilt deliver to him larger rebates and drawbacks than
he accepted from the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The chicanery of Rockefeller imbittered the last days of
W. H. Vanderbilt. The thought of how he had been fooled,
hoodwinked, and bamboozled hurt his pride, and he never
forgave John D. Rockefeller.
A. J. Cassatt, who was then vice-president, and the active
head of the great Pennsylvania Railroad, saw all the evils that
must spring from the growing Rockefeller power.
He had no illusions on that subject. He had squandered
millions fighting it. But the short-sightedness and disloyalty
of oil producers, a deplorable strike, and an empty treasury
/ forced him to a humiliating surrender, and henceforth John D.
Rockefeller ran the oil business of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Here is a letter that is illuminating in every line :
"February 15, 1878.
"I here repeat what I once stated to you, and which I wish
you to receive and treat as strictly confidential, that we have
been for many months receiving from the New York Central

94 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
and Erie Railroads certain sums of money, in no instance less
than twenty cents per barrel on every barrel of crude oil car
ried by these roads. Co-operating as we are doing with the
Standard Oil Company and the Trunk Lines in every effort
to secure for the railroads paying rates of freight on the oil
they carry, I am constrained to say to you, that in justice to
the interests I represent, we should receive from your company
at least twenty cents on each barrel of crude oil you transport.
... In submitting this proposition I find that I should ask
you to let this date from the first of November, 1877, but I am
willing to accept as a compromise (which is to be regarded as
strictly a private one between your company and ours) the
payment by you of twenty cents per barrel on all crude oil
shipments commencing with February 1, 1878.
"Daniel O'Dea."
ROCKFELLER OPERATES THE RAILROADS
Cassatt ordered the comptroller of the railroad to make the
payments demanded by O'Dea. He did it on the receipt of
proof that the Central rebates were thirty-five and the Erie
twenty cents on all crude oil and thirty-five on all others.
. Cassatt knew that he was violating his charter and outrag
ing the laws of his State. He hated it, but he consoled himself
with the thought that it was absolute and imperative necessity
that made him the slave of Rockefeller. Cassatt saw the pro
ducer reduced to a bare living; he saw the independent refiner
bought out or driven out daily by the Rockefeller octopus, and
he winced, but he let Daniel O'Dea direct the course of every
oil car that left the oil regions for any refinery in the land.
In other words, the demoralization of the oil traffic was
such that no refiner in the United States could get a barrel of
oil except by the grace and favor of Daniel O'Dea.
Daniel O'Dea had his orders from Rockefeller to starve
every independent oil refiner in the land. Those orders he
faithfully obeyed.
In the Pennsylvanian Conspiracy case the prosecuting at
torney said to Mr. Cassatt:

MORALITY OF REBATES 95
"I understand, Mr. Cassatt, that this twenty-two and a half
cents paid to the American Transfer Company (the O'Dea
Company) is not restricted to all oil that passed through their
lines?" — "No, sir," he said; "on all oil received and transmitted
by us, as I before stated."
In December, 1874, H. L. Taylor and Company sold a half
interest to Rockefeller. The company were large producers,
and Rockefeller secured a half interest under a contract agree
ing to pay for crude oil in accordance with the price of refined.
For three years Taydor and Company kept to this contract.
The Taylor people expected to get all the advantages of the
rebates, and that, while other producers were forced to take
the price fixed by Rockefeller, they would get the Rockefeller
price. But the Taylor people found that Rockefeller had
flimflammed them, and they annulled the contract and brought
suit for $2,500,000, which they claimed was due them.
By this time, in 1877. Rockefeller had such a grip on the oil
industry that he resolved to exercise despotic control of the
production at the Creek.
It was then he bade O'Dea to cripple all the independent
refineries by withholding the crude oil they needed to run their
business. It was then also that he forbade his pipe lines to
store any more oil. That is, to refuse to accept any oil from
producers till sold for delivery.
It looks incomprehensible that Rockefeller should forbid
./railroads to supply cars to haul the raw material to the fac-
' tories of firms competing with him. It is still more incompre-
j'hensible that Vanderbilt and Cassatt should obey such orders,
and yet they did.
Mr. W. H. Nicholson, the purchasing agent of Mr. Ohlen,
an independent refiner of New York, telegraphed to the Erie
officials in May, 1878, for one hundred cars to carry crude pe
troleum East.^ He got the cars, and immediately went to Mr.
O'Dea and asked to have the cars loaded. O'Dea was asked
to deliver the oil Ohlen owned. He coolly refused. O'Dea said
there were no cars for him. "But," said Nicholson, "I have
an order from the Erie officials giving me the cars."

96 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
"That makes no difference," replied O'Dea, "I can not load
cars except upon an order from Pratt."
At that moment Rockefeller held ten thousand barrels of
Ohlen's crude oil and the Erie had the cars to take it East,
but O'Dea would not load the cars, for Rockefeller wanted
Ohlen's refinery in New York closed down for want of oil.
B. B. Campbell, president of the Producers' Union, gave
this sworn testimony in the conspiracy charge:
"I never heard of a scarcity of cars until the early part of
June, 1878 ; I came to Parker about five o'clock in the evening
and found the citizens in a state of terrible excitement; the
pipe lines would not run oil unless it was sold; the only ship
pers we had in Parker of any amount — viz., the agents of the
Standard Oil Company — would not buy oil, stating that they
could not get cars ; hundreds of wells were stopped to their
great injury; thousands more, whose owners were afraid to
stop them for fear of damage by salt water, were pumping the
oil on the ground. I used all the influence I had to prevent an
outbreak and destruction of railroad and pipe lines; I at once
went over to the Allegheny Valley Railroad office and tele
graphed to Mr. John Scott, President of the Allegheny Valley
Railroad Company: 'The refusal of the United to run oil un
less sold upon immediate shipment, and of the railroad to fur
nish cars, has created such a degree of excitement here that
the more conservative part of the citizens will not be able to
control the peace, and I fear that the scene of last July will
be repeated on an aggravated scale.'
"That message I left in the office about seven o'clock in the
evening. I got up the next morning before seven and re
ceived an answer. 'What do you advise should be done? John
Scott.' I answered : 'Will meet you to-morrow morning.'
Which would be Saturday earl)-.
"On Saturday morning I came in on an early train and met
at the depot Mr. Shinn, then, I believe, vice-president of the
Allegheny Valley Railroad ; David A. Stewart, one of the di
rectors of the road, and Thomas M. King, assistant superin
tendent. I spoke very plainly to Mr. Shinn, telling him that

EQUITABLE IMPROVEMENT COMPANY 97
the idea of a scarcity of cars on daily shipments of less than
thirty thousand barrels was such an absurd, bare-faced pre
tence that he could not expect men of ordinary intelligence to
accept it, as the preceding fall, when business required, the rail
roads could carry day after day from fifty to sixty thousand
barrels of oil. Mr. Shinn stated clearly that I knew that the
Allegheny Valley Railroad Company did not control the oil
business over its line, but was governed entirely and exclu
sively by orders received from the Pennsylvania Railroad Com
pany. I then requested him to be the vehicle of communicating
to the- Pennsylvania Railroad officials my views on the subject,
telling him that I was convinced that unless immediate relief
was furnished and cars afforded there would be an outbreak in
the oil regions. After further conversation we parted. My
interview with them was not as officials of the Allegheny Val
ley Railroad Company, but as representatives of the oil traffic
carried and controlled by the Pennsylvania Road. On the next
Monday I returned to Parker. After passing Redbank, where
the Low Grade Road, the connecting link between the Valley
Road and the Philadelphia and Erie Road, meets the Valley
Road — between that point and Parker the express train was
delayed for over half an hour in passing through hundreds of
empty oil cars."
The result of this action of refusing to ship crude oil to
the independents caused periodical shut-downs and great loss. I
More independents surrendered or sold out to Rockefeller,|
and still others went bankrupt.
XXII
EQUITABLE IMPROVEMENT COMPANY
AT last in desperation the producers got together and
built a pipe line to the Erie Canal. This was the
Equitable Improvement Company, and it consisted of
two hundred producers in the Bradford field. They entered
into a contract with the Buffalo and McKean Railroad, and in

98 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
June, 1878, were ready with tanks and cars to ship to New
York. But Rockefeller again blocked the way, the railroad
refused to fulfil the contract, and the courts had to intervene
to make it.
Then Rockefeller called a conference of the railroad kings
at Saratoga and bade them cut the price of shipping crude oil
to the seaboard to eight)- cents. They meekly obeyed, for
Rockefeller was now the autocrat of the railroads and the tyrant
of the oil fields.
He calculated that at eighty cents a barrel the Equitable
would be doing business at a loss and that he could then acquire
it at bankrupt prices.
That was in 1878, one of the gloomiest years in the history
of the oil regions. The production of crude oil in 1872 was
6,293,194 barrels. The production in 1878, six years later, was
15.396,868 barrels. The oil producers were paid $18,000,000
in 1872 for the crude oil; they were paid exactly the same
amount, or $18,000,000, for two and one-half times the quan
tity six years later.
The beneficent despotism of John D. Rockefeller was at
work. The great Bradford oil field had been discovered in McKean
County. The Standard had absorbed ninety per cent of the pipe
lines and tanks on Oil Creek, and Rockefeller owned all the
tanks and pipe lines in the Bradford field.
The tanks and pipe lines had long been accustomed to take
care of the surplus product of the oil wells. The tanks were to
the oil industry what the elevators are to the wheat industry.
The farmer stores his wheat in an elevator, receives a certificate
therefor, and pays charges on it till he finds a purchaser. That
certificate is a negotiable security. It is collateral for accommo
dation at any bank. -The refusal of the elevators to receive the
farmers' wheat for storage, if universal, would cause over
whelming ruin. Yet in 1878 Rockefeller sent out a ukase that
his pipe lines and tanks would receive no more oil for storage.
They would receive all oil for immediate delivery, ut none
for future delivery. The only buyers in nine-tenths of the oil

HENRY H. ROGERS

OIL REGIONS AGAIN AT WAR 99
fields were Rockefeller's agents. And the poor victims of na
ture's bounty and Rockefeller's greed were forced to beg and
/ petition the Standard agents to buy their oil at figures that
would let them live and support their families. The agents,
drunk with power and success, kept the producers waiting for
.eight and ten days at a time, and then bought the oil, often at
V less than the cost of labor, and let it run from the overflowing
oil wells into Rockefeller's empty tanks.
Those who had been active in the war against Rockefeller
/were now punished. Rockefeller ordered his henchmen to buy
V no oil from producers who were his open and avowed enemies.
Their wells overflowed, thousands on thousands of barrels of
oil ran waste over the farms, and groans and curses filled the
oil regions in denunciation of Rockefeller. But —
"There is a very life in our despair."

XXIII
OIL REGIONS AGAIN AT WAR
THE spirit of 1872 awoke as if by magic, and a wild res
olution to overcome and crush its tyrant seized upon
the people of the oil regions. The Petroleum Produc
ers' Union was born again, and the great project of a pipe line
to the sea (from the oil regions to Baltimore) was pushed for
ward with a zeal and determination that baffled all obstacles.
Rockefeller's agents heaped contumely and ridicule on the
project and on the men who were building it. Under his inspi
ration the railroads fought it, and so did Pittsburg and Phil
adelphia. But the Tidewater Pipe Line was rushed by fierce
independent spirits whom the tyranny and injustice of Rocke
feller had roused to madness.
Nor was the Producers' Union idle at home. Rockefeller
had revived all the hateful machinery of the South Improye-
> ment Company, and with that machinery he had conspired to
ruin all competitors in the oil business.

ioo JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
In fact, there was enough evidence of conspiracy to send
Rockefeller and his associates to the penitentiary and to con
fiscate the entire assets of the Standard Oil Company.
Rockefeller knew that. He knew that at any moment he
was liable to answer for acts that truly and really made him
the most renowned and successful pirate of all the ages. He
met every charge with concealment and evasion and false
hood. He did not hesitate for one moment to make oath to a
deceitful falsehood. In 1880 he made a solemn affidavit to
this effect:
"It is not true that the Standard Oil Company owns or
controls the works of Warden, Frew and Company; J. A.
Bostwick and Company; Pratt and Company; Acme Refining
Company. It is not true that the Standard Oil Company di
rectly or indirectly, through its officers or agents, purchased
or acquired the Empire Transportation Company or furnished
the money to do so. It is not true that the Standard Oil Com
pany made war on the Pennsylvania Railroad or the Empire
Transportation Company as stated in the affidavit of Mr.
Teagle." Considering that the Standard Oil Company had given a
certified check of $2,500,000 toward the purchase of the Em
pire Company, this sworn statement of John D. Rockefellef
y'will, in itself, show the depths of falsehood to which he will
descend to save his skin or to gain his ends or to overcome his
foes. Every statement in this famous affidavit' filed in the
case of the Standard Oil Company vs. William C. Scofield et
al. in the Court of Common Pleas of Illinois in 1880 is an
evasion or a lie.
The facts were not as evident in 1880 as they are to-day,
but that affidavit will stand forever to illustrate the liberal em
ployment of falsehood, evasion, and perjury by John D. Rocke
feller in the upbuilding of the great Standard Oil Trust.
The Petroleum Producers' Union now appealed to the State
of Pennsylvania to prosecute Rockefeller and his co-conspir
ators. It was essentially the duty of the State of Pennsylvania
to punish the conspirators and the railroad agents and man-

"BUCK" McCANDLESS' REPORT 101
agers who aided and abetted Rockefeller in the plunder of the
oil producers and in the ruin of all independent competitors.
Governor Hartranft went at once to the oil regions, and
after a careful investigation ordered the Attorney-General to
bring quo warranto proceedings against the United Pipe Lines
and the railroad companies doing business in the oil regions.
The Attorney-General and the Secretary of Internal Affairs,
William McCandless, conducted this investigation. It was
soon apparent that the Attorney-General and "Buck" McCand
less were seeking for evidence to whitewash Rockefeller. In
fact, it now became apparent for the first time that Rocke
feller was a politician as well as a monopolist.
XXIV
"BUCK" McCANDLESS' REPORT AND IN
DICTMENT OF ROCKEFELLER
WILLIAM McCANDLESS furnished a perfunctory
report to the Governor of Pennsylvania, which he
wound up with the extraordinary statement that
"the charges of the oil producers have not been substanti
ated in any way that demanded action."
This report set the oil country aflame. "Buck" McCand
less was hanged or burned in effigy in every village of the
region. Across the forehead of the effigy was usually painted
in blood-red letters
"THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD"
And hanging out of one pocket or the other, was a bogus check
to "Buck" McCandless for $20,000, signed by John D. Rocke
feller and indorsed by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
These proceedings in the oil regions attracted universal
attention. The New York Chamber of Commerce appointed
a commission to investigate it. This was called the Hepburn
Commission, from_ its chairman.
The evidence secured amazed and dumfounded the coun-

102 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
try. Mr. Cassatt, in the meanwhile, had confessed on the wit
ness stand in Pennsylvania all the dark, tortuous, and iniqui
tous methods employed by Rockefeller to secure rebates and
drawbacks. He confessed his own powerlessness, and the
lordship of Rockefeller not only over all railroad rates for oil,
but over every oil car owned by or operated by the great trunk
lines. The whole country was now roused, and Ohio began suit
to forfeit the Standard Oil charter. And on the 29th of May,
1879, the Grand Jury of Clarion County, Pa., brought in an
indictment for conspiracy against John D. Rockefeller, Wil
liam Rockefeller, Jabez A. Bostwick, Daniel O'Dea, William
G. Warden, Charles Lockhart, Henry M. Flagler, J. J. Van
dergrift, and George W. Girty.
There were eight counts in the indictment. "It charged,
in brief, a conspiracy for the purpose of securing a monopoly
of the business of buying and selling crude petroleum, and to
prevent others than themselves from buying and selling and
making a legitimate profit thereby; a combination to oppress
and injure those engaged in producing petroleum; a conspir
acy to prevent others than themselves from engaging in the
business of refining petroleum, and to secure a monopoly of
that business for themselves; a combination to injure the carry
ing trade of the Allegheny Valley and Pennsylvania Railroad
companies, by preventing them from receiving the natural
petroleum traffic; to divert the traffic naturally belonging to
the Pennsylvania carriers to those of other States by unlaw
ful means ; and to extort from railroad companies unreasonable
rebates and commissions, and by fraudulent means and de
vices to control the market prices of crude and refined petro
leum and acquire unlawful gains thereby."
Early in June, 1880, application was made to Governor
Hoyt for extradition papers for the accused who were not
citizens of Pennsylvania. Henry M. Hoyt, when a candidate
the preceding fall, had made solemn pledges to enforce the
laws, prosecute the conspirators, and put an end once and for
ever to railroad rebates and drawbacks.

"BUCK" McCANDLESS' REPORT 103
But as soon as Henry M. Hoyt had become Governor of
'Pennsylvania, he forgot his oaths and promises, and he became
the pliant tool of the railroads and Rockefeller.
It is now a quarter of a century since Governor Hoyt placed
the executive of Pennsylvania in the hands of the Pennsyl
vania Railroad and of John D. Rockefeller, and it is not too
much to say that Cassatt and Rockefeller have owned it ever
since. A little while ago, Rockefeller bade Cassatt to get At
torney-General Knox to resign and accept a seat in the United
States Senate at the hands of the chief executive of Pennsyl
vania. All the Republican politicians of Pennsylvania were
furious, and Knox himself did not like it, but he had offended
the autocrat of the Standard Oil as Attorney-General, and to
please John D. Rockefeller he had to go down and out, and
enter the United States Senate, to learn there that the most
potent and dangerous political factor in America to-day is
John D. Rockefeller.
Of course, Governor Hoyt never issued extradition papers
for Rockefeller and his co-conspirators. Of course, the At
torney-General of Pennsylvania never pushed the suits against
O'Dea, Lockhart, Warden, and Vandergrift. The politicians
of Pennsylvania have had no thought for the oil men that have
been plundered, or the manufacturers who have been ruined
by the conspirators. They saw the wealth and power and
greatness of the Standard Oil combine. They saw gold and
luxury and ease and affluence for all who became tools or
allies of Rockefeller. They saw danger, distress and poverty
as rewards for fighting the people's battles against the octopus.
The Pennsylvania politicians bent the knee to Mammon, and
ever since Governor Hoyt's day the Standard Oil conspirators
have been at perfect liberty to loot the oil regions and to vio
late all the laws of Pennsylvania that interfered with their
plans for bankrupting all competitors and impoverishing all
oil producers. It is not necessary here to go into the details of Rocke
feller's timely alliance with the Pennsylvania executive. Suf-

104 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
fice it to say that the indictment of Rockefeller and the others
was put off from week to week and from month to month, until
finally it became a farce.
Meanwhile, Rockefeller, who has the despot's hatred of
publicity, again made overtures to the Producers' Union. At
first his overtures were scorned, but one by one he secured
adherents for a new alliance. He offered to store and buy and
manufacture all the oil that could be produced. He agreed
never again to hold up cars or refuse to run oil for the inde
pendents. He was bland and conciliatory and full of golden
promises, just as he was in 1872 when he made his famous
1 pilgrimage to the oil regions. He explained that the real evil
[in the oil business was overproduction. He did not confess
that the overproduction was mainly due to the inflated prices
at which he was keeping finished petroleum products. All
through 1877, illuminating oil was selling at over 20 cents a
gallon. The consumption was kept down in order that the
production should be excessive and in order that John D.
Rockefeller could have his raw material at his own figures.
It was essential in his mind to keep the oil producers poor and
needy. If they were rich and had money, they would never
permit him to play the part of the tyrant of the oil regions.
Hence, in presence of the oil men, he lamented over the
evils of overproduction. Tears of sympathy filled his eyes
as he listened to tales of hardship and want caused to hun
dreds, because they could not sell their oil or store it. He
promised to remedy all that, to do the best he could, and he
/besought them to drill more slowly and to petition the State
of Pennsylvania to dismiss the indictments against himself and
his saintly associates.
Every time they had made an arrangement with Rocke
feller he tricked them. The Treaty of Titusville was merely a
Machiavellian device to disrupt the old Producers' Union,
and that device succeeded so well that for five years the oil
regions, once so hopeful, happy, and prosperous, were sunk
to sullen despair.
They knew how he tricked the widow, over whose trials he

"BUCK" McCANDLESS' REPORT 105
shed tears of sympathy and whose property he filched for 35
cents on the dollar.
They knew how he juggled with Vanderbilt and drove Cas
satt to the wall, and in face of all that the Producers' Union
voted him another chance. They agreed to petition for the
dismissal of the indictments. They would reduce production,
and if he would take all their oil and pay them fair prices,
they would not make war on his rebates and drawbacks. -^
The story of the upbuilding of the Standard Oil Trust*
bears on each page unmistakable evidence of the readiness
of the oil men to condone crime and to sacrifice principle for
/promises and pledges that were as vain and empty as the il-i
lusions of the insane. K
Had the people of the oil regions stood together and en
forced the laws and compelled the punishment of the railroad
officials in alliance with a band of conspirators to rob them,
the Standard Oil Company would never have grown to be
the dangerous and overshadowing octopus it is to-day.
But in 1873 the producers at Oil Creek accepted the fair
promises of Rockefeller, and he tricked them into years of
sorrow and despair; and now, with the whole country hurling
anathemas at Rockefeller, the producers made a fresh treaty
with him, and petitioned the Attorney-General to dismiss the
indictments against Rockefeller and his associates.
The prosecution against the Standard Oil Company in
Ohio was also dropped. The cases against the railroads were
abandoned in Pennsylvania, and New York forgot, in the
excitement of the Presidential election of 1880, the craven sur
render of Pennsylvania and its people to John D. Rockefeller,
the autocrat of the railroads and the tyrant of the oil regions.
Before the final dissolution of the Producers' Union, its
members took one final shot at "Buck" McCandless. By res
olution, they said :
"We declare that by the inefficiency and weakness of the
Secretary of Internal Affairs in the year 1878, by the inter
position on more than one occasion of the Attorney-General in
1879, by which the taking of testimony was prevented ; by the

106 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
failure of the present Governor for many months, either to
grant or deny the requisition for criminals indicted for crime,
within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, fugitives to other
States; and by the interference of some of the judges of the
Supreme Court, by an extraordinary and, according to the
best legal judgment of the land, unlawful proceeding, by
which the trial of an indictment for misdemeanor pending in
a local court was delayed and prevented, the alarming and most
dangerous influence of powerful corporations has been demon
strated. While we accept the inevitable result forced upon
us by these influences, we aver that the contest is not over,
and our objects not attained, but we shall continue to advocate
and maintain the subordination of all corporations to the laws,
the Constitution, and the will of the people, however and
whenever expressed; that the system of freight discrimination
by common carriers is absolutely wrong in principle and tends
to the fostering of dangerous monopolies; and that it is the
duty of the Government, by legislative and executive action,
to protect the people from their growing and dangerous
power." The results that followed may be briefly told. But they
are best told in the words of Miss Ida M. Tarbell, whose con
scientious and painstaking history of the Standard Oil Com
pany is beyond all praise :
"The great human tragedies of the oil regions lie in the
individual compromises which followed the public settlement
of 1880. For then it was that man after man, from hopeless
ness, from disgust, from ambition, from love of money, gave
up the fight for principle which he had waged for seven years.
'The Union has surrendered,' they say, 'why fight on?' This
man took a position with the Standard and became henceforth
active in its business; that man took a salary and dropped
out of sight; this one went his independent way, but with
closed lips; that one shook the dust of the oil regions from
his feet and went out to seek 'God's country,' asking only
that he should never again hear the word 'oil.' The news
papers bowed to the victor. A sudden hush came over the

FORMATION OF OIL TRUST 107
region — the hush of defeat, of cowardice, of hopelessness. Only
the 'poor producer' grumbled. 'You can't satisfy the pro
ducer,' Mr. Rockefeller often has had occasion to remark
benignantly and pitifully. The producer alone was not 'con
vinced.' He still rehearsed the series of dramatic attacks and
sieges which had wiped out independent effort. He taught
his children that the cause had been sold, and he stigmatized
the men who had gone over to the Standard as traitors.
Scores of boys and girls grew up in the oil regions in those
days with the same feeling of terrified curiosity toward those
who had 'sold to the Standard' that they had toward those
who had 'been in jail.' The oil regions, as a whole, was at
heart as irreconcilable in 1880 as it had been after the South
Improvement Company fight, and now it had added to its
sense of outrage the humiliation of defeat. The seeds of bit
terness left were to grow and bear fruit one day, but that day
was distant, and for the present Mr. Rockefeller was victor.
In less than eighteen months after the compromise with the
producers no open opposition to the Standard remained in
the country. A running arrangement had been made with
everybody. The Standard Oil Company was a practically
complete monopoly, controlling all the refining interests of
the country, owning all the pipe lines, governing public
opinion."
XXV
FORMATION OF STANDARD OIL TRUST
THE oil regions were conquered and its people were em
ployees or slaves of Rockefeller. The latter now turned
his attention to the further consolidating of the great
organization through which he had achieved so much. The
multitude of sub-companies that were by this time wheels with
in wheels of the great parent corporation had to be welded the
more closely together.
In 1882 he formed the famous Standard Oil Trust. It had
a capital of $70,000,000, and it had as managers nine trustees.

108 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
These nine trustees held the title to all the property owned or
controlled by the Trust. Each State had its own Standard Oil
Company, but the Central Trust managed everything, re
ceived all earnings, and paid out dividends to those who held
Trust certificates.
This Trust — the mother of all others — was organized by S.
C. F. Todd. It was an elaborate but excellent piece of ma
chinery that enabled John D. Rockefeller to still further
strengthen his position, aggrandize his power, and achieve
greater conquests than had yet fallen to his lot.
In ten years his company had grown from a million dollar
concern to a $70,000,000 Trust. It was a great achievement
for a man still in the very prime of life, and it foreshadowed
political and financial triumphs without parallel in human
annals. John D. Rockefeller was in his forty-third year when in
1882 he framed the great organization known as the Standard
Oil Trust. The creation of that Trust put the coping-stone to
his achievements. It gave him a leverage for administration
and execution unknown before in the commercial history of the
world. Rockefeller had, indeed, framed a commercial organization
similar in many respects to the great organization founded by
Ignatius Loyola, the Catholic order of the Jesuits.
The Jesuit order has lived through nearly four centuries
of stress and trial and storm, and at the end its influence is
felt in every hamlet and city throughout the civilized world.
The general of the Jesuit organization lives at Fiesole.
With him dwell a dozen lieutenants, who are called assistants.
This is the governing body of the order. It is the duty of the
assistants to sift the mass of correspondence which accumu
lates each da)- from every quarter of the globe and to counsel
and advise with the general in the administration of the affairs
of the order. The Jesuits are preaching and teaching in every
land and clime beneath the sun.
And every member of the great order looks to that little
council chamber at Fiesole for guidance and direction. The

FORMATION OF OIL TRUST 109
general's orders are more faithfully and unhesitatingly obeyed
than the orders of Napoleon were obeyed by his Old Guard.
The Jesuit who to-day is the head of a great college in Spain
or in Sicily gets a telegram to report for further orders to the
Father of the Indian Mission in Patagonia. An hour suffices
to pack up his belongings, and, without murmur or hesitation,
he is off by the first train or steamboat to spend, perhaps, the
rest of his days laboring amid savages. No more for him the
social life of a great university in renowed, romantic lands.
No more the sweet associations of a lifetime. One word and
he parts with all of that forever, and henceforth exile and in
hospitable climes are his.
There are probably twenty-five thousand Jesuits scattered
over the surface of the globe. Every one of them is ready at
a moment's notice to go to any spot upon the earth to which
the general bids him hasten. That general commands the best
disciplined and the best equipped and the most skilful army
in the world.
The character and talents of each member are known. His
special talents are carefully and laboriously developed, and each
is employed in the way suited fo his special talents and char
acter. And so perfect is this great organization that, though its
members are of every tongue and race, it moves along, achieves
mighty victories, and accomplishes vast results in every age
and in every land, and yet it effects it so silently that the world
hardly hears or knows of its existence.
The general lives a silent and secluded life. He has before
him concise reports from every spot on the habitable globe.
He knows intimately the moral, social, religious, and political
condition of every race and tribe and people upon the earth.
His assistants are equally well informed. They have all been
chosen to aid him because of their superior learning, knowl
edge, talent, and virtue. There is no council chamber in the
world where so much wisdom, sense, judgment, and enlight
enment prevail as in the council chamber of the Jesuit general.
And in every country and in every province of the earth there

no JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
is a smaller council and a provincial superior. That subordi
nate provincial body is in constant touch with the general at
Fiesole, and governs each province so as to meet with the ap
proval of the supreme head.
There is a strange analogy between the Rockefeller organi
zation and that of the Jesuits. The objects aimed at are, in
deed, far different, but the machinery of both is singularly
.alike. John D. Rockefeller is the general, the czar, the dictator of
the Standard Oil Trust. He has his supreme council. They
are not called assistants to the general, but trustees.
That supreme council has its correspondents in every ham
let and village of the globe. The accumulated commercial
knowledge of the Rockefeller Council of Nine surpasses any
thing ever known before. Each member of that council was
chosen not for his learning or his virtue, but for his experience,
his special knowledge, and above all for his success as an
executive officer and a money-maker.
When Rockefeller first grouped that council together, his
one aim was to be sole, complete, and entire master of the
petroleum industry of the world. He wanted to gather
the oil at the well and keep handling it till he put it in the
lamp to burn or sold it as candles or as lubricants.
He built the tanks to store it and he laid the pipes to col
lect it. The cans and barrels in which the oil is sold he makes
in his own factories. There is not a city or a town of impor
tance in the wide world where he has not an oil depot and
where he will not sell in bulk from his cwn tank wagon.
When Rockefeller went into the oil business in 1865, bar
rels used to cost four cents for each gallon of capacity. A 42-
gallon barrel — the ordinary size — cost $1.68. Rockefeller had
his own barrels built, and they cost 21-2 cents per gallon ca
pacity. He now saves over 60 cents on each barrel.
Before the seaboard pipe lines were built barrels were of
vast importance in the trade. The Standard manufactured
4,000,000 barrels a year more or less. The saving effected by
making its own barrels, therefore, meant millions to its treasury.

FORMATION OF OIL TRUST in
In like manner the five-gallon tin can so necessary to the
foreign trade is made by the Standard itself. The tinplate is
bought in Wales. In 1901 Rockefeller imported $1,000,000
worth of tin. This tinplate is turned into five-gallon tin cans
at the Standard's Long Island factory. The machinery for
\ making these cans is so perfect that three men turn out 24,000
cans in a day.
No sooner are the cans made than they are filled automati
cally, sealed, and put on board ship. No duty is charged on
the tinplate brought from Wales by Rockefeller and used by
him for cans to sell his oil to foreigners.
Rockefeller's agents in Congress had a special tariff "framed
so that Rockefeller could buy his tin in Wales, manufacture
it here, and make a profit out of the foreigner on that very
tin without being compelled to pay duty to the American Gov
ernment. And the economy exercised in the manufacture of barrels
and tin cans was apparent in every branch of the business.
Vast numbers of small refineries were abandoned. He had
forced their owners to sell for a pittance, and when he got
them he had everything of any value taken out and then aban
doned. His great scheme was to manufacture at points most
suitable for shipment.
He established refining works at Whiting, Indiana, and
around these works a city has been built, and from that point
almost the whole Mississippi Valley is supplied. For the for-
•( eign trade the crude oil is sent in pipe lines to seaboard and
manufactured there. There is no money in the crude oil trade
for the railroads now. The pipe line does all that business.
The great trunk line managers fought for that trade like tigers
less than a generation ago. They committed wholesale crime
and wrong to secure the crude oil traffic then. They thought
their respective railroads could not live without a share of the
oil traffic. But their traffic vanished as quickly as it came, and
while it lasted Rockefeller used the rivalry and greed of the
railroad magnates to crush oil competitors and to make the
railroads his subservient tools.

XXVI
ROCKEFELLER ECONOMY
IN every Rockefeller factory there has always been rivalry
nurtured among employees to surpass one another in effec
tiveness and in economy. The cost sheets of each factory
were scanned monthly at the Board of the Supreme Council,
and the refinery or factory that showed the best results was
commended, and the management that lagged behind, or whose
cost sheets were out of proportion to the others, was repri
manded and sent to the successful refinery or factory to learn
how to do things. Rockefeller had the highest idea of rivalry
and emulation among his subordinates. He liked rivalry and
emulation as long as -they produced golden results for himself.
/And hence desperate efforts were made in the forty or fifty big
refineries of the Trust to excel each other.
In that struggle for excellence and superiority, talent, en
ergy, and hard work won. Rockefeller picked the winners and
constantly pushed them up. Moreover, he urged all his lieu
tenants and employees to save money and buy Standard Oil
stock. It was the best kind of insurance, he told them. He
wanted each and all of them to have an interest in the business.
That tended to greater efficiency, solidarity, and power.
He wanted the most industrious and efficient workmen in
every branch of his trade and business, and to get them he paid
the highest wages. That attracted an abundant supply. The
best were kept and cultivated, the others were dropped as use
less for Rockefeller's designs.
Every economy or invention of the oil business tried suc
cessfully by others Rockefeller soon appropriated. He put a
thousand obstacles in the way of the Tidewater Pipe Line, but
no sooner did it prove a success than he hastened to construct
his own seaboard pipe lines.
Rockefeller never invented or experimented himself, but he
took the fullest advantage of the inventions and experiments
of others.

ROCKEFELLER ECONOMY 113
Joshua Merrill discovered a process for deodorizing the,
lubricating products of petroleum. Mr. Merrill was in the oil
business before Drake sank his well. He was manufacturing
petroleum products while Rockefeller was attending school at
Cleveland, and he had done more to perfect the process for
making illuminants and lubricants than all Mr. Rockefeller's
associates in the supreme council. He was one of the owners
of the Downer Works at Boston. It was in 1869 that Joshua
Merrill discovered how to make a deodorized lubricating oil.
He patented the process and his petroleum lubricant. Rocke
feller soon saw the immense value of the discovery. This new
lubricant would be sought for in all the countries of the world.
Mr. Merrill's business grew by leaps and bounds. Dr. S. D.
Tweedle of Pittsburg imitated the process of Merrill and made
deodorized lubricants. Merrill brought suit against him for an
infringement of his patent. Rockefeller wanted Merrill's pat
ent, and in order to get it he backed Tweedle.
Merrill was kept in the courts for six years, and had to
spend $100,000 defending his rights before the Supreme Court
of the United States decided in his favor.
Then Rockefeller got a license from Merrill to use his proc
ess, and it proved so valuable that Rockefeller finally bought
the patent rights from Merrill.
Merrill retained the right to manufacture for himself, but
the rates finally grew so oppressive for crude oil that the Dow
ner Works at Boston had to go out of business.
One by one nearly every refiner had succumbed to the all-
conquering Rockefeller. His army of employees and his lieu
tenants were proud of their great general. He was a heaven
sent general, a conqueror, a demigod. He paid big wages and
large salaries and he had enriched his lieutenants. In a mate-j
rial age he was eminently and supremely successful, and the1
American, more than any other, is a worshiper of success. It
was true that thousands of oil farmers were forced to sell their
oil for hardly enough to pay living wages to their employees.
Rockefeller was the only one to whom they could now sell their
oil, and they had to take for it whatever pittance he offered.

114 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
The people of the oil regions hated to see the vast wealth
extracted from their soil going to swell the already bloated
riches of Rockefeller. They thought that that wealth more
properly belonged to themselves and to their children. But
they got no share of it; Rockefeller took it all.
The lord of the oil regions even in 1882 was hardly less
hated than he was in 1872, when he was known as the Mephis-
topheles of the South Improvement Company.
But in 1882, as the president of a $70,000,000 Trust, Rocke
feller suddenly found admirers and apologists ; men claiming
to be ministers of Christ were found to palliate and excuse his
methods. They pointed to his simplicity, to his modesty, to
his sobriety, and to the purity of his private life to prove that
he was a good man. They called him an industrial apostle.
The man who had forced rebates and drawbacks, and made all
competitors surrender their business to him at whatever price
it pleased him to pay, was to be purged of all his iniquities
J because he gave some of the proceeds of his wholesale piracy
to some churches or educational institutions. The poor wretch
who stole a goose from the common or a loaf of bread was
branded as a bad citizen. But the man who had levied tribute
on a whole people through a monopoly which he had estab
lished through fraud and chicanery must forsooth be for
given all his sins against human and divine laws, and be pro
claimed just and honorable while still in the full enjoyment of
his plunder and his piracy. And thus success, wealth, and
power condone all past crimes and piracy !
XXVII
PRODUCERS SULLEN, BUT UNCON- '
QUERED
IN Northwestern Pennsylvania there still lived those who,
though plundered of a great part of the wealth that was
theirs, never gave up the fight for right and truth.
The purchased newspaper, and the oil producer who had
surrendered to Rockefeller and become his ally, talked about

PRODUCERS SULLEN, UNCONQUERED 115
the independents as "soreheads" and "mossbacks," but the
story of Rockefeller s career was too well known to afford
contentment with the lot to which John D. Rockefeller had re
duced them.
Ten years of defeat and humiliation had left their mark
in the oil regions. Rockefeller's success in the upbuilding of
a great monopoly seemed to them uncanny. It was almost dia
bolical, and they had a superstitious dread of him. They shud
dered at his name as the Moslem hordes shuddered at the
name of Richard Cceur de Lion, or as the English peasantry
shuddered at the name of La Pucelle when she routed Eng
land's forces on many a well-contested field.
But unmistakable evidence soon showed that John D.
Rockefeller was neither a wizard nor omniscient. That his
amazing knowledge of the business affairs of his competitors
was often got by dark and devious ways.
Mr. John Teagle was the head of the firm of Squire and
Teagle, oil refiners, at Cleveland.
In 1883, his bookkeeper informed Mr. Teagle that a Stand
ard Oil agent had importuned him to earn some money by re
vealing the secrets of his employer's business to the Standard.
The go-between was brother to the secretary of the Stand
ard Oil at Cleveland. The bookkeeper evaded accepting the
offer till he had a chance to talk the matter over with Mr.
Teagle. That gentleman, anxious to find out what the Stand
ard wanted, told his bookkeeper to accept its offer.
The Standard agreed to pay him $25 bonus and a small
annual salary, in exchange for a transcript of all Teagle's
shipments and prices. He was to tell the cost of manufacture
and the amounts of naphtha and gasoline made, and the net
prices received therefor. They wanted to know where the
tar went, and the percentage of the different grades of oil.
In fact they wanted the minutest details of Teagle's business
mailed regularly to box 164 of the Cleveland post-office.
The bookkeeper handed the $25 to Mr. Teagle, and made
a sworn statement of these facts. John Teagle took the money
and the sworn statement of the bookkeeper to the secretary

116 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
of the Standard and accused him of bribery. The secretary
stoutly denied the accusation, but the facts were too evident,
so he confessed and took back the $25.
In 1888, Teagle gave all the facts in this case in his ex
amination before the Congressional committee.
It was an old trick of Mr. Rockefeller's to post himself
on every detail of a competitor's business. The oil business,
he believed, belonged to him by some divine right or other,
and "the lord of the oil business" required that all compet
itors should be bought out or driven out or bankrupted. He
was sorry that severe measures had to be taken, but business
is business, at least that was the way John D. Rockefeller
looked at it in 1872, for the contracts between the South Im
provement Company bound the railroads to furnish Rocke
feller with full and elaborate reports of all the business done
bv the railroads for the independent oil refiners. By those con
tracts he got rebates not only on his own oil shipments, but on
the oil shipments of the independents.
In other words, parts of the freight paid by Rockefeller's
competitors for shipments of crude and refined petroleum went
into Rockefeller's pocket. This was a peculiar system of pi
racy invented by John D. Rockefeller, and for twenty years
Rockefeller plundered his rivals, by compelling the railroads
to divide with him the money paid by the independents in
railroad freights. Umder this system, Rockefeller fixed railroad
rates so that competitors could be squeezed at the precise mo
ment that he desired to buy them out or crush them.
XXVIII
MR. GEORGE RICE
THERE lived at Marietta, Ohio, one of the most pictur
esque characters of the oil regions. This was George
Rice. Rice had gone into the oil business in 1865,
the same year as Rockefeller, and he knew its everv phase.
In 1873, he built a refinery at Marietta, and he shipped

MR. GEORGE RICE 117
his products West and South. For six years he struggled
along, under the shameful discrimination of the railroads;
but in 1879 tne rates were raised 100 per cent, and put him
practically out of business. However, in 1883, a new oil field
opened up at Macksburg, near Marietta, and Rice was one
of the first to get in on the ground floor. He got the crude
oil from his own wells. A. J. Brandred had built the pipe
lines at Macksburg, and he secured contracts with the
railroads so that all his oil should be carried for fifteen cents,
while all others should pay thirty cents.
Rice succeeded in getting a rate of seventeen and one-half
cents by using his own pipe line and tank car. In 1883, the
Standard took their pipe line into the Macksburg field, and
Brandred went out.
The moment the Standard was ready for business they had
the rates readjusted. The Cincinnati and Marietta Railroad,
the line serving this new field, entered into an agreement to
charge thirty-five cents a barrel on all crude oil shipped from
Macksburg to Marietta, but twenty-five cents went to the
Standard on every barrel shipped by the independents.
By this agreement, the railroad was to get less than thirty
and the Standard over seventy per cent of all moneys paid
for crude oil shipments.
The Cincinnati and Marietta Railroad was then in the
hands of a receiver. He agreed to the railroad tariffs pre
scribed by Rockefeller. But he was worried about his con
tracts and sent the following letter to his counsel :
Touching Scruples of a Receiver.
"Upon my taking possession of this road," the receiver
wrote, "the question came up as to whether I could agree to
carry the Standard Company'* oil to Marietta for ten cents
per barrel, in lieu of their laying a pipe line and piping their
oil. I, of course, assented to this, as the matter had been
fully talked over with the WesterfT and Lake Erie Railroad
Company before my taking possession of the road, and I want
ed all the revenue that could be had in this trade.
"Mr. O'Day, manager of the Standard Oil Company, met

118 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
the general freight agents of the W. and L. E. Railroad and our
Mr. Terr)- at Toledo, about February' 12, and made an agree
ment (verbal) to carry their oil at ten cents per barrel. But
Mr. O'Day^ compelled Mr. Terry to make a thirty-five cent rate
on all other oil going to Marietta, and that we should make the
rebate twenty-five cents per barrel on all oil shipped by other
parties, and that the rebate should be paid over to them (the
Standard Oil Company), thus giying us ten cents per barrel
for all oil shipped to Marietta and the rebate of twenty-five
cents per barrel going to the Standard Oil Company, making
that company, say twenty-five dollars per day, clear money on
Mr. George Rice's oil alone.
"In order to save the oil trade along our line, and especially
to save the Standard Oil trade, which would amount to seven
times as much as Mr. Rice's, Mr. Terry verbally agreed to the
arrangement, which, upon his report to me, I reluctantly ac
quiesced in, feeling that I could not afford to lose the shipment
of seven hundred barrels per day from the Standard Oil Com
pany. But when Mr. Terry issued instructions that on and
after February 27, the rate of oil would be thirty-five cents per
barrel to Marietta. Mr. George Rice, who has a refinery in
Marietta, very naturally called on me yesterday and notified me
that he would not submit to the advance, because the business
would not justify it, and that the move was made by the Stand
ard Oil Company to crush him out. (Too true.) Mr. Rice
said : T am willing to continue the seventeen and a half cent
rate which I have been paring from December to this date.'
"Now, the question naturally presents itself to my mind, if
Mr. George Rice should see fit to prosecute the case on the
ground of unjust discrimination, would the receiver be held,
as the manager of property, for violation of the law? While
I am determined to use all honorable means to secure traffic
for the company, I am not willing to do an illegal act (if
this can be called illegal), and lay this company liable for dam
ages. Mr. Terry is able to explain all minor questions relative
to this matter."
The eminent counsel from whom he sought advice replied:

MR. GEORGE RICE . 119
"You may, with propriety, allow the Standard Oil Com
pany to charge twenty-five cents per barrel for all oil trans
ported through their pipes to your road ; and I understand
from Mr. Terry that it is practicable to so arrange the details
that the company can, in effect, collect this direct without its
passing through your hands. You may agree to carry all such
oil of the Standard Oil Company, or of others, delivered to your
road through their pipes, at ten cents per barrel. You may
also charge all other shippers thirty-five cents per barrel
freight, even though they deliver oil to your road through their
own pipes; and this, I gather from your letter and from Mr.
Terry, would include Mr. Rice."
George Rice was not the man to be plundered with impu
nity. They enforced the thirty-five cent rate on him for a few
shipments, but he stored his oil at Macksburg, and then built
a pipe line to the Muskegon River, whence he had cheap trans
portation to Marietta. He did more, he dragged the receiver
into court and had the facts brought out.
The judge dismissed the receiver for gross and wanton
discrimination. He also appointed a master to inquire into
the sums collected from Rice and paid to the Standard, and the
money was ordered refunded. The sum refunded was less
than four hundred dollars, for Rice never suffered the extor
tioner to get too much out of him. The value of this case is
the discovery that Rockefeller got the larger share or most of
the freight paid to the railroads. He had started his rebate
system in 1872, and here he was in 1883 enforcing the system
in Macksburg, Ohio.
Daniel O'Dea, as has been already shown, was Rockefel
ler's chief lieutenant in arranging freight rates and in securing
rebates and drawbacks. It apparently never entered O'Dea's
head to consider the moral or ethical aspect of this system
which he aided Mr. Rockefeller so materially to establish.
Here is a delicious bit of testimony given by O'Dea before the
Federal Commission in 1888 :
Q. But did that other oil which was in competition with you
pass through your pipe? A. No, sir.

120 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Q. Did not they, therefore, on that oil which only passed over
their railroad and not through your pipe line pay to you the same
allowance or rebate that they did on your oil which did pass?
A. They did, but we returned it through the advice of our counsel,
Mr. Dodd.
Q. Now, out of that sum how much did you get from the rail-
roacT out of what they had received from Mr. Rice? A. We did
not get any ; that is, we did not retain any. The railroad company
agreed to account to us for the oil that went over its lines, and
they did make an accounting to my recollection of about $200, or
something like that, on oil other than that which passed through
our lines. Our counsel, Mr. Dodd, advised me that we could not
do that business, and we refunded the money.
When Mr. O'Dea was caught with $200 or more of George
Rice's money, or when the fact that the Standard had received
that money came out in court, Mr. Dodd, the chief counsel for
the Standard, advised that the money should be restored to
George Rice, and it was.
But it is not on record that O'Dea or John D. Rockefeller
restored any of the millions collected in drawbacks to the peo
ple to whom they belonged. A paltry $200 or more was returned
in a case where they were caught, but the millions were kept,
and Mr. O'Dea has never told us whether Mr. Dodd advised
him to keep or to restore them to their rightful owners.
XXIX
SCOFIELD AND SHURMER
WILLIAM C. SCOFIELD and Daniel Shurmer were
two young Englishmen who settled in Cleveland
before John D. Rockefeller and his father mi
grated from the family homestead in western New York. They
were men of considerable integrity and ability, and they had
that sturdy independence of character which made them resent
the usurpations and piracy of Rockefeller.
In 1872, Scofield was a member of the refining firm of
Alexander Scofield and Company, and Shurmer belonged to
the firm of Clark, Shurmer and Company. In that year Rocke-

SCOFIELD AND SHURMER 121
feller approached the members of these two firms. He had
the contracts of the railroads with the South Improvement
Company to show to and terrorize the members of both firms,
and they sold out at very considerable loss. Three years later,
with John Teagle, another Englishman who had come to
Cleveland in 1871, they formed the oil firm of Scofield, Shur
mer and Teagle. They put $65,000 into the business, and the
first year they made a profit of $40,000.
In 1876, Rockefeller induced them to enter into a partner
ship agreement with him. The' firm's plant was now worth
$75,000, and all three members of it were active and capable
business men. Rockefeller agreed to put $10,000 into the
firm. He would secure rebates. He was to allow the firm
$35,000 a year, all the profits over $35,000 to $70,000 to go
to Rockefeller. Over that the profits were to be equally di
vided between Rockefeller and the firm. This extraordinary
contract was signed at night in Rockefeller's house on Euclid
Avenue. It was to remain a profound secret. Rockefeller
insisted that none of the three men should tell even their wives
about it. He also begged them to conceal from everybody the
knowledge of the money they might make. They should not
keep fast horses or "put on style" or do anything which
should leave people to infer tffet they were making money.
All the accounts of the firm were to be a profound secret.
Even its members should correspond under assumed names.
A special box was to be rented at the post-office.
The Scofield firm had a capacity of 180,000 barrels of
crude oil, but under the arrangement with Rockefeller the out
put was to be limited to 85,000 barrels. Henceforth the pro
duction was to be less, but the profits greater, than they ever
were before.
The first year under this agreement the dividends were
$220,047 against $41,000 the year previous. During the four
years the arrangement lasted, Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle
paid Mr. Rockefeller $315,345. The contract was for ten
years, and Mr. Rockefeller began to think that Scofield, Shur
mer and Teagle were making too much money.

122 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
He did not like the contract now that he was preparing
to cut off loose-jointed partners and was ready for his organ
ization of the great Trust. He began to complain that the
Scofield people were exceeding the limit he had placed upon
them. In the four years they had manufactured 25,000 barrels
beyond the appointed limit. Mr. Rockefeller demanded all
the profit 4nade on this excess. It amounted to about $75,000.
Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle declined. But, remonstrated
Rockefeller, if you had not sold those 25,000 additional bar
rels, the Standard would. By breaking your contract you
have deprived the Standard Company of that much profit
The $75,000 belongs to us and not to you.
But the Scofield people could not see it in that light. They
would not give Rockefeller all the profits on the excess.
Rockefeller at once cut off their supply of crude oil. 'At the
time, he had all the pipe lines running into Cleveland.
They wrote to tell Mr. Rockefeller that if he did not sup
ply the crude oil, they would get it elsewhere and charge the
difference to him.
But Rockefeller was ready for war. He brought suit for
an injunction to restrain Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle from
manufacturing in excess of 85,000 barrels and to stay them
from investing in any other refinery business whatsoever.
It was thus that the facts of this extraordinary partnership
got into court. Judge Stanley Mathew argued the case against
Rockefeller, and the injunction was refused.
But Rockefeller had still the advantage. Working in al
liance with him, their freight rates enabled them to make a
profit of $200,000 a year on 85,000 barrels of oil. Working
against him, the freight rates absorbed all the profits of 180,000
barrels. Rockefeller, of course, got the difference between the
old and the new freight rates from the Lake Shore Railroad.
Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle dragged the railroad into
court, and demanded fair play. The Standard and the rail
road fought the case for six long years in the various courts,
and it finally got before the Supreme Court of the State.
The decision of that court was rendered by Judge Ather-

SCOFIELD AND SHURMER 123
ton, and he did not mince matters in his utter condemnation
of the whole rebate system.
"The only thing," said Judge Atherton, "to distinguish
the business of the one (Scofield and Co.) from the other
(the Standard) was the aggregate yearly amounts of freight
shipped." The courts had already held that a rebate on account of
volume of business only, was "a discrimination in favor of
capital." Commenting on the contract between the Lake
Shore and the Standard, Judge Atherton said :
"Look at it and see just what is shown. In consideration
of the company giving to the railroad its entire freight busi
ness in oil, they transport their freight about ten cents cheaper
a barrel than for any other customer. This understanding
was to keep the price down for the favored customer, but
up for all others, and the inevitable tendency and effect of this
contract was to enable the Standard Oil Company to establish
and maintain an overshadowing monopoly, to ruin all other
operators, and drive them out of business in all the region
supplied by the defendant's road, its branches and connecting
lines. A new railroad had been built in this very district.
The Lake Shore had a contract for all the Standard traffic,
but it entered into a contract with the new road to divide the
Standard business with the new railroad. If," says Judge
Atherton, "the new railroad would only help to keep rates down
for the Standard and Up for everybody else."
The lower courts had found that the railroad contract for
the Standard and Lake Shore was not framed to injure Sco
field, Shurmer and Teagle. This finding utterly displeased
Judge Atherton. "That makes no difference," said the Judge.
"The plaintiffs were not in business in 1875, when the con
tract was entered into, and, of course, it was not made to in
jure them in particular, . . . and this contract, made to
build up a monopoly for the Standard Oil Company, and drive
its competitors from the field, is just as unlawful as if its
provisions had been aimed directly against the interests of the
plaintiffs."

124 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
The Lake Shore Railroad had fought six long years in
various courts to maintain the validity of contracts granting
rebates to Rockefeller. In the end, the Supreme Court of
Ohio condemned the rebate system in most scathing terms.
Still undaunted, Rockefeller and the Lake Shore appealed to
the Supreme Court of the United States, but they took good
care never to push that appeal to trial.
Hitherto, Rockefeller had contented himself with securing
political allies in members of legislatures and in controlling
municipal and State executive officers. But ever since 1886
the Standard Oil political department has paid special atten
tion to the election and selection of the members of the Su
preme Court in every State in which it has business.
That was the one great result of this fight with Scofield,
Shurmer and Teagle. The members of that firm struggled on
as independent business men, but finally, in 1901, they sold
out to the Republic Oil Company of Cleveland, a Standard Oil
concern. The Scofield case, and George Rice's battle against the
Standard at Marietta, at last roused the whole country. Noth
ing is more extraordinary than the apathy shown by Congress
and the United States Executive, as well as the Executives of
the various States, while John D. Rockefeller was proceeding
successfully for twenty years in his marvelous career of whole
sale piracy. Those intrusted with the enforcement of the
law in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, were indifferent, supine or
corrupt.
J Ever since 1872, the oil regions had been petitioning Con
gress to make laws regulating 'interstate commerce, so as to
put an end to the hateful system of rebates.
In 1874, a committee of Congress was appointed to inves
tigate. It was called the Windom Committee, and it found a
perfectly scandalous condition of affairs. It recommended
the publication of all rates and drawbacks and the establishment
of a Bureau of Commerce. It even went so far as to declare
in favor of Government railroads as the only remedy to the
evils prevailing.

XXX
CONGRESSMAN HOPKINS' BILL AND
INTERSTATE COMMERCE LAW
THE report of the Windom Committee enabled Con
gressman James H. Hopkins of Pittsburg to present a
bill for the regulation of interstate commerce — a bill
which, if passed and enforced, would have deprived 'Mr. Rocke
feller of the vast revenue he was deriving from rebates and
drawbacks. Congressman Hopkins had seen twenty-five differ
ent refineries operating in his own city of Pittsburg in 1872, but
in 1876 there was but one, the Lockhart concern, in alliance
with Rockefeller. Hopkins also saw independent refineries
going out of business all over Pennsylvania, and he besought
Congress to pass a law regulating interstate commerce.
The object aimed at by Mr. Hopkins' bill was to force
'the cancellation of the contracts Rockefeller held for rebates
and "drawbacks with the great trunk lines. To kill time,
Rockefeller's friends in the committee summoned the rail
road presidents and O. H. Payne, treasurer of the Standard
Oil Company. Cassatt alone presented himself, but he re
fused to answer questions. He saw the whole thing was
going to end in a farce, and he gave the committee no in
formation. Frank Rockefeller volunteered the statement that
Colonel Scott of the Pennsylvania shared part of the spoils.
Scott was highly indignant at this charge, and wired the com
mittee to summon the officers of the Standard Oil, so that the
officials of the Pennsylvania should be purged from the charge
of sharing in the rebates and drawbacks given to Rockefeller
and his associates.
The Hopkins Bill was pigeonholed, all inquiry was burked,
and the whole country had an object lesson of Rockefeller's
power in Congress, so far back as 1876.
Two years later, in 1878, Congressman Louis F. Watson,
of Pennsylvania, introduced a similar bill and carried it tri
umphantly through the House of Representatives. But the
(125)

126 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
'Standard Oil lobby got in its work in the Senate, and the
Watson Bill was smothered.
In 1880, when the Producers' Union made its fatal truce
with Rockefeller, General Benjamin F. Butler appeared before
the Congressional Committee of Commerce and made a most
convincing and elaborate plea for the protection of the inde
pendent producers and refiners from the greed and piracy of
the Standard Oil.
General Butler was picturesque and dramatic, and he piled
fact on fact, till the whole nefarious system of John D. Rocke
feller was laid bare to the committee. But in that committee
Rockefeller's influence was greater than Ben Butler's elo
quence, and nothing was done. Congress could not be in
fluenced by the pathetic tales of Congressman Hopkins, by the
facts put before it by Congressman Watson, or by the eloquence
of Benjamin F. Butler. The Standard Oil lobby was too pow
erful. It had too many representatives in the House and
Senate. And Rockefeller kept steadily on, buying up and
annihilating competitors, and giving a less and less pittance
each year to the men who owned the oil wells and furnished the
raw material of his fabulous wealth.
Then came the revelations in the Scofield, Shurmer and
Teagle case. All over the country, men stood aghast at
Rockefeller's bold claim that he was entitled to all the re
bates and drawbacks he could get. All the world now knew
the secret of Rockefeller's wealth and of his great monopoly.
It was the shameful conspiracy by which he forced the railroads
to do his business at half the cost to his competitors and to
extract from the railroads half the money paid by the inde
pendent oil men for freight.
In other words, the independent oil men were being fleeced
by the railroads, and half of the inflated tariffs extracted from
them went into John D. Rockefeller's coffers. The suits of
George Rice and Scofield made these facts apparent to the
whole country, and Congress was roused from its lethargy.
The Granger movement in the West had assumed threatening
proportions, and the Senate appointed the Cullom Committee

TIDEWATER PIPE LINE 127
to investigate and report on the subject of rebates and draw
backs. That report resulted in the passage of the Interstate Com
merce Act. Had that act been passed in 1872, and been en
forced when Congressman Hopkins put the facts before Con
gress and the nation, the oil regions would have been saved
long years of agony and strife. Had it been passed in 1874,
when Congressman Watson got it before the House, or in 1880,
when General Butler's great appeal was made for justice and
equality, the Standard Oil Trust would never have attained
the dangerous and menacing proportions it has now assumed.
But the Interstate Commerce Act came too late to curb
or crush the huge octopus created by the genius of John D.
Rockefeller. In fact, in 1886 the railroads were no longer
prime factors in oil transportation. Pipe lines were hence
forth to furnish the transportation between the wells and the
refineries, and John D. Rockefeller could afford to laugh at
' Congress and at the laws it made to stay him from collect
ing rebates and drawbacks.
In fact, he called off his lobby at Washington, and allowed
Congress to enact the Interstate Commerce Law. He was in-
' dependent of Congress and the Interstate Commerce Act by
this time as far as the transportation of grade petroleum was
concerned.
XXXI
TIDEWATER PIPE LINE
DR. DAVID HOSTETTER, who introduced the now
famous Hostetter bitters to the world and made mil
lions thereby, was also devoted to the oil business. In
fact, the money he made in bitters he invested in oil. He owned
a number of wells in the Butler field, but Rockefeller's freight
rates were fleecing him, so to escape he built the Columbia Con
duit Pipe Line from the Butler field to Pittsburg to connect
with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He leased the Colum
bia Conduit Line to D. McKelvy and Company. This firm con-

128 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
sisted of Byron D. Benson, David K. McKelvy, and Major
Robert E. Hopkins. Benson and Hopkins were boys together
in Onondaga County, New York, and before they came of age
they were partners in a lumber business. When the war broke
out Hopkins organized a company and marched to the defence
of the Union. Taken prisoner at ChancellorsviUe, he was
confined in the Libby Prison. At the conclusion of the war he
was raised to the rank of major and honorably discharged.
He immediately hastened to the oil country and joined his old
chum, Byron D. Benson. Both were men of superior ability,
enterprise, pluck, and knowledge, and in 1870 they began part
nership with David McKelvy, a man of equal if not greater
capacity than either.
Somehow or other John D. Rockefeller overlooked this
trio of able men when he came to Titusville in 1872, and won
over such allies as Captain Vandergrift and John D. Archbold.
They were well known as well as zealous in resisting Rocke
feller's usurpations, and Vandergrift and Archbold knew that.
When they leased Hostetter's pipe line to Pittsburg, Rocke
feller began to keep his eyes on them. They showed them
selves able and ambitious, but he cut the ground from under
them when, in 1873, he induced the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
road to enter into the pool with the Great Trunk Lines. In
disgust Dr. Hostetter sold his Columbia Conduit Line to Rocke
feller, and Benson, McKelvy, and Hopkins had to look round
for some other pathway to fame and fortune.
While operating the pipe line to Pittsburg, they became
convinced that crude oil could be carried from the wells over
the mountains to the seaboard.
In 1876, Henry Harvey employed General Hermann Haupt
to report on its feasibility and General Butler to overcome the
legal difficulties in the way.
General Haupt reported that the mechanical difficulties were
easily overcome, and that a pipe line to the sea would run crude
oil to refiners at 'New York and Philadelphia for 16 1-2 cents
,a barrel. He claimed that the' actual cost to the railroads was
* not less than 25 cents, and the Standard was probably paying
45 cents, while the open rate was 85 cents.
Mr. Harvey was president of a pipe line company, and he
immediately undertook to raise money to build a pipe line to
the seaboard.

TIDEWATER PIPE LINE 129
The oil men hailed the project with joy, and the newspapers
of the East declared "it worthy of "being coupled with the
Brooklyn Bridge, the blowing up of Hell Gate, and the tun
neling of the Hudson River."
But John D. Rockefeller did not want a pipe line tc the sea.
He put his army of employees to work to block Harvey in every
way. The difficulties of securing right of way were enhanced
a thousandfold, and ten thousand rumors were put afloat to
discredit the ability and judgment of General Haupt and the
financial standing of Henry Harvey. Harvey did not have the
money or the backing or the business capacity to fight Rockefel
ler, and his attempt was a dismal failure.
Benson, McKelvy, and Hopkins took up the project in
1878. They went to work secretly. They employed General
Haupt to locate the line, and they began buying the right of
way. Rockefeller, somehow, learned of the scheme and began
buying a dead line across their path, but failed.
In November, 1878, the Tidewater Pipe Line Company was
organized with a capital of $625,000. The work of construc
tion was pushed, and in May, 1879, the Tidewater Pipe Line
was over the mountains and through to Williamsport on the
Reading Railroad, a distance of one hundred and nine miles.
There were two pumping stations, one at the wells and the
other twenty-eight miles away, at the foot of the Allegha
nies. The first pump was to lift oil 700 feet; the second,
1,900 feet, to the pass in the Alleghany Mountains, and from
the pass it was to reach Williamsport or the seaboard by
gravity. On the 28th of May, 1879, Byron Benson started the pump
at the wells. It was a day of intense excitement in the oil
country. The producers had high hopes that the Tidewater
Pipe Line would free them from the tyranny of Rockefeller and
the extortions of the railroads. The Standard representatives
and the railroad agents watched the experiment with fear.
Were it a success the railroad men knew that the oil traffic
would be lost to them forever, and the Standard knew that a
dangerous competitor would be soon in the field. When the
oil began to flow over the Alleghany Mountains, the people
of the oil regions were overwhelmingly happy, and hailed Ben
son, McKelvy, and Hopkins as heroes and benefactors. They
QQoai~tTaA oil 4-1^__i nfOlCP fllPxr COT!.

130 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
But John D. Rockefeller had not the slightest notion of al
lowing the Tidewater Pipe Line to become a carrier for inde
pendent producers or refiners. There were a few independent
refiners still left in New York and Philadelphia, and when the
oil began to flow into Williamsport, the Tidewater Company
could find no purchasers for the crude petroleum. John D.
Rockefeller had bought up their hoped-for customers.
They stored the oil and began building their own refineries
and sent agents to Europe to secure markets. Then Rockefeller
used his leverage with the railroads and got them to carry all
his crude oil from the wells to the seaboard for 10 cents a bar
rel. This was 40 per cent of the actual cost to the railroads
and about the actual cost to the pipe line.
While Rockefeller was forcing the railroads to carry his
crude oil for 10 cents a barrel to their own grave loss, he had
already under construction a half dozen pipe lines from the
oil fields to his refineries at Cleveland, Pittsburg, New York,
Philadelphia, and in New Jersey. He saw a revolution in the oil
business, and he organized the National Transit Company with
a capital of $31,000,000 to take care of the new developments.
The National Transit Company absorbed the United Pipe
Lines Company and the American Transfer Company, and took
over all the great storage tanks at the oil fields and all the local
and seaboard pipe lines.
The storage capacity of the Transit Company in 1886 was
about 40,000,000 barrels, and they often had 35,000,000 stored.
The owners received certificates for every 1,000 barrels sold,
and paid storage charges monthly, which netted enormous
profits to the National Transit Company. Almost before the
railroads were aware of it, Rockefeller had sufficient pipe lines
built to carry all the crude oil from the wells to the refineries.
The railroads could no longer compete in that branch of the
business.. Rockefeller had no further use for drawbacks and
rebates, so he let Congress pass a bill regulating railroad tariffs
for the Grangers.
But he had no idea of permitting a dangerous competitor
like the Tidewater Company to exist, at least as an indepen
dent concern. But despite the war made upon it, the company
was prospering and making'money.

XXXII
HOW TO GET RID OF RECALCITRANTS
ROCKEFELLER had bought up all the independent
plants save that of Lombard and Ayers. They refused
to sell, but soon after they were condemned as a public
nuisance and had to move elsewhere.
But Benson, McKelvy, and Hopkins were no ordinary men.
They speculated and made money, and, despite the fierce war
fare on them, they were able to finance their various enter
prises. In January, 1882, they decided to issue bonds to the
amount of $2,000,000. The First National Bank of New York
agreed to take those bonds at ninety cents on the dollar.
Rockefeller secured the co-operation of Messrs. Taylor and
Satterfield, who held about $200,000, or about one-third, of the
stock in the Tidewater Company. They went to the bank and
declared the company insolvent and urged the bank to decline
the bonds. The bank scouted this advice.
Then they got E. G. Patterson to bring suit for the appoint
ment of a receiver. He had devoted nearly twenty years of his
life to fighting Rockefeller, and his uniform failure at last wore
him out, and he entered the employment of the Standard, and
he was now petitioning for a receiver for the first really great
enterprise that bid fair to save the independents.
Judge Pierson Church, before whom the case was tried,
dismissed Patterson's petition with contempt, and plainly hinted
that he looked on the whole proceedings as blackmail.
The next move of the Taylor people, who were undoubt
edly acting all along for Rockefeller, was more open and vio
lent. The regular meeting of the Tidewater Company was on
January 17, 1880. The treasurer, who was in the conspiracy
with the Taylor crowd, had the meeting postponed till Febru
ary, so that his statements could be ready.
It was a verbal agreement for postponement, and no formal
notices were sent out. On the regular day for the annual meet
ing, the Taylor people were on hand and elected a new board,
including F. B. Gowen, president of the- Reading, and James R.
Keene. Mr. Gowen sent this telegram, on receipt of the news :

1 32 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
John Satterfield, Titusville:
At quarter of three o'clock to-day I received a despatch signed
with your name as manager and chairman, stating that a meeting
of the Board of Managers would be held at noon to-day. While
the notice itself is sufficient to render invalid any action you may
have attempted at such meeting as has been held, even if you had
power to act at all, I deny your right to call any meeting or act
in any manner as an officer of the company, and will hold you
and all of your associates responsible at law for the occurrences
of yesterday and for any subsequent action thereunder.
(Signed) F. B. Gowen.
Benson, McKelvy, and Hopkins had an injunction issued
against the Taylor people, and at the trial before Judge Church
a long affidavit was read from James R. Keene, in which he
said among other things :
"From my first connection with the company, it has been
hampered and embarrassed in its business by the unscrupulous
competition of the Standard Oil Company. When it first be
gan to transport and deliver oil at tidewater, the refineries
which purchased and refined oil were one after another bought
up by the Standard Oil Company or driven out of business by
vexatious and oppressive annoyances. The most private de
tails of our business have been communicated to the officers of
the Standard Oil Company, and they have, by every means in
their power, interfered with our affairs. By the arrangements
which they were able to make with the railroads leading from
the oil regions other than the Philadelphia and Reading Rail
road Company and the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the
Standard Oil Company have been able to obtain a control
of the business of transporting and refining oil, with the ex
ception of that part of the business which has been carried on
by the Tidewater Pipe Company and their refineries, to which
it had made deliveries. Repeated efforts have been made
by parties in their interest to secure the control of the Tidewater
Pipe Company, and if they could succeed, the monopoly thereby
secured would add many million dollars a year to their profit."
John Archbold replied to Mr. Keene by another affidavit,
in which he denied that the Standard Oil Company had any
interest in the Taylor attacks on the Tidewater. But he also
stated that Byron Benson had gone to him to negotiate for an
arrangement with the Standard Company. Archbold's affi-

GETTING RID OF RECALCITRANTS 133
davit was a clever move to lose Benson and his associates the
sympathy of the oil regions. But it did not prevent Judge
Church from upholding Benson, McKelvy, and Hopkins in the
management and control of the Tidewater Company.
Meanwhile, Rockefeller needed rights of way, and the Leg
islature of Pennsylvania passed a free pipe line bill, giving the
right of eminent domain to all pipe line companies, and the
success of the Tidewater gave heart and hope to the oil pro
ducers. But John D. Rockefeller was not yet through. He took
over the Taylor stock, and as an owner of one-third of the
stock of the company, he pleaded with Benson, McKelvy, and
Hopkins for a friendly arrangement for "the good of the oil
' business." He was soft, soothing, and caressing now. His
powers of persuasion were almost infinite. He had used them
on William H. Vanderbilt and Jay Gould and Scott and Cas-
sett to wondrous effect. He now used them on the builders
of the Tidewater Pipe Line to such good effect that they for
got the cause of the people and of the oil regions, and entered
into an agreement with Rockefeller. He allowed them, in their
hour of triumph, 11^ per cent of the oil shipments to the
seaboard, the Standard taking 88^_ per cent.
A rate of forty-five cents a barrel was fixed for all crude
oil — a profit of four hundred per cent — and Rockefeller under
took to bend the railroads to the altered condition of affairs.
He made a contract with the Tidewater for fifteen years. It
has never been renewed. It was not necessary. "Mr. Rocke
feller," as Miss Tarbell puts it, "always keeps his word. In-
>j deed, in studying his career, one is frequently reminded of Tom
Sawyer's great resolution — never to sully piracy by dishon
esty." The surrender of the Tidewater management was a mel
ancholy ending to the high hopes of the people of the oil
regions. From that time on, all its stockholders made money,
but Benson and Hopkins were no longer heroes and bene
factors of the oil country. They had made the most capable
and successful fight ever waged against Rockefeller, and had
they remained independent, their names would deservedly have
been illustrious. But they surrendered and enjoyed a few
years of comparative rest and leisure, and they then passed

134 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
away unmourned and unregretted by a whole people who once
loved and worshiped them.
Rockefeller got the managers of all the railroads to con
form to the new conditions. He collected all the oil and car
ried it with the aid of his pipe lines and of the Tidewater and
the Pennsylvania, to whom he allowed some traffic.
There were still some independent refiners, but they had
to pay Rockefeller forty or forty-five cents a barrel, when it
cost the Standard but ten cents. He meant to squeeze those
independents one by one, but he was now in no hurry. He
was sole lord and master of the oil fields, and he could chuckle
at the laws Congress might pass to put an end to rebates and
discounts.
XXXIII
ROCKEFELLER'S CONQUESTS OF THE
WORLD'S MARKETS
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER has lived isolated and lonely.
His life of silence would have gladdened the heart of
Pythagoras, and his austere reserve would have endeared
him to the ascetics of the Thebaid. But like many other au
stere and silent men, he was devoured with insatiable ambi
tion. He could be suave, kind, sympathetic and do good deeds
that looked like charity, but, sleeping and waking, he could
not restrain his avarice or his ambition to be absolutely su
preme in the coal oil business of the world.
Every lamp that burned in every hut along the valley of
the Nile was to be a tribute to Rockefeller's greatness and
glory.. The tiny lights that floated down the waters of the
Ganges in honor of the heathen dead should also burn for
Rockefeller's gain. Rockefeller's kerosene tin can should find
its way into the sacred city of Lhasa and should be borne on
camel trains to the most remote oases in the desert of Sahara
or of Turkestan. Rockefeller's oil should light the shrines of
Mohammed, and the temples of Hindoos. The peasants of
Normandy and the miners of Cornwall should pay him tribute,
and amid the vineyards of Malaga and the olive groves of
Sicily he should have his vassals.

INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT 135
There would not be a spot in all God's beautiful world,
savage or civilized, where men djid not toil to swell Rocke
feller's golden harvest. Such were the dreams of Rockefeller,
and they have been wellnigh realized. For he convinced him-
' self that the Almighty somehow or other had given him a
certain divine right to extract mineral oil from the earth and
place it himself in every lamp that burned. Anybody else
that tried to do this was an intruder, an interloper, a busy
body, an undesirable person, or else a blackmailer. The oil
business belonged to Rockefeller, and all others who meddled
with it had to expect dire consequences for intruding in a
business that did not belong to them.
To secure his supremacy, he planted his agents in every
-town and city and hamlet of the world. For the same reason
he sold direct to every dealer on the earth who retailed coal
oil to hut and villa and palace. He had no place for middle
men in his system. There were old soldiers who had tank
wagons, and peddled oil through the country. Rockefeller
let them make a living so long as they peddled Rockefeller oil,
but the moment they began peddling oil made outside the
Trust, Rockefeller had a Standard oil tank wagon in compe
tition with the old soldier, and sold the Standard brand at
prices that drove the old soldier pedler to despair and bank
ruptcy.
XXXIV
ROCKEFELLER'S INTELLIGENCE DE
PARTMENT
TEN PER CENT of the refining business wa# still, in
1886, in the hands of outsiders. Rockefeller had his
mind made up to drive that ten per cent out of the busi
ness. Most of them had to pay him tribute for transporting
crude oil, and the railroads, intimidated by Rockefeller, dis
criminated against the independents. In some uncanny or cor
rupt way Rockefeller would learn the destination of every bar
rel shipped by the independents. The agent at the destination
of that barrel would be immediately informed. He would go to
the dealer for whom the oil was destined and offer to sell him
the same quantity and quality of oil for a less figure than he

136 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
was paying the independents. If the dealer was shifty or timid
he was asked to countermand the shipment from the independ
ent refinery. If he showed any spirit of independence and a
resolution to keep on buying from independent refineries, all the
other dealers of the town or hamlet were supplied by the Stand
ard at cut-throat prices and the independent dealer had to en
dure heavy losses. If there were no other dealer, theJStandard
would put its wagon on the road and peddle oil from house to
house at prices that were ruinous to the independent dealer.
Sometimes these methods did not work. At Chardon, Ohio,
Hossler, an independent tank wagon owner, kept buying from
the independents despite the threats of Rockefeller's agents.
Rockefeller sent a tank wagon of his own into the town and
offered the oil for two cents less than Hossler. The people
drove the Standard driver and his wagon out of the town.
Another wagon and driver came, pretending to be an inde
pendent, and the moment he cut prices on Hossler he was
branded as Standard Oil and driven out. Another pretended
independent arrived on the scene with a tank wagon and cheap
oil, but he also had to quit without finding a single customer.
For ten years Rockefeller kept up his campaign of petty and
often ruinous persecution against the independent refiner and
the independent dealer. His great scheme was to find out the
destination of each shipment from the independent refineries
and have his agent call on the consignee, and by threats,
cajolery, or misrepresentation get him to cancel his order with
the independent refinery. This was a fruitful source of con
stant loss and worry to the independents. If unable to cancel
the independent shipments, he would cut prices, and make life
a burden for dealers who did not accept his oil and his rates.

XXXV
CHESS, CARLE Y AND COMPANY
CHESS, CARLEY AND COMPANY, the Standard
marketing agents at Louisville, Kentucky, were par
ticularly active in their war on independent dealers.
George Rice of Marietta had a big trade in the country cov
ered by Chess, Carlev and Comoanv. The Interstate Com-

CHESS, CARLEY AND COMPANY 137
merce Commission found in 1888 that Rice never got "relative
justice" from the railroads, but in spite of that discrimination
Rice marketed his goods over eight different lines of road.
Armstrong, a dealer at Clarksville, Tennessee, was paying
the Standard twenty-one cents a gallon for oil bought in carload
lots. Rice offered to supply Armstrong for eighteen cents.
Armstrong reported the fact to Carley. Carley terrified him.
"He scared him," says Rice's agent, "out of his boots, Carley
told him he would break him up if he bought of any one else;
that he (Carley) would put drummers in the field to hunt up
Armstrong's customers and sell them groceries five per cent
below Armstrong's prices. He told him that if Armstrong
sent any other oil to Clarksville, he (Carley) would put the
price of oil so low as to make him lose heavily."
Soon after Carley wrote to Wilkinson and Company, a firm
of Nashville dealers : "It is with great reluctance that we un
dertake serious competition with any one, and certainly this
competition will not be confined to coal oil or any one article,
and will not be limited to any one year."
This letter did not prevent Wilkinson from dealing still
with George Rice, so Carley wrote again, threatening to cut
prices if Wilkinson should continue to take Rice's oil. Wil
kinson did persist, and Carley wrote his now notorious letter
of June 16, 1881, demanding that the railroad agent turn on
the screw. ' He did, and in five days railroad rates were raised
fifty per cent on George Rice.
In 1892 Rice published a pamphlet containing letters and
documents illustrating Standard Oil methods. Tn this pam
phlet were citations from some seventy letters from dealers in
Texas. These extracts are choice in their significance. The
Standard agent in Texas was the Waters-Pierce Oil Company.
A few samples will suffice. One writes : "I have had _ wonder
ful competition on this car. As soon as my car arrived, the
Waters-Pierce Oil Company slapped the price down from $2.50
to $1.80." Another dealer writes: "Oil was selling at this point for
$2.50 per case, and as soon as your car arrived it was put down
to $1.50." Still another writes : "The Waters-Pierce Oil Company re
duced their price on brilliant oil from $2.60 to $1.50 per case
— j :., ...-_„;«^. 0 fiprpp war.

138 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Again we read : "Waters- Pierce Oil Company has our State
by the throat, and we would like to be extricated."
Another independent dealer says : "The Waters-Pierce Oil
Company has cut the stuffing out of coal oil ever since I got
my last car." •
Another anxious dealer writes to George Rice : "Trace and
hurry up car of oil shipped by you. We learn that it is possible
"your oil is sidetracked that Waters-Pierce might get in their
work." And here is another : "If we were to buy a car or more, the
Waters-Pierce Oil Company would manage to sell a little
cheaper than we could, and continue doing so till they busted
me up. Jobbers say when they take any other oil, they are at
once boycotted by the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, who not
only refuse to sell them, but put oil below what they pay for
it, and then knock them out of the oil trade unless they sell
at a loss."
One dealer writes Rice : "If I find that I can handle your
oil in Texas without being run out and losing money by this
infernal corporation, the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, I want
to arrange with you to handle it extensively. I received verbal
notice this morning from their agent that they would make it
hot for me when my oil got here."
XXXVI
LOOTING CONFIDENTIAL RECORDS
THE system of espionage and terrorism practiced by the
Standard to compel dealers to quit doing business with
the independent refineries passeth belief. It roused
intense animosity. An association was formed in Mississippi,
binding all merchants to have no dealings with Chess, Carley
and Company.
Mr. Carley was very close in those days to Mr. Rocke
feller, and it is absolutely safe to assume that the methods he
employed were fully approved by John D. Rockefeller. In
deed it would be tiresome to quote further examples of the
intimidation and terrorism used in every State of the Union
to cut prices in places where independents were doing busi-

LOOTING CONFIDENTIAL RECORDS 139
ness in order to kill their competitors. When competition was
killed, prices were again inflated. Scofield, Shurmer and
Teagle had a thousand instances laid bare, of nefarious under
hand work to ruin dealers who kept doing business with them.
The American Oil Works shipped a carload of "Sunlight"
oil to South Bend, a little town away on the Pacific Coast.
The Standard agent at Portland, Oregon, heard about it, and
at once sounded a note of warning in a letter to a South Bend
dealer :
"We will state for your information that never a drop of
oil has reached South Bend of better quality than what we have
always shipped into that territory. They can name it 'sun
light,' 'moonlight,' or 'starlight,' it makes no difference. You
can rest assured if another carload of 'sunlight' arrives at
your place, it will be sold very cheap. We do not propose to
allow another carload to come into that territory unless it comes
and is put on the market at one-half its actual cost. You can
convey this idea to the young man who imported the carload
of 'sunlight' oil."
This is the spirit of arrogance manifested by the Standard
Oil agents throughout the world. They are not all so frank
or so unwise as the Portland agent, but they have been taught
that Rockefeller is invincible, and that petty men must bow
to his decrees.
The following letters, emanating from Standard Oil agents,
are published by Miss Ida M. Tarbell, and bear repetition
here: Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 14, 1891.
John Fowler, Hampton, Iowa:
Dear Sir— Our Marshalltown manager, Mr. Ruth, has ex
plained the circumstances regarding the purchase and subsequent
countermand of a car of oil from our competitors. He desires
to have us express to you our promise that we will stand all
expense, provided there should be any trouble growing out of the
countermand of this car. We cheerfully promise to do this; we
have the best legal advice which can be obtained in Iowa bearing
on the points in this case. An order can be countermanded either
before or after the goods have been shipped, and in fact can be
countermanded even if the goods have already arrived and are
at the depot. A firm is absolutely obliged to accept a counter
mand. The fact that the order has been signed does not make
any difference. We want you to absolutely refuse, under any

140 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
circumstances, to accept the car of oil. We are standing back of
you in this matter, and will protect you in every way, and would
kindly ask you to keep this letter strictly confidential. . . .
Yours truly, E. P. Pratt.
Tiffin, Ohio, Feb. i, 1898.
Independent Oil Company, Mansfield, Ohio:
Dear Sirs — The Standard Oil Company, after your man was
here, had the cheek to come in and ask how many barrels of oil
we bought, and so forth; then asked us to countermand the order,
saying it would be for our best ; we understand they have put their
oil in our next door and offer it at six cents per gallon at retail.
Shall we turn tail or show them fight? If so will you help us
out any? . . . Yours truly, Talbott and Son.
Independent Oil Company: Tiffin' 0hi0' Jan- 2*> l8&-
Dear Sirs — . . I am sorry to say that a Standard Oil man
from your city followed that oil car and oil to my place and told
me that he would not let me make a dollar on that oil and was
dogging me around for two days to buy that oil, and made all
kinds of threats, and talked to my people at the house while I
was out and persuaded me to sell, and I was in a stew what I
should do, but I yielded, and I have been very sorry for it since;
thought I would hate to see the bottom knocked out of the prices,
but that is why I done it, is the only reason. The oil was all
right. I now see the mistake, and that is of getting a carload.
Two carloads coming in here inside of a week is more than the
other company will stand. . . Yours truly, H. A. Eirick.
The excuse offered nowadays, that many of these em
ployees were overzealous, is a lame and halting one. Attested
records show that the Standard Oil was securing confidential
information all the time from railroads. It paid for this in
formation or it compelled the railroads, through fear, to fur-
/nish it. The acquisition in either case was immoral. It was
just as base an act as reading the private letters of a friend
or stranger without the consent of the owner.
In 1892, the Standard employed a bookkeeper, named Buck
ley, to secure information of the operations of the Lewis
Emery Oil Company of Philadelphia. Buckley had worked
for that concern, and he was asked to secure the information
wanted through the rolnred office hnv Hp did. The office

FALSE CLAIMS TO GLORY 141
bov supplied Buckley with all the facts wanted, and the Stand
ard paid the colored boy $90 for his treachery to his employ
ers. Then he was discharged and as both he and Buckley were
of no further use the)- were dropped from the Standard pay
roll. Rockefeller uses such men as Buckley in nefarious work,
and when that work is done he casts them aside.
XXXVII
FALSE CLAIMS TO GLORY
THE apologists of Rockefeller claim that he built
up the foreign trade in petroleum and cheapened pe
troleum products to all the world.
In 1871, Rockefeller was but a small manufacturer. He
had a small trade in the Mississippi Valley and the Lake coun
try, but in that year America exported $36,894,810 worth of
petroleum products. In fact, before Rockefeller ever export
ed a gallon of oil, crude or refined, petroleum was fifth in value
of all American exports.
The claim that Rockefeller cheapened petroleum products
to the consumer is equally absurd. The superabundant supply
of crude oil was the primary cause why the finished products
of petroleum became cheap. In the early days it cost five
and six cents a gallon to transport crude oil to the refineries
at New York and Boston and Philadelphia. Rockefeller fixed
five cents a gallon as the price of transportation for all re
fineries not in his South Improvement Company. His own oil
was to be carried for 2 1-2 cents, and he was to collect 2 1-2
cents of the five cents paid by the independent refiners in 1872.
But Benson, Hopkins and McKelvy solved the problem of
crude oil transportation when they tapped the oil fields with
a pipe line that had its outlet on the Atlantic seaboard. While
Rockefeller was forcing all independent refiners to pay three
and four cents for transmitting crude oil from the wells to
the seaboard, the Tidewater Company demonstrated that it
''could be put into the seaboard refineries for one-quarter of a
cent a gallon.
The Tidewater Pipe Line was the paramount factor next
to the overflowing abundance of nature in giving cheap light
and cheao oetroleum products to all the world. Rockefeller

*bai

142 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
/fought the Tidewater Pipe Line project with an animosity and
bitterness and unscrupulousness that has never been equaled
and most certainly never surpassed.
/¦"*Not one of the great improvements in the refining of petro
leum is due to Rockefeller. He bought up patented improve
ments in the same way that he bought competing refineries.
His chief aims have always been to keep the price of crude oil
down, to limit the quantity refined, and to keep the prices of
the finished article just as high as the consumer will stand.
Cheap light and cheap lubricating oils and cheap naphtha
can only be bought from Rockefeller when he is striving to
ankrupt a competitor.
In 1892, a table was prepared showing the prices for
illuminating oil in various cities and States of the Union.
A tremendous discrepancy was at once apparent; at competi
tive points, the prices were low, at all other points high. In
California, at non-competitive points, oil sold at 26 1-2 cents
a gallon. When there was competition, Rockefeller's oil was
sold at 17 1-2 cents. Rockefeller was waging an oil war at
Denver in 1892, and he sold his product at seven cents a gal
lon in that city, but in the other cities of Colorado he was
exacting twenty-five cents a gallon. At the same time, Rocke
feller was selling the foreigner all the oil he would buy at
6.10 cents a gallon. He could have sold his oil profitably in
Denver and every other city of Colorado for the price he
sold it to the foreigner. But Mr. Rockefeller's benevolence
has never taken the shape of cheaper oil to the American con
sumer. In the same year every householder in Kansas had
to pay seven cents a gallon extra for Rockefeller oil, when there
chanced to be no competitor at hand. In Indiana the difference
was six cents a gallon between competing and non-competing
points; in South Carolina it was 41-2 cents.
In 1897, Scofield, Shurmer and Teagle drew up a circular
showing how Rockefeller charged from 25 to 33 1-3 per cent
extra at every point in Ohio where he had no rival to contend
against.
\ The Rockefeller plea that the annihilation and crippling
of his rivals has enabled him to cheapen oil to all consumers
|s a myth. The claim is fraudulent. It is made out of whole
cloth. But Julian the Apostate had his apologists; why not
Mr. John Davison Rockefeller?

XXXVIII
UNEASY RESTS THE HEAD THAT
WEARS A CROWN
THE year 1884 marks the culmination of John D. Rocke
feller's conquests in the oil fields. Every oil well that
flowed emptied itself into reservoirs which he owned.
The owners paid him enormous tribute for storing it. On
every gallon of coal oil produced in the United States he
levied a tribute for transportation to the refineries. He trans
mitted all the oil through his pipe lines and charged four times
the actual cost to all his competitors in the refinery business.
He had succeeded in limiting the refined products to such
a point that he was able to compel the consumer in Europe, in
America, in Chili, or in China to pay his price. The demand
for the finished products exceeded the supply. The supply of
raw material was in overwhelming abundance, and that very
affluence of raw material was Rockefeller's great argument for
keeping the price down to the people who owned the oil wells.
In fact, the Rockefeller machine was so adjusted that the
producers of the raw material received but the least possible
money, while from the consumers Rockefeller extracted all the
money that they could afford to pay for light or lubricants.
Moreover, he so adjusted transportation rates on sea and land
that they were always low for Rockefeller and always high
for each and all of his competitors. Ten per cent of the refin
ing was still done by outsiders. Every one of them was paying
him greater or less tribute, but he had marked each and all of
them for slaughter. And that ambition to slaughter the last
remnant of the refiners is the story of Rockefeller's career in
the past twenty years.
ROCKEFELLER'S POLITICAL POWER
Rockefeller's first great move was political. He wanted
'agents in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of
the Congress of the United States. He wanted a friend or an
ally in the Cabinet of the President of the United States. He
secured friends in high places, men of influence, of power, of

144 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
popularity. He had a political committee running politics.
He himself did not touch politics. There was contamination in
the name, but his political committee did his work. H. H.
Rogers looked after New York politics. He knew all the lead
ing bosses, and he made money for them all, Democrats and
Republicans alike ; and except when the case was too glaring
he could count as allies the machines of both parties.
Oliver B. Payne, treasurer of the Standard Oil, took charge
of the political end of the machine that was to fill both Houses
of Congress with attorneys and friends of Rockefeller. Mr.
Payne knew Ohio politics well. George H. Pendleton and
Dubin Ward were Democratic candidates before the people for
election to the United States Senate. Every Democratic mem
ber of the Legislature of Ohio was elected to vote for one or
the other of these war-horse Democrats.
Oliver Payne knew it and so did all Ohio. But Oliver
Payne wanted a friend in the Senate, and he thought his own
father would be the stanchest. He sent his friend, Colonel
Thompson, out among the Democratic Legislators-elect, and
Colonel Thompson gave many and golden reasons for the se
lection of H. B. Payne as United States Senator from Ohio.
The New York "Sun," then inspired and controlled by
Charles A. Dana, a great Democrat and a great American, pub
lished the following on this most disgraceful job :
"The subjoined communication from a source which we
always respect is worthy of more attention than is usually be
stowed upon the animated expressions of those whose pref
erences have not been realized : 'It is now believed, and I believe
that the Standard Oil Company recently bought with money
Ohio's seat in the Senate of the United States for Mr. Payne.
How can the social respectability of a man make such a crime
/respectable ? Or is there to be one standard of political morality
for Republicans and another for Democrats? Or are Demo
crats expected to condemn corruption only when practiced by
Republicans and to condone, defend, and cover it up when prac
ticed by Democrats, or when it is found only in the Democratic
party ? In my opinion there is no danger so threatening to free
institutions as the sale and purchase of political power, and
nothing more to be condemned.' "
H. B. Payne entered the United States Senate and took his
seat there, while the whole United States vmij r.e^rhir"*- in. in-

UNEASY RESTS THE HEAD, ETC. 145
dignation at the base betrayal by the Democracy of Ohio of
a great public trust.
At the next election the people of Ohio swept the Democ
racy from power and a Republican Legislature ordered an in
vestigation of the Payne case. Every vital witness absented
himself from the State during the investigation. Thompson
and Oliver Payne had done their work so well that no direct
bribery was proved. The greatest lawyers of the country were
defending Payne, and the evidence taken was submitted to the
Committee of Elections of the United States.
In July, 1886, a majority reported against further investi
gation asked by the State of Ohio, Senator George F. Hoar
and Senator Frye, always believers in a high standard of mo
rality in public life, protested. Senator Hoar said :
"Is the Senate to deny the people of a great State, speaking
through their Legislature and their representative citizens, the
only opportunity for a hearing of this one of the most momen
tous cases which can exist under the Constitution? We have
not prejudiced the case, nor do we mean to prejudice it. We
sincerely trust that the investigation, which is as much de
manded for the honor of the sitting member as for that of the
Senate or the State of Ohio, may result in vindicating his title
to his seat and the good name of the Legislature that elected
him. "How can a question of bribery ever be raised or ever be
investigated if the arguments against this investigation pre
vail ? You do not suppose that the men who bribe or the men
who are bribed will volunteer to furnish evidence against them
selves? You do not expect that impartial and unimpeachable
witnesses will be present at the transaction? Ordinarily, of
course, if a claim like this be brought to the attention of the
Senate from a respectable quarter that a title to a seat here
was obtained by corrupt means, the Senator concerned will has
ten to demand an investigation. But that is wholly within his
own discretion, and does not affect the due mode of procedure
by the Senate. From the nature of the case the process of the
Senate must compel the persons who conducted the canvass
and the persons who made the election to appear and disclose
what they know, and, until that process issue, you must act
upon such information only as is enough to cause inquiry in

146 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
"The question now is not whether the case is proved — it
is only whether it shall be inquired into. That has never yet
been done. It can not be done until the Senate issues its proc
ess. No unwilling witness has ever yet been compelled to tes
tify; no process has gone out which could cross State lines.
The Senate is now to determine, as the law of the present
case, and as the precedent for all future cases, as to the great
crime of bribery — a crime which poisons the waters of repub
lican liberty in the fountain — that the circumstances which here
appear are not enough to demand its attention."
An acrimonious debate followed in the Senate. The Demo
crats and the Cleveland Administration did not want to unseat
Payne, and Rockefeller had sufficient influence to get enough
Republicans to save Payne's seat. During the debate Senator
Frye said :
"The Senate of the United States, when the question comes
before it, as this has been presented, whether or not the great
Standard Oil Company, the greatest monopoly to-day in the
United States of America, a power which makes itself felt in
every inch of territory in this whole Republic, a power which
controls business, railroads, men, and things, shall also control
here; whether that great body has put its hands upon a legis
lative body and undertaken to control, has controlled, and has
elected a member of the United States Senate; that Senate, I
say, can not afford' to sit silent and let not its voice be heard
in an inquiry as to the truth of the allegation."
Two years later, in September, 1888, George Hoar said in
the Senate :
"Is there a Standard Oil Trust in this country or is there
not ? If there be such a trust, is it represented in the Cabinet
at this moment? Is it represented in the Senate? Is it rep
resented in the councils of any particular party?"
Senator Payne had sat for four years in the Senate. He
was absolutely silent during all that time, while the entire
country was ringing with denunciations of the methods which
elected him. But he voted against the Interstate Commerce
Bill and he opposed every move at legislation against trusts.
Stung by Senator Hoar's words, however, Payne made a
general denial of all the charges against him in September,
1888. He kept silent for almost five years and then muttered,
"Not guilty." Senator George Hoar looked across the Chamber

JAMES STILLMAN

ROCKEFELLER SURRENDERS BOOTY 147
at the fellow-member who disclaimed being a tool of Rockefel
ler. More in sorrow than in anger, he told the Senate that
Payne's presence in that Chamber marked the low-water mark
of the Senate.
Senator Hoar's question as to the presence of a Standard
/Oil representative in Cleveland's Cabinet was not impertinent.
'< Oliver B. Payne had pitchforked his father into the Senate.
There is not a shadow of a doubt but he bought the Senate
seat. He did not buy a seat in Cleveland's Cabinet for his sis
ter's husband; nevertheless, William C. Whitney would never
have been Cleveland's Secretary of the Navy without the aid
(/ of Oliver B. Payne. All the influence, social and political,
that Whitney possessed was used to save Senator Payne. It
were hard to blame Whitney for this. It was devotion to his
relatives and to his benefactors. Whitney neither then nor
ever after had any love for Rockefeller or his methods. Neither
did Grover Cleveland, and yet both did Rockefeller's work when
they helped to save H. B. Payne from expulsion from the
United States Senate.
/ John D. Rockefeller had used Jay Gould. He used W. H.
Vanderbilt to sandbag Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad.
It was with Vanderbilt's aid that he emptied the Pennsylvania
treasury and made Cassatt go to Canossa. When he had no
further use for Vanderbilt he threw him aside as he would
throw aside an old shoe. He used W. C. Whitney through
Oliver Payne. The Payne scandal served more perhaps than
any other event of twenty years to concentrate public atten
tion on the Standard Oil and Rockefeller. It raised a storm
which has never subsided.
XXXIX
ROCKEFELLER SURRENDERS BOOTY
BUT other events were also focusing the attention of the
nation on Rockefeller. Foremost was the case of
George Rice of Marietta, Ohio. He was one of those
turbulent, aggressive, liberty-loving Americans who never
know when they are licked or have enough of a fight.
Daniel O'Dea made the receiver of the Marietta Railroad
transport all the crude oil for the Standard for ten cents a

148 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
barrel, while he charged all others thirty-five cents. O'Dea
did not allow the receiver to keep the thirty-five cents. He
made him pay over to the Standard twenty-five cents on every
barrel he hauled for George Rice and others.
Rice built his own pipe line from the wells, and so became
independent of O'Dea's contracts. He did more; as soon as
his independence was attained, he dragged the receiver into
court and made him show his hand. This was eight months
after O'Dea had collected $340 on a shipment of 1,360 barrels
of crude oil shipped by George Rice.
No sooner did O'Dea and Rockefeller see the receiver
dragged into court than they consulted Mr. Dodd, their chief
counsel, and he told them that they had better return the draw
backs at once to the receiver of the Cleveland and Marietta
Railroad. They refunded $340 belonging to Mr. Rice, $649.15
belonging to the Argand Oil Works of Marietta, and $639.75
belonging to the Marietta Oil Works. The moment they were
caught with the booty and the courts began to investigate
they sent back the money they extorted from the receiver.
O'Dea's testimony on this case is frank. There is no
evasion or falsehood to be laid at O'Dea's door. When com
pelled to give testimony he never lies or deceives his judges.
But John D. Rockefeller has no such scruples about adhering
to the truth. The New York "World" of March 29, 1890,
had an interview about the return of this very booty to the
receiver of the Marietta Railroad:
"When the arrangement was reported to the officers of the
company at New York, it was not agreed to, because our coun
sel pronounced it illegal in so far as it embraced oil carried
by the pipe line. Some two hundred and fifty dollars had been
paid to the pipe line under this contract on oil which the line
had not transported. This was refunded. We repudiated the
contract before it was passed upon by the courts and made
full recompense. In a business as large as ours, conducted by
so many agents, some things are likely to be done which we
can not approve. We correct them as soon as they come to
our knowledge. The public hears of the wrong — it never hears
of the correction."
Imagine O'Dea holding up the receiver and securing
twenty-five cents a barrel on every barrel of oil he hauled and
John D. Rockefeller not knowing about it!

ROCKEFELLER SURRENDERS BOOTY 149
"We repudiated the contract before it was passed on by
the court," says Rockefeller. The refund was not made for ten
days after the receiver was ordered into court. What an ex
quisite specimen of evasion.
In February, 1888, the New York State Senate began an
investigation of trusts. The Standard was the model and
parent of all trusts, and Mr. Rockefeller was summoned to
give information to the committee. The members wanted
information as to the structure and methods of Mr. Rocke
feller's various enterprises. He was asked about the South
Improvement Company that he had devised.
Q. There was such a company? A. I have heard of such a
company. Q.. Were you not of it? A. I was not.
Q. Do the companies in the Trust get better railroad rates
than others? A. No. But if I may be allowed, we have found
repeated instances where other parties have secured lower rates
than we had.
Q. Has not some company or companies, embraced within this
Trust, enjoyed from railroads more favorable freight rates than
those rates accorded to refineries not in the trust? A. I do not
recall anything of that kind.
Q. You have heard of such things? A. I have heard much in
the papers about it.
Q. Was there not such an allegation as that in the litigation
or controversy recently disposed of by the Interstate Commerce
Commission — Mr. Rice's suit; was not there a charge in Mr.
Rice's petition that companies embraced within your Trust en
joyed from railroad companies more favorable freight rates? A.
I think Mr. Rice made such a claim; yes, sir.
Q. Did not the Commission find that claim true? A. I think
the return of the Commission is a matter of record; I could not
give it.
Q. You don't know it; you haven't seen that they did so find?
A. It is a matter of record.
Q. Haven't you read that the Interstate Commerce Commis
sion did find that charge to be true? A. No, sir; I don't think
I could say that. I read that they made a decision, but I am
really unable to say what that decision was.
Q. You did not feel interested enough in the litigation to see
what the decision was? A. I felt an interest in the litigation; I
don't mean to say that I did not feel an interest in it.
Q. Do you mean to say that you don't know what the decision

150 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
was? That you did not read to see what the decision was? A. I
don't say that; I know that the Interstate Commerce Commission
had made a decision; the decision is quite a comprehensive one,
but it is questionable whether it could be said that that decision,
in all its features, results as _ understand you to claim.
Q. You don't so understand it? Will you say, as a matter
of fact, that none of the companies embraced within this Trust
have enjoyed more favorable freight rates than the companies
outside of your Trust? Will you say, as a matter of fact, that
it is not so? A. I stated in my testimony this morning that I had
known of instances where companies altogether outside of the
Trust had enjoyed more favorable freights than companies in this
Trust, and I am not able to state that there may not have been
arrangements for freight on the part of companies within this
Trust as favorable as, or more favorable than, other freight
arrangements; but, in reply, nothing peculiar in respect to the
companies in this association; I suppose they make the best
freight arrangements they can.
In reply to the question whether the Trust did not make
it hard for the independents to live or if they did not have a
hard time, "They have not; no, sir, they have not," was
Mr. Rockefeller's reply.
"And they have lived on good terms with their compet
itors?" "They have, and have to-day very pleasant relations,
• did those gentlemen."
It was easy to see that John D. Rockefeller was resolved
to hide his methods beneath a cloud of misrepresentation
and evasion. At the very moment that he gave this testimony,
every independent refiner and dealer and railroad manager
throughout the length and breadth of the land knew that every
scrap of his sworn testimony as to his past methods was con
trary to fact.
In less than three months later, he was a witness before a
Congressional Committee, and on April 30, 1888, he was
asked: "I want the names particularly of gentlemen who
either now or in the past have been interested with you, gen
tlemen who were in the South Improvement company?"
John D. Rockefeller* answered : "I think they wereJ_rT"_T
Waring, W. P. Logan, John Logan, W. G. Warden, O. H.
Payne, H. M. Flagler, William Rockefeller, J. A. Bostwick,
and myself."
When before the New York Senate, he had Joseph H.

ROCKEFELLER SURRENDERS BOOTY 151
Choate and Mr. Dodd, lawyers of the highest eminence, to
counsel and advise him. He could hardly deliver an answer
till he had advised with them, and the answers which they
helped to construct are tissues of falsehood and evasion.
But the forensic skill of Joseph H. Choate and the great
ability of S. C. T. Dodd did not save John D. Rockefeller
from ugly consequences. The whole country stood amazed at
the audacity of the man who could swear positively at the end
of February, 1888, that he had no connection with the South
Improvement Company of infamous memory and who, sixty
days later, acknowledged under oath before Congress that he
was one of its directors. The Congressional investigation had
revealed the whole sorry history of the South Improvement
Company. It had proved conclusively that Rockefeller was
its soul, its inspiration, and in the end its sole defender. And
yet, two months before, these revelations, Rockefeller denied
under oath that he had any connection with it.
The eminence of Choate and the ability of Dodd could not
protect such a man from universal reprobation. Those two
days before the New York Senate Commission, during which
Rockefeller was mercilessly cross-questioned as to his methods
and machine, had far-reaching effects. They showed Rocke
feller cunning, astute, evasive, bland, and affable, but they
showed, too, that he was, at bottom, but the vulgar backwoods
deceitful Yankee horsetrader on a gigantic scale. The Con
gressional investigation brought that out still more clearly.
He had held up the railroads for millions, in the shape of
rebates. He had compelled the railroads to deliver to him the
greater part of the excessive freight rates they had extracted
from Rockefeller's competitors in business. He had reduced
the great railroad managers of the country to the position of
pliant tools of his nefarious schemes.
Rockefeller, so secretive, so evasive, so deceitful in con
cealing the facts relating to the methods by which he had built
up a corporation with a market value of $150,000,000, was
singularly frank and open in explaining the nature of the great
Trust of which he was the head. He told how the Trust,
the nine magnates or supreme council, sat in the New York
offices and guided and directed thirty-nine different corpora
tions throughout the world. He told how the sacred nine
held title to the controlling interest in every one of the Standard

152 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Oil sub-companies. He told how the nine collected all the
earnings of the sub-companies and distributed as much of them
in dividends as they pleased. And he told how that nine
trustees, who collected and distributed millions, were subject
to no laws of the State or nation.
Rockefeller had his cabinet like any other king or president.
But Rockefeller differed from most potentates; his treasury
was always plethoric, while other monarchs have frequently
had empty treasuries. Rockefeller had his envoys at Bangkok
and Tokio. He had his ambassador at St. Petersburg, nego
tiating for the lordship of the petroleum wells of Southern
Russia. He had his lobby at Westminster and his spies at
Paris, Berlin, and Rome. But while he negotiated with the
monarchs of Europe and the nabobs of India, he was caught in
the act of the petty larceny of $340 from George Rice of
Marietta, and the people of the United States shuddered.
XL
ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF OHIO AT
TACKS THE STANDARD
IN Ohio, just then, there happened to be a young man, At
torney-General David K. Watson. He read the Trust
agreement by which the Standard Oil Company of Ohio
turned over all but seven shares of its capital stock to the
sacred nine that ruled the oil world from New York. He saw
that that agreement was in absolute violation of the statutes
of Ohio, and he instituted proceedings at once for the forfeiture
of the charter of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. Here
is Mr. Watson's petition :
"The petition averred that, in violation of the law of Ohio,
the Standard Oil Company had entered into an agreement by
which it had transferred thirty-four thousand nine hundred
and ninety-three (34,993) shares out of thirty-five thousand
(35,000) to the trustees of the Standard Oil Trust, most of
whom were non-residents of the State; that it was these trus
tees who chose the board of directors of the Standard Oil
Company of Ohio, and directed its policy, and prayed that, on
account of this violation of law, the company should be 'ad-

THE STANDARD ATTACKED 153
judged to have forfeited and surrendered its corporate rights,
privileges, powers, and franchises, and that it be ousted and
excluded therefrom, and that it be dissolved.' "
This petition of Attorney-General Watson of Ohio, filed
on May 8, 1890, caused consternation in Rockefeller's sacred
coterie of nine. If Watson's suit should hold, the all-powerful
Trust could be attacked in every State.
After a long delay, Rockefeller's lawyers made answer.
They pleaded it was not the Standard Oil Company of Ohio
that made the agreement with the Trust. It was individuals
that turned 34,993 shares out of 35,000 over to the Trust.
This, of course, was a quibble, but the Standard claimed that
the charter should not be forfeited, since the act complained
/of was committed seven years before, and the statute of lim
itations protected the Company from the forfeiture of its
charter. Was a burglar entitled to keep his plunder because
of the statute of limitations?
At the opening of the trial, Joseph IT. Choate, Mr. Dodd,
and other eminent lawyers were on hand to plead for Rocke
feller. Choate furnished respectability and dignity to the
Rockefeller cause. Dodd was looking for a loophole of
escape through the statute of limitations. In his most dig
nified and most eloquent manner, Choate pleaded that these
eminently great and good men who ruled the oil world be not
punished for a technical offence committed seven years be
fore. His plea was not the vindication of his clients, but an
eloquent prayer to the Supreme Court of Ohio for mercy.
The eloquence, the forensic ability, the high standing and the
vast reputation of Joseph H. Choate were all employed to
bolster up a thoroughly illegal combination.
The Trust that Dodd and Rockefeller had contrived, the
great machine that for seven years had enabled Rockefeller
to achieve victory after victory in defiance of law and prin
ciple and the Constitution, was an outlaw. Nobody knew
that better than Dodd and Choate. David Watson, the young
Attorney-General of Ohio, had found the means to destroy
the Rockefeller octopus, now so feared and hated throughout
the whole United States.
Powerful pressure was brought to bear on Attorney-Gen
eral Watson to drop the suit. He was importuned on every
side by friends, by relatives, by associates, and by men em-

154 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
inent in politics, in commerce, and in finance to stay his hand
and not disturb the great business evolution of the country.
Among those who pleaded with him to desist was Mr. Marcus
A. Hanna, the late Republican leader. Mr. Watson's reply
indicates the character of the appeal:
_ „ ^ December 13, 1890.
Hon. Mark Hanna, Cleveland, Ohio,
My Dear Sir — Your communication of the 21st ult. came to
hand. The delay in answering it has been caused largely by my
being ill for several days. I did not intend that bringing the
action to which you refer in your letter should be an attack on
my part on "organized capital," for I am aware that great busi
ness transactions require the union and concentration of moneyed
interests and fully appreciate what has been done in that direc
tion, yet I can not but feel that I am justified in bringing the suit
against the Standard Oil Company, and believe that there are
many things relating to the case* which, if you understand, would
cause you to entertain different views concerning it and my rela
tion to it. Let me impress one thing on you with special par
ticularity, and you may depend absolutely on its truthfulness.
Senator Sherman never suggested or encouraged this suit, either
directly or indirectly. This must be understood in its broadest
sense. The report probably arose from the fact that the action
was brought shortly after the Senator made his great speech in
support of his anti-trust bill. You will hardly receive my state
ment with favor, I fear, but I am alone responsible for the action.
No one encouraged me to bring it or knew that it would be
brought until I determined to do so, and it is unfair to other
persons to charge them with suggesting it or encouraging it.
With the highest appreciation of your personal friendship, I am,
with great respect, Yours truly, David K. Watson.
Marcus A. Hanna's uncle had had his property filched from
him at Cleveland by the Standard in 1872. Now, in Novem
ber, 1890, we find the nephew casting the aegis of his protec
tion around the very men whom he must have known had
amassed unprecedented wealth through a system at variance
alike with the laws of God and man.
Mr. Watson withstood all pressure and submitted the case
to the Supreme Court of Ohio. The Supreme Court upheld
his petition. Miss Ida M. Tarbell tells what followed:
"The court showed, out of the mouth of the Trust agreement
itself, that the Standard Oil Company of Ohio was 'managed in the

THE STANDARD ATTACKED 155
interest of the Standard Oil Trust — irrespective of what might
be its duties to the people of the State from which it derives its
corporate life.' The court gave as its opinion that an act of a
majority of the stockholders of a corporation affects the property
of a company in the same way that a resolution by the Board of
Directors affects it. 'By this agreement,' said the court, 'indirectly,
it is true, but none the less effectually, the defendant is controlled
and managed by the Standard Oil Trust, an association with its
principal place of business in New York City, and organized for
a purpose contrary to the policy of our laws. Its object was to
establish a virtual monopoly of the business of producing petro
leum, and of manufacturing, refining, and dealing in it and all its
products, throughout the entire country, and by which it might not
merely control the production, but the price, at its pleasure. All
such associations are contrary to the policy of our State and void.
. . . Much has been said in favor of the objects of the Standard
Oil Trust and what it has accomplished. It may be true that it has
improved the quality and cheapened the costs of petroleum and its
products to the consumer. But such is not one of the usual or gen
eral results of monopoly; and it is the policy of the law to regard,
not what may, but what usually happens. Experience shows that
it is not wise to trust cupidity where it has the opportunity to
aggrandize itself at the expense of others. The claim of having
cheapened the price to the consumer is the usual pretext on which
monopolies of this kind are defended.'
"From all this the court decided the Standard Oil Company
deserved punishment. The charter was not taken away — the statute
of limitations being advanced as the reason for this leniency, al
though, as Mr. Watson and Mr. Washington, his assistant counsel,
showed, the statute of limitations could hardly be pleaded in this
case, when the State had been kept in ignorance by the concealment
of the agreement. The company was allowed to live, but it was
ousted from the privilege of entering into the Trust agreement, from
the power of recognizing the transfer of the stock, and from the
power of permitting the trustees to control its affairs. It was also
ordered to pay the costs of the action.
"The judgment of the court was not rendered until March 2,
1892, almost two years after the filing of the petition. As soon
as it was received, Virgil P. Kline, the chief counsel of the Stand
ard Oil Company of Ohio, went to New York for consultation
with the trustees. Five days later he wrote to Judge Spear, the
Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, saying:
" 'Decisive steps will be taken at once, not only to release the
Standard Oil Company from any relations to the Trust, but to ter-

156 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
minate the entire Trust.' But there were 'practical difficulties' in
the task. The company pleaded for a 'temporary recognition,' and
he asked an interview where he could explain the situation. This
was granted, and, on the 16th of March, Mr. Kline explained to
the Judges in Chambers, to Mr. Watson, and to his successor in
office the situation of the company. The trustees had all but seven
shares of its stock. Trust certificates had been issued for these
ten years before. The Standard Oil Company did not know who
held these certificates, and could only know through the trustees,
therefore the Trust certificates must be transferred back, the owners
hunted up, and each one induced to make an exchange. A system
must be devised for doing this. Anybody could see this would take
time. The court was friendly in the matter, and Chief Justice
Spear gave to Mr. Kline an informal note granting an extension.
'The court is not disposed to change its order at this time,' the
Chief Justice wrote; 'but so long as those in control appear to be
engaged, as now, in an honest effort to dissever the relations of
the company with the Trust, and liquidate and wind up the affairs
of the Trust, the court will not be disposed to interfere.' Thus
time was gained."
Rockefeller had thus gained time. The leniency of the Su
preme Court in not annulling the charter had saved him. The
Trust agreement was illegal. It was condemned by the Su
preme Court of Ohio on March 2, 1892, twelve years ago, but
it still exists in some modified form, for the Supreme Court
failed to annul the charter and gave Rockefeller his own time
to carry out its decrees.
XLI
TRUSTEES BECOME LIQUIDATING
TRUSTEES
IN apparent compliance with the decrees of the Supreme
Court of the State of Ohio, the Standard Trust decided
on a plan of liquidation. Since the foundation of the Trust,
the thirty-nine sub-committees had been reduced to twenty.
The capital was now $102,233,700. To save the organization
of each of these twenty sub-companies was the great object of
Rockefeller. It was decided to dissolve the Trust itself. The
supreme council of nine changed their names. They now
dubbed themselves Liquidating Trustees. They carried on all
the business of the" vast organization as before, but the name

LIQUIDATING TRUSTEES 157
was just a little different. They were in a stage of dissolution,
but they did not dissolve and they never meant to. Of course,
they had a plan under way by which each holder of a Trust
certificate should receive a proportionate ownership in each of
the twenty sub-companies.
Rockefeller assigned his Trust certificate for nearly one-
third of the Standard Trust to his attorney, and told him to
secure him stock certificates in each of the twenty sub-com
panies. Rockefeller got the stock, but the assignment was
handed over to the nine trustees. It told them the exact inter
est John D. Rockefeller had in the profits of the business oper
ated jointly by the twenty sub-companies. Every other Trust
certificate that was liquidated paid dividends on assignment
certificates, but not on Trust certificates.
Rockefeller's great machine went on as usual, the mode of
dividing up the profits was a little complicated, that was all.
Trust certificates drew down dividends for some, assignment
certificates got them for others. It was the difference between
tweedledum and tweedledee. But it seemed to satisfy the
Supreme Court of Ohio, and that seeming was all that Rocke
feller ever meant to do.
There was infinite humor in the new situation createtrBy-
the leniency of the Supreme Court of Ohio. That court had
the opportunity to end at a single blow the usurpation and
piracy of the Standard Oil Trust. It missed the opportunity.
It was endeavoring to temper mercy with justice, and it saved
the octopus and gave it new life.
The State of Ohio tried to collect taxes on two hundred and
twenty-five Trust certificates. They were worth at that time
$80,000, but the Supreme Court outlawed them. The owner
refused to pay taxes on them and the courts sustained him.
Standard Oil Trust certificates, being free from, taxes, were
thus more valuable than the assignment certificates which drew
the same dividends.
It was not tweedledum and tweedledee any longer, for
the Trust certificates were free of taxes. No holder of Trust
certificates would now dream of making an exchange into the
assignment certificate class. The liquidating trustees had no
power to enforce the change. And the leniency of the Su-
oreme Court cheated the State out of the taxes that otherwise

158 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Mr. Joseph Choate claimed that the trustees could not com
pel the owners of the Trust certificates to liquidate.
On May 3, 1894, before the Attorney-General of New York,
in an application for the forfeiture of the charter of the Stand
ard Oil Company of New York, Mr. Choate said: "I happen
to own one hundred shares in the Standard Oil Trust, and I
have never gone forward and claimed my aliquot share. Why
not? Because I would get ten in one company and ten in an
other company, and two and three-fifths in another company.
There is no power that this company can exercise to compel
me and other indifferent certificate holders, if you please, to
come forward and convert our Trust certificates."
The trustees were utterly indifferent. At the end of four
years they had manufactured assignment certificates for half
the stock of the Trust. The old certificates represented the
other half. The dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust was
as far off as ever.
XLII
GEORGE RICE AND FRANK T. MONNETT
TAKE A HAND
THEN the irrepressible George Rice of Marietta took a
hand. The Trust tricked him once out of $340, but he
made them restore that after they had held it for eight
months. Rice owned six shares of Standard Oil Trust certifi
cates. Soon after, he purchased another share of the "assign
ment of legal title" brand. He assigned this to an agent and
bade him liquidate, it. He wanted its proportionate interest in
each of the twenty sub-companies. The liquidating trustees re
fused to liquidate Rice's certificates ; they did not want to issue
certificates for fractional interests in each of the twenty sub-
companies ; but Rice insisted, and he became a stockholder in
each of the Trust's twenty sub-companies. His interest in one
of the sub-companies was 10,000-972,500 of one share. But
that was all Rice wanted. He had proved to himself that
the plan of liquidation was a device adopted by Rockefeller
to escape the judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
George Rice put

RICE AND MONNETT TAKE A HAND 159
Watson. Frank T. Monnett had superseded Mr. Watson in
the office of Attorney-General, but Frank Monnett was the
same type of brave, fearless, incorruptible American citizen
as David Watson. Together they went to the judges of the
Supreme Court in Chambers and explained the facts. The
judges ordered the Attorney-General to bring the Company
before the court for contempt. This was in November, 1897.
That was five years and seven months from the time that the
dissolution of the Company began.
In reply to the charge for contempt, Rockefeller made a
long answer. It showed that in five years before the Monnett
suit, only one share had been liquidated, but that in the ninety
days following, 100,583 shares were canceled. It took Mr.
Monnett six months to get evasive answers from Mr. Rocke
feller, so he asked the court to appoint a commission to ex
amine Mr. Rockefeller in New York. The commission sat
at the New Amsterdam Hotel, New York, in October, 1898.
Never before in the history of jurisprudence did a
man charged with grave and serious offence appear before.
a court so unconcerned, so detached, so reticent, so slow as
Mr. Rockefeller on this occasion. He was the personifica
tion of politeness, but his answers were delivered only after
prolonged meditation or consultation with his counsel or his
colleagues. He denied under oath that the Trust was operat
ing the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. He denied that the
Trust had received any of the profits earned by the Ohio sub-
company since March 2, 1892. All the money earned, he said,
for nearly seven years was used by the Ohio sub-company in
improvements. Attorney-General Monnett immediately demanded the pro
duction of the Ohio firm's books. Rockefeller refused to
produce them. The court insisted, but Rockefeller and his
counsel still refused. The fight was getting bitter. But
Rockefeller was in charge, and he ordered that sixteen boxesK
of the books of the company at Cleveland be destroyed.
The records Monnett wanted went up in smoke. Rockefeller
denied that the books burned were the books Monnett wanted.
"Then," said Monnett, "produce the ones we want."
Rockefeller still refused, on the plea that they might in
criminate him. The books would unquestionably have proved
every contention of Monnett. They would have proved that

i6o JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
three sub-companies of the Trust in Ohio were governed by
the nine trustees in New York, and that all their profits were
given to those nine trustees. These three companies were
being operated in direct violation of their charters, and the laws
jot the State and the books afforded absolute proof of it. That
was why Rockefeller turned the records into smoke. He was
a fellow of infinite resource. Monnett had him in a tight
place, but the burning of the records saved him.
For six months the wrangle over the production of the
books lasted. The records were gone, but Rockefeller was
now playing for time. Every device known to man was used
to stay Monnett or turn him aside from prosecuting the case
against the Standard Oil. Boundless wealth was dangled be
fore his eyes as his reward for the abandonment of the suit
He was threatened with the everlasting enmity of Rocke
feller. But Monnett fought all the Rockefeller power and influ
ence alone, even though he knew the records he wanted had
gone up in smoke. Multitudes of others were terrorized or
bought, governors, members of Congress, legislators, and
judges, but Monnett stood fearless and constant still.
In March, 1899, he asked the Supreme Court of Ohio to
hold the Standard Oil Company in contempt The Company
was in notorious and flagrant contempt for seven years. They
had taken advantage of the leniency of the court for seven
long years, and now-, to the amazement of Ohio and the world,
the judges of the Supreme Court were equally divided, three
for holding the company in contempt and three against.
Monnett was staggered. At first he could hardly believe
his senses. He still prosecuted his anti-trust suit. He proved
again and again every one of his contentions, but Mr. Rocke
feller had by this time made political alliances with the Re
publican party of the State and the nation which enabled
him to laugh at Attorney-General Monnett
, On the first of January, 1900, Monnett's term of office
expired. His successor dropped all suits against Mr. Rocke
feller. Monnett, at the base betrayal of principle by his party,
went over to the Democrats. He was their candidate for At
torney-General in 1903. He led the ticket by 9,000 votes.
But his integrity, his courage, his ability, had not the force
of Standard Oil gold, and he was beaten.
Thus ends a fateful chapter in Rockefeller's storv. It

THE WAR FOR_ INDEPENDENCE 161
needs no ghost to come from the grave to tell where lies the
blame or the glory of saving the Standard Oil Trust. David
Watson and Frank Monnett showed how the Rockefeller Jug
gernaut could be overthrown. But the Supreme Court of
Ohio was not prepared to enforce the law untempered with
mercy.
XLIII
THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
WHILE the two able and courageous Attorney-Generals
of Ohio were seeking by legal means to dis
solve the Rockefeller octopus, there was being
waged in the oil fields an unending fight for independence.
In 1886 the production of crude oil was 28,064,841 barrels.
When the producers had paid piping charges, storage charges,
and transportation charges in that year, they realized that they
did not get enough for the oil from Rockefeller to pay wages.
In that very year, Rockefeller's dividends were $7,000,000,
and his Trust reserve was $14,000,000. Besides that, he in
vested other millions of the Trust's profits in new pipe lines
and reservoirs and factories and tank steamers. His profits
were fabulous, while the men that owned the raw material
were producing at a loss.
"It was their own fault," Rockefeller said. "If they would
only cut down production till the demand was greater than the
supply, they would get their full price."
But John D. Rockefeller's soft words and quack sugges
tions did not remedy the distress in the oil regions. There was
still, however, sufficient manhood left in the oil regions to cause
one more fight for freedom.
From end to end! of the oil regions there soon came the
demand for a fresh combination. A bill was promoted in the
Legislature of Pennsylvania in 1887, to compel pipe lines to
grant reasonable rates. It was beaten. Then the oil men
gathered and organized the Producers' Protective Association.
It was a secret order, composed entirely, of persons
outside of and opposed to the Standard Oil Trust, one of its
by-laws reading: "No person connected with the Standard
Oil Company or any of its allies, as partners, stockholders,

162 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
or employees, and friendly thereto, shall be elected to mem
bership ; members becoming such shall be liable to expulsion."
And it proposed "to defend the industry against the aggre
gations of monopolistic transporters, refiners, buyers, and sell
ers" by handling its own oil.
T. W. Phillips was head of this new association. He had
been in the oil business since 1863'. He antedated Rocke
feller by two years and he had consistently and strenuously
fought his usurpations for wellnigh twenty years.
No sooner was this association organized and Rockefeller
informed of it than a new scheme of conciliation was set on
foot. Other big producers proposed to Mr. Phillips a general
shut-down. Phillips claimed the Standard would reap all the
benefit. They had 35,000,000 barrels on hand in their tanks.
That was fifteen months' production. A general shut-down
would be an excuse to raise the price of all finished products.
Rockefeller was ready for that — he would give an option to
the association on 5,000,000 barrels at sixty-two cents.
The olive branch was again proposed, and a shut-down took
place which enabled Rockefeller once more to dishearten the
producers and fleece consumers.
But it was soon seen that the evils under which the oil men
suffered were not due to overproduction. Mr. Phillips ad
vised the formation of a producers' combine into a company
called the United Oil Company.
An executive committee was formed to frame a policy and
an organization for this company, whose chief, if not only, end
was to fight Rockefeller. H. L. Taylor of the Union Oil Com
pany secured his own appointment as chairman of the execu
tive committee. His concern was the biggest oil producer in
the country, but he was the same H. L. Taylor who played
Rockefeller's game in the Tidewater Pipe Line fight, and who
ended by selling his Tidewater stock to Rockefeller.
Of course, he had some fresh game to play when he joined
the new combine. It was soon apparent. He used his new
position to sell his Union Oil Company to Rockefeller and to
hamper and delay the formation of an anti-Rockefeller associa
tion. His treachery was discovered and he and his accomplices
were forced to quit the new organization.
Undaunted by this treachery, the general assembly of the
Producers' Association met at Warren on January 28, 1891.

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 163
The leaders of that assembly deserve to have their names en
shrined in letters of gold in the history of this country.
They were Lewis Emery and C. P. Collins of Bradford,
Michael Murphy of Philadelphia, J. W. Lee and David Kirk of
Pittsburg, Rufus Scott of Wellsville, I. B. Aiken of Washing
ton, R. I. Straight of Bradford, Roger Sherman and M. W.
Quigg of Titusville.
J. W. Lee was admitted to the practice of law in 1869.
He soon after formed a partnership with S. C. I. Dodd, which
lasted until 1875, when Mr. Dodd became the chief counsel to
the Standard Oil Company. In all the fierce conflicts that had
been waged against Rockefeller and his methods for thirty-two
years, J. W. Lee has ever been in the van of Rockefeller's foes,
while his old friend and partner, Mr. Dodd, has been the right
arm of his defence. And to-day Mr. Lee is the trusted and able
chief counsel of the Pure Oil Company, which is the one or
ganization that has been completely victorious against all the
wiles and money and power of Rockefeller.
Lewis Emery was a graduate of Hillsdale College, Ohio,
and as early as 1865 he came to the oil regions to engage in the
oil producing and oil refining business. He was a man of
exceptionally high character, and fought every move of the
Standard to monopolize the business. He served ten years in
the Legislature, but finally realized that Rockefeller could not
be beaten by new-made laws. He had built a refinery at Phila
delphia, but railroad discrimination had forced him to sell to
the Standard. He then built a refinery near his oil wells and
made close alliance with the Producers' Protective Association.
Michael Murphy was another of the stalwarts that lined
up at Warren thirteen years ago for a last desperate fight for
justice and the right of every American to enjoy equal rights
to his own possessions and equal freedom with all others in
any trade or business that he might embark in. Murphy left
Ireland when only thirteen years old. He reached Philadelphia
in 1855, and learned the cooperage business. In 1861 Lincoln
called for soldiers to defend the flag, and Michael Murphy,
though but nineteen, enlisted.
John Rockefeller was three years older than Michael
Murphy. He, too, heard Lincoln's call to arms — the cry of
a nation in agony — but he did not heed. Michael Murphy spent
four years in camp and bivouac, on the march, and on fields of

164 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
carnage. Rockefeller spent those four years selling supplies
to the Union armies and amassing wealth from his country's
difficulties. At the conclusion of the war, Michael Murphy went back
to his cooper's bench. He and his partner made barrels for the
oil producers. They prospered and became exporters of oil.
They worked with the Empire Transportation Company, but
Rockefeller starved that concern into surrender and threw
Michael Murphy out of business.
That act made an implacable enemy of Michael Murphy.
The hero of the Civil War was to become the hero of the oil
war. Driven out of the exporting business, he went into oil
producing and extraordinary luck followed him everywhere.
All the oil men knew how brave, how upright, how noble,
how fiercely independent he was. He had not the education
of Lewis Emery, nor the legal talents of James Lee or Roger
Sherman, but he had the fighting qualities of Grant, and he
had the military genius of a Sheridan. He was an absolutely
essential ally in the war for independence begun in 1891.
At first, Rockefeller and his cabinet in New York smiled
at the new combination. The sacred nine jeered and slurred
the men that dared to question Rockefeller's right to monop
olize a great industry.
But the Producers' Association began by entering into an
agreement to sell no oil to the Standard. One thousand pro
ducers were soon in the association, and it secured a capital
of $600,000. They put up four tanks near the McDonald field, and they
made a contract with the Columbia Oil Company at Bayonne
to refine their oil. Immediately, the railroads put on pro
hibitive rates, and the Bayonne scheme was knocked out.
Over on Oil Creek were a number of refineries that had
been languishing for years. They were being slowly but surely
starved to death by Rockefeller. The Producers' Association
now proposed an alliance with them and it was accepted. The
alliance was cemented by the formation of the Producers' and
Refiners' Company with a capital of $250,000. The Pro
ducers' Association subscribed $160,000 of this. The money
was used for connecting the refineries with the oil wells, and in
January, 1893, the Producers' Association was supplying crude
oil over its own pipe lines to its allies.

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 165
Lewis Emery was also at work. He knew that as long as
Rockefeller was the autocrat of the railroads and owned all the
pipe lines to the seaboard, the refiners and producers were at
his mercy. They would still be his vassals. Emery planned
a double pipe line from the oil regions to the sea, one for
crude oil and the other for refined.
He planned the line from Bradford to Williamsburg on
the Reading Railroad. The management told him they could
have nothing to do wath such a project.
He then went to the New York, Ontario and Western,
and they agreed to do his business. He had to cross the Erie
tracks, however, and he saw the president of that road and
got his sanction. Secretly and swiftly he sent his agents to
buy right of way. Rockefeller instantly took alarm and
put a hundred agents in the field to buy rights of way ahead
of him. All the obstruction that the ingenuity of Rockefeller
and cabinet could put in the way of Emery's pipe line they did.
But he pushed it through and reached the Erie Railroad.
The president's promise was broken, there stood y^, armed men
to prevent the joining of the pipes under the track.
Rockefeller had exercised his lordship over the Erie, and
the president broke his promise and showed himself a slave.
/ For three months the railroad men and Emery's men faced
each other. Rockefeller was jubilant and the oil men were de
jected. Emery had formed a United States Pipe Line Com
pany, with a capital of $600,000, but this armed band of 75
railroad employees at Rockefeller's bidding blocked the scheme.
But Lewis Emery had executed a flank movement, and
before Rockefeller knew it, he had his lines completed to
Wilkesbarre on the Jersey Central Railroad. In June, 1893,
he was ready to pump refined oil for the independent re
finers at Bradford, Titusville, Oil City, and Warren to an in
dependent railroad on the seaboard.
Rockefeller and his hordes declared that refined oil would
be ruined in the churning it would get on its long journey
over the mountains. They predicted complete and absolute
failure. But the refined oil went over the mountains and to
the joy of the independents it was found better and purer than
/before. Another valuable discovery had been made in the
oil industry, and Lewis Emery made it, not Rockefeller.
The Producers' and Refiners' Company offered at once to

1 66 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
sell their lines to Emery's United States Pipe Line. They
worked in harmony, and why should they not unite ?
Rockefeller planned at once to get control of the stock of
the Producers' and Refiners' Company and of Emery's Pipe
Line stock. To do this he had first to discredit Emery, Lee, and
Wood. Wood was one of the most sterling and capable of
all the promoters of the Producers' Association and the main
support of Lewis Emery.
Rockefeller had bought up the Oil City "Derrick" in 1885.
He put P. C. Boyle in charge. Boyle was a soldier of fortune,
utterly devoid of principle; he was a past master at vitupera
tion and slander. At the command of Rockefeller he filled the
pages of the "Derrick" with libel and slander and abuse of
Wood, Emery, and Lee. They sued him for libel and got judg
ments against him. He put up a bond of $5,000 in Mr. Emery's
case for his good behavior and published this apology:
TO THE PUBLIC.
For many years past there have appeared in the editorial and
news columns of the Oil City "Derrick" various articles reflecting
on the business, social and political character and integrity of
Lewis Emery, Jr.
P. C. Boyle, the editor of the "Derrick," was indicted and
convicted for the publication of certain of such articles, and civil
suit for damages was instituted by Mr. Emery against P. C.
Boyle for damages for such publications.
The litigation has now been adjusted, and Mr. Boyle volun
tarily retracts in toto all matters and things which he has said
derogatory to the character, standing, or responsibility of Lewis
Emery, Jr., published by him or under his direction in the past.
Mr. Boyle is fully satisfied that such articles have been pub
lished under a misapprehension of the facts, and is satisfied that
Mr. Emery has been wronged, and should be vindicated, and this
retraction is freely made as such.
Many of the articles have been republished in various papers
in this country and Europe, and it is the desire of Mr. Boyle
that this retraction shall be as freely and fully printed and pub
lished as were the original articles reflecting on Mr. Emerv.
(Signed) P. C. Boyle.
But Rockefeller wanted the abuse and slander still kept
up, and Boyle forfeited the $5,000, which, of course, Rocke
feller paid. This was a fres_i_________of_Rockefeller methods,

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 167
newspaper slander and calumny, but it did not succeed. He
scared lots of stockholders to sell. Some of them got as high
as $200 a share for the United States Pipe Line stock, but
when the company met at Warren in 1894, the Standard could
only show 21,848 shares, while the independents had 30,560.
Colonel I. I. Carter of Titusville represented the Stand
ard. He had 13,013 shares in his name, 300 of which were
his own, the rest the Standard's. The U. S. Pipe Line Com
pany voted to absorb the lines of the Producers' and Refiners'
Company. Carter got out an injunction to stop it. The Pro
ducers' Association expelled him from membership. But he
kept working away, picking up stock for the Standard, till
with his 300 the Standard would have control. He then went
and secured an option on all the Standard stock at 100. Arch
bold wanted 150, but Carter was obstinate and he got it.
With the control in his possession, he sought out and had
an interview with Mr. Lee. Later on, Carter gave the fol
lowing account of that interview on the witness stand: '
"Senator Lee and myself retired to my room in the hotel, and
we had quite a preliminary conversation on the situation and in
regard to the Producers' Pipe Line. Then I stated to him my
ownership of the majority of the stock of the Producers' Oil Com
pany, Limited, and stated furthermore that I purchased it from
the National Transit Company; that my desire was to stop all
contention on the part of the Producers and myself, to run the
business _pn a business principle so that the stock belonging to
the various members and myself might pay something, instead
of dragging its slow length along as it had been for the past six
years. I told him, furthermore, that I was perfectly willing that
he should elect what portion of the directors that his
stock would warrant him and I would elect those that I could.
The Senator replied then : 'You propose to take charge of the
association?' 'Yes,' I said; T do.' The Senator then stated em
phatically that I could not do it ; he would not permit it ; if he had
to spend the whole capital of the company he would resist it."
James Lee kept his word. Carter took him into court,
but Lee had framed the company's charter to guard against
such an assault as Carter's, and the lower and higher courts
refused him the control of the company. Rockefeller and
Carter saw the game was up and sold out their stock at an
enormous loss. But Rockefeller's resources for the destruc
tion of his foes were not yet exhausted. He raised the price

168 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
,of crude petroleum fully 30 per cent, and he cut the price of
refined in every market of the world where Emery and his
friends could compete.
Lewis Emery had enlisted Herr Poth, a German importer,
in their enterprise. He handled all the United States Pipe
Line's product for four years, and he was making desperate
efforts to induce the German Government to put a stop to dis
crimination of the Standard in Germany. The German Gov
ernment was about to take the matter up when the news reached
Herr Poth that Emery and his associates had sold out to
the Standard. The news unnerved him and he sold out to
Rockefeller's German Company.
With his hand on his heart he had sworn to Emery four
years before that he would never sell out to the Standard.
But when he heard Emery had sold he gave up the fight. A
few days later he learned that he had been tricked. It was
a wily spy of Rockefeller's that had fooled him. Emery had
not sold and he had been fooled into the betrayal of the man
whom he swore never to desert. Herr Poth was a noble char
acter. The treachery of which he was the victim broke his
heart and he pined and died.
/ For two years Rockefeller kept up his cut in prices. Not
a single one of the producers or independents made a dollar.
Some of the independents went to Standard Oil headquarters
at New York and pleaded a settlement. They were told they
could have it when Lewis Emery and his pipe lines were anni
hilated. The Standard would buy out all the refiners who had
enough of the fight at Rockefeller prices, but the producers
and Emery should be taught a lesson that would last forever.
.The arrogance of Rockefeller and his lieutenants was now
equal to their greed — and that was unquenchable.
The committee of refiners returned from Standard Oil
headquarters, called a meeting of their associates, and advised
all the refiners to sell out to the Standard. They themselves
would lead the way. But James Lee was at that meeting and
was instantly on his feet to denounce the craven policy urged
on the refiners. Never was Lee so forceful, so eloquent, so
scathing of cowards and traitors as on that eventful day. He
'¦'saved the situation. Only three deserted and sold out.
That speech was the torch that lit the oil regions. In
January, 1895, a mass meetin___of the oil men was held at

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 169
Butler, and the Pure Oil Company was organized to aid pro
ducers and refiners in. the fierce fight with the Standard.
Through the heroic efforts of James Lee and Mr. Wood, a
capital of $200,000 was raised within a few days for the new
company. It was sadly needed. Herr Poth's sale left them
without a market in Europe. They had cargoes ready, but no
tankage and no agents in Europe to sell it. It was a hard
plight ; while Lee and Wood were rallying the oil regions, Mur
phy and Emery were crossing the Atlantic to secure markets.
Brave men never die. The Standard was halted in Europe,
and Hamburg and Rotterdam gave Murphy and Emery priv
ileges that enabled them to build tanks and establish market
ing places at both great ports. The Pure Oil Company was
in Europe and in high favor with the German Government and
the German people. Murphy and Emery returned to America
more resolute than ever. They were cheered by what they had
seen abroad.
At a meeting of the United States Pipe Line in August,
1895, J. C. McDowell, a Standard agent, tried to get into the
meeting. Michael Murphy met him at the door and advised
him to go away. He had 2,113 shares of the stock, but Mur
phy told him that that made no difference. He was excluded
and went away. He appealed to the court, and the company
was compelled to admit him and give him representation on the
board. This did not daunt these fearless men. They re
solved to push their pipe lines to the sea. Bayonne was the
objective point, for Mr. Kirk of the Columbia had terminal
facilities there. They had to cross the Delaware and Lacka
wanna Railroad. The Standard and Tidewater lines were
under this road, and Emery thought he had an equal right to
go under it. He succeeded by a ruse in placing his lines five
feet beneath the surface of a road under a railroad bridge.
Miss Tarbell tells the sequel in her own limpid style :
"Taking fifty men with him he went in the night to the culvert
under which he meant to cross, laid his pipes four feet under
ground, fastened them down with heavy timbers, piled rocks on
them anchored them with chains, established a camp on each side
of the track, and prepared for war. They soon had it. First
with a body of railroad men armed with picks and bars who
invaded the camp. T told the boys,' said Mr. Emery in describing
"me incident to the Industrial Commission in 1899, 'to take the

170 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
men by the shoulders and the seat of the pants and take them out
and lay them down carefully,' which they did. The next day two
wrecking cars with 250 men came down the road and charged the
camp, but again they were routed. The matter was taken by
mutual agreement into court, and, while Mr. Emery was before
the justice of the peace, two locomotives were run down and the
camp attacked with hot water and coals !
"By this time the whole countryside was aroused. The un
fairness of the thing was so patent that even the railroad em
ployees engaged in it did not hesitate to say in excuse of their
employers that it was the Standard Oil Company which was at
the bottom of the opposition ! As for the inhabitants, they offered
any aid they could give. The local G. A. R. sent forty-eight
muskets to the scene of war. Mr. Emery bought eighteen Spring
field rifles, the camp was barricaded, and for seven months the
pipes were guarded while the courts were deciding the legal title
to the crossing.
"This interim was employed by the pipe-line people in an at
tempt to get a free pipe-line bill through the New Jersey legis
lature. If this could be done they could go under the Delaware,
Lackawanna and" Western without its consent. The bill was in
troduced in February, 1896, J. W. Lee, Hugh King, and Lewis
Emery, Jr., all appearing -before the committee to argue for it.
At first there seemed to be no opposition to it. Every
body agreed it was a just and proper measure. Then sud
denly, within a few days of the end of the session, a violent
opposition sprang up. Trenton became alive with lobbyists — men
well enough known to politicians. The newspapers came out
boldly with the charge that the railroads and Standard were going
to defeat the bill. Its friends could not believe it, nor did they
until they found the morning it was to be presented that the
Senator having it in charge had disappeared, taking with him the
bill and everything concerning it. Four days later the legislature
adjourned and the precious Senator, when next heard from, was
in the far West."
Hardly a better object lesson of Standard Oil methods can
be found than this war to uproot the Emery pipe line. Rocke
feller is not seen on either of the locomotives that rushed down
and poured live coals and hot water on the men guarding
Emery's pipe lines. He is not seen paying out corporation
money to legislators of New Jersey. Nobody saw him buy the
ticket and hand the roll of bills to the Senator that stole the
free pipe line bill of New Jersey. But no sane man doubts who

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 171
corrupted the New Jersey Legislature and who compelled the
Lackawanna to wage warfare against Emery and his pipe lines.
Roger Sherman began a suit before the Interstate Com
merce Commission to compel the Standard to drop this war on
the Emery lines. He died before the case could be tried and
the suit was dropped. The Standard dragged Emery from
court to court, and at the end of four years' legal warfare, in
1899, the Supreme Court of New Jersey ordered Emery's pipe
lines removed from beneath the bridge under the Lackawanna
Railroad. This was another severe stroke. But Michael Murphy had
foreseen it. He had secured excellent terminals at Marcus
Hook, on the Delaware, and on May 2, 1901, the pipe lines of
the Pure Oil Company were at the sea. It had taken nine
years to achieve this glorious result. All the chicanery, all
the power, and all the millions of Rockefeller had failed to de
feat this band of able and heroic men.
Roger Sherman did not live to see the triumph of the cause
he had served so faithfully. A. D. Wood of Warren also died
before victory crowned the independents' cause, and Lewis
Emery, worn out by his untiring labors, had retired from active
business. Lee took his place as president, but in 1901 Michael
Murphy was called to the head of the Pure Oil Company. He
is still its president.
The Pure Oil Company saved the situation in 1895 with
its capital of $200,000. Later on, when the company saw vic
tory in sight, the capital was increased to $10,000,000 — $2,000,-
000 of preferred and $8,000,000 of common. James W. Lee
built up the organization of this new concern so well that it is
a perfect combine of producers, refiners, transportation and
selling agents.
The Pure Oil Company is a Trust in its organization, but
a protective association in its object. It owns a majority of
stock in the Producers' Oil Company, the Producers' and Re
finers' Company, and the United States Pipe Line Company.
The owners of the majority of the Pure Oil stock have vested
its voting power for twenty years in fifteen trustees ; any trustee
can be removed by three-fifths of the trustees and three-fifths
of the stock in trust. The stock can be bought and sold, but
always subject to the Trust agreement. This, indeed, is a
Trust, but the one end and aim of the Pure Oil Trust is to

172 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
preserve its independence. It is not a monopoly, but a rival
to a monopoly. It is a living guarantee of better conditions in
the petroleum trade of America.
XLIV
WHERE AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS ARE
AT FAULT
IT is apparent to every impartial student of Rockefeller's
career that there has been deplorable if not criminal neglect
on the part of those whose duty it was to make and to
enforce whatever laws were necessary to uphold the most vital
principles of the Constitution of the United States.
The system of rebates and drawbacks which Rockefeller
forced the railroads to adopt on his behalf was put in operation
in flagrant violation of the charters of the railroads. That sys
tem was directly at variance with all justice, human and divine.
Rockefeller not only got back secretly a great part of the
money he paid openly for freight to the railroads, but he also
compelled the railroads to hand over to him a great part of the
money which his competitors in business had paid. He had the
railroads terrified till they had become his most subservient
tools. At his bidding W. H. Vanderbilt cut rates on the New
York Central and allied roads to such an extent that the Penn
sylvania had to pass dividends and surrender at discretion to
Rockefeller. For ten years his attorneys and agents in Congress blocked
every bill aimed at putting an end to rebates and drawbacks.
Vvrien Emery, Lee, and Murphy were building independent
pipe lines across New Jersey, Rockefeller had live coals, boil
ing water, and steam hurled at the men who were laying the
independent pipe lines.
Those pipe lines were to liberate the oil industry from the
grasp of a usurper.
The Legislature of New Jersey was called upon to aid that
project, and a free pipe line bill was brought in and pushed
through. That bill, if enacted, would have enabled Emery to
reach the sea at Bayonne and pump crude and refined oil from
the oil regions. At the last moment Rockefeller debauched the

AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AT FAULT 173
Legislature, and the Senator who had the free pipe line bill
disappeared and took the bill along with him.
The lower courts in New Jersey upheld Emery's right to
place two 6-inch pipes five feet under the surface of a public
road. A railroad had a bridge over that road thirty feet above.
The railroad had a right of way over it, and Rockefeller made
the railroad people insist that two 6-inch pipe lines, buried
five feet beneath the surface of the road under that bridge, were
placed there contrary to law, and after years of controversy in
the courts, the Supreme Court judges of New Jersey ordered
the Emery pipe lines torn up. It is curious how the Supreme
/Courts of various States have a tendency to interpret the law
and the Constitution in favor of the all-powerful monopolist!
Attorney-General Watson of Ohio proved to the satisfaction
of the Supreme Court of Ohio and of the world that the Stand
ard Oil Trust was an outlaw, and that the Standard Oil Com
pany of Ohio had forfeited its charter.
The Supreme Court could have declared that charter an
nulled, but Joseph H. Choate pleaded and begged and prayed
the court to show mercy to the outlaws. That court had the
power at that moment to disrupt a gigantic monopoly that was
notoriously filching the substance of producers and consumers
alike, and a monopoly that also held the railroads in a condi
tion of shameful vassalage. And the Supreme Court of Ohio
listened to the siren song of Choate and to some other songs or
influences that we know not of and allowed the Standard Oil
Company of Ohio to live on in the enjoyment of its charter.
It forbade it, however, to continue in the Trust.
Six years later Attorney-General Monnett told the Supreme
Court of Ohio that the Trust was still in complete charge of
the Ohio corporation, and that all its earnings went to the
Trust. The Ohio corporation was asked to produce its books.
Instead of being produced, the books were burned. The Stand
ard Oil Company was in open, notorious, and flagrant contempt
of an order or decree of the Supreme Court. It was ordered to
cut loose absolutely from the Trust. It failed to do it, but the
/Supreme Court of Ohio was again found lenient, to use no
/harsher term, for three of the judges declared the Company
guilty, but three others declared it innocent. Attorney-General
Monnett fought a gallant fight to overthrow the juggernaut.
' 'Attorney-General Watson did the s?me. But the leniency of

174 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
the Supreme Court saved the Standard. Then the Republican
party chose an Attorney-General who dropped all suits against
the Standard.
In 1880, Governor Hoyt of Pennsylvania and his Attorney-
General had Rockefeller and the Pennsylvania Railroad in a
tight place. Had they pushed the prosecution with zeal and
energy, they could have disrupted the Rockefeller organization
then. Hoyt was elected Governor under the solemn pledge to
prosecute the Standard and the Pennsylvania Railroad, but he
was no sooner elected than he bowed his neck to the Rocke
feller yoke.
In 1872, President Grant set his seal of condemnation on
Rockefeller and declared his methods utterly abhorrent to
American principles of liberty. Both Houses of Congress were
equally emphatic in their condemnation, and yet, since that
time, Rockefeller's political influence has grown to be ap
palling. Mark Hanna appealed to Attorney-General Watson to cease
his attacks on organized capital. That was a mellifluent name
for John D. Rockefeller, for be it remembered always that Mr.
Rockefeller is the wizard of the Standard Oil Trust. He has
lieutenants of rare talents, of great ability, and of singular ca
pacity. But the guiding spirit, the supreme chief, whose glance
takes in every part of the field and knows every detail connected
with the mighty army he controls, is John D. Rockefeller.
When Mark Hanna wanted millions to defeat W. J. Bryan
in 1896 and elect William McKinley President of the United
I States, it was the Standard Oil Trust that supplied the greater
part. But the trade that Rockefeller made with Mark Hanna
the world will never know. Mark Hanna was a good Ameri
can, and so was William McKinley. They knew where the
hundreds of millions of Standard money came from. They
knew that those hundreds of millions were the fruits of the
most successful campaign of piracy and plunder written in
human annals.
Legislatures, courts, and State and national executives have
failed most shamefully in staying Rockefeller in his career of
piracy or in protecting the owners of oil wells, or saving inde
pendent oil refiners from the baleful effects of piratical railroad
discrimination. Rockefeller played the part of a buccaneer with
railroad after railroad. He forced them to deliver part of their

AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AT FAULT 175
earnings to him. Wherein is such conduct different from the
conduct of the blackmailer or the highwayman? And yet
Rockefeller has done those things with impunity for a quarter
of a century ; and then the leaders of the Republican party made
a deal with Rockefeller in order to elect the Chief Executive
of a Republic whose laws he had violated wherever they stood
in the way of his gigantic piracy.
It is not with one political party alone that Rockefeller
made trades. It did not matter what party was in power or
what brand of religion or of politics a Governor or a judge
or an attorney-general belonged to. Rockefeller wanted
to stand in with him. The politician that lined up with the
independents or that opposed Standard Oil aggression or
1/ usurpation, or was not for sale, was a marked man. He had
to be gotten out of the way. He must never be allowed to
/"sit on the Supreme Court bench or in an executive office. The
whisper is sent round among the horde in Rockefeller's employ
that the independent politician is a "crank," a "socialist," a
"blackmailer," a "sore-head." Rockefeller's subsidized press
pours slander, calumny, and ridicule upon him. The ukase has
gone forth that he must be bankrupted in politics and in
finance. Rockefeller has an army of hired slanderers at his
beck, and the reputation of no man is safe who is brave enough
to protest against the Rockefeller reign of piracy and terror.
James Stillman, president of the National City Bank, a
Rockefeller institution, described a famous author as a "notori
ous blackleg." Mr. Stillman had never seen or spoken to the
author thus alluded to. He had committed the indiscretion
of exposing some flagrant acts of financial piracy and political
corruption on the part of some of the Standard Oil magnates.
Instantly the ukase went forth that the writer was to be marked
and branded as a "notorious blackleg," and James Stillman,
president of the National City Bank, did his share to make the
epithet stick. Indeed, of all Rockefeller's associates or lieu
tenants not one is so intolerant of opposition as James Still
man. He is gall and wormwood to every man who is not with
him and Rockefeller.
Soon after Mark Hanna and Rockefeller's money elected
McKinley President, James Stillman made it known to Mr.
Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, that the National City Bank
of New York, Mr. Rockefeller's pet bank, could employ advan-

176 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
tageously the surplus funds of the United States Government.
Stillman showed Gage that the financial stability of the nation
and the steadiness of the money market and low- rates of in
terest would all be promoted were Mr. Gage to keep on deposit
at the City Bank millions of Government money. It would
help things, too, if the Government would have all internal
revenue receipts turned into Rockefeller s National City Bank.
And Secretary Gage very complacently gave Mr. Stillman all
he wanted for Mr. Rockefeller's bank. Gage was not the only
Secretary of the Treasury that was friendly to Rockefeller.
Charles Fairchild. Cleveland's first Secretary of the Treasury,
was one of the vice-presidents of the City Bank. He, too, was
a worshiper, of the "Holy Blue Barrel." Mr. Gage had a very
clever Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. He aided the
scheme of hoarding the surplus money of the people of the
United States in Rockefeller's bank. Rockefeller needed mil
lions to make a bull or a bear market in Wall Street. Gage
and Vanderlip let him have them. The money belonged to the
people of the United States — not to Vanderlip or to Gage.
But Rockefeller saved the country from Bryan, and the country
could not do any better than put the people's millions in Rocke
feller's hands for safe-keeping.
Forty years before, Rockefeller's first partner described
Rockefeller as the greatest money borrower that ever lived.
When he wanted money he -would go to the man that had it,
and tell him that he (Rockefeller) was going to deposit or in
vest or loan his surplus funds with the man from whom he
really wanted to borrow. He would thus secure the man's
confidence and extract a loan. And here he was forty years
later with some millions of the Government's money in his safe
keeping.
XLV
THE CUSTOM HOUSE SCANDAL
THE Government, six years ago, resolved to build a
new- custom house in New York and sell the old one.
Congress approved. There was no hurry about it. The
new custom house would take fifteen or twenty vears to build,
and there was no need to sell the old one till the new was

THE CUSTOM HOUSE SCANDAL 177
built. Why should any man sell the old house he lived in be
fore the new was ready for occupation?
Stillman and- Rockefeller saw a chance for a great financial
coup. Gage had the right to sell the old custom house at auc
tion to the highest bidder. Stillman and Rockefeller devised
some scheme by which Gage sold it to them for $3,265,000.
The site of the old custom house on Wall and William Streets
is, perhaps, the most valuable in all the world. The site of the
Bank of England is not to be compared. At public auction it
would have brought at least $5,000,000. Gage advertised for
bids and got three offers. And he let Stillman and Rockefeller
have it, for Gage and Vanderlip undoubtedly appreciated what
the Administration owed to Rockefeller, and they gave him the
old custom house for $3,265,000. Stillman gave the Treasury
credit on his books for $3,215,000. He forwarded certificates
of deposit for that amount. That left $50,000 still due the
Government. Till that were paid, the Government would keep
title; as long as title remained in the Government, Rockefeller
need pay no taxes on the old custom house. No cash ever
passed. The money is still in the City Bank. It will be there
till the new custom house is finished in ten or twenty years.
Meanwhile, however, the United States Government occu
pies the old custom house, but it is Rockefeller's under contract,
though he has never paid for it. The city tried to collect taxes
on Rockefeller's old custom house, but it stands in Uncle Sam's
name and the city can collect nothing. But the amusing part
of it all is that Rockefeller receives each year from the United
States Government $130,600 as rent for a building for which
he has not yet paid a cent and on which the city or State can
not collect a dollar of taxes. The National City Bank has re
ceived up to date- nearly three-quarters of a million for rent,
and saved probably a half million in taxes on a building for
which it has given certificates of deposit that have never been
turned into cash. By the time the Government is ready to give
up the old custom house, the City Bank will have received an
equivalent of $3,265,000 or even more. It will take twenty
years from the date of the contract to finish the new custom
house, and all that time the City Bank will be receiving an
annuity of $130,600. That annuity, running twenty years, is
certainly worth $3,200,000.
The writer does not, of course, seek to imply that Gage

178 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
and Vanderlip betrayed any trust. They were undoubtedly
outwitted in the trade with Rockefeller. For though Stillman
made this trade, Rockefeller stood behind the scenes signaling
to Stillman how to do it. It is not to be supposed, however,
for one moment that Rockefeller will ever see Gage or Vander
lip out of a job. Indeed, he has taken care of Vanderlip al
ready, for he is cashier or vice-president of the City National
Bank of New York. And Lyman Gage needs no guardian. "I
care not who makes the law," said an illustrious French poet,
"provided I write the songs of the nation," and Rockefeller
parodies this celebrated saying : "I care not who is President,
provided I have the 'pull' with his Secretary of the Treasury."
"We forced Roosevelt's nomination as Vice-President," said
H. H. Rogers immediately after President McKinley's death.
"He was very troublesome as Governor of New York and we
wanted him out of the way, and look at him now in the White
House." It is yet, however, to be proven whether Mr. Roosevelt's
Secretary of the Treasury will play into the hands of Rocke
feller. Rockefeller and his methods are abhorrent to Roosevelt.
Rockefeller and his hordes hate Mr. Roosevelt. But alone
Roosevelt is no match for Rockefeller and his lieutenants.
Congressman Sulzer brought the custom house scandal be
fore Congress again and again. It caused surprise and dismay
when first presented. But the majority thought it their duty
to stand by the Administration. Mr. Sulzer is a Tammany
Congressman, and H. H. Rogers appealed at once to Richard
Croker to suppress Sulzer. Croker knew that Sulzer was irre
pressible and strong in his district, and he told Mr. Rogers so.
When Charles Murphy became chief of Tammany, H. H.
Rogers made another attempt to silence Sulzer, who was again
appealing to Congress to cut off the $130,600 a year of plunder
going to the City Bank for the old custom house. Murphy told
Mr. Rogers that nothing could silence Sulzer while in Congress.
Rogers informed Murphy that Sulzer was like a bull in a china
shop. That he was blocking most useful and necessary legis
lation. That he hindered the abrogation of the treaty made one
hundred years ago with the Six Nations. That Tammany
should take Sulzer out of Congress arid put him on the bench.
In fact, Mr. H. H. Rogers poured a most deplorable tale of
woe into Mr. Murphy's ears about Mr. William Sulzer.

ROCKEFELLER'S BANKING TRUST 179
All this is only interesting as showing the methods em
ployed by the chiefs of the Standard Oil Trust to attain their
ends. They have a backstairs entry to the Standard Oil
building for every political boss in the United, States. Rich
ard Croker and Boss McLaughlin of Brooklyn were devoted
friends of H. H. Rogers at the very time that John D, Rocke
feller was lifting his eyes to heaven in holy horror when the
name of Tammany chanced to be mentioned in his Sunday-
school class.
John D. Rockefeller in 1890 would have liked to rest upon
his oars. He would have liked to be allowed to enjoy the
golden harvests which his unrivaled and marvelous organ
ization was gleaning. He wanted to be considered respectable,
'and decent, and religious, and he donated money in charity
and gave millions to a university. ~ He did not know that the
great universities of the world grew and were not made.
He did not seem to know that Divine Justice demands that
restitution be made to the wronged before gifts of benevolence
or beneficence can ascend as grateful incense to the Throne
of Eternal Justice. John D. Rockefeller pursued Emery and
his associates for eleven years after 1890 with relentless ani
mosity. Bribery, chicanery, fraud, juggling with courts and
legislatures. And all this time Rockefeller was singing psalms and read
ing his Bible. He failed, however, against the brave men
that made the Pure Oil Company. But ambition had grown
from what it fed upon. In 1896 he became a powerful politi
cal factor. His friend, Mark Hanna, was the mayor of the
palace. His friend and counsel, Joseph Choate, was sent to
London as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. It would
'be interesting to find out how many consuls and ministers he
named besides.
XLVI
ROCKEFELLER'S BANKING TRUST
/^T\ OCKEFELLER was hatching great schemes in 1897.
V\ He wanted a banking trust that would control the
1 \ United States Treasury. His operations in creating
a banking trust were to be profoundly secret. But he had
devised a plan to get into his own hands the control of the

180 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
stock of all the great banks and trust companies in New
York.' He had the National City Bank to begin with. There
was $100,000,000 or more on deposit there. His plan was to
make the City Bank, Bank No. 1. Bank No. 1 was to buy
control of the stock of Bank No. 2 with the money of the
depositors of Bank No. 1. Bank No. 2 was to buy the con
trol of Bank No. 3 with the deposits of Bank No. 2. Bank
No. 3 was to buy control of Bank No. 4, and so on in an end-
less chain till every big bank of New York was in his clutches.
How far Rockefeller has succeeded in consolidating this
bank trust is not known. It is known, however, that by this
chain of banks he has an uncanny control over the money
markets of the nation. His banking trust is, of course, il
legal. But Rockefeller has the best legal talent in America
to aid him to do illegal things with immunity.
XLVII
ROCKEFELLER'S RAILROAD TRUST
BEFORE he had his banking trust complete Rockefeller
conceived the project of a railroad trust that would
own every railroad line on the continent. He had
no difficulty in getting the Goulds into his scheme. He had
outwitted Jay Gould and the second generation of the Goulds
laid no claim to the father's ability. In fact, they are children
in Rockefeller's hands.
The Vanderbilts were only too glad to enter into an alli
ance with Rockefeller also. Most of them preferred a butter
fly life at Newport or at Paris or at Monaco to a job oper
ating the New York Central. There are people in the world
who believe that the main end of life is to marry and be given
In marriage ; to shine at the opera ; to be the glass of fashion
at a dance ; and an excellent host and diner-out. Such people
easily surrender the management of great railroads or great
industrial institutions to men like Rockefeller or Andrew Car
negie. Rockefeller had his eye on Cassatt. But he could not get
Cassatt until he had all the railroads to the Pacific in his

ROCKEFELLER'S RAILROAD TRUST 181
clutches. Through Gould he got E. H. Harriman et al., with
the interests they represent. Harriman, of course, protests to
high Heaven that he is not Rockefeller's lieutenant. Like the
lady in Hamlet, he protests too much.
Rockefeller's next move was to secure the Northern Pacific
and the Great Northern. Mr. Morgan was approached. The
tempter took him to the top of a high mountain and told him
he could rule the railroad world if he would only join the
railroads he controlled with Rockefeller's and Gould's and
Vanderbilt's. A combination of all the railroads would be the
most perfect money-gathering machine man ever saw. The
power it would give and the money it would make were beyond
belief. Morgan was dazzled, but said he would have to talk
it over with Mr. Hill.
Hill listened to the unfolding of this scheme. He had
built up and acquired a mighty railroad system by cheapening
rates to the miner, the lumberman and the farmer. He al
ways believed in a live-and-let-live policy. "The miner, the
farmer, and the lumberman," he was wont to say, "are my
partners. If they are not prosperous, my railroads won't be."
The plan of a gigantic railroad trust to put the rates up did
not appeal to him. He told Morgan he was only a farmer,
and he did not want any partnership with the Oil King.
, Rockefeller appealed to Morgan to force Hill. He brought
trenfendous pressure to bear on Hill's European and Canadian
backers and associates. But Hill, like a lion at bay, shook
his head and was obstinate. Rockefeller prepared for war.
He ordered Harriman to buy the control of Northern Pacific.
Harriman told him it would take $100,000,000, and asked
where would he get that money. Rockefeller told him to issue
notes of the Oregon Short Line Railroad and get the $100,-
000,000 from Rockefeller's banking trust. The Oregon Short
Line issued the notes, got the money needed from Rocke
feller's banks, and bought the majority of the stock of the
.Northern Pacific. John D. Rockefeller was not known in the
business. One fine morning the whole world learned that E. H.
Harriman had bought the majority of Northern Pacific stock
and that he had also bought stock which brokers could not
deliver. In fact, brokers had sold what they did not have and
what thev could not get. Th'e stock was cornered. Then be-

182 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
gan the wildest temporary panic that Wall Street has ever seen.
Multitudes of fortunes that had taken years to build were
lost in a day. There was a part of that eventful day, May 9,
1901, when every broker's firm in Wall Street would have
gone under had it been forced to liquidate.
/ The panic of May 9 was John D. Rockefeller's device to
force Hill to surrender. But Rockefeller had now met his
match. Hill did not hide in a commission house when Lincoln
called the youth to defend the flag and save the Union. He
enlisted in the First Minnesota. Hill had learned the trans
portation business, driving an express wagon and running stage
coaches and river steamers. He had run out a great railroad
through the wilderness and bridged mighty rivers and crossed
vast mountain chains, till he reached the Pacific Ocean.
Rockefeller did not like Hill's system of operating rail
roads. Hill, on the other hand, did not like Rockefeller's
avarice and ambitions. Rockefeller ordered the Oregon Short
Line Railroad to buy the majority of the stock of the Northern
Pacific. He chuckled when he had secured it, for he thought
he had filched the Northern Pacific from Hill. When the an
nual meeting came round, E. H. Harriman was there with
stock owned by the Oregon Short Line Railroad Company to
take over the control of the Northern Pacific in order to oper
ate it in the interest of John D. Rockefeller.
Now, Hill and Morgan had bought with their good money
the control of the Northern Pacific. It was Hill's purpose to
see the Northern Pacific run economically and improved phys
ically. He wanted to put an end to foolish rate cutting and
extravagant management, and for this purpose he bought con
trol. Mr. J. P. Morgan was his ally in that purchase. For
seven years he had bent all his energies developing the traffic
of his two great railroads. He had agents in China, Japan,
and India pushing American wares. In his mind's eye he saw
a commerce between Puget Sound and the Orient equal to the
commerce of the North Atlantic. He resolved to put the
finest freight carrying ships on the Pacific to link his railroads
with the Orient. He put his rates to Puget Sound and across
the Pacific so low that the steel and iron manufacturers of
Ohio and Illinois were capturing the markets of China, Japan,
and India. Hill had, indeed, built up a great transportation
system. He was justlv nmurl of ?f i^a i-._ i-.~-.~,i _~ 1  **-•-

ROCKEFELLER'S RAILROAD TRUST 183
great property in such shape that his sons would be able to
continue in his footsteps and perpetuate his policy. He had
spanned the continent between the Great Lakes and the Pacific
without Government aid of any kind, and he had the easiest
grades and the lowest fixed charges on that road of any on the
continent. His railroad was the forerunner of immense set
tlements from Minnesota to Puget Sound. Hundreds of
thousands of people had settled in the wilderness which Hill's
great Northern Railroad had opened up, and year by year they
had grown rich and prosperous. Millions of acres of desert
and wilderness had been transformed into garden and pasture,
wheat field and vineyard, orchard and flower garden, because
of Hill's courage and enterprise in building that railroad.
Had Hill bought the control of Northern Pacific with $80,-
000,000 of Great Northern money he undoubtedly would have
acted illegally. He could have easily issued $80,000,000 of
Great Northern gold bonds and raised the $80,000,000. But
such an act bore on its face the stamp of illegality. It was
Hill and Morgan who owned the control of Northern Pacific
and not the Great Northern. It is true that that gave Hill
the dominating power in both railroads. But it was not illegal,
though unquestionably contrary to the spirit of the charters
under which the railroads were organized.
Harriman, on the other hand, came into that board room
to accomplish an utterly illegal act. The Oregon Short Line
Railroad is a competing line with Northern Pacific. They are
competitors at Butte, Montana. They are competitors in Idaho
for the great silver and lead tonnage of the Cceur d'Alenes.
They are competitors in the wheat fields of Washington and
Oregon, and for the vast lumber trade of the Columbia River
country. The Oregon Short Line and the Oregon Railroad
and Navigation Company and the Utah and Northern are all
one. They belong to Rockefeller's endless railroad chain, and
the Northern Pacific was to be another link in that endless
railroad chain. It was to be hooked on to the tail end of the
Oregon Short Line. Had the plan succeeded, Rockefeller
would have cut rates and made savage war on the Great
Northern till Hill, in disgust, would have been forced out of
control and then the Utah and Northern would have issued
$100000,000 in bonds to buy control of Great Northern so

184 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
as to make that another in the Rockefeller endless chain of rail
roads. Hill out of the way, and Cassatt cut off from all
Western traffic except through Rockefeller, there would be
nothing left for the Pennsylvania Railroad management but
to go into the Rockefeller railroad trust.
Rockefeller was a past master in the art of trust building.
At first people did not see how he could finance a railroad
trust. It needed billions of capital. They were wrong. It
was billions of credit and not billions of capital it needed. Then
the scheme is simplicity itself. Rockefeller owns control of
Union Pacific. Let us call that or any other Rockefeller rail
road, railroad "A."
Railroad "A" borrows a hundred million dollars on its
notes from a Rockefeller bank. It buys control of railroad "B,"
and then issues and sells to the public $100,000,000 of gold
bonds. The controlling stock of "B" is in the treasury of "A"
as collateral for the bonds. The public buy the bonds, but the
great big foolish public has no more to say to the management
of railroad "B" than the man from Mars.
That operation over, railroad "B" borrows $50,000,000 or
$100,000,000, and buys control of railroad "C."
"B" puts out an issue of gold bonds to pay off the loan
to Rockefeller's banks, and the people who sold their stock in
"C" railroad take the bonds of "B" railroad in exchange.
Rockefeller's National City Bank has indorsed them. That is
enough for most of the people of these United States. In fact,
Rockefeller's scheme is nothing other than exchanging cer
tificates of ownership called "bonds" for certificates of owner
ship called "stock." The bondholders have a prior lien on the
property, but Rockefeller has complete control of the man
agement of the railroad.
Railroad "C" is now ready for business. It must grab rail
road "D." It gives notes to Rockefeller's banks or trust com
panies and gets the $40,000,000 needed to purchase the con
trol of "D." That accomplished, it issues to the public gold
bonds to pay off its notes to Rockefeller's banking trust, and
Rockefeller's bankers and promoters get the public to absorb
this fresh issue of bonds.
Railroad "D" now buys railroad "E" with money got from
James Stillman. The notes do not look very good to him, but

ROCKEFELLER'S RAILROAD TRUST 185
Mr. Rockefeller tells him to advance all the money that rail
road "D" wants to buy the stock of railroad "E."
And so the game goes on till the Oregon Short Line bor
rows $80,000,000 on its notes from Mr. Rockefeller's banks and
buys a majority of the common and preferred stock of the
Northern Pacific Railroad.
( Rockefeller was face to face with Hill. There could be
no shuffling here, and the Oil King had to show his hand. All
the world knew that Harriman had no $80,000,000 or $10,-
000,000 to buy Northern Pacific stock. But he came to the
meeting with proxies for the control of the stock. Hill made
him produce the stock, otherwise he would not allow him to
vote. The proxy had to be verified. It was then that Hill dis
covered that the Oregon Short Line and not Harriman was
the owner of the stock. He had before him an illustration of
how Rockefeller was building up a railroad trust by the device
of an endless chain.
Hill had power to retire the preferred stock, and the retir
ing of the preferred stock would make him master of the situ
ation. Harriman denied Hill's authority to do this. Hill said
he would do it anyhow, authority or no authority. The North
ern Pacific fight had shaken the confidence of the whole coun
try. Wall Street had been turned into a mill for manufactur
ing stocks and bonds. The investing public was halted. They
would buy no stocks and bonds while the Northern Pacific
fight lasted. Hill said he did not mind if Wall Street slumped
into the North River and never reached bottom. He had no
confidence game to work off on the public through Wall Street.
There were times when J. P. Morgan shuddered at Hill's fierce
determination not to yield one iota of the control he held over
Northern Pacific. Morgan knew perfectly well that Harriman
was but an agent in Rockefeller's game. And with the market
choked with undigested securities, he feared a panic which
would leave the financial world in chaos and darkness.
But an angel from heaven could not move Hill from his
resolution, and Morgan stood by him. So did his Canadian
and English allies. Rockefeller had to yield or face a panic.
His own banks held billions of the stocks and bonds and notes
manufactured to build up the Railroad Trust through his end
less chain system. Did a panic come and depositors call on the

1 86 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
banks and trust companies for their money, they could not get
it, at least from the Rockefeller banks.
They had a couple of billions tied up in bonds and notes
and stocks at Rockefeller's bidding. He was using probably
$100,000,000 of Government money and a couple of billions
of the people's money, deposited in his chain of banks, to build
up a railroad monopoly that would be as powerful as the Fed
eral Government. Rockefeller himself had not borrowed a
dollar. He had his machines in each case or his figurehead do
the borrowing. If the crash came it would not drag Rocke
feller down, but it would wreck his chain of banks and it would
wreck his chain of railroads.
Hill would never yield. So Rockefeller advised Harriman to
compromise under a plan which created the Northern Securities
Company. The Supreme Court of the United States ordered
that Securities Company dissolved. Hill adopted the perfectly
equitable plan of giving each share of Northern Securities a
proportionate share in the constituent companies. Harriman
was willing, but the Mephistopheles of the South Improve
ment Company wanted the same stock back that he put into
the common jack-pot in 1901. He wanted not equity, but liti
gation. He is now worrying Hill in the courts, but Hill knows
his own strength now, and he knows that Rockefeller's chain
of banks are loaded up with bonds and stocks which -the
public will not take.
Rockefeller has been most ambitiously reaching out. He
did not like to see Morgan at the head of United States Steel
and Iron. He started to get control. Morgan knew the extent
of "wind and water" in his Steel Trust. The moment he found
Rockefeller's agencies buying steel, he made up his mind to let
them have it.
Morgan undoubtedly formed the Steel Trust to stave off
a disastrous industrial war among the iron and steel companies.
Carnegie knew that Morgan wanted no industrial war. He
used that knowledge to get out of Morgan a price for his prop
erty four times greater than its actual value. Lord Clive, on
trial for looting Indian principalities, exclaimed, "When I look
back at my opportunities, by G — ! I am astonished at my own
moderation." Carnegie has been in the same mood ever since
he got those $300,000,000 in bonds. He told his intimates that

ROCKEFELLER'S RAILROAD TRUST 187
he could have gotten $400,000,000 had he insisted. Two years
before he sold his property to Mr. Frick for $100,000,000. Mr.
Frick paid $1,000,000 down. He could not raise the additional
$99,000,000, so he forfeited his million.
In building the Steel Trust, Morgan had to deal with a mul
titude of steel and iron manufacturers who had built up great
business enterprises. He thought it advisable for the sake of
the money market, or to prevent a panic or industrial depres
sion, to get them all together. That would save cutting of
prices and destructive competition. Carnegie took first mort
gage bonds on the combine for $300,000,000 and other securi
ties besides. The rest took cash, preferred or common stock,
or all combined, for their interest.
The entire capital invested in the Steel Trust did not amount
to the value of the bonds held by Carnegie. The Steel Trust
has indeed coal and iron deposits that will enable it to
make immense profits for twenty years to come. But it is al
ways a feast or a famine in steel anyhow, and Morgan let the
Rockefeller people have all the steel stock they wanted. If the
truth were known, it would be found that Rockefeller is to-day
the lord of the Steel Trust just as much as he is of the Oil
Trust. Rockefeller's operations are profoundly secret. His hand
was never seen in the purchase of the Southern Pacific by the
Union Pacific, or in the purchase of Northern Pacific by the
Oregon Short Line. He is at the head of the biggest banking
combine in the world, but it is impossible to prove his con
nection with any one link of his chain of banks. He and his
associates are in control of the lighting and transportation
companies of the great cities of the East. You can never see
Rockefeller's hand in the barter and sale and acquisition of
public franchises, but it is there. He may be seen playing golf
at Lakewood or at Cleveland any day in the year, but he is
never ten minutes away from the telephone or telegraph sta
tion. Nor is he ever, for five minutes, beyond the reach of a
messenger boy. His home is like a cloister. At nine o'clock
every night he and his guests retire. At nine o'clock in the
morning the family sits down to breakfast. The time given
by others to the pleasures of the table and ball-room, the bou
doir or the theatre, are devoted by Mr. Rockefeller to the evo-

188 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
lution of systems by which to centre in his own hands the con
trol of the great industries of America.
He is the dominating factor in the American railroad world.
Hill and Cassatt are, it is true, thorns in his flesh. Cassatt has
planned to spend some $500,000,000 on improvements and pur
chases and extensions of the Pennsylvania system. Whenever
the money market is ripe, Cassatt taps it for all it will stand.
The Rockefeller banks are loaded up with bonds, stocks, and
notes acquired by Rockefeller's orders. The public have not
hundreds of millions for Cassatt and for railroads in the Rocke
feller chain, which are far away, and do not look as promising
as the Pennsylvania Railroad securities. Cassatt is spoiling
Rockefeller's game in the money market just as Hill spoiled it
by blocking the extension of Rockefeller's system of an endless
railroad chain.
Had Rockefeller succeeded in sidetracking Hill and Cassatt
and secured Morgan's co-operation, he would have perfected
his railroad trust. He would then adjust rates to suit his other
ambitious projects. The rates on lead and lead ores would be
put up so high that every lead mine on the continent would
sell out to his Federal Lead Company. The transportation
rates on copper and copper ore would be put up till every cop
per mine and smelter owner would be forced to sell out to the
Amalgamated Copper Company. The independent steel and
iron concerns would have to succumb to the Steel Trust.
There are people who think that the Government of the
States and the nation would interfere. But experience has
shown that Rockefeller is more potent with Legislatures and
the courts and with city, State, and national administrations
than the people who elect or choose them.
Rockefeller has used the courts and politicians in almost
every State of the Union to worry and annoy and cripple the
men that he wanted out of his way.
Had he succeeded in welding his Bank Trust together, no
capital could have been procured for great undertakings without
Rockefeller doing the underwriting, or, in other words, levy
ing tribute on every new undertaking on the continent. James
Lee and Michael Murphy have blocked Rockefeller's monopoly
of the oil industry of the world. They handle but four per
cent of the petroleum products of the United States, but they

ROCKEFELLER'S RAILROAD TRUST 189
are so well intrenched that Rockefeller can not dislodge them.
He fought their Pure Oil Company for ten years by methods
worthy of a buccaneer or a highwayman. And it was not the
Government of New Jersey or of Pennsylvania or of the United
States that saved them. Their safety lay in the Atlantic
Ocean and in Europe. There was no hope for them on the
American continent.
Man marks the earth with ruin, as Byron somewhere says,
but the ocean is free; and the brave men that fought for the
emancipation of the oil fields from the tyranny of Rockefeller
built or hired ships to carry their petroleum products to Eu
rope. The free cities of Europe welcomed them. Even the
subjects of despotic governments like men who are bravely
struggling to be free. The German Government took a hand
in the fight. It forbade Rockefeller to sell illuminating oil
at competing points for' less than cost and at non-competing
points for fifty or one hundred per cent higher.
It is a curious commentary on America's institutions and its
boasted liberty and independence that it was the Atlantic Ocean
and the German Government that saved the Pure Oil Com
pany and its independent seaboard pipe lines from absorption
by the Standard Oil Trust.
It is also a curious commentary that Rockefeller was al
lowed to go ahead welding one railroad after another into a
Trust; that he linked competitor after competitor together,
and that the administrations of the States and the nation sat
supinely by and never made a move to block the illegal game
till a melancholy event sent William McKinley to his account
and made Theodore Roosevelt Chief Magistrate of the nation.
And even then it was not Rockefeller's railway combinations
that Attorney-General Knox attacked, but Hill's.
That itself was rather peculiar. It is still more strange in
the light of the undoubted presumption that Rockefeller ordered
Mr. Frick to get Cassatt to have Mr. Knox appointed United
States Senator to succeed. Mr. Quay. Some trade or other
was made with Cassatt, and Cassatt summoned the Governor
of Pennsylvania and the politicians, and the job was done.
Could there be a more melancholy exhibition of the trucu-
lence and subserviency of the politicians of Pennsylvania than
this craven act of its Governor?

igo JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
The utter failure of the courts and the executive of Ohio
to enforce the law against the. Standard Oil Company is but
another instance of the political power wielded to-day by John
D. Rockefeller.
Mr. Rockefeller is now sixty-five. He is an old man. The
mind has worn out the body. It has ever been so with the
supremely ambitious. Cassius had a lean and hungry look.
He thought too much. Disraeli from youth up was de
voured with an insatiable ambition to do and to be something
great. All other desires and passions and aspirations were
concentred in that one overwhelming passion of ambition.
When he married Mrs. Lewis, he knew that he was aban
doning the hope of posterity, but he knew also that he was
wedding an indispensable helpmate to his ambition. He was
devotion personified to her till the day she died. But his
ambition burned out too quickly the lamp of life. It worried
him in youth and filled him with tears and woe because the
hope of his ambition ever being gratified looked like a wild
illusion. When all the prizes which he started out to win
were achieved, when the great ones of the world and the
crowned heads of Europe paid him homage, and his very wish
was a command in the most mighty Empire the world Jias
ever known, he realized the emptiness of it all. The prize
was not worth the life that had been wasted to win it.
It is a pertinent query now what has been John D. Rocke
feller's contribution to the progress, the happiness, and the
enlightenment of the world.
His story has been told in these pages without anger and
without malice.
He has made a few hundreds or a few thousands of
his associates and lieutenants abnormally rich. Had he
not done that the wealth he and his associates divided would
have been divided up among the tens of thousands who owned
petroleum wells or were engaged in its production. In other
words, the wealth that he confined in narrow channels would
have been more widely distributed.
Every effort of his has been to concentrate wealth and in
dustrial power in the hands of a few.
He was the originator and father of the Trust system, and
were Mr. Rockefeller to live long enough and push his views

ROCKEFELLERS RAILROAD TRUST 191
to their logical conclusion, one man sitting in Wall Street
would regulate the tariffs on every line of railroad in the United
Mates and Canada. One man would pass on every loan so
licited from a bank. One man would dictate a price for lead,
copper, flour, beef, and light.
Such a system might be built up in America. The supine-
ness of our _>iate and National Governments and the flagrant
corruption of our politicians makes the triumph of such a sys
tem possible. In a little while the Trust kings would grow so
arrogant and avaricious that they would drive the people mad,
and the whole structure would perish with the Government and
Constitution that permitted it. The success of John D. Rocke
feller's Trust system — that is. its final triumph — must ulti
mately lead to chaos.
That is as certain as the waxing and the waning of the
moon. Rockefeller has not lived in vain. No man does. He
tried the souls and steeled the mettle of many a man in his"
fight for individual liberty and right. He taught the value
of method and economy. But he created nothing, for he in
vented nothing save the Trust system. His business in life
has been that of a middleman standing between the producer
and the consumer.
He gave to the producer as little as he could, and he
took from the consumer all that was possible. In that business
he has amassed something like five or six hundred millions,
perhaps more. The value of his fortune depends on how his
endless chain of banks and railroads, street car companies,
gas and electric light companies, and mining companies works
out Its value also is subject to his power of influencing
courts, Legislatures, Congress, and the executive officers of
munidpalities, States, and the nation. Congress may pass a
law putting an end to Mr. Rockefeller's endless chain system.
Congress and the President may take the Government's money
awav from Rockefeller's banks. The Government may nation
alize the railroads, to avoid the far greater evil of a Rocke
feller Railroad Trust
A thousand and one things may happen to scatter the
Rockefeller millions. But, generally, economic laws right the
ship of State. Rockefeller is. after all, like the playwright,
the actor and the sailor, the creature of a day.

192 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
We are but shadows ! None of all those things,
Formless and vague, that flit upon the wings
Of wild imagination round thy couch,
When slumber seals thine eyes, is clothed with such
An unreality as human life,
Cherished and clung to as it is, the fear,
The thrilling hope, the agonizing strife
Are not more unavailing there than here.
A few generations hence the descendants of John D.
Rockefeller will have no more influence on the industrial or
political life of America than the present members of the
house of Vanderbilt or the house of Astor. The glory of
the house of Rockefeller will be eclipsed, for new adventur
ers and usurpers and stars will arise to occupy the world's
stage for a little while. No usurpation, no wrong, no in
justice is eternal. As Browning puts it, right may be worsted,
but wrong never triumphs.
In every stage of Rockefeller's career we see unconquer
able spirits whom he could not buy or wheedle, or intimidate
or crush. Rockefeller's court has been crowded with wor
shipers. Multitudes of men have been waiting on his bounty
and shouting his praises so loud and long that it was deafening.
Multitudes also feared him, and the press and the politicians
that feared him were just as cowardly, if not as corrupt, as
those who were bought outright.
But the hero-worship of Rockefeller is confined to those
whom relationship or gratitude makes blind or to sycophants
who live on expectations of his favor or his bounty.
The story of his career and the analysis of his character
and of his achievements as given in these pages may serve
to enlighten those seeking for information about the aims of
a man so much in the public eye, and should that be the result
the writer will be amply rewarded.