My Trip to 1883 to Visit Standard Oil

Lucky am I to be going back in time to see where my ancestors had once been, seeing were my family’s love of the “business” came from. Armed with my time machine, supplied by my history professor, and my trusty MacBook, I head back to the late 19th century, more importantly the year of 1883. As soon as I arrive in Pennsylvania to see the oil rigs being drilled, I see my great, great, uncle Platt, who just happens to be one of the owners of the Standard Oil Company. The rig looks much like the ones that I have visited since I was a small girl. While not having any computers or machines, the drilling rig looks much the same. It seems crazy to think that many of the techniques that we use in our day came from this seemingly un-technological age. My Uncle seems very stressed because one of their many rigs was struck by lightning the night before. While there is over $1,500,000 worth of damage due to the fire that occurred (Friend 327, 1883) I can see that this is not the only thing that is troubling him. He has been reading the North American Review where many people have been criticizing the Standard Oil Company because of they have been monopolizing the oil industry. He tells me that congress has even been thinking about passing a law that would outlaw monopoles and therefore make Standard Oil an outlawed company. The effects of this could be devastating to the company. My Uncle reads me a few sources that have supported his cause in saying that their company is not doing anything wrong. He reads from the North American Review “[what the] Standard Oil Company has accomplished: “It has been the instrument, if not the cause, of almost the whole development of the oil industry- production excepted- during the last decade; of vastly improving and bringing to uniformity all oil manufactures; of cheapening these latter to an unprecedented degree, and pushing the introduction of American petroleum to the remotest parts of the earth; of furnishing employment to a host of men equal in number to the standing army of the United States, and of giving an impulse of prosperity to every locality in which its enormous laboring force than any other corporation of comparable importance in the world.
In view of this state of facts it might reasonably be supposed that the Standard Oil Company would have been entitled in some degree to public commendation for what it has accomplished, and the beneficial results produced- not that it has any claim on the score of philanthropy. It has not. It was organized and is operated to do in the best manner the largest possible amount of business. But the fact that philanthropy is not the mainspring of its corporate action cannot destroy the fact that the great public benefit has resulted from the Standard’s work; greater, unquestionably, than could ever have been brought about by the use of even equal capital and equivalent energy, divided between a score or a hundred disconnected and unfriendly organizations.” (Camden 1883, 188). My Uncle better explains to me in words that I can actually comprehend that the reason that they were able to monopolize the market was because they “were able to make oil better, cheaper, and have a more uniform production method.” (Camden 1883,186). My Uncle also makes the point stated by Camden as “There is a growing sentiment in this country unfavorable to the accumulation of enormous fortunes in single hands, and, as the reverse of this, there is a disposition on the part of those who are possessed of enormous fortunes, or who are in the way to acquire them, to strengthen themselves against the feeing hostile to them. This cannot be done in any other way so effectively as by multiplying the holders of the enormous fortunes, and enlisting the zeal of their followers. By their power in the press, in the national and in state legislatures, in courts, in official life, in political parties, in social ramifications, in literature, in the pulpit, we see developed a body of opinion which comes to be a part of the national life, and the sentiment which aims to dislodge it is reprobated as communism or revolution, to be suppressed summarily.” (Camden 1883, 186) My Uncle and all of his other partners know that they are having opposition when it comes to their company. Many are against such big businesses that are controlling. They are also well aware of the corruption that is going on in Washington and that they can have control over much of the government does because of the financial influence. One thing however if there is a law or an act passed against monopolies it will mean the breaking up of Standard Oil, which they do not want to happen.
Later on thinking to myself I wonder why so many people hate monopolies and how they were able to achieve such a monopoly over the entire industry. I decide to ask one of the writers as to get an opinion that is not biased by my Uncle. I decide to ask a man named Welsh. He tells me that “The Standard became practically a dictator to the railroads of their relations to petroleum,-not in terms, indeed, and in an arbitrary way, but in a genial and conciliation one.”(Welsh 1883, 192) Once again I am confused by all of the big words that everyone is saying. So I decide once again to dumb it down to my level. Basically They were able to make deals with other companies by promising to not charge them more than anyone else so long as they promised to give their business to them and only them, signed by contract. Therefore driving out all competition. In addition they owned other companies that were also members of the business like the American Transfer Company and the United Pipe Lines that furthered their monopoly over every company because everyone who wanted a job would work for Standard. (Welsh 1883, 196) This brings me a little more comfort. Perhaps I am mistaken about all of the bad things that have been said about the company. Maybe my knowledge about the Sherman Anti-Trust Act occurring later has been wrong.
I woke up this morning to find the article of Camden sitting on my nightstand. I decide to read it once more. My thoughts are jumbled as I read the last paragraph that “Many, however, may still be surprised to learn that the Standard Oil Company is not the monster that it has been represented; that it has never had a railroad company which a fair-minded man could pronounce to be against public policy, good morals or good business principles; that it has never broken an agreement nor committed an act of trenchery; that it is not a peculation nor a manipulator of speculative prices, as has been so often charged; that it is not a monopoly, and never can become one, despite its present great preponderance in the trade; in short that this great bugbear is nothing more nor less than an organization of laborious, painstaking men, who, with great abilities and great opportunities, have made a great success by legitimate means, in a legitimate business”
(Camden 1883, 190). I have decided to pack up my notebook and go further ahead in time to learn more about the corruption that occurred, by looking at it emerge in a later time. Until I get there I will continue to think about all that I have learned here.

Bibliograpy

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