At one time, the ultimate success of its vast operations was open to question, and many there were who predicted that one day it would ignominiously pass on to the list of oil failures. Indeed, it nearly came to this on one or two occasions, and it was only owing to the remarkable perseverance of those at the head of the Company’s affairs that prevented headlong disaster. The Standard Oil Company soon became an integral part of the petroleum industry of the United States, with which it grew up and steadily assumed a position of world-wide importance, though one which was not unassailable. Its ultimate success was the chief cause for the multiplication of its critics, and volumes have been written of its wrong-doings by writers whose knowledge of the petroleum industry was mostly based upon wilful ignorance of facts. Consequent upon a decision of the United States Supreme Court some seven years ago, which held that the Company was violating the Anti-Trust Law of 1890, the Standard had to rid itself of its various subsidiary companies (over thirty in number), but it still controls almost a similar number of concerns to-day which are actively engaged in the production of crude oil and natural gas. It also owns several of the largest refineries in the States, while its fleet of oil tankers will, when present building is completed, be considerably over 300,000 tonnage. Its capital is $100,000,000, and during the last twelve years it has paid in dividends over 400 per cent., in addition to an additional cash distribution of 40 per cent. The Standard Oil Company of New York is another immense concern which, with a capital of $75,000,000, has its headquarters in the Standard’s palatial building at 26 Broadway, New York, and interested principally in the refining industry, its facilities permitting of 20,000 barrels of crude oil being treated daily. Another very prominent company is the Standard Oil Company of California, with its capital of $100,000,000. This Company not only produces its crude oil, but refines it, and engages in the export business. Its refinery at Point Richmond, California, is reported to be the largest in the world, for it can treat 65,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Its fleet of tankers and barges for the export trade is capable of carrying at one trip over 100,000 tons of products, and, for the purposes of its land transport, it possesses pipe-lines over 1,000 miles long.