Foreign observers and critics, friendly or unfriendly, admit that in one matter American foresight and enterprise have taught the older nations valuable lessons--and that is in respect of standardized production--or to put it in another way, organized industry. America’s achievements in this domain during the past half century have represented incalculable and beneficial advancement beyond the industrial conditions of all past centuries. With this record of progress, the growth and expansion of the petroleum industry have been inseparably associated. The famous pioneers in organizing the production, refining and distribution of petroleum have also been pioneers in the application of the principle of order to industry; which, in essence, means the elimination of waste and misdirected energy from human effort. Organized industry means something entirely different from a system aiming at quick and enormous profits. It is based on a definite theory of scientific effort, whereby all the possibilities of a given resource are developed to their fullest degree, so that waste ceases, the value of the worker’s labour is increased with benefits to himself, and the consumer receives the blessings of nature’s dower at the lowest reasonable cost. As the ensuing chapters show, the accomplishment of these objects in the case of petroleum has involved much more than the application of the physical sciences to manufacturing processes. It has meant the development of systematized methods in discovery and location, transportation and distribution, so that from the moment oil is “struck,” in say a barren patch of prairie, until any one of the many products of crude petroleum is placed in the hands of the consumer--here, or in some distant isle of the sea--there shall be no waste and no injustice, and that all the hands through which it passes shall reap a just benefit.