The History of the Standard Oil CompanyTarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva)
History
The History of the Standard Oil Company
Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva)
Petroleum industry and trade -- United States -- History; Standard Oil Company -- History
Affiant further says that after having had an interview both with
Mr. Watson, who was the president of a company called “The South
Improvement Company,” and Mr. Devereux, who was the general manager
of the Lake Shore Road, he became satisfied that no arrangement
whatever could be effected through which transportation could at
least be obtained on the Lake Shore Road that would enable their
firm to compete with the Standard Oil Company, the works of said
Hanna, Baslington & Company, being so situated that they could only
obtain their crude oil through the line of the Lake Shore Road. And
finding that the Standard Oil Company had such special rates of
transportation that unless the firm of Hanna, Baslington & Company
were enabled to bring as much oil as the Standard Oil Company, that
it was impossible for said firm of Hanna, Baslington & Company to
obtain a fair competing rate with the Standard Oil Company. They at
least came to the conclusion that it was better for them to take
what they could get from the Standard Oil Company and let their
works go.
And affiant further says that under these circumstances they sold
their works to the Standard Oil Company, which were on the day of
the sale worth at least $100,000, for $45,000 because that was all
they could obtain from them, and works too which in cash cost them
not less than $76,000, and which with a fair competition would have
paid them an income of not less than 30 per cent. per annum on the
investment.
Affiant further says that at the interviews which he had with Mr.
Rockefeller, Mr. Rockefeller told him that the Standard Oil Company
already had control of all the large refineries in the City of
Cleveland and there was no use for them to undertake to compete
against the Standard Oil Company, for it would only ultimate in
their being wiped out, or language to that effect.—(November 1,
1880.)
* * * * *
George O. Baslington being duly sworn (November 12, 1880) says: That
the firm of Hanna, Baslington & Company, the first year they were in
business, made profit amounting to a little less than $40,000 and
from the end of the first year up to the time of the sale to the
Standard Oil Company they made no profit at all. At the time of the
sale the firm reserved the privilege of running the works to close
up and run them up to about April 1, 1872, and during that time they
made profit to the amount of about $21,000. At the time my former
affidavit was drawn by Mr. Tyler, I stated these facts to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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