An important factor in the development of large corporations was the increasing use of the corporation form of industrial organization, as contrasted with the co-partnership plan. If a few men enter a copartnership, each of them must supply a considerable amount of capital; but if a corporation is formed and stock is sold, the par value of the shares may be placed at a low figure--$100 or less, for example--and thus a large number of persons may be able to establish an industry which is far beyond the financial resources of any individual or small group among them. The corporation, moreover, is relatively permanent, for the death of one stock-holder among many is unimportant as compared with that of one member of a co-partnership. In case of disaster to the enterprise the liability of the stock-holder in a corporation is limited to the amount which he has invested, while any member of a partnership may be legally held for all the debts of the organization. With such advantages in its favor the corporation plan largely dominated the organization of industry. The most famous example of combination before 1890 was the Standard Oil Company, which was the cause of more litigation, more study and more complaint than any other industrial organization that has ever existed in America. In 1865 Rockefeller & Andrews started an oil-refining business in Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel Andrews was a mechanical genius and he attended to the technical end of the industry; John D. Rockefeller had bargaining capacity, and to him fell the task of buying the crude oil, providing barrels and other materials and selling the product. The firm prospered. H.M. Flagler was taken into the company and a branch was established in New York. In 1870 these three with a few others organized the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of a million dollars. It controlled not over ten percent. of the business of oil-refining in the United States at that time. But the oil business was so profitable that capital flowed into it and competition became keen. Rockefeller and some associates, therefore, devised the South Improvement Company of Pennsylvania, a combination of refiners, headed and controlled by the Standard, the purpose of which was to make advantageous arrangements With the railroads for transportation facilities. Early in 1872, a most remarkable contract was signed between the company and the important railroads of the oil country--the Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Erie. By it the roads agreed to establish certain freight rates from the crude-oil producing region of western Pennsylvania to such refining and shipping centers as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Cleveland. From these rates the South Improvement Company was to receive substantial rebates, amounting to forty or fifty per cent. on crude oil and twenty-five to forty-five per cent. on refined. On their side the railroads were