EPUB paragraph 16 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
In dueling with Scott, Rockefeller didn’t try to demolish him—as Scott might have done to him—but called a truce to strengthen their alliance. His constant aim was to be conciliatory whenever possible and extend his range of influence. In a new pooling arrangement, Standard Oil agreed to ship at least two million barrels yearly over the Pennsylvania Railroad and restore its faded luster in the oil trade; in exchange, Standard would pocket a 10 percent commission (read: rebate) on its shipments over the road. More important, Standard was designated as the evener—that is, the enforcer—of a new master plan brokered by the railroads whereby the railroad would receive 47 percent of all oil traffic; the Erie and the New York Central 21 percent apiece; and the B&O 11 percent. Tightening the vise, Rockefeller’s pipeline chieftain, Daniel O’Day, informed the Pennsylvania Railroad in February 1878 that Standard would henceforth want at least twenty cents for every barrel of crude oil the railroad shipped—an arrangement Standard Oil had foisted upon the Erie and the New York Central. Having outsmarted the largest railroad, Rockefeller had acquired a stranglehold on the three major roads, and his taming of the imperious Tom Scott guaranteed that no railroad president would ever dare to tangle with him again.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Daniel O’Day · Thomas A. Scott · Standard Oil · Pennsylvania Railroad · New York Central · Scott · Erie
EPUB paragraph 17 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
The defeat left Colonel Potts a broken, humiliated man. As his son recalled, “He always believed some of the Pennsylvania directors had been approached by the Standard and bought out. Others talked of bribery; of course nothing could be proved.” In all likelihood, Potts didn’t want to admit that he had been outwitted by Rockefeller. Ida Tarbell, in her romanticized view of some of Rockefeller’s foes, converted Colonel Potts into an incorruptible martyr, the Abraham Lincoln of the oil industry, crucified by Standard Oil, when he was just an able, aggressive businessman who lost out in a power struggle to a shrewder, bolder opponent. In the early 1880s, Potts renounced his principled opposition to Standard Oil and became an active director of the National Transit Company, a Standard Oil pipeline subsidiary.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Joseph D. Potts · Ida M. Tarbell · Standard Oil · Abraham Lincoln · Pennsylvania · National Transit Company
EPUB paragraph 18 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
The Grand Guignol of the Empire battle diverted attention from another momentous drama that unfolded at about the same time: the purchase of the Columbia Conduit Company from Dr. David Hostetter. For Rockefeller, the Columbia purchase had far-reaching strategic implications, for the pipeline functioned as the B&O’s crude-oil lifeline. Columbia pumped western Pennsylvania crude to the B&O’s Pittsburgh terminal, whence it traveled by rail to Baltimore refineries. Thus, if he could smother Columbia, Rockefeller would be able to conquer the fourth and last major railroad system while also gaining uncontested control of all major pipeline systems connecting oil wells to railroad trunk lines. He would have extended his reach, in short, into every nook and cranny of the oil industry. As Ida Tarbell noted, after the Columbia Conduit fell into Rockefeller’s lap, “Practically not a barrel of oil could get to a railroad without [Rockefeller’s] consent.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Ida M. Tarbell · Pittsburgh · David Hostetter · Pennsylvania · Baltimore · Columbia · Empire · Columbia Conduit Company · Columbia Conduit
EPUB paragraph 19 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
By this point, Standard Oil had effectively stamped out competing refiners in Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh and faced only a smattering of weak New York holdouts. The last major pockets of resistance lay in West Virginia and Baltimore, whose refiners relied upon the B&O. Thus, by controlling the Columbia Conduit Company, Rockefeller would be able to snuff out the last independent refiners. Conversely, if he controlled the West Virginia and Baltimore refineries, he could pressure the railroad into submission.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · Cleveland · New York · Pittsburgh · Philadelphia · Baltimore · West Virginia · Columbia Conduit Company
EPUB paragraph 20 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
The man assigned to carry out this convoluted campaign was Johnson Newlon Camden, the Parkersburg, West Virginia, refiner whose company had secretly joined Standard some years earlier. Elected to Congress several times, Camden later served as a U.S. senator, but his civic involvement didn’t translate into superior business ethics. On the contrary, Camden dealt with rivals in an especially coercive manner, as he showed in early 1876 when absorbing Pittsburgh refiners. To snuff out the last competitors, he peremptorily informed Alexander McDonald, the leading supplier of barrel staves to the city’s independent refiners, “that no staves must be sold to Pittsburgh, that it was our policy to control the oil business of Pittsburgh by controlling the supply of staves and barrels at that point,” as he told Standard headquarters. Further, McDonald was under strict instructions, he said, “that he must ship no staves to Pittsburgh without [Standard Oil’s] consent.” Whenever competition flared up in Pittsburgh, Rockefeller dispatched Camden to douse the flames, once telling him, “At this particular moment it is especially important that outside Pittsburgh refineries should have no chance whatever in any market for local trade oil.… Our feeling of anxiety to accomplish the object of centralization is so strong we want you to yield to it for a few days longer when we hope you will be forever relieved.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Johnson Newlon Camden · Standard Oil · Pittsburgh · United States · Alexander McDonald · Parkersburg · West Virginia · McDonald
EPUB paragraph 21 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Like Rockefeller, Camden had a devious talent for concocting anticompetitive practices and paralyzing the trade. To soften up local competitors, he cornered the supply of West Virginia crude, leaving independent refiners high and dry. When confronted with such shameless manipulation, Rockefeller sighed, disclaimed any knowledge, and blamed overly zealous subordinates—a recurring pose in his career. But Camden, like other subordinates, kept Rockefeller thoroughly posted about his actions and told him apropos of early negotiations with independents, “I am having interviews with all the little refinery men here [Parkersburg] and at Marietta.… We will either get them or starve them.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Johnson Newlon Camden · Parkersburg · West Virginia · Marietta
EPUB paragraph 22 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Camden was thwarted by the same problems that had confronted Rockefeller in forming cartels in other cities. Aware that Standard would buy ramshackle plants to shut them down, many blackmailers entered the business in order to sell out. The harried Camden groused that small refineries were “multiplying like rats” and concluded despairingly that they would be “as hard to keep down as weeds in a garden.” As Standard Oil succeeded in steadying kerosene prices, it drew people back into the business. At this point, Rockefeller took a tougher line with blackmailers who wanted to be bought out. In responding to several Baltimore refiners who had previously rejected fair prices from Standard Oil but now wished to sell, Rockefeller sounded like the voice of divine retribution, telling Camden that “they will be sick unto death now having failed in their wicked scheme. A good sweating will be healthy for them. If … these people could wait and sell out their works at a loss, thereby making a poor speculation of blackmailing, it would probably cure this batch and save you endless trouble in future.” Camden’s files support Rockefeller’s contention that he bought loads of worthless junk and enriched men who knew little about refining oil but everything about extortion.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Johnson Newlon Camden · Standard Oil · Baltimore
EPUB paragraph 23 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Applying a formula that Rockefeller had perfected in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Camden bought waterfront property in Baltimore, where he erected wharves and warehouses for a B&O oil-export terminal. With Standard Oil now embedded in the local transportation infrastructure, it became impossible for Baltimore refiners to operate autonomously. Standard Oil had become virtually indistinguishable from the railroad industry. On December 21, 1877, Camden triumphantly told Rockefeller that they had completed their conquest of the last independent refining center. “We have cleared up every seed in which a refining interest could spring up in Baltimore, so far as we can at present determine.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Johnson Newlon Camden · Standard Oil · New York · Philadelphia · New Jersey · Baltimore
EPUB paragraph 24 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Thus, only five years after the Cleveland Massacre, the thirty-eight-year-old Rockefeller, with piratical flair and tactical brilliance, had come to control nearly 90 percent of the oil refined in the United States. Perhaps a hundred tiny refineries still eked out a meager living in the interstices of the industry, but they were mostly tolerated as minor nuisances and scarcely threatened Standard Oil. As Rockefeller himself acknowledged, these isolated cases served a useful political purpose, providing a mirage of competition when it had ceased to exist altogether. He liked to point to these doughty survivors as proof that all the stories about the strong-arm tactics of Standard Oil were grossly exaggerated and that the oil industry was a scene of vibrant competition.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · Cleveland · United States
EPUB paragraph 25 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
In his implacable quest to rule the oil business, Rockefeller shifted focus in the late 1870s from the railroads to outright ownership of the superior alternative: pipelines. Undeterred by prophecies of exhausted oil fields, Standard Oil had both the capital and the incentive to blanket western Pennsylvania with a gigantic maze of pipelines. By 1879, the combine controlled almost the entire pipeline system, siphoning crude oil from thousands of wells and pumping it to storage tanks or railroad depots. When a driller struck oil, Standard Oil swooped down in a flash to connect his well, assuring both his livelihood and irrevocable reliance on the combine.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · Pennsylvania
EPUB paragraph 26 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Standard’s rough, brawling pipeline boss, Daniel O’Day, made sure that his construction gangs kept pace with the new fields, laying pipe at a furious pace of up to one and a half miles per day. O’Day stood forth as the agent of wealth or ruin for producers. If he wanted to punish a producer, he might hint that the producer’s backcountry well was too inaccessible for Standard to run a line through the woods. And if the producer lacked money to erect storage tanks, he might watch his fortune seep into the ground as he bickered impotently with Standard Oil.
Names: Daniel O’Day · Standard Oil
EPUB paragraph 27 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
That O’Day exploited his power to silence dissent and cripple refractory competitors is amply documented in Rockefeller’s papers. It is important to recall that O’Day, like other Standard Oil lieutenants in the field, was the executor of Rockefeller’s will, whatever the latter’s disclaimers. When O’Day discovered that a producer named Murphy held a small stake in a competing pipeline, he dispatched to the scene John D. Archbold, who pointedly reminded this upstart that he had expected Standard “to take care of his production that might be located far back in the interior, as we have always done for him, and where such companies as the Pittsburgh line would not care to go.” O’Day scared the daylights out of railroads, too. When one railway official complained that Standard was hogging crude-oil shipments between Olean, New York, and Buffalo, O’Day retorted that Standard Oil might just decide to ship all the refined oil by pipeline as well. As O’Day reported with glee to Rockefeller—who again professed ignorance of such machinations—“This seemed to stagger him a little and we may be able to hold it over him (as a club) successfully.” While Rockefeller communicated with his subordinates in genteel fashion, discussing muscular tactics with unctuous euphemisms, his colleagues were less restrained and gloried in their brutal shenanigans.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · John D. Archbold · Daniel O’Day · Starr J. Murphy · Standard Oil · New York · Pittsburgh · Buffalo · Olean
EPUB paragraph 28 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
As Rockefeller consolidated his virtual monopoly over the pipeline network, it provoked pandemonium along Oil Creek, where he was now dubbed the Lord of the Oil Regions. In late 1877, desperate independents thronged a “Petroleum Parliament” in Titusville, hoping to plot their escape from Standard Oil servitude. These extended, crowded sessions generated a host of resolutions, including enactment of a free-pipeline bill and another to prohibit railroad-freight discrimination. But Standard Oil spiked all such reform efforts through the liberal application of backdoor payments to legislators.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · Titusville · Oil Creek · Oil Regions
EPUB paragraph 29 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
In a historic departure, the independents endorsed plans for two long-distance pipelines that would bypass the whole Standard-rigged web of pipelines and railroads and open a path to the sea. The less ambitious project was the Equitable Petroleum Company, formed by Lewis Emery, Jr., to pipe oil from the Bradford fields to a railroad that would then carry the oil to Buffalo, where it would travel east over the Erie Canal. This roundabout route posed only a modest threat to Standard Oil, yet Rockefeller wired Daniel O’Day, “Don’t let them get a pipe to Buffalo.” To sabotage the effort, Standard Oil unleashed its full arsenal of obstructive tactics. It bought up the connecting railroad to Buffalo; threatened to yank orders from pipe manufacturers who sold to Equitable; and disconnected pipelines from all Bradford refiners who dealt with it. Despite this intimidation, the pipeline commenced operations in August 1878, exposing the first small chink in Standard Oil’s armor.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Daniel O’Day · Lewis Emery, Jr. · Standard Oil · Bradford · Erie Canal · Buffalo · Equitable · Equitable Petroleum Company
EPUB paragraph 30 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
The second, far more threatening project, led by Byron Benson, envisaged a pipeline to the seaboard, a revolutionary development in long-distance transport. Before this time, pipelines had never covered more than thirty miles. This seaboard pipeline would eclipse the railroads and shatter the whole complex structure of secret rebates and drawbacks that Rockefeller had cobbled together. Before the seaboard-pipeline battle, one could argue that Standard Oil had been an innovative force, modernizing the industry through up-to-date plants, superior management, and smoother coordination of the oil flow from wellhead to consumer. Now, it became a benighted custodian of the status quo, squelching progress to safeguard its own interests.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Byron Benson · Standard Oil
EPUB paragraph 31 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
At first, the independents (acting through the Tidewater Pipe Line Company) contemplated running a line from Oil Creek to Baltimore, but J. N. Camden quickly dealt a mortal blow to this plan: He bought an exclusive pipeline charter in the Maryland legislature that carried an ironclad guarantee that no other company would receive a charter that session. The Standard Oil hierarchy in Cleveland was kept closely apprised of his underhanded activities. Of the substantial money needed to grease this shady deal, Camden told Flagler: “The price is nominally $40,000.”
Names: Henry M. Flagler · Johnson Newlon Camden · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company · Cleveland · Oil Creek · Baltimore · Maryland
EPUB paragraph 32 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Foiled in crossing Maryland, the Tidewater Pipe Line Company then opted for a 110-mile pipeline from Bradford to Williamsport in central Pennsylvania, where the oil would then journey east by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. On November 22, 1878, it began its great race to the sea, laying down a ribbon of pipe at a rapid rate of two miles a day. Since the whole concept was experimental—nobody knew if oil could be pumped over 2,600-foot mountains—the Standard Oil cognoscenti reacted with cynical snickers. Writing to Rockefeller, a smug John D. Archbold professed himself “greatly amused” by the “seaboard scheme.” Rockefeller was dubious yet circumspect, predicting at one point, “They are quite likely to have some disappointments yet, before consummating all their plans in that direction.” The Tidewater people mobilized powerful financial interests, and two Wall Street tycoons, George F. Baker and Harris C. Fahnestock of First National Bank, aided them financially.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · John D. Archbold · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company · Bradford · Philadelphia · George F. Baker · Harris C. Fahnestock · Pennsylvania · Maryland · First National Bank · Williamsport · Wall Street
EPUB paragraph 33 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
The fierceness of Standard Oil’s response was previewed in one of O’Day’s first letters to Rockefeller about the mavericks. “I would have no mercy on them that don’t deserve nor appreciate it.” In combating this challenge, Rockefeller again showed himself a virtuoso of industrial warfare. He sent his underlings to tank manufacturers, warning them not to deal with Tidewater, and deluged tank-car manufacturers with orders that kept them busy, depriving the pipeline of rolling stock needed to transport construction materials. Refiners who used Tidewater were lured away with concessionary rates on Standard Oil pipelines, and Rockefeller swiftly bought up any remaining independent refineries that might be prospective Tidewater customers.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Daniel O’Day · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company
EPUB paragraph 34 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Standard Oil also embarked on a real-estate spree of monumental proportions, buying up strips of land or “dead lines” that ran in a straight line from the northern to the southern border of Pennsylvania, to block the Tidewater’s advance. Overnight, bewildered farmers became rich by selling parcels for extravagant sums to Standard Oil agents who invaded their sleepy towns. In another tack, Standard Oil placed stories in local papers, warning farmers who sold to Tidewater that their crops would be spoiled by pipeline leaks. And Standard Oil conspired with the railroads to withhold permission from any pipeline wishing to cross their tracks. Quick to exploit this, O’Day told Rockefeller, “The Penna R.R. should be informed of the efforts that are being made towards laying pipe lines from the Bradford District and they should see to it that the right of way secured some time since in their interest ‘across the country’ is well guarded and watched.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Daniel O’Day · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company · Pennsylvania · Bradford District · Penna
EPUB paragraph 35 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Still, Tidewater pushed relentlessly ahead. When Standard Oil bought an entire valley at one point, the unstoppable Tidewater changed course and climbed up over the surrounding hills. It began to look as if it might actually outflank Rockefeller and his resolute henchmen. Right on the eve of Tidewater’s success, Rockefeller decided that he might recoup in the political arena what he was on the verge of losing in the economic sphere. It was in the last-minute effort to halt Tidewater that Standard Oil first resorted to the wholesale bribery of state legislators.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company
EPUB paragraph 36 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Before wading into the muck of Standard Oil’s political operations, we should note the general squalor of business-government dealings in the Gilded Age. Rockefeller had emerged in a fluid business world, with little government regulation to check entrepreneurs. At the same time, the government was heavily involved in the economy as it awarded land grants, railway franchises, and bank charters. After the Civil War, Washington hotels were crammed with businessmen jockeying for government contracts and toting suitcases full of cash to obtain them. President Grant admired the industrial captains, aspired to their society, and assembled a cabinet full of cronies and mediocrities eager to do their bidding. Government degenerated into a sink of iniquity, reflected in Mark Twain’s witticism at a contemporary banquet, “There is a Congressman—I mean a son of a bitch—But why do I repeat myself?” In 1876, politics touched a new nadir when Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel J. Tilden for the presidency in what is now commonly regarded to have been a stolen election. A tremendous amount of money changed hands as businessmen and legislators trafficked in mutual manipulation. Businessmen such as Rockefeller preferred to think of themselves as victims of political extortion, not as initiators of bribes. Yet despite decades of categorical denials, Rockefeller’s papers reveal that he and Standard Oil entered willingly into a staggering amount of corruption. (We should remark in passing that Allan Nevins, who had access to Rockefeller’s papers, somehow managed to document only a single instance of Standard Oil bribery—in the Pennsylvania state legislature in 1887.) Standard Oil officials betrayed no qualms about paying bribes, and there is no recorded instance of Rockefeller rebuking a subordinate for engaging in graft.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Mark Twain · Allan Nevins · Standard Oil · Rutherford B. Hayes · Samuel J. Tilden · Pennsylvania · Washington · Gilded Age · Grant · Civil War
EPUB paragraph 37 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
During the Tidewater battle, Standard lobbied hard to perpetuate the system that allowed state legislatures to grant exclusive pipeline charters. Representing independent producers, reformers in the late 1870s introduced measures in several states to enact free-pipe bills, which would enable Standard Oil foes to lay competing lines and enjoy the right of eminent domain; under the existing system, Tidewater had to buy costly rights-of-way along its 110-mile east-west route. Standard Oil regarded these bills with such apprehension that Henry Flagler returned from Florida, where he was recuperating from poor health, to spearhead the lobbying campaign. To foster the impression of a popular groundswell against the bill, he hired lawyers to pose as incensed farmers and landowners in favor of the status quo. Flagler and A. J. Cassatt secretly exchanged drafts of the Pennsylvania bill and killed it with crippling amendments.
Names: Henry M. Flagler · A. J. Cassatt · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company · Pennsylvania · Florida
EPUB paragraph 38 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
To stifle a similar pipeline bill in New York, Flagler coordinated efforts with Hugh J. Hewett of the Erie Railroad. Payoffs were an expensive business, and even Standard Oil welcomed rich partners to ease the burden. At one point, Flagler grumbled to a railroad leader, “We have spent a large sum of money to squelch Seaboard Pipe Line Charters,” and he sourly asked that the railroads pick up the tab for these “lobbying” efforts in the future. When Flagler recruited an Albany lobbyist, aptly named Smith M. Weed, he was ready to distribute $60,000 to legislators, but Hewett demurred and insisted that $15,000 would suffice. “I send $10,000 currency,” Flagler agreed, adding, “if you need the other $5000 or any part of it, send word by bearer and (we or he) can get it for you.” That $15,000 would today be worth $220,000.
Names: Henry M. Flagler · Standard Oil · Erie Railroad · New York · Hugh J. Hewett · Smith M. Weed · Albany · Seaboard Pipe Line Charters · Hewett
EPUB paragraph 39 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
As always, Rockefeller floated serenely above the bustle, pretending to be oblivious to any wrongdoing, but his correspondence implicates him directly in this skulduggery. On March 4, 1878, A. N. Cole, a New York state senator, wrote to Rockefeller on New York State Senate stationery and presented himself as an “attorney” to be hired by Standard Oil to manage the campaign against the free-pipe bill. Evidently, Rockefeller responded favorably to this overture, for Cole then mapped out an extensive campaign of pressure and subornation, complete with precise money-laundering instructions:
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · New York · New York State · A. N. Cole
EPUB paragraph 40 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Two or three good attorneys will be wanted in the Senate, and five or six in the Assembly, and these I have no hesitation in undertaking to employ, if authorized to do so.… Government bonds are better to deal in than money, since, were “attorneys” to be paid in cash, it might be construed into corruption, but then one can sell bonds, you know, in fact, dealing in them is an eminently becoming business.… In Heaven’s name, don’t make this letter public, since, were you to do so, I fear my brethren of the Methodist Church might fear I had so far fallen from grace as to leave no hope of recovery.
Names: Assembly · Methodist Church
EPUB paragraph 41 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
While Standard Oil conducted statehouse offensives against free pipelines, it also put out brushfires in Washington as public sentiment began to lean toward railroad reform. The electorate was beginning to realize that big-business domination of the transportation network was incompatible with a competitive economy. In 1876, a bill was introduced in Congress “to regulate Commerce and prohibit unjust discriminations by Common Carriers.” By this point, J. N. Camden was a West Virginia congressman. Since he also headed the Camden Consolidated Oil Company, covertly owned by Standard Oil, he kept Rockefeller and Flagler minutely informed of legislative developments and swapped messages with them in Standard Oil code. Regarding the railroad bill, Camden assured Flagler, “I have the ear of some half dozen Senators that I will see. I can’t think there is the least probable danger of such a bill getting through the Senate.” True to Camden’s words, the railroad bill passed the House of Representatives then faltered in the Senate.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Henry M. Flagler · Johnson Newlon Camden · Standard Oil · Washington · West Virginia · Camden Consolidated Oil Company · House of Representatives · Commerce · Common Carriers
EPUB paragraph 42 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
By the late 1870s, as news of his wealth spread, Rockefeller was badgered for campaign contributions, sometimes by the same politicians who lambasted Standard Oil. When Ohio representative James A. Garfield ran for president in 1880, he sounded out a Cleveland source, Amos Townsend, as to whether “Mr. Rockafeller” might be sympathetic. When Garfield asked, “Do you know his state of feeling toward me?” Townsend advised extreme caution. “It would not do for him to visit us, as it would be reported and cut like a knife in Pennsylvania.”A more subtle approach was another matter, and Rockefeller, along with Jay Gould, Chauncey Depew, and Levi Morton, ended up a top contributor to Garfield’s victorious campaign. Garfield was the first of many presidential contenders who grappled with the quandary of whether it made better sense to court Rockefeller’s money or capitalize on public animosity against him.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Jay Gould · Standard Oil · Cleveland · Chauncey Depew · James A. Garfield · Levi Morton · Amos Townsend · Ohio · Pennsylvania · Garfield · Townsend · Rockafeller
EPUB paragraph 43 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
For all his success in bottling up pipeline bills, Rockefeller couldn’t scotch the Tidewater. As the project neared completion, he executed a flurry of last-minute maneuvers and even tried to buy an interest in the operation for $300,000—all to no avail. On May 28, 1879, the Tidewater people held their breath as the great pumps whirred into motion near Bradford and the oil began to slide eastward through the pipeline. Nobody knew if the crude oil would actually scale the intervening mountains, and for days people expectantly tracked its slow progress. After seven days of suspense, the first oil drops sputtered out the Williamsport end and led to jubilation in western Pennsylvania, where Tidewater promised deliverance from the Standard Oil monopoly. Construction of the pipeline rated as one of the supreme engineering feats of its day, and its impresario, Byron Benson, achieved heroic status.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Byron Benson · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company · Bradford · Pennsylvania · Williamsport
EPUB paragraph 44 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Faced with a rare defeat, Standard Oil did not react with equanimity. Daniel O’Day wanted to resort to thuggery to smash the pipeline. “I feel extremely satisfied that the Tidewater Pipe Line can be stopped and torn up if it is thought best to do it,” he told Rockefeller. “I also think that the sooner the Tidewater knows this the better, as it might have a healthy effect upon them.” Rockefeller vetoed such crude reprisals and conceived a more elegant solution to the Tidewater menace. He had to bide his time, though, because he first had to dispose of two legal challenges that dogged his footsteps throughout 1879.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Daniel O’Day · Standard Oil · Tidewater Pipe Line Company
EPUB paragraph 45 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
Some of Rockefeller’s critics weren’t content to expose him but wanted to put this pious churchgoer and Sunday-school superintendent behind bars. The producers were still seething from the immediate-shipment controversy and Standard Oil’s refusal to store their surplus oil. One upshot was that on April 29, 1879, a grand jury in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, indicted nine Standard Oil officials—including Rockefeller, Flagler, O’Day, and Archbold—and charged them with conspiracy to monopolize the oil business, extort railroad rebates, and manipulate prices to cripple rivals. Those who resided in Pennsylvania, such as Warden, Lockhart, and Vandergrift, were arrested and released on bail while those, such as Rockefeller, who lived outside the state were able to evade prosecution. Reformers who stalked the Standard knew they had to get Rockefeller or Flagler on the stand, for many top executives were kept in the dark about the organization’s intricate inner workings. When Captain Jacob J. Vandergrift testified at an Ohio hearing that spring, for instance, Flagler was able to reassure Rockefeller: “If it is a question of railroad freights, and discrimination in them, my judgment is [Vandergrift] knows nothing, or if knowing will not be compelled to answer.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Henry M. Flagler · John D. Archbold · Daniel O’Day · Jacob J. Vandergrift · William G. Warden · Charles Lockhart · Standard Oil · Ohio · Pennsylvania · Clarion County
EPUB paragraph 46 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
In spring 1879, Rockefeller began a thirty-year career as a fugitive from justice, learning to stay nimbly ahead of the law. For all his scoffing about the Clarion County indictments—“This case will never be brought to trial”—he took no chances. Afraid of being extradited from New York, Rockefeller asked Chauncey Depew, the attorney for the New York Central, to approach New York governor Lucius Robinson, who agreed to deny any such requests from Pennsylvania. At the same time, Rockefeller had A. J. Cassatt approach Pennsylvania governor Henry M. Hoyt with a request that he cease further efforts to haul him into court. To make sure that the Pennsylvania Railroad didn’t double-cross him, Rockefeller boosted production at his Philadelphia refineries serviced by the railroad—a generous bonus that could be canceled at any moment for misbehavior. Meticulous in such maneuvers, Rockefeller made sure to leave no fingerprints and told Captain Vandergrift that it was “of utmost importance that nobody knows of [Standard Oil’s] thought of doing something about [the suit] outside the [Clarion] County.”
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Jacob J. Vandergrift · A. J. Cassatt · Standard Oil · Pennsylvania Railroad · New York Central · New York · Philadelphia · Chauncey Depew · Henry M. Hoyt · Lucius Robinson · Pennsylvania · Clarion County · Clarion
EPUB paragraph 47 · Text/Cher_9780307429773_epub_c12_r1.htm
From the outset, Standard Oil defendants saw an advantage in the Clarion County affair, which enabled them to refuse to testify at many civil proceedings by claiming it might harm them in the criminal case. Nevertheless, Rockefeller feared that the Clarion suit might set a precedent and adopted a combative approach. “We are disposed to fight the thing and not be subject to this blackmailing process always,” he insisted.
Names: John D. Rockefeller, Sr. · Standard Oil · Clarion County · Clarion
Source: Ron Chernow, Titan. Names and relationships retain the full atlas’s extraction limits. Map points are references; historical sites and regions can be approximate. Open the full interactive atlas.