n the price of crude
oil, amounting to a saving to the public of about $100,000,000 per
annum."

Certainly it would seem that this is a strong defence of the trust's
character as a public benefactor; but it is well to note that while it
has been making these expenditures and reducing the price of oil to the
consumer, it has also been making some money for itself. The profits of
this trust in 1887, according to the report of the committee appointed
to investigate the subject of trusts by the New York Legislature, were
$20,000,000. The nominal capital of the trust is but $90,000,000, a
large portion of which is confessedly water. In answer to the statement
that the price of oil has been reduced steadily by the operations of the
trust, it is charged that no thanks is due to the trust for this
benefit. The trust has always wished to put up the price, but the
continual increase in the production of the oil fields has obliged the
trust to make low prices in order to dispose of its stock. There are
also about one hundred independent refineries competing with the trust,
and their competition may have had some influence in keeping prices
down. It is undoubtedly true that the economy in the storage,
transportation, and distribution of oil by the systematic methods of the
Standard Oil Trust has made it possible to deliver oil to the consumer
at a small fraction of its cost a decade ago. But it is also true that a
good part of the reduction in the price of oil is due to the abundant
production of the petroleum wells, which have furnished us so lavish a
supply. The principal charges against this trust, made by those who were
conversant with its operations, have never been that it was particularly
oppressive to consumers of oil; but that, in the attempt to crush out
its competitors, it has not hesitated to use, in ways fair and foul, its
enormous strength and influence to ruin those who dared to compete with
it.

In a later chapter we shall be able to study these more intricate
questions regarding trusts with a better understanding of our problem.
Let us pay some attention now to the growth of the trusts and of
combinations in general for the purpose of limiting competition among
manufacturers, which has taken place within the past few years.

According to the little book entitled "Trusts," by Mr. Wm. W. Cook, the
production of the following articles was, in February, 1888, more or
less completely in the hands of trusts: