ctice.
This latter method emphasizes another quality that accompanied the
Standard's operations and so largely explains its unpopularity--the
secrecy with which it so commonly worked. Though the independent oil
refiners were combating the most powerful financial power of the time,
they were frequently fighting in the dark, never knowing where to
deliver their blows.

This same characteristic was manifested in the form of corporate
existence which the Standard adopted. The first great "trust" was a
trust not only in name but in fact. The Standard introduced not only a
new economic development into our national organization; it introduced
a new word into our language and an issue into American politics that
provided sustenance for the presidential campaigns of twenty-five years.
From the beginning the Standard Oil had always been a close corporation.
Originally it had had only ten stockholders, and this number had
gradually grown until, in 1881, there were forty-one. These men had
adopted a new and secretive method of combining their increasing
possessions into a single ownership. In 1873 the Standard Company had
increased its capital stock (originally $1,000,000) to $3,500,000, the
new certificates being exchanged for interests in the great New York
and Philadelphia refineries The Standard Oil Company of Ohio never had a
larger capital stock than that. As additional properties were acquired,
the interests were placed in the hands of trustees, who held them for
the joint benefit of the stockholders in the original company. In 1882
this idea was carried further, for then the Standard Oil Trust was
organized. The fact that the properties lay in so many different States,
many of which had laws intended to curb corporations, was evidently what
led to this form of consolidation. A trust was formed, consisting
of nine trustees, who held, for the benefit of the Standard Oil
stockholders, all the stock in the Standard and in the subsidiary
companies. Instead of certificates of stock the trustees issued
certificates of trust amounting to $70,000,000. Each Standard
stockholder received twenty of these certificates for each share which
he held of Standard stock. These certificates could be bought and sold
and passed on by inheritance precisely the same as stocks.

Ingenious as was this legal device, it did not stand the test of the
courts. In 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court declared the Standard Oil Trust
a violation of the law and de