rcus Hook, near Philadelphia, one for pumping refined and one for
pumping crude. The Pure Oil Company, Emery's creation, has survived
all its trials and has done an excellent business. And meanwhile other
independents sprang up with the discovery of oil in other parts of
the country. This discovery first astonished the Standard Oil men
themselves; when someone suggested to Archbold, thirty-five years ago,
that the midcontinent field probably contained large oil supplies,
he laughed, and said that he would drink all the oil ever discovered
outside of Pennsylvania. In these days a haunting fear pursued the
oil men that the Pennsylvania field would be exhausted and that their
business would be ended. This fear, as developments showed, had a
substantial basis; the Pennsylvania yield began to fail in the eighties
and nineties, until now it is an inconsiderable element in this gigantic
industry. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, California,
and other states in turn became the scene of the same exciting
and adventurous events that had followed the discovery of oil in
Pennsylvania. The Standard promptly extended its pipe lines into these
new areas, but other great companies also took part in the development.
These companies, such as the Gulf Refining Company and the Texas
Refining Company, have their gathering pipe lines, their great trunk
lines, their marketing stations, and their export trade, like the
Standard; the Pure Oil Company has its tank cars, its tank ships, and
its barges on the great rivers of Europe. The ending of the rebate
system has stimulated the growth of independents, and the production of
crude oil and the market demand in a thousand directions has increased
the business to an extent which is now far beyond the ability of any
one corporation to monopolize. The Standard interests refine perhaps
something more than fifty per cent of the crude oil produced in this
country. But in recent years, Standard Oil has meant more than a
corporation dealing in this natural product. It has become the synonym
of a vast financial power reaching in all directions. The enormous
profits made by the Rockefeller group have found investments in other
fields. The Rockefellers became the owners of the great Mesaba iron ore
range in Minnesota and of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, the chief
competitor of United States Steel. It is the largest factor in several
of the greatest American banks. Above all, it is the s