The five-gallon can turned out at the Devoe is a marvel of evolution. The present methods of manufacture are almost entirely the work of Herman Miller, known in Standard circles as the "father of the five-gallon can"; and a fine type of the German inventor he is. The machinery for mak ing the can has been so developed that while, in 1865, when Mr. Miller began his work under Charles Pratt, one man and a boy soldered 85o cans in a day, in 188o three men made 8,000, and since 1893 three men have made 24,000. It is an actual fact that a tin can is made by Miller in just about the time it takes to walk from the point in the factory where the sheets of tin are unloaded to the point where the finished article is filled with oil.
And here is a nice point in combination. Not far away from the canning works, on Newtown Creek, is an oil re finery. This oil runs to the canning works, and, as the new made cans come down by a chute from the works above, where they have just been finished, they are filled, twelve at a time, with the oil made a few miles away. The filling apparatus is admirable. As the new-made cans come down the chute they are distributed, twelve in a row, along one side of a turn-table. The turn-table is revolved, and the cans come directly under twelve measures, each holding five gal lons of oil—a turn of a valve, and the cans are full. The table is turned a quarter, and while twelve more cans are filled and twelve fresh ones are distributed, four men with soldering coppers put the caps on the first set. Another quarter turn, and men stand ready to take the cans from the filler, and while they do this, twelve more are having caps put on, twelve are filling, and twelve are coming to their place from the chute. The cans are placed at once in wooden boxes standing ready, and, after a twenty-four-hour wait for dis covering leaks, are nailed up and carted to a near-by door. This door opens on the river, and there at anchor by the side of the factory is a vessel chartered for South America or China or where not—waiting to receive the cans which a little more than twenty-four hours before were tin sheets lying in flat boxes. It is a marvellous example of economy not only in materials, but in time and in footsteps.
With Mr. Rockefeller's genius for detail, there went a sense of the big and vital factors in the oil business, and a daring in laying hold of them which was very like military genius. He saw strategic points like a Napoleon, and he swooped on them with the suddenness of a Napoleon. This master ability has been fully illustrated already in this work. Mr. Rockefeller's capture of the Cleveland refineries in 1872 was as dazzling an achievement as it was a hateful one. The campaign by which the Empire Transportation Com pany was wrested from the Pennsylvania Railroad, viewed simply as a piece of brigandage, was admirable. The man
saw what was necessary to his purpose, and he never hesi tated before it. His courage was steady—and his faith in his ideas unwavering. He simply knew that was the thing to do, and he went ahead with the serenity of the man who knows.
After the formation of the trust the demand for these qualities was constant. For instance, the contract which the Standard signed with the producers in February, 188o, pledged them to take care of a production of 65,000 barrels a day. When they signed this agreement there was above ground nearly nine and one-half million barrels of oil. The production increased at a frightful rate for four years. At the end of 188o there were stocks of over 17,000,00o above ground; in 1881, over 25,000,000; 1882, over 34,000,000; 1883, over 35,000,000; and 1884, over 36,000,000, and the United Pipe Lines took care of this production—with the aid of the producers, who built tanks neck and neck with them. In 1880 the Standard people averaged over one iron tank a day, the tanks holding from 25,000 to 35,00o barrels. There were not tank-builders enough in the United States to do the work, and crews were brought from Canada and England. This, of course, called for an enormous expendi ture of money, for tanks cost from $7,000 to $io,000 apiece. Rich as the United Pipe Lines were they were forced to bor row money in these years of excessive production, for they had to lay lines as well as build tanks. There were nearly 4,00o miles of pipe-line laid in the Bradford region alone from 1878 to 1884, and these lines connected with upward of 20,000 wells.
From the time it completed its pipe-line monopoly the Standard has followed oil wherever found. It has had to do it to keep its hold on the business, and its courage never yet has faltered, though it has demanded some extraordinary efforts. In 1891 a great deposit of oil was tapped in the Mc Donald field of Southwestern Pennsylvania. The monthly production increased from so,000 barrels in June to r,600,000 in December. It is an actual fact that in the McDonald field the United Pipe Lines increased the daily capacity of 3,soo barrels, which they had at the beginning of July, to one of 26,00o barrels by the first of September, and by the first of December they could handle 90,000 barrels a day. If one con siders what this means one sees that it compares favourably with the great ordnance and mobilising feats of the Civil War. To accomplish it, rolling mills and boiler shops in vari ous cities worked night and day to turn out the pipe, the pumps, the engines, the boilers which were needed. Trans portation had to be arranged, crews of men obtained, a wild country prepared, sawmills to cut the quantities of timber needed built, and this vast amount of material placed and set to work.