The name of the Standard Oil Company com monly suggests to many persons something more undesirable than desirable. In the stress of vio lent competition, the Standard may have been guilty of many faults, but the impression that it is wholly bad is the work of a few sensation mon gers. There is something of good even in the Standard Oil Company. Thus there are many reasons for believing that the development of such a tremendously powerful company has alone made possible strides of progress far in advance of what could otherwise have been expected. The best evi dence on this point comes from the foreign fields where industries centuries older have been com pletely distanced by the progress in this country, while those places in which the example of the Standard in centralizing interests is being most closely copied are rapidly coming to the front.
Only such a company, backed by great resources, could have supplied so promptly the equipment de manded by the many sudden and rapid advances in production, thereby helping to prevent the loss of large quantities of oil and saving the producer from profitless operation. Only such a company could afford to employ a great force of experts de voting all their time to perfecting old and discover ing new processes and products of refining. It is doubtful if many smaller companies working in dependently could afford to sell their products any more cheaply. Only the immense company can op erate plants to manufacture everything it needs, from thousand horse-power triple-expansion pumps down to tin cans and lamp wicks for the Chinese trade. Buying outside means heavier expenses, and hence either lessens profits or raises prices. It is very doubtful if the existence of a number of smaller competing companies would insure the high standard of quality which is always insisted on by the much-maligned " Trust." Vigorous rivalry, if long continued, is too prone to lower standards and, in the use of petroleum products, of all things, reliability is absolutely necessary for public safety. This reliability must in fairness be credited to the Standard Oil Company.
No less powerful organization could have placed the foreign trade in petroleum products where it is now. Certainly no less power could have main tained, indeed, actually increased this foreign trade against the ever-growing competition of other countries. The Standard is not merely an Ameri can concern; it is world wide in its scope and ac tivity. It may have stifled most of the competition
at home, but it has also doggedly fought for and kept an immensely valuable trade abroad, thereby affording a ready market for millions of barrels of oil which could find no sale at home, and aiding materially in holding the much-coveted " balance of trade " for this country. It is even an open question whether stifling competition, the chief charge against the Standard, has been such a seri ous offense after all.
The growth of such a gigantic petroleum in dustry as now exists in this country, and the suc cess of the great corporation depending on it, have been accompanied by the accumulation of sudden and enormous fortunes. Much has been said of late years about the excessively high profits of the Standard Oil, and "forty-eight per cent. dividends" has become a sort of call to battle for those who would destroy everything that makes for progress.
The fact is commonly ignored that the Standard capitalization of $100,000,000, in round numbers, does not represent anywhere near the recognized value of the tangible property owned by the com pany. If the capitalization were increased to half a billion dollars and the present earnings paid in dividends on that basis, no comment would be excited ; in fact, Standard Oil would very likely be considered a rather poorly paying industrial stock. Yet not a few of the large business inter ests of the country at the present time are paying moderate dividends on a capitalization which bears a ratio of not less than five to one to the real value of property owned. Enormous Standard dividends, however, have not been the only source of fortunes in the oil business. Before the Stand ard idea was even formulated, comfortable for tunes were made in the oil fields, and large for tunes are still being made entirely outside the sphere of that concern. In fact, the idea of large returns is so universally associated with oil oper ations that the expression to " strike oil " has come to be synonymous with suddenly acquiring wealth. It may be safely said that, first and last, more for tunes have been made quickly through the petro leum business than in any other single enterprise ever developed in this country. At the same time, it is probably no less true that more fortunes have been lost in unsuccessful oil ventures than in any other kind of industrial operation.