Henry Demarest Lloyd Quotes
Kerosene has become, by its cheapness, the people’s light the world over … Very few of the forty millions of people in the United States who burn kerosene know that its production, manufacture, and export, its price at home and abroad, have been controlled for years by a single corporation—the Standard Oil Company…. The Standard produces only one fiftieth or sixtieth of our petroleum, but dictates the price of all, and refines nine tenths. Circulars are issued at intervals by which the price of oil is fixed for all the cities of the country, except New York, where a little competition survives … This corporation has driven into bankruptcy, or out of business, or into union with itself, all the petroleum refineries of the country except five in New York, and a few of little consequence in Western Pennsylvania …
The only previous source of light in America had been whale oil or candles—both very expensive. Oil was discovered in Pennsylvania and refinery techniques developed to produce Kerosene. (Gasoline was too explosive and dangerous for home use.) Everyone’s standard of living depended on Kerosene at the time and John D. Rockefeller controlled the price everywhere except New York. There were no monopoly or antitrust laws when he gobbled up his competitors and he rapidly became the richest man in America and one of the most hated. His abuse of the system at the time led to the government regulation of monopolies and the antitrust laws. It was very courageous for the Atlantic Monthly to publish this article, as Rockefeller’s power extended all over the nation—but less in New York where the magazine was published.
Henry Demarest Lloyd, 1847-1903, Mugwump Writer & Reformer, “Monopoly on the March”, The Atlantic Monthly, March 1881
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She had done a monumental exposé of the Standard Oil Company illegal and immoral activities. The public was so aroused that many reforms were instituted and the Standard Oil Company Trust was broken up into many smaller companies. Tarbell was then, in the words of S. S. McClure, “the most famous woman in America.”
The National City Company was formed expressly as an attempt to dominate and monopolize the United States economy. It was a holding company that included Standard Oil, National City Bank, 16 other banks, and the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads among others, all controlled by the same 3 men--William Rockefeller, .James Stillman, and Frank Vanderlip.
Most companies in a capitalistic system compete mightily to obtain monopolistic positions so they can avoid capitalistic competition thereafter.
At the time, the Chamber of Commerce represented the small and medium business which were being decimated by the large businesses and their monopolies. A century later, the Chamber became a creature of the large business and their money and by 2010, the Chamber had virtually become the representative of the large businesses outside of the high technology field and had become a campaigning arm of the Republican Party, In 1880 however, they called public attention to the abuses of the large corporate monopolies.
Here, an officer of a large corporation (Pittsburgh Plate Glass) makes the classic argument of large corporations about the anti-trust laws which prevent them from using their economic power to crush competition. The claim that the large corporations are at a disadvantage and handicapped in competing with small companies is easily refuted by the bankruptcy rate of small businesses which is large, and that of large corporations which is very small, and that of major monopolies which is virtually zero.
At the time, there was generally only a single newspaper in an area in New Zealand.
Henry Demarest Lloyd was a 19th-century American progressive political activist and pioneer muckraking journalist. He is best remembered for his exposés of the Standard Oil Company, which were written before Ida M. Tarbell's series for McClure's Magazine.
