198 GILBERT HOLLAND MONTAGUE 



no formal unity. It has a practical unity as great as it will 

 have probably after the complete change into the New Jersey 

 company is effected." Since 1900 about $97,000,000 of the 

 capital stock of this company has been used to purchase at 

 par the stocks and properties of the other Standard companies, 

 the capitalization of which was approximately $97,000,000, 

 but whose good will and earning power, as represented by the 

 market value of the stock, aggregates $650,000,000. 



Interesting as they are, the particular forms which the 

 corporate organization of the Standard and of its competitors 

 assume are the least important phase of their competition. 

 The progress of both the Standard and the independent com- 

 panies has been most marked in recent years in foreign coun- 

 tries. To place American oils in eastern markets has required 

 constant cheapening of production and transportation. An 

 immense outlay for additional pipe lines, more and larger 

 steamers for ocean transportation, and the adoption of the 

 tank car and tank wagon system of delivery have been made 

 necessary, so that to-day crude oil is carried almost exclu- 

 sively by pipe lines, railroad transportation is confined to the 

 products of crude oil, and the Standard has no arrangement 

 apportioning to the railroads any share of the crude oil traffic. 

 At present it is in its methods of marketing, by which it meets 

 competition at home and abroad, that the real interest lies. 



Until 1895 the sale of crude oil by the producers had been 

 on the exchange at Oil City. Throughout the eighties the 

 market in the exchange had been wildly speculative, but, 

 gradually, less and less oil came to be sold on exchange; and, 

 finally, on January 23, 1895, the Seep Purchasing agency of 

 Oil City, on behalf of the Standard Oil company, posted a 

 notice that thereafter the prices paid by it to oil producers 

 "will be as high as the market of the world will justify, but 

 will not necessarily be the price bill on the exchange for certifi- 

 cate oil." The Seep Purchasing agency purchases for the 

 Standard Oil company 80 per cent of the crude oil produced in 

 Pennsylvania and Ohio, and by its action it fixes the price of 

 crude oil in the oil regions. "We have before us," says Mr. 

 Archbold, "daily the best information obtainable from all 

 the world's markets as to what the offerings are and as to 



