7.4 Ida Tarbell and Standard Oil
Using the excerpt below and your knowledge of American history, answer parts (A), (B), and (C).
“[The Standard Oil Trust] is the most perfectly developed trust in existence… The perfection of the organization of [it], the ability and daring with which it has carried out its projects, make it the preeminent trust of the world… So long as the Standard Oil Company can control transportation as it does today, it will remain master of the oil industry…
“…The ethical cost of all this is the deep concern. We are a commercial people… As a consequence, business success is sanctified, and, practically, any methods which achieve it are justified by a larger and larger class. All sorts of subterfuges* and sophistries** and slurring over of facts are employed to explain aggregations*** of capital whose determining factor has been like that of the Standard Oil Company, special privileges obtained by persistent secret effort in opposition to the spirit of the law, the efforts of legislators, and the most outspoken public opinion.”
- subterfuges: tricks ** sophistries: lies *** aggregations: accumulations
Ida Tarbell, journalist, The History of the Standard Oil Company, 1904
Question 1
Briefly describe one point of view suggested in the excerpt.
Question 2
Briefly explain how one specific historical development between 1865 and 1904 contributed to the development described in the excerpt.
Question 3
Briefly explain how ideas such as those reflected in the excerpt resulted in one specific effect between 1904 and 1920.
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