NUMBER 59 (See page 254)
W. H. VANDERBILT'S CHARACTERISATION OF STANDARD OIL MEN
[Report of the Special Committee on Railroads, New York Assembly, 1879. Volume II, pages 1668-1669.]
Q. Can you attribute, or do you attribute, in your own mind, the fact of there being one refiner instead of fifty, now, to any other cause except the larger capital of the Standard Oil Company?
A. There are a great many causes; it is not from their capital alone that they have built up this business; there is no question about it but that these men—and if you come in contact with them I guess you will come to the same conclusion I have long ago—I think they are smarter fellows than I am, a good deal; they are very enterprising and smart men; never came in contact with any class of men as smart and able as they are in their business, and I think a great deal is to be attributed to that.
Q. Would that alone monopolise a business of that sort?
A. It would go a great way toward building it up; they never could have got in the position they are in now without a great deal of ability, and one man would hardly have been able to do it; it is a combination of men.
Q. Wasn't it a combination that embraced the smart men in the railways, as well as the smart men in the Standard Company?
A. I think these gentlemen from their shrewdness have been able to take advantage of the competition that existed between the railroads for their business, as it grew, and that they have availed themselves of that there is not a question of doubt.
Q. Don't you think they have also been able to make their affiliations with railroad companies and railroad officers?
A. I have not heard it charged that any railway official has any interest in any of their companies, only what I used to see in the papers some years ago, that I had an interest in it.
Q. Your interest in your railway is so large a one that nobody would conceive, as a matter of personal interest, that you would have an interest antagonistic to your road?
A. When they came to do business with us in any magnitude; that is the reason I disposed of my interest.
Q. And that is the only way you can account for the enormous monopoly that has thus grown up?
A. Yes; they are very shrewd men; I don't believe that by any legislative enactment or anything else through any of the states or all of the states, you can keep such men as them down; you can't do it; they will be on top all the time; you see if they are not.
Q. You think they get on top of the railways?
A. Yes; and on top of everybody that comes in contact with them; too smart for me.
[ 388 ]
