PREFACE

The appearance in Truth of the articles which form the greater portion of this volume has been followed by a wish expressed in many quarters that they might be republished in a more permanent and convenient form. The suggestion has been adopted. The articles have been carefully revised, some additional matter has been inserted, and it is hoped that they will form a useful contribution to contemporary social and commercial history. The late Mr. Henry D. Lloyd and Miss Ida M. Tarbell have each published exhaustive investigations of the Standard Oil Trust’s proceedings in the United States, and further information is available in the records of the Missouri litigation, and—in regard to the flash-point scandal—in British Blue-books. Hitherto, however, there has been lacking a complete conspectus of all the many branches of this worldwide subject. One or other tentacle of the Octopus has been described in detail, but in this volume an attempt is made for the first time briefly to describe them all. It has been necessary to exclude any reference to many other commercial enterprises—such as “Amalgamated Coppers”—in which the heads of the Oil Trust individually figure in order to concentrate attention on that combination in the oil trade which first brought them together, which set the example to so many imitators in America and Europe, and exhibits most clearly their business methods and morals in two hemispheres.