This investigation will scrutinize the question: To what extent did antitrust laws affect John D. Rockefeller’s company- Standard Oil? To analyze the effectiveness of the antitrust laws, the investigation will focus on the government policies and execution of said policies during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era (1870-1920). The first source is a cartoon drawn by Horace Taylor for the September 25, 1899 issue of The Verdict named “What a Funny Little Government”. By 1890, Standard Oil dominated 90 percent of the oil industry, thus the publication date strengthens the value of the cartoon itself, since the close proximity enables for the cartoon to capture the perception of the cartoonist as well as the general public.
The US was under heavy control of a lot of trusts that were ran and were worth a lot of money. Standard Oil had a ton of products they were producing which made them have better control on the railroad, because they were the biggest lube manufacturer for the railroads. In the first presidential election of the 19th century the biggest issue in the election was trusts. The main reasons Standard Oil was broken up was because of the Sherman Antitrust Act and Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States.
In the 1870’s oil prices where unstable and the production was always different. Rockefeller approached the owner of Cleveland's largest oil refinery owner and proposed they unite their companies. This would hopefully level prices and even production. The companies united as the Stand Oil Company. Rockefeller expand the influence of Standard Oil during the 1870’s and 1880’s.
Not long after his first company took off, in 1870, he created Standard Oil Co., which was a combination of a few of the other businesses he had started. Rockefeller used refineries to extract oil, rather than some of his competitors who preferred to use oil rigs. What truly helped Rockefeller rise above his competitors was actually undercutting their prices, and even offering money to railroad companies to only ship materials to him, which caused his competitors’ businesses to go bankrupt. He used a business tactic called the trust, where he took shares in other companies, offering the owners a place on the board of directors and dividends in the company. This tactic gave Rockefeller more control over his competitors’ businesses, which affected everyone else negatively.
Roosevelt did not always interfere with businesses directly, to help keep an eye on trusts and regulate them Roosevelt pushed Congress to make the Department of Commerce and Labor. This organization is still in effect today but has split up into just the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor which is essential for regulating businesses today. J.D.Rockefeller owned an oil company called Standard oil, this company had owned about 90% of the United States oil market. Rockefeller also had established a trust that allowed him to control the refining, distribution, and selling of the oil which made J.D. a huge threat because of the monopoly that the company was becoming. In 1911 the Supreme Court ruled Rockefeller’s company guilty of violating antitrust regulations and had the business split into 34
The progressive presidents all took a multitude of measures to give the government more control over corporations by breaking up monopolies and busting trusts, but none of them advanced the concept of socialism that populists had wanted. President Theodore Roosevelt did not necessarily want to break down big companies, but wanted to even the playing field and created a program called the Square Deal that kept big businesses from taking advantage of small companies and the poor. This program was aimed towards helping the middle class and attacking bad trusts and satisfied a populist contention on controlling monopolies. In 1903, he passed the Elkins act, which stopped railroads from giving rebates for bigger businesses. This stabilized and reduced
Although the Great Depression had torn apart the prosperity of the United States, hope soon enough resurfaced in the form of presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s promises of a “new deal”. However, Roosevelt’s attempts at economic and social reform met mixed results - although his efforts to mend the extreme personal debt of farms and banks (as well as the general population) did succeed (at least in part), his attempts to remedy the unemployment crisis and the growing national debt were failures, and in the case of national debt, he may have even made the problem worse. The origin of these failures is likely the methods Roosevelt used themselves - one effort to fix the economy surrounding farmers was even deemed unconstitutional,
In 1906 Roosevelt passed the Hepburn Act was passed which severely regulated monopolies such as the Standard Oil Company
The Standard Oil Company owned by John D. Rockefeller had a huge restriction on trade, resulting in violation of the Sherman Antitrust
Now with all of this information fresh in the mind a question is offered: Should the government break up Standard Oil's monopoly? Henry H. Klein writes, “The industrial fortunes created during the past fifty years have drained the resources of the nation and the people. The ring of monopoly and extortion is complete, and water rights, forest lands, mines, public utilities, railroads and all necessary or useful commodities are owned and controlled by those who levy tribute on the people.” Considering all of this information and the situation that is given we must come to the consensus that this monopoly is an act like that of a criminal, and needs to be
In President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's first term he was faced with the job of stabilizing the United States economy at the height of the Great Depression. Roosevelt 's administration changed the role of the federal government from being more traditional and centered on self-improvement and self-government into an active government involved in economic and social issues. The “New Deal” policy and programs of FDR transformed American politics but were not effective in reversing the economy. The failure to completely fix the economy, the unconstitutionality of some programs and the exclusion of large groups of people made the “New Deal” ineffective despite these facts this was an incredibly popular program solidifying the Democratic base for
He became the monopoly for the oil industry and drove other business competitors off the grid. Standard Oil became so dominant
One major company which influenced industrialization was Standard Oil. Standard Oil, a huge oil company that ran virtually all the oil business in the U.S., was a company run by John D. Rockefeller and his appointed board members. Standard oil, was located in the North in Ohio, used strategic tactics to buy out all of the other companies and replace them with their own companies, a practice called horizontal integration. Unlike the its more common counterpart called vertical integration, where many companies such as family-owned businesses, worked together to create a product. In contrast to this, horizontal integration allowed
There were several line of successful business men and philanthropists, but none like John D. Rockefeller. Being that he was keen with a sharp mind, his goals and aspirations always made spectacular deliveries. John D. Rockefeller was a well renowned entrepreneur and business man who achieved his ideal goals through successes in philanthropy, impact on education, and his trademark in the oil industry. Emphasizing his influence in entrepreneurship as an industrialist, Rockefeller’s hard-work and consistency made an impression on society, and was named as one of America's most successful business men in his time. John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York on July 8 of 1839.
Then in 1904 the individual parts were combined as a book, The History of the Standard Oil Company(Allegheny College).”To know every detail of the oil trade, to be able to reach at any moment its remotest point, to control even its weakest factor—this was John D. Rockefeller’s ideal of doing business. It seemed to be an intellectual necessity for him to be able to direct the course of any particular gallon of oil from the moment it gushed from the earth until it went into the lamp of a housewife. There must be nothing—nothing in his great machine he did not know to be working right…”(Tarbell). The book attracted the public eye, and eventually the government’s. Consequently in 1911 The U.S Supreme
