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The story of Rockefeller's life is one of the great romances of American history; but it is not a story which invites swift and easy judgments. For one reason, it is extremely complex; for another, it raises highly debatable economic issues. "Each great industrial trust," writes the English economist Alfred Marshall, in Industry and Trade, "has owed its origin to the exceptional business genius of its founders. In some cases the genius was mainly constructive; in others it was largely strategic and incidentally destructive; sometimes even dishonest." He correctly ascribes the Standard Oil Trust to a combination of exceptional constructive ability and astute destructive strategy. The pages of its history -- some of them very dark, some brilliantly creditable -- show the two elements inextricably mingled. They also show that, as Marshall elsewhere states, "general propositions in regard to either competition or monopoly are full of snares." While some journalists and some politicians will utter sweeping and dogmatic statements upon an industrial aggregation like the Standard Oil, and upon the work of a great business leader like Rockefeller, economists will regard these glib verdicts with distrust. Too many unsolved problems are opened up by such an industrial organization, and too many difficult issues are raised by such an individual career.

Yet on the basis of the facts recorded in these volumes, one judgment may be ventured. It is that the extremes of praise and blame heaped upon Rockefeller were both unwarranted. His enemies during his years of power treated him as one of the arch-criminals of the age. His admirers during his later years of philanthropy lauded him as one of the world's greatest benefactors. Neither estimate possessed historical truth, and neither touched Rockefeller's greatest significance to civilization.

This is not to say that much of the criticism heaped upon Rockefeller and the Standard Oil was not entirely valid. The great combination made a cruel use in its early years, and particularly in 1875-79, of railroad rate discriminations. It practiced espionage. It employed bogus independent companies. It used "fighting brands" and local price-slashing to eliminate competitors. Its part in politics was sometimes reprehensible. It paid less attention than it should have done to systematic price-reduction. All this can be set off against its constructive achievements: its elimination of waste and introduction of manifold economies; its application of the Frasch process, the Burton cracking process, and the Van Dyke patents; its standardization of products on a high level of quality; its development of valuable by-products; its ready assistance to other industries, particularly in improving lubricants; its efficiency in home distribution, and its bold vigor in conquering world markets. A fairly heavy indictment can be drawn up to offset the credit items.

But it is clear that for various reasons the indictment was overdrawn. In the first place, because Rockefeller established the earliest of the great trusts a fuller and fiercer light of publicity beat upon it than upon other combinations. The constant investigations and suits placed him and the Standard under a gigantic, pitiless lens. Subsequent combinations were less severely treated. In the second place, the fact that the early investigations took place before the American public realized that combination was an irresistible tendency of the age led to a natural misconception. People thought of the trust as a conspiracy, a dark plot born in greed. Not until later did they see that the formation of trusts, pools, and cartels was a world-wide movement born of industrial conditions and in large part as natural as the upheaval of the tides. In the third place, Rockefeller was singularly unfortunate in some of his enemies, and particularly in the attacks of Henry Demarest Lloyd. Such fabrications as the Widow Backus story, and such distortions as the tale of the Buffalo "explosion," did him a gross injustice, and led to the invention of a totally false stereotype of the man. Finally, Rockefeller was open to harsher attack than most captains of industry because he touched directly the lives of the masses. Carnegie sold his steel to railroads and industries which passed on his charges to an uncomprehending public; Rockefeller sold gasoline and kerosene to every family -- and most families were ready to believe the worst whenever oil went up. Altogether, it is not strange that the accusations against Rockefeller and the Standard Oil were very decidedly exaggerated. . .  

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